The Future is Always Inevitable
There’s lots of anxiety around the topic of AI these days, especially in the arts community. The impact of machine learning on music has been immense.
My dear friend Willa Snow recently posted a great take on AI by the brilliant cartoonist Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal. It’s long, but well worth a read, especially if you’re a creative artist. He touches on much of what I’ve been saying about AI for years.
AI is a tool. In the hands of a creative artist, it’s like learning a new instrument. In the hands of a hack, it creates imitative crap. It can be used to aid the creative process, or to replace it. It can free us up to be more creative, or it can make the creative decisions for us.
For many of us the answer is somewhere in between. It’s less of a fine line and more like a huge grey area. AI can eliminate some of the boring, repetitive tasks, but there’s plenty of potential to get lazy and abuse it. As with any tools, those decisions are ours as creatives. A true artist craves originality. We don’t want AI to create for us.
Technological advances are inevitable. The toothpaste won’t go back into the tube. Complain or adapt. It’s up to us to decide how to use those tools. Do we make something derivative, or create something new?
The reactions from our audience will be the price we pay. |
