Source: tumblr @making-friendos
I and others on the internet heap all this criticism onto generative AI, and it's all pretty well-deserved. But, there are people who use image and text generation on a regular basis who look at the criticism and wonder how they could possibly create something without it. "How did you lot ever get on without ChatGPT to write your stories for you? Why waste all that time figuring out how to draw when you can just punch it up in Midjourney?" This is a genuine quandary for people, which I am now going to explain.
It all boils down to this: Corporations are trying to replace human creativity with AI.
It's corporate feudalism 101, really isn't it? Eliminate all creative endeavours so your workforce won't waste valuable time on independent thought or personal creativity. In 2015, you could go home after work everyday and work on a screenplay, intent upon getting an agent and starting a more desirable job as a TV screenwriter. In 2025, you go home after work everyday to an independent assignment that the boss gave you to work on in your own time because the company owns your life and all the new Disney+ exclusives are written by ChatGPT. In 2015, you could spend your time after lunch at school in the library, finding ways around the school's nanny software and discovering new and innovative ways to torrent porn. In 2025, you spend this time instead scrolling mindlessly through pages and pages of soulless content, devised solely as a distraction to waste time until 6th period can start and you go back to learning how to take standardised tests.
That and the environmental factor is the crux of everyone's beef with generative AI. Apart from just the fact of the models being trained on existing art that human creators spent days, weeks, or even years creating, AI-generated content is devoid of any artistic qualities. There is no motivation, no message, no artistic need being fulfilled, and therefore no soul. That's highly subjective, of course; but what isn't subjective is the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finish a creative project. Any kind of project. Once you sign your drawing, or entitle your song, or type "THE END" on your story, you feel several things all at once. You feel a sense of relief at having completed the project after working on it for so long. You feel a sense of accomplishment for having created this where there once existed nothing. You feel a sense of anticipation at what your next project will be and whether you will need to learn additional skills to accomplish it. And, you feel a sense of confidence in your abilities having been good enough to not only have completed the project but to have undertaken it in the first place.
You don't get any of that with generative AI. All you feel here is frustration and equanimity. Frustration over the fact that the website was being so slow. Frustration over the system not providing you with the image of the final product you had in your mind. Frustration over trying various unsuccessful permutations of your request to try and get the system to provide you with what you were expecting. Frustration over the fact that most of your friends don't care and won't even look at the content you generated. Frustration over going onto Tumblr, Neocities, and Bluesky and being called lazy and selfish and inconsiderate when you even bring up the fact you use the system at all. And, most importantly, you feel only a sense of equanimity over having generated this content. You don't feel like you accomplished anything, you don't even particularly like the way it turned out, but you have it now. It doesn't feel like enough, but you have it now.
Source: tumblr @making-friendos |
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Human beings need to be creative. The problem that a lot of us get hung up on is the social media factor— usually that we don't possess the talent needed to create things that people online will engage with. Personally, I get analysis paralysis whenever I think about doing anything, getting hung up on the procedure rather than just carrying on with the project. I spend more time worrying about the project than I do in actually making it; because I convince myself either that my skills are too rusty to actually produce a quality item or that I can't possibly achieve the success of previous projects.
At that point, it would be quite easy to turn to generative AI, but that's exactly what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to give up and accept mediocre content instead of expending the effort to create something with my own hands. As we can see from the comic at the left, all it takes to create is an idea, desire, and the correct materials. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe materials are too expensive and we're afraid we're going to waste it if we buy any, so we don't bother. In the immortal words of Kira Nerys, "if you need a hammer but you don't have one, use a pipe". You don't need to rush away and buy an expensive set of art supplies. Our creative goat here is using housepaint, rather than art paint, possibly even leftovers from a home-improvement project. If you don't have a brush, use a sponge. If you don't have a blank canvas, buy a painted one from Goodwill, take it out of the frame and paint on it.
Maybe you don't want to paint, maybe you want to play music. You don't need years of lessons, you just need an instrument and the desire to play it. If you want to write music, you don't need to spend $1500 on computer software and $5000 on MIDI controllers, you just need an instrument and a means of recording yourself. Pretend you're in The Sims and a new whim popped up: Learn Guitar. Sims don't need teachers, they just create. And, yeah, most likely it'll sound or look terrible if you're new to it. But, like Bob Ross said, "Talent is a pursued interest; anything you're willing to practise, you can do."
Perhaps the biggest spectre we creative types have to overcome, though, is the Spectre of Our Past Self. One way or another, we convince ourselves that nothing we can possibly do in the future will compare favourably to what we achieved in the past. It's one thing to draw for the first time after not drawing anything for 5 years and think your old work was better. Well, of course it was, I haven't drawn anything in 5 years. But, if I start to use the thought that I'll never be able to draw as well as I used to draw as an excuse to never draw, that's another thing entirely. The only way out is through. I just have to pick up the pencil and draw something.
What about writing? Fortunately, writing is even easier than any visual or auditory art, because, in using ChatGPT, you already have the most important skill you'll need to write stories of your own: the ability to compose a thought and write it out. Whether you use a computer, a phone, a typewriter, or a pencil to write with is up to you. Me personally? I don't like writing things out longhand on paper: my hand cramps up and it's hard to go back and edit things later. I prefer to write with a computer-based word processor.
In all creative endeavours, however... there's the tendency to want to create a huge, expansive work on your first time out. This is a conceit that we all have, but it will only lead to you overanalysing your skillset and ultimately not doing anything. You won't be able to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on your first work. Neither will you be able to write an Oscar-worthy film score, or make an open-world 3D exploration game, or write a 5-volume novel series, or draw a whole manga. Starting small will not only help you work up to larger projects, but it will also allow you to build your skills.
The first step in any creative endeavour is surprisingly simple: swear off using generative AI. Make it off-limits for everything, including as a source of reference material. After that, follow my lead for starters.
Please note: I am not the world's foremost expert on everything. My particular areas of expertise are in music and writing, but I know enough about most of the other creative disciplines to hopefully guide you to a more appropriate source for information. Sculpting, for instance; I can barely make a sphere out of Play-Doh, but I know places to go on the internet for better information on that subject.