I use AI

Hi, I'm Lonnie and I use AI.

I'm also deeply concerned about the harm that AI will cause, whether through deliberate abuse or the reckless use of a potentially dangerous technology without considering the ramifications. For instance, I don't believe we've really begun to reckon with what happens when the product of AI is truly indistinguishable from a "real" digital object (I'm a philosopher at heart, so the concept of reality is a whole thing). AI is an existential crisis waiting to happen.

I use AI to make art.

I've been pondering how to approach talking about AI in the context of my work for a while, not because I think I'm "cheating" or anything of the sort - but because my work is not about AI. Except that it sort of is because artists often do things as part of their process that the audience would have no idea about if the artist didn't point it out, and pondering the proper role of AI in art is part of my process, apparently. Art is complicated. And nuanced. And the conversation around AI is complicated, but somewhat less nuanced. And when AI becomes a part of the conversation it tends to become the center of attention.

When I was in high school all of the computers still had green screens - the huge industrial photocopier was the height of technology that the average student had access to. I was making portraits by photocopying a photograph, and then copying the copy, and so on, until I ended up with a weird, abstract thing that I would then do a painting based on. At the time I wasn't savvy enough to recognize the pop art sensibilities at play. I just thought it was cool.

All of that is just to say that I've been blurring the lines between technology and art for a while.

In fact it's been the norm for artists throughout history to use whatever technology they had access to (see "camera obscura" for a particularly enduring example). And throughout history critics have decried them as everything from "cheating" to ushering in the end of art (I feel like photography has settled into a comfortable place in the art world, but it was not always so).

And speaking of the end of art, half of the history of art is artists trying to find where art ends by doing things they're fully aware will be received as an affront to art itself - from painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa, to Brillo boxes, to bananas duct taped to walls (Dada certainly stabbed art relentlessly - if that didn't kill it I don't know what will).

Btw, I understand the appeal of creating with nothing but a prompt (ex nihilo, as it were). As a visual artist I look at the pictures that AI generates and, while the technology is impressive, the results are still mediocre (at best) from a creative standpoint. Even the most fantastic are sterile, repetitive, and always a little bit "off". In fact, I'm still much more fascinated by the grotesque results of AI getting human anatomy really, really wrong (shudder). But then I started playing with fully AI generated music for the backgrounds of videos and such. I found the process to be delightful. But I have no illusions about the music being art.

As a philosopher at heart (and really, what else do you need to be a philosopher), I'm much better at asking questions than making declarative statements, but here goes...

Art is not about what it's made of. Unless it is. Art is not about how it's made. Unless it is. Art is not about how long it takes to make, or how much skill it takes to make, or what tools you use to make it. Unless it is. Art is very hard to pin down. But I believe that, by and large, we're much better at recognizing art when we see it than we give ourselves credit for. And anyway it doesn't matter what anyone says. If something speaks to you, if it captivates you or challenges you, if you like looking at it or listening to it or thinking about it, that's all that matters. No one should be able to tell you what you should or shouldn't like because they don't think it's art. You get to decide that for yourself.

AI is not witchcraft, it's a tool.

I use AI to make reference images. Why? It's way faster and easier than finding and photographing a model, just like photographing them is way faster and easier than making them sit still while I paint them, just like its way faster and easier to use paints from a tube than grinding my own pigments and mixing them with fresh squeezed linseed oil. That's how tools work. For me the art comes later in the process - when I start using actual physical stuff to make a drawing, linocut, collage, or whatever.

Art will make it's peace with AI, or AI will finally kill art off for good. Only time will tell. The debate will go on for a while. While it does I'll just be over here making art.