Art, AI and Therapy

Most artists hate AI. I'm not a big fan of it, though I used to make AI art. I know that sounds wild but there is a story behind it. Since pretty much my whole life I never could do any kind of art. Not for lack of trying, I tried to learn to draw many times, but only got frustrated. Even my art teacher in junior high told me I was terrible. So for most of my life I gave up on art.

A few years ago when Midjourney burst onto the scene, I started playing with it and was awestruck by the cool things it could do. Unbenknownst to me there was a whole controversy going on about how AI trained its models and art theft. In my excitement, I posted my new AI creations on Facebook to be met by a barrage of hostile messages and comments from angry artists on how I was destroying their lives.

I was rather confused and even angry at how some of them came across, so I just kept doing it for while. It did act as therapeutic to me at least to a certain amount. It gave my mind something to focus on and how to word prompts and try to be clever to make hands look right. However, over time and some research I learned it actually was stealing art plus wasn't super great for the environment. That wasn't the only things. I wondered if I could actually create art with my own hands.

Around that time, Threads had just launched and I had gotten to know some artists on there. A few told me about some pencil sets and sketch pads to get and I was off and running. My early drawings were pretty awful but I was proud of them.

I don't know what this above picture is supposed to be, I think I was trying to do Mothman. Over time, I got a little better, tried working with markers, ballpoint pens, drawing pens, and Posca Markers. Those were my favorite. Over time, with my mania and obsession over a new hobby, we started running out of space with canvases and sketchbooks stacked all over. I had paintings and drawings everywhere. By now, I was focusing on abstract stuff, because its so fun and soothes my mind more than drawing specific things. I see weird patterns in things, so the abstract appeals to me in many ways. Or sometimes I just draw Cats.

In the meantime, AI continues to grow. People use it for everything from writing school papers to making art and passing it off as their own,(Something I never did). I've seen people use it for their own blogs and content. I guess if you want to see how much content you can crank out as fast as possible, then AI would be great. When I was using it and using things like ChatGPT in the past, I found it often repetetive and bland in some of its language and descriptions. It likes to use the same words over and over again.

I'm in some groups for artists on Facebook and apparently lots of people have lost work to AI either directly from losing jobs, or indirectly from people just no longer buying art or comissioning artists. Its like the wild west out there and I don't personally have any answers. My own view is that it was unleased on the public way too fast and too soon. There should have been more corporate responsibilities and more regulation on what it can do and how its used.

But it wasn't, and here we are. Apparently this week China unveiled a massive open source AI deal that has American Tech companies scrambling. I kind of find this funny. I recently got rid of Microsoft Office because they were putting their Copilot AI in the whole thing in every document on every line, and then jacking up the membership price on it. Instead I got Free and open source Libre Office which works much more smoothly.

Sadly thats not as easy to do with my Google Pixel phone with Gemini popping up everywhere. I think no matter how we look at it AI is here to stay. Its just not going to be as cool and amazing as the tech dudes all say its going to be. Its likely to be a much stupider future than any of us can actually imagine.

I don't think this means an end to artists or creators. I think a lot of people still crave genuine creation and content. Yes, the easy AI pretty pictures can be neat and fun. Or to see yourself as a Pixar character for 2 seconds. For my day job I write legal disability documents. So far there is no indication that AI is taking my job. It requires a lot of very specific information, that AI isn't able to pull out just yet. Maybe it will happen eventually, but in the meantime, I will keep blogging and painting.

One thing I forgot to say is when I started doing my own art on my Samsung tablet last summer, there is some thing amazingly satifsying seeing something cool and unique come from my own hands. I never imagined I'd be creating much of anything, let alone some cool art that people enjoy. If you think your art is terrible see my blog on Ugly Art . Its still yours and still unique and still beautiful in its own way. Something no algorithm or computer could ever duplicate. I read The Mission of Art by Alex Grey a few years ago.

He had a really good quote. "Many artists have great technical skill and nothing to say, others have a lot to say, but little technical skill." I think I fall somewhere in between. I have a lot to say, but my hands don't always match what is in my brain. Whatever comes out on paper, is what I feel was meant to be regardless. Whatever you like to do, just create. Don't look over your shoulder at what AI is doing. Because nothing can duplicate you.