Artificial intelligence has seemingly appeared from nowhere, and is now capable of creating entirely unique imagery in a matter of seconds based on just about any prompt. This groundbreaking convenience opens the door to a vast series of issues; the largest being- what will happen to artists, architects, designers, marketing agents and virtually any worker who creates for a living, if employers decide to utilize a computer program over a paid worker. While this would obviously be horrible for the quality and treatment of workers in such fields, it could possibly be even worse for art in its entirety. Imagine the sheer bleakness of a world where tasks deemed “unnecessary” are delegated to computers, and humans instead focus on tasks that cannot yet be automated. This would mean that creatives can only work on creative things in their free time, and that there would no longer be monetary incentive for large scale creative ventures such as film, musical theater, high-fashion and many other realms.
Luckily, I do not foresee this happening at all. There are a few things that AI gets wrong every time, and those few things are quite damning. To be specific: human emotion, wrists and hands, and interpersonal interaction. While it can simulate these elements in some capacity, it always feels like an empty and shallow version of artwork that already exists. And this is why AI will never truly surpass human ingenuity and creativity, because all that AI can do is pull from things that humanity has already created, and it lacks the “why,” which is quintessential to the value of the product itself. While people say that “there’s nothing new under the sun,” everytime a human being creates something, they will always add a piece of themselves to it, whether small or large. This is where AI falls short, and why it will never be able to replace the authenticity and creativity of human work.
Written and Directed by: Ian Vailliencourt
Photographed by: Robyn George
Modeled by: Will Shemick
Styled by: Abtin Mahdavi
