AI and I

Illustration by andsproject

My feelings about Artificial Intelligence (AI) are complicated. My feelings about generative AI (GenAI) are not.

As a technology I think AI is brilliant and has vast potential. There’s a place for AI and some of what will emerge from it will be marvelous, particularly in areas of medicine and manufacturing.

I’m also absolutely certain some of the changes AI will bring to the world will be—and already are—not good at all. It will make mistakes, and it will supplant humans. It almost certainly will infantilize and reprogram what humans are expected and allowed to be. This could get ugly.

Any opinion I express here is just that: my personal opinion. I’m an older person who has lived a life, indeed built a life, rooted in early technology at a time when innovations were exciting and promised more fun and productivity for all. Technology created jobs for people; it allowed us to learn more and do more; technology created opportunity for better health and connection to others. My life with technology has been amazing and full of wonder.

Maybe that’s why, still, I sometimes think generative AI could be a legitimate source of creative output. It does allow creative people to do interesting and occasionally delightful things—not all GenAI art, music or writing is bad—if only the whole philosophy and practice of GenAI was not so deeply flawed. It’s not magical or even original. In fact, it is built from sets of predictive algorithms gained by and built on an infrastructure of imitation and stolen material. No matter who is using it, GenAI doesn’t create anything; it mimics. It predicts what reams of scraped data say would likely come next. From what I’ve read and seen on writing and art forums, people use GenAI as a shortcut. But to what?

As it turns out, for a lot of things. I know business people who find ChatGPT helpful for drafting memos and email. And then there’s a whole subset of people who just want to churn out fast cheap products to make money, that stuff we call “slop.” Quite a few budding authors openly want to make book covers for less because artists “cost too much.” It’s very much the same mindset as piracy for books or music—people do it because it’s available and accessible, screw the scruples. Many people also really do just use GenAI for fun.

Which is the crux of the problem. GenAI can be fun. It should be... if only it were not so nefarious.

In open discussions on social media or in person, GenAI users will admit that the resulting product is not better than anything a human—or they—would create... using it is just easier than them becoming (or simply being) an artist or writer. GenAI is faster and cheaper. It is also suspect and often frustrating. Users often bemoan that they are creating a product that others will (and do) shun. Maybe that’s because GenAI creations, even if human-assisted, are ultimately rather cynical and empty. The people using AI don’t care that the words they’re generating into “books” are stolen or that the “art” they manipulate is purloined. Their creation is running around wearing stolen clothes and spouting repetitive phrases. Some people care about that... and others don’t.

Because I know GenAI art or writing is created by algorithms that actively steal my work and that of other writers or artists, I refuse to dignify its use. I can’t and don’t respect those who use it. There are probably many sincere users out there who are trying to do actual art with the technology but they won’t find the validation they seek. It doesn’t help that too many GenAI users are pumping out slop and telling me I just have to accept it.

No, really. I don’t have to. I must only accept that it exists. Like sexism and racism and the child up the street that rings my doorbell just to get my dog to bark. I don’t have to accept that what they are doing is okay and I don’t have to buy or respect it.

As an author, I’m not threatened by GenAI. Not even a little. The people who use it cannot create what I create. Because neither they nor GenAI understand what I do or how I do it, they could never write what I write. It can steal my work but it cannot create my work. And I’m not worried at all about competing against GenAI books; my books are already competing against giants. GenAI giants? If they happen, I will compete against them too. Writing fiction has always been brutal.

Maybe fewer readers will find or read my books. There was never a guarantee anyone would.

Neither am I worried about being accused of “using AI.” I’ve never used GenAI. Never, not even out of curiosity. (Which I might have considered for making illustrations for fun had the pond not become so toxic. I understand why people try it.) Indeed, my writing has roots so ancient it predates computers. Prove it? Sure! Don’t make me laugh.

https://www.triempery.com/post/paper-trail

But with the advent of AI the world has gotten strange. Technology has become much less fun and exciting. I don’t use the AI features pushed by my website host (I wish it would stop trying!), or of Canva or Word. No. Just no. I’ll do the necessary work (whatever kind it is) myself, thank you.

In the meantime, I actively seek out human-made art. I talk with artists, appreciate their hard work, and commission illustrations even for blog posts. I back musicians. In every instance I insist on no AI. I do, however, listen to streaming services in the car. There’s possibly some AI to that. Or involved in running the car.

My next surgery may well be performed by a robot, and I’m okay with that. As I mentioned at the top, this whole AI thing is complicated.

That’s why it makes me sad that almost nothing about GenAI makes my art, my writing or my social media or the conversations/relationships I have with the world around me, better. I watch human artists struggling for gigs and it breaks my heart that so much of society would rather have knock-off schlock than original human art. We’ve allowed ourselves to become consumers, fed on corporate slop and resigned to the inevitability of it all. Worse, I think GenAI is making many aspects of modern life more difficult, not less. Customer service loops that deliver no service. Increasingly relentless scams. AI is costing more jobs than it creates—and it’s consuming more humanity than it produces.

I wish we as a society would do better with keeping GenAI at arm’s length from creative endeavors. I think maybe, for the greater good of humanity, in medicine and science and technology, AI may yet do a lot of good. Even great good. I’m holding out for that. I've always been pro-technology, pro-progress. Though I’m not anti-AI, I am damn sure AI-wary.

But AI fiction? AI art or music or movies? Not for me. I will never buy, read, or view them. And I prefer not to see so much AI in ads and social media. I see those ads and how phony they look, and I think worse of the product, not better. Recent trade articles report that I’m not alone. Many companies are turning away from AI ads, not toward them.

I can’t make GenAI slop go away, but I can refuse to support it. And I will still support AI development in areas where I think the technology can do good and I will back efforts to keep the destructive effects of corporate adoption of AI from doing harm.

For better or worse, I’m human. I also plan to stay that way. Human art. Human values. It appears I’ve picked my side in this fight.