If you’re only enjoying art at a surface level, sure, I guess AI is fine. Oh that’s a nice picture of a cat. That’s a cool story about a wizard. This song is catchy.

But for a lot of us, that’s only the beginning of our enjoyment of a work of art. The real magic comes from the connection to the artist. Every brush stroke, every word, every note is there because another human deliberately put it there. You’re experiencing their vision, you’re getting a tiny glimpse into their life. Did they do it that way because of something they themselves saw or heard in their own lives? Were they trained to do it that way by someone else? Did they purposely do it that way because it’s not how they were trained? And why did they choose to follow or not follow their training? Those people who trained them that way- where did they learn to do it? What inspired them to make this piece? What message are they sending to us through it, deliberately or not?

And when you have an AI generating something, you loose all of that connection to the artist and to all the people and experiences in that artist’s life because there is no artist.

I’m sure that someone out there is using AI to generate art, with very specific, thoughtful, detailed, and deliberate prompts that you can say the same thing about.

But that’s not the vast majority of what’s out there is right now. It’s mostly just people who wanted there to be a thing and had the AI spit it out.

And the medium is the message. You could create the most beautiful work of art that speaks to me on every level, that tells the most beautiful story in the world.

And if you went out and shot an elephant to carve it into its tusk, I’d still hate it and I’d hate you for doing it. And the environment impact from AI tells me the same thing about you. You don’t care about the planet, about the environment, and your fellow man. Your art is not something that needs to exist and it should be repugnant to everyone who views it because of the way you created it.