There exists a threat to the nature of human creativity and the expression of the human soul: generative AI. Though it’s popularity shows a shift in culture and invites a bleakness into the minds of artists, writers, and musicians, I have faith it won’t find true appreciation or purchase in the long term. I’ve written this to combat this sense of nihilism and soothe my own concerns. Art and creation is not pointless just because it may be subsumed by moneyed interests, made more accessible and palatable in the effort to broaden it’s reach. The act of consumption via any electronic platform that monitors metrics commodifies art and in essence destroys the organic reach and cultivation of a community and culture surrounding that art and artform. Moneyed interests corrupt consumption through commodification. Consumption itself is not corrupting. Any artform made within notice of moneyed interests is in danger of commodification due to the monopolization of popular platforms. Algorithms amplify art and media that excite, terrify or anger. Sharing of art and media creates communities and subcultures, but this sharing via popular means and platforms ensures commodification and theft by Big Tech.
The creation of art is worthy and divine by nature of itself, and sharing of art to others is also worthy and divine, but when the tendrils of Big Tech and moneyed interests are the same vehicles that necessarily deliver this art to those who consume it and create a community and subculture, can subsumption ever be thwarted? Generative AI is the latest effort by moneyed interests and Big Tech to subsume art and creativity into a commodified mass of corrupted media. The corruption of culture can only be combated by embracing authenticity. Staunchly rejecting the infiltration of art, media, and culture created by machines and the ghouls of Big Tech is paramount. Staunchly rejecting the cynicism that tells you this is simply the way things are now is paramount. The nature of art and creation is messy and unclean because it’s the work and soul of humanity. Not to say something pristine and cleanly painted or produced musically isn’t art or isn’t human. The method and nature of being created by a human innately bestows a divine and grander worth upon art than that wrought by algorithm and mass theft.
Even if your ears prefer a song, line, instrument, or melody created by AI, it is devoid of the spark that the least talented human on the planet provides it when performed or created. Every second of music created by the worst artist you’ve ever heard is inherently superior to every second of “music” created by AI because that spark of creation, the depth and wealth of emotion, experience, and meat-powered true cognition willed it into being. There can be no intention, no expression, no emotion within sound created by algorithms that have never been or will never be capable of possessing or experiencing. AI cannot feel, experience, plan, have thoughts or intentions in any way resembling human feelings, experiences, plans, thoughts or intentions. They are a foul mimicry made from, at it’s absolute peak, a misinterpretation of the most mediocre and generalized human expression, thought, and experience. Human cognition and thought is analog. To obliterate a dead horse, our most complex technology can mimic the shadows on the wall, but never the raw process that creates it. AI can never create art because it cannot replicate the internal processes humans use to create art. It cannot and will not in your lifetime or perhaps ever express or act with intentionality. AI by definition, can never create and can never create art.