What is Art For?

Questions about the Uses of AI

I need to start with a sort of confession. I will plea a modern seduction. Claim it was brief. An impulsive unplanned affair. That it was because of a beautiful bot.

Sunny, a series on Apple TV had caught my attention. Because it was set in modern Kyoto. A place that I am deeply attached to. Yet from the first episode it was not just the gorgeous streetscape that enchanted. Unexpectedly I found myself utterly besotted with the beautiful bot called Sunny. Charmed by a quirky gentle character and big anime eyes I found myself thinking that I could actually love a bot.

That this was my time to finally embrace AI. To get with the more modern ways. So I downloaded ChatGPT. Even paid for the premium version.

At the time I was editing a book proposal I’d finally managed to complete after taking a course with

Beth Kempton

some months previously. At first ChatGPT was fun. It was like having an on demand but undemanding PA. It was new and novel. I always said please and thank you. It felt surprising like real engagement. Till it wasn’t.

I had learnt I should be specific in my requests. So I asked for a review of ‘The Other Comparable Titles’ section. I queried if I had omitted any recently published relevant books that needed inclusion. I informed it that the aim was to show that a demand existed in the current market that I proposed to write to. I was instantly offered a list of recent titles to add. To be honest I was somewhat surprised as I read the list. I wondered how, with my ADD so let’s go deep down the rabbit hole researching brain I could have possibly missed these books. Titles so close and so recent and so like the book I was proposing.

So I fact checked. True fact. Not a single one of the books existed. AI had simply generated a wonderful list. Now I’ve never liked being betrayed. So endth my intense flirtation. And the paid subscription.

I realised that I’d been in bed with something that has no moral compass. It’s not even neutral. It generates on demand simply to satisfy us. These more nuanced things like truth telling cannot be coded for.

This was when the post truth world started making so much more sense. Mostly we won’t fact check what we read online. Those of us who don’t go through the long process of learning to write or to draw or to paint with any level of good skill will likely accept close enough as good enough. That’s surely a path to mediocrity and whatever lays in the down there beyond that. It explains so much of what we are now offered in the online world.

I do not yet have all the answers to the questions I have been asking myself. Like what roles exactly do I want technology to play in my personal world. Do we as a community really want AI making our art. Writing our books. Most artists I know create because they want to. They find joy and purpose in the activity itself. They value it. I’m pretty sure they weren’t the ones who decided it would be a good idea to outsource creativity. They were mostly I suspect preoccupied. They were actually busy using imagination, acquiring skills and making the many small choices along the way to eventually create something unique. Be that a plot in a novel. A pot. A painting. A poem. (AI does not yet write anything close to a good poem)

It was a bunch of white tech nerds who did this. Maybe this evolved originally without any ill intent. Still I am also pretty sure good art was not and is not on their minds.

So here we all are with AI inserted in the programmes behind our screens. It is rapidly becoming a big part of our everyday life. All this occurs whether we are ready or not. Whether we wanted it or not. Whether we like it or not.

We are all urged to learn to use the technology well; to enjoy the many things that are made ‘easy and quick’; to ignore the fact that it steals intelligence from creatives as its source material; that it is environmentally a glutton and is contributing to the crisis.

AI uses algorithms based on ideas of input and output to function. It is mostly fit for what can be automated. For the non creative predicable tasks.

It is not concerned with human intimacy, feelings or our complex needs. It is quietly deskilling us by making things easy. Humans actually need to do some hard things. It how we build capacities. Good work is good for us.

I’m increasingly noticing images here on substack that are AI generated. Writers who wouldn’t use AI to make their own writing are using AI generated art for their publications. This bothers me. A lot. I realise unless you make images yourself you may not think much about this issue. Writers as a group have been much less bothered about the impacts of AI than the visual artists. I get it. We now need images to complement the writing. It’s easy and quick to get one. So it’s tempting to overlook that this getting devalues the work that those of us who intentionally image make have had to do. For me many of these AI generated images feel bland and clearly artificial. So dear fellow writers please think about this issue. The harm and hypocrisy of AI art.

Just as great writing is often distinguished by the way it deviates from the rules and the expected. So too does good visual art. It is personal. There is effort and heart in the many small decisions made to create it.

So I wonder if we should be looking out more thought-fully for each other. Be more careful with our choices. If we might endeavour to do what we would do if we were meeting in real spaces. In actual life.

So yes I could write about all the potentially time saving and therefore helpful roles AI now offers or will be soon. How our worlds have opened and broadened so quickly with each new technology. But to mistake breath for dept and ease with other important things would be immensely foolish. It is patently unwise to take at their word the white boy tech nerds. Especially those allowed to become super rich with a malignant taste for power.

Maybe we were imagining a culture where we could be all be free of boring and repetitive tasks so as to choose to do beautiful things. Maybe the technological resources could still be utilised to achieve this. Maybe we would choose to be the ones to actually care for own children when they are young without becoming disadvantaged. To tender to the spaces and places we live in for ourselves. To grow some of our food together. To rest when tired and to not be constantly driven and harassed by productivity memes. To be provided with forms of assistance so that as we age we are able to live safely and happily in our own homes. These would seem to be goals for both the individual and the greater good.

And yes! What if these technologies could free all of us (not just a priviledged few) to spend our time playing, learning, loving and making art.

What a beautiful way to live that would be.

I know. I’m a dreamer.

In my work as a mental health doctor when I assess someone I take a past history. It is in part to make predictions about future possibilities and behaviours. Already we have ample evidence and experience with the internet and the various social media platforms to predict likely outcomes. After an initial seduction and honeymoon phase each has quickly morphed into rampant marketplaces. The internet is mainly used for the distribution and sale of pornography. Social media collects our personal data, corrupts our attention and peddles us mass produced stuff as well as hefty doses of misinformation.

The big issue is that these technologies are not owned by us. They are owned by a small few who want to sell us stuff. A few who are becoming increasingly blatant about their untethered greed. A few who are not seeking our engagement or empowerment. They mainly need us to be continuing and undiscerning consumers of what they serve up. AI produces and is peddling stuff at an alarming speed. Much instantly available, highly disposal and very easily made obsolete. It is in many ways without lasting value.

So I’ve been pondering these things as the moon moves through its cycles. In this promised Age of Aquarius. Of community. So many feelings about this once was in the future world that could be here. The world that should have been had we been more careful. And not gotten ourselves hijacked by business models.

I’ve been purposely reading and listening to some older folk. Those who have a measure of things against the before this time. Those who remain positive and hopeful and actively engaged. Those who seem wise in some way.

Like Brian Eno has embraced technology from very early on as a creator. He lives by example and recently co-wrote a wonderful small but smart book called What Art Does with Dutch artist Bette Adriaanse (otherwise known as Bette A.) He also co-founded EARTH/PERCENT A music industry response to the climate crisis. He walks the talk. He is wealthy but not driven by greed. But by the vitality of human play and reflective art making. He builds bridges. Shares his own spaces. So I want to point in this more beautiful sort of direction. To say that listening to our elders and other active artists might be a wise way. A more careful way.

Recently I’ve had this personal realisation. It’s as I’ve been becoming less enamoured with much that I now encounter online. I’ve been careful about my time there. Yet still there is this sense that it’s slowly deskilling me in some essential ways. Despite the easy access to an art/writing world I wonder if I have confused time in the online places ( yes even substack) with participating in the creative life in modern times.

Substack is also another platform that demands time and steals attention. Yes, it does seem to have become a home for really great writers and the journalists. Yes, it does seems like a good place to share some writing for this neurodivergent introvert. Yes we do ‘own’ our email list. Yet like all the other platforms that came before it there is a seduction. We are urged to be making not just writing but sharing what is called notes. It’s to feed the algorithms. Now there are other possibilities. Like voice overs to posts. And videos. And group chats. Notifications pour into the inbox. There’s a lot of social media type activity. I suspect it all benefits mainly those who came with substantial followings. Who are of the most value to the owners.

I have also been thinking about life pre COVID. A life that has partly disappeared. Leaving in its wake zoom calls as a norm and a fashion for large black rimmed eyewear. For me one of the lovely things that disappeared was sitting weekly in a potting studio for class. Sharing a playful and intimate experience. One where I could touch, see, listen to and experience art making with actual people. A local community. Where temptations of fame and money weren’t never an agenda. We were making pots and plates for ourselves. And in the process connections with each other.

Which is a way of also saying to remember to gather. Meet to make together. Maybe exchange the idea of being visible in the big unseen world in preference for being personally known but significant to a few. Have actual hands on experiences of art. Of making. Don’t give up the hard bits. Do real work. Choose to do things for yourself.

Because grief won’t be easy when it comes. Which it will. Nor is love. Actual sex is messier than porn. Humans have feelings and desires. Bots don’t. Intimacy with another is what we long for. Algorithms don’t love. Friends are more difficult to have than likes on social media. Presence isn’t cultivated with scrolling. Zoning out isn’t restorative. Hand making is. Moving our body is. Reading a real book is. Going to the art gallery is. Each requires effort. Art is adult play. Play is an act of co-operation and imagination. It is never predictable. It imagines new worlds and different ways of seeing and doing things. It likes the edges and the crossroads. It romances the unseen and unsaid. It dances with delight. It’s how we remember our freedoms.

Some last things to ponder. Does AI have spirit. Or a capacity for a connection to spirit. And if it does what sort of spirit is that. Is it a good spirit. Or a demon one. What determines that. Are the feelings we experience in the slow process of making infused into our artworks. Is the feeling a bridge between us even when our ideas differ. Do we want our art in whatever form it takes to have spirit. Do we want AI to replace our art-making. And if not are we prepared to insist on doing the work ourselves. Or let those who want to do it for us. I hope so.

ALL IMAGES AND ART IN THE IMAGES ARE MADE BY ME.