If There Is One Thing Generative AI Has Been Good For, It's Convincing Me It's Okay to Try Making Art
I keep a running list of any article or post lamenting about the current state of Generative AI in my private discord. It’s a thread I’ve been running since September 2024. I’ve could have started it so much earlier, but it’s really hard to predict what technological revolution will incite such fervor and persist long enough to stoke it.
There was a time when NFTs were the cause of my derision and that was thankfully sweetly short.
I very clearly remember the first time I came across wombo.art and thinking “oh, what a neat toy.” And then I of course discovered that they were using the tool to mass generate Non Fungible Tokens and immediately went “no” and continued about my business. And then several units of time later, seeing Midjourney and being incredibly impressed by how much more powerful it was compared to its immediate predecessor. It was interesting. It was novel. I did not fully realize that that the totality of its entire framework was built on stolen data nor the sheer computation strain that producing such an image entitled. I have since learned about these things. I have learned about so many more things. This is not about that (although if you want, I can send you highlights. Just ask).
My friend Keya shared a call to action from BlueSky.
The government is about to give OpenAI the ability to legally steal if we do not flood this page in the next 12 hours. OpenAI will have immunity from all lawsuits regarding copyright infringement. All other AI companies will follow. Do you despise AI? Dissent, retweet. Do something. #furry #art https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/06/2025-02305/request-for-information-on-the-development-of-an-artificial-intelligence-ai-action-plan
— Socks the Macro Wolf Dad (@socksthewolf.com) 2025-03-15T19:39:34.751Z
I added my comment which felt akin to screaming into a void, but I feel an obligation to continue to scream. My comment is a stock phrase I find myself repeating often these days.
Generative AI is unlawful, unethical, unsustainable, and also just bad. Any one of these should be disqualifying, all of them should be damning. And any potentially useful use case of such a tool is undercut by the very foundation that it was built on and there’s no real course correction as it stands other than to burn it all down.
I’m praying for an AI winter, and this is coming from a known robot apologist. Again, I’ve talked about this before. And before I am eventually proven right, I will likely talk about it again, but today, I will say it has done one good thing for me and that’s remind me that there is an honesty in the struggle of making art and that struggle is worth it.
In elementary school, I was diagnosed with dyspraxia, a difficulty in developing motor control. This manifested mostly with a speech impediment and incredibly bad handwriting. This is important insofar that I never really liked working with my hands outside of typing. Outside of cut/pasting. Outside of things that did not need precision. I never really liked drawing/painting because I could never get the pictures in my head on the page and that never felt good. I need never sculpting or carving because of the strain and the stress on my hands. I got used to digital things quickly, but the last few years have been a call to action. An embrace of using my hands to make something, to be okay with imperfection. It’s funny because it’s so easy for me to write a bad first draft knowing that I can revise it, but when it comes to anything else, it has to be right the first time.
I suppose facing the existential threat of what it means to create does that to a person.
I don’t think I’ll ever get as a good at the various skills I’m trying out this year, but I am trying.
Earlier this year, my friend Kat suggested we draw fan-art for our the tabletop role playing game campaign and I take that as an invitation.
I take a clay working class at the Laumeier sculpture and learn that I enjoy working with clay and hate the tactile sensation of slip. I plan on taking more classes there because it feels right.
I take a water color class at Betty’s Books, an indie bookstore that I really could have when I was younger and making up for lost time.
I went to JoAnn’s and got an egregious ammount of supplies for the next few months. I’m going to hand sew a quilt. I’m going to make decorative chain for my face masks. I’m going to spray paint a lot of things for my 2025 escape room.
I’m going to do it. I’m going to struggle and fumble and learn from it. And I’m going to do a lot more, but today, today I got a singular line from a Mountain Goats song stuck in my head.
I’m adjusting my focus. I’m getting into knives.
Which if of course to say, yes, this song gets stuck in my head constantly and yes. I’m getting into trying things and not expecting them to perfect and that being okay because it’s not supposed to be perfect. It’s about the process, about the decision, about the mistake, about the intent, about the discovery, about… the act of creation. And that is something we’ll definitely be talking about later, but for now, I’m just singing along and trying.