A Few Thoughts On Ai Art, Which May Already Be Obvious To Some

At the time of writing this, I have no idea what the reaction to this comic will be. Will it be celebrated, universally, by the visual artist caste, their foggy and formless whorl of feelings toward AI art now made lucid, reflected oh so perfectly back at them, a gifting of words by their brilliant and generoush cousin, The Writer?

To put more bluntly— will I receive comments, as I sometimes do, saying “wow, thanks for putting exactly what I felt into words” or “Relatable!”

Or, will people react to this comic the way comics historian Don Markstein famously reacted to The Black Bomber, calling it "an insult to practically everybody with any point of view at all”? (A phenomenal turn of phrase.) I worry that my philosophizing-from-the-hip approach towards the nature of AI and Art will end up alienating proponents of both. There are a lot of points that could definitely be elaborated on, cleared up, or just generally addressed, which were not here, on account of my wanting to make a fairly poppy and accessible little comic, and not like, a full on formal essay.

One thing I don’t really address here is the question of how AI art will affect artist’s livelihoods. It’s a super relevant concern, materially— probably the most relevant— but it really seems like the culprit here isn’t Artificial Intelligence or technological advancement or even jealous tech bros, but capitalism. I feel like this may also be the main motivator behind concerns of AI art ‘stealing’ other artist’s work. Provided that AI art creations are held to the same standards re: plagiarism as human-created work, I don’t really see this as an issue. Artists take inspiration from other artists. Of course, will AI art actually be held to those standards? Technologically, or legally? Probably not, most of the time. So again, materially, it’s a relevant concern, and I understand why artists are constantly leveling it. But I don’t think its particularly interesting, philosophically, and maybe not even a super convincing point if you were trying to win over some kind of fence-sitting AI-optimist— bring them over to the human side.

I wonder, still, though, will this just—totally wipe us out? Is AI going art the new CG? Will the convenience, and cheapness, just be far too overwhelming to fight back against? When was the last time you saw a 2D, hand-drawn animated movie in theaters? You can still find them, of course, online and stuff, but the money isn’t there. You could argue that that’s just capitalism being the problem, again— but maybe the problem is actually time? We all have limited time on this earth. Why pour it into the old way of doing things, when the new way is far speedier, and only a fraction less good? (real claymation versus CG-animated faux-claymation jumps to mind. How many people can even tell the difference?) Or maybe the problem is taste. The masses will never appreciate the fine details— they want a steady flow of schlock, and will reward the use of cost-cutting technological advancements to get there. Picture a moneyless, socialist society. What would the masses rather have— Twelve episodes a year of some drawn-on-paper Tale of Tales shit, or 15 concurrently running GoAnimate adult cartoon comedies? In a world the creation of art is getting faster and more convenient, do people have the patience for older methods? Maybe they’ll entertain it, now and then. But the march of technological advancement feels like a historical inevitability, with the art world getting tugged along behind it by a little string. It feels like an inevitability that exists beyond the capitalist structure, something more innate. Something that our humanity makes it impossible to resist. Of course, perhaps this is all just conjecture.

I’ve rambled a lot here. What do you think about all this?