AI and the Need to Create
How the push for AI in everything can have the opposite effect on idle hands.
I created a YouTube short discussing a superficial version of this topic a while ago, but I think it merits mentioning again (in long form).
There’s an interesting thing happening, at least with me, and I’m sure I can speak for several others as society navigates the hell that is this AI landscape. With each new iteration or “tool” that is shoved in our faces, and those who’ve been quick to use it as a get rich quick scheme, AI has had the opposite effect on me. I’ve been wanting to create MORE things with my own two hands.
In the Beginning…
When AI was just a baby idea, I think the widespread assumption would be that robots would take over the menial, day-to-day tasks that act as regular thorns in our sides. I’ll admit, I was a little oblivious to the movement of AI during its first crawl through our lives.
But I’d like to think I became aware of it back during its first phase when it created the monstrous “Will Smith eating spaghetti” video. I knew then that it was only a matter of time before James Cameron’s visions of our future under the boot of the T-1000 would come to pass.
In the Mainstream…
When AI first came out to the mainstream, I don’t think there was enough surprise in the fact that a good proportion of its use would be for generative, CREATIVE, purposes. However, I raised my brow when I saw this unfolding.
A lot of people who claim to be in creative spaces likened AI to being “just another tool,” like the typewriter, or a calculator, or whatever other banal comparison they chose to spout to help themselves sleep at night. “We’d better get on the train before we’re left behind,” or some such tripe. My gripe is the fact that this “tool” is a means to rob us of our God-given ability, and need, to create—something no tool has done in the past. There’s something vaguely evil about that, in my opinion.
Yes, I’ve used AI. I’ve used it to test out a few things, whether it be writing, generating music, generating art, or even using my own old art to “improve” on it. I’ve posted about this last year a couple times:
Since these are behind my paid tier, here’s a preview of one of the entries:
I thought it was fun at first, not minding whether AI trains on my work (it does). I’ve also created music with Suno, taking the raw WAV files and attempting to clean them up to be presentable, then posting playlists to YouTube. I still turn to these playlists for writing ambiance, but the songs are certainly flawed and in desperate need of human intervention.
I’ve attempted to have an LLM write something for me from scratch. I’m not talking about using it to analyze something I’ve already written, I’m talking about using it to create something out of an idea. It was so bad, riddled with all the marks of being a digital iteration attempting to sound human. Yet, when I told it to rewrite passages in the style of Stephen King, what came out was scary stuff… Not King scary, but stolen scary.
However…
If you’ve ever spent any time with generative AI, you’ll learn quickly that there is a “look” to it or a “read quality”, and it’s easy to spot. Just go to YouTube and find any video commentating about it. It rarely ever creates the idea in your head. The more the tech sphere tinkers with each model, the more improvements with each rollout, but the outcome remains the same: soulless incarnations of stolen material.
One of the main arguments I hear in writing and art communities regarding AI to make a quick buck is that, “I have so many ideas,” but not the range to implement them. I’m here to tell you a secret: EVERYONE HAS IDEAS. Everyone. You aren’t special for having an idea. What makes an idea become art is learning the skill to make it so.
I have another secret: you won’t learn all the skills to make all your ideas so. And that’s okay!
Figure out what brings you joy (and joyous pain). Foster that, make it yours. I love to write (and maybe I’m kinda okay at it), but I’m not great at art. I’ll probably always have to hire someone to create covers and internal art for my projects. It’s expensive (this is a whole other discussion that I might cover in another piece). Despite the cost, the one generative aspect of paying for an independent artist or designer to create my book covers is the generation of trust. The trust that the whole process is mine, and not a robot’s fever dream. It’s MY fever dream.
For me, I’ve played with the art generators, the text generators, and the music generators. Every time I do, it just spurs me to try it myself. I’ve failed a lot and found things I didn’t really like putting energy into. Of the things I find joy in, well; I taught myself interior book design, then I started learning digital art from the absolute SLEW of free tutorials (by real people) on YouTube, and also picked up my 30 year old guitar again about a year ago. (I’ve been plucking around and wrote a couple tunes for my fantasy series, while learning how to navigate a rather complex Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)). No, I don’t have children, in case you were wondering.
Writing is the magic thing that keeps me up after midnight, getting sometimes 2 hours of sleep. Writing is the thing that brings me joy. Everything else is secondary. If I don’t master guitar? I’m okay with that, and I won’t be running to Suno to generate my ideas. If I don’t master digital art? That’s okay too. I will still pay artists and/or designers to make my book covers. Maybe someday I’ll be paid to write.
I will leave this article to say something controversial: don’t generate something and call it art. If you didn’t spend the hours necessary to get even the slightest bit competent in your area of interest, then you aren’t an artist/writer/musician/whatever. Focus on what DOES make you an artist. Put in the work and wear the badge of trust.
If you’re a writer, putting in real human effort into your manuscript, don’t slap an AI cover on it. Please, I beg you.
FUTURE TOPIC: The reasons why we run to AI in the first place.
Anyway, that’s all. I personally feel like I’ve been exploding lately, wanting to create all the things, whether they turn out decent or not. Failure is a part of the process. Anyone with me?
If you’d like to start supporting creatives who’ve put their manic blood into their creations, consider following this anthology that I’ll be launching in January of 2027:
