Let’s Get Real, Everything is Fake.

My Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence and Art.

Many artists are concerned about A.I. art, literature and filmmaking. There is no doubt A.I. is a huge technological leap, a disruptive technology that threatens to replace nearly all traditional ways of creating culture. A.I. has already sidelined editors, proofreaders and other arbiters of that portrayal of reality we call media. Next on the chopping block will the creators employed by the entertainment and news industries. A world without culture created by human hands is here… and it will change everything. But, this trend towards creating a completely artificial reality has a long history going back centuries.

The earliest, surviving prehistoric art we see in cave paintings and petroglyphs depicting the natural world humans depended on. Prehistoric art was realistic, but likely was created to invoke the essence of the animal and connect the viewer through the artist’s handiwork to a spiritual connection to the natural world — the art was evoking a feeling about the subject, not just portraying the ten thousand years ago, humans created agricultural and they were no longer dependent on the natural world for food… humans controlled it. The invention of agriculture led to the creation of government, an aristocracy that controlled the food supply with armed enforcers. Religions were invented to convince humans to turn their back on the traditional, nature-based way of life and follow this new human-centered way of life we call Civilization.

Art evolved. Humans and their institutions were at the center of the universe. Artists became propagandists for this new order, celebrating kings and the religions that anointed the kings to dominate and rule, especially over the agricultural workers, serfs and slaves that were essential to the system. From the era of stone-carved hieroglyphs to the era of stained glass windows in cathedrals, art was propaganda. The art of those times was stilted and otherworldly - no perspective or anatomical features.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment freed artists to once again, reconnect with nature and other humans. While many artists chose to continue being propagandists, other artists began to portray nature in a realistic way, informed by expanding scientific knowledge, humans with anatomical accuracy and landscapes with natural perspective.

Then came the printing press and artists, writers, composers and playwrights could now disseminate their creations and make a living without being propagandists. The artist and wrier had power, a power that could topple rulers — the pen, as the old saying goes was “mightier than the sword”. But, that power to create was derived from skill. The creation of art, music and literature required skills… skills that are no longer necessary after the invention of A.I.

Our Tech Overlords have sold A.I. as a tool to liberate ordinary people from the tyranny of skilled artists. Everyone can now be their own Rembrandt or Renoir. But, the invention that assists in creating this “art” is controlled by only a few people and the means to distribute the “art” is also controlled, as it was before the Renaissance and Enlightenment by only a few men.

Another feature of Artificial Intelligence is its ability to alter photographic images, even create new images so “real”, we are increasingly challenged to doubt the validity of photographs and video. Doubt is replacing “seeing is believing”. Reality is no longer provable. We are living in a post-reality world. That will have effects that go beyond culture. Will photography and video still be admissible in courts?

While acknowledging the catastrophic effects of this new technology, I see a path forward for myself as an artist. I will continue to do public art like sketching and chalk art that people can themselves witness was created without computers. People often ask me “did you just do that?”. Sketching on site is a skill that I want to keep alive. But, for me, sketching isn’t just a skill.

One of my favorite teachers in art school, Sandy Kossin taught the fundamentals of drawing like a drill sergeant. Every time I sketch, I imagine Sandy Kossin sitting on my shoulder reminding me about the importance of interesting shapes and line quality. But most of all, I remember him telling his students not to “eyeball” the subject; “You are not cameras,” he would say “Don’t copy what you see, draw what you feel about what you see.”

That is my way forward as an artist; I will be drawing, painting and making films about what I feel about what I see… that is something no machine, no matter how powerful and complex can duplicate.