Bald Man Rants About AI

Another Project Starts

Today has been one of those days. Did I need to start another project? Did I need to start 3D printing a bunch of Farrow that just dropped from Warmachine 3D? No, I shouldn’t have, but I did.

If you want to have the Road Hog and the War Hog match the current models, you should scale them up about 10-15%. But I’m fine with how they look out of the box.

I’m going to play in a One Piece tournament on Sunday—just jumping right in without really knowing how to play. Also, behold my plant. It really pulls the place together.

The Painting Assembly Line

Painting wise, I’m still working through the assembly line. I ended up printing a third Toro because I realized the second one had a pretty bad misprint—too bad to let it slide. This new one also has a gnarly hole in the shoulder pad, but you can’t even see it. I’m just going to paint it like damage.

I’m starting to get that feeling like maybe I’m getting sick again. We didn’t actually get the flu—we got RSV. I guess we saw everybody catching up on Christmases and now it’s just hitting us.

Why Generative AI Has Been on My Mind

I was reading another book today and thinking about generative AI. I know it’s a buzzword and there’s a lot of controversy around it.

I should preface this by saying I use AI for productivity—I don’t write my emails anymore. I use it to help me code things for my own convenience. But I don’t use it to write anything meaningful. I don’t use it to make art.

In my job, which is a mix of marketing and programming, AI is everywhere. It’s totally replaced everything. I’m in a weird place because morally I’m kind of against it for a lot of reasons, but just to support my family, I’ve got to use it.

The Real Concern

There’s a lot of fear around AI, and definitely a lot of clickbait-inspired fear. But from what I’ve personally witnessed, there’s a lot of entry-level jobs that just don’t exist anymore. It’s not that we’re waiting on AI to get there—AI is there. It’s already able to replace these jobs.

The things that entry-level people would have done before they learned how to progress in their industries—that’s already gone. The business owners just don’t know it yet. The ones at the top certainly do, but the mom and pops, the small businesses in your local area that are still hiring for these jobs, don’t know it yet.

The Bigger Question

But that’s not really what I want to talk about. I was thinking: why is generative AI specifically for art, images, and creative writing being pushed so much?

There’s ethical pushback from the copyright perspective, but I’m actually not that bothered by copyright issues because I think everything is channeled from the collective unconscious—I don’t even think copyright is possible. That’s probably a whole other can of worms.

Here’s what concerns me: if the way people are engaging with art is to chat in a terminal and generate art that way instead of making it themselves, we lose what inherently makes us human.

The Divine Spark

The fact that we draw, that we create art, that we write—that is what makes us human. The divine spark, however you think we get it, the ability to be creative and create things and create art is the manifestation of that divine spark.

Generative AI is taking that away. It’s taking away our ability to be human and replacing it. I haven’t really heard anybody else talk about this.

There are environmental concerns. There are moral and legal copyright issues. But look at what it means to be a human, and AI is taking that away.

What About the Next Generation?

The greater issue is: what happens when a kid, instead of picking up a pen and paper to learn how to draw, just immediately starts playing around making cool pictures with AI? They never feel called to pick up a pen and paper. They never feel called to pick up a paintbrush. They never feel called to pick up a model.

Where does that leave us—not even 10 years from now, but five years from now? Where does it leave us as human beings when the core thing that makes us human has been outsourced to a computer?

I personally use AI now to handle all the non-human BS of the day, all the work stuff, so I can get to creative processes more. I’m using it to get the productivity and the dumb stuff done so I can get to artwork and writing. But what happens when that creative drive just doesn’t exist anymore?

Already Happening

My wife got an Alexa for Christmas and our daughter just wants to sit and talk to it all day. We’re like, “Look, you can ask it math questions and get animal facts, but you’ve got like 15 minutes with this thing.” She’s already kind of obsessed with it.

It’s like—you’re sitting in the kitchen. You should have a crayon in your hand right now. What’s going on?

That’s on me to mitigate and stay on top of. I think it’s cool she wants to talk to the robot and learn animal facts, but it’s a very slippery slope that I don’t even fully understand myself, and I’ve been in tech my whole adult life.

The Jobs Are Already Gone

AI is replacing the creative jobs first. Music production, commercials, advertising—advertising was a great way for creatives to make money doing something creative. What little commercials I do see now are so clearly AI, when that would have been at least a design team, 3D designers, animators, artists.

Those were the few avenues where you could make a living being creative full-time, and they’re what’s being replaced first. The powers that be are eliminating first the things that make us human, the things that are arguably far more important than anything else.

My Take

I don’t think I’m forming a coherent thought here, but it’s something to think about: why is AI being so heavily targeted at creating art and creative writing? Are those just the lowest hanging fruits? Is the goal for it to take over everything?

I’m sure the goal is to make as much money as possible—that’s pretty much what it always is. But why does it have to be in the two main areas of artistic expression that humans engage in? Those areas really need to be protected and remain human.

My Stance

If you’re having fun generating AI images, go for it. Whatever makes you happy. And I’ve played with Midjourney too—of course I have. But is being a prompt engineer to generate images different than the traditional method of making art? Am I just being a boomer?

For me personally, it doesn’t feel the same. It’s like the first time you play a video game and pop a cheat code in—“Oh wow, this is awesome”—and then 15 minutes later you’re like, “I don’t want to play this game anymore because it’s ruined now.”

That’s kind of how using image generative AI felt to me. There was a brief moment of “Oh wow, this is awesome” and then it was “All right, this is really not cool.”

The Bottom Line

Use AI to do the inhuman work, the stuff that doesn’t really matter. Speed up the day-to-day BS so you can get into the creative side. Don’t use it to write anything meaningful or create anything or design anything or make pictures.

That’s what makes us human.

Don’t forget to like and comment—get entered for the giveaway. I’m going to announce it next Wednesday for that toad. Anybody who’s ever commented on anything will be entered to win. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you tomorrow.