Creatives. What happens when AI steals your job?

The “artificial” creative space is changing so rapidly. For a point of reference check out this song.

It's a nice tune with a mesmerising video. It was made by an AI, creating imagery from the song’s lyrics and other prompts.  I recommend looking at DoodleChaos’ commentary on how the video was made. The human vs machine level of creative input is skewed human with DoodleChaos’ keyframing and the specific art style chosen, but nonetheless, it is an impressive signpost for what we could expect to come barrelling out the reality hosepipe in the near future.

I've messed around with Disco Diffusion (DD), which is the AI that was utilised in creating this video. There’s an interface that you use with DD which requires a little ‘programming’ and while my brain doesn't naturally lend itself to this form of creativity the results were compelling enough for me to want to know more.

Then Midjourney jumped out and now it seems like shit's getting really interesting. I’ve already integrated AI-generated imagery into my art and I’m sure I will in the future. Absorbing, interpreting, sampling, splicing, reflecting. All that good stuff.

Actually, I often find the AI-generated imagery disquieting. I don’t get a feeling of “Ah, I’m home” when I see this machine-generated art. I don’t get the art world’s version of comfort food. But I do get a distinct ‘oh, this is interesting’ vibe. I sense something is happening.

It's bubblin’ up in the culture too. I’ve heard it talked about at parties, I’ve used AI art apps at restaurants and last weekend, I had an interesting talk with my teens about this subject. The death of art and the end of the artist came up as a subject.

Personally, I feel that creativity is so intrinsic to the human that it is impossible to remove art, or artistry from the lived experience. There is also something to be said for the imperfection of a handmade object, the brush strokes that reveal the thickness of the paint and the energy of the artist’s movement.

It did bug me though, I’m finally getting some mastery of my own art practice and some young upstart amalgamation of code comes along and changes the whole picture. Am I still in the frame? Is handmade art still going to be relevant in ten years? Will AI steal the jobs from creatives?

Surely not, artists are sacrosanct! Right?

… cricKets …

From personal discussions, and introspection I feel like we're beginning to see a movement in the philosophy of what we think of as creativity. Maybe it’ll even jump up a layer in the collective consciousness and make the meaning of ‘art’ a hot topic. Maybe. 

I have no idea where this will lead. I don’t grok the programming, but I do like the results. It's clear that something is happening, something quite exciting, maybe even something

A R T Y . . .