Words Per Mile

I’m scheduling this post 24 days in advance, so everything in it is probably extremely outdated.

I’m kidding. But only a little.

I’ve used AI at my day job–I doubt there’s many people who haven’t by now, whether you’re a healthcare worker or an athletic coach. We use AI to simplify our processes, speed up our work, and generally take on tasks no one wants to do.

But what about the things that, by their very definition, are the things humans want to do?

What about my (and others’) lifelong dream of being a writer?

I asked ChatGPT 3.5 to write “a short poem about a relaxing Sunday morning,” and this is what it produced:

In the soft embrace of Sunday’s light,

As dawn breaks through the curtains, so bright,

A gentle breeze whispers through the trees,

As morning dew adorns the leaves.

Birdsongs dance in the tranquil air,

Their melodies, a soothing prayer,

The world awakens with gentle ease,

In the quiet hush of Sunday’s peace.

With steaming cups of coffee in hand,

We linger in our own wonderland,

No rush, no hurry, just moments to savor,

In the blissful calm of this quiet hour.

A book, a blanket, and the sun’s warm glow,

We let the hours gently flow,

In this sanctuary, where worries take flight,

On this perfect, relaxing Sunday morning light.

It’s…not Shakespeare. But it would get you a passing grade in English class. The LLM (large language model) took the topic it was given and wrote a coherent and appropriately-formed poem, using correct English rhyme schemes and imagery that makes sense in conjunction with the topic. And that’s just the free version of one of the major models out right now.

Of course, this kind of this has been leading people to ask, will AI take artist jobs? I think it depends on what kind of art you’re talking about. For now, I want to speak to the areas that myself and my friends work in: visual and written arts. (Many others have talked about whether AI will replace musicians, or fashion designers, or any other number of professions.)

I worry for my friends in the visual arts, I really do. There are more purely creative jobs in the visual arts, but those jobs seem to be at great risk of being taken over by AI, due to some of the same issues that have been plaguing visual artists for years.

My visual artist friends, whether they’re commission artists and UX designers, frequently feel that their work is undervalued. Even before the rise of AI, people were looking at visual art and saying “I bet a computer can do that.” Well, now that computer can reach a pretty close approximation.

Ask yourself: Should a painting done by an AI hang in the Met? Your gut answer is probably “no,” or at least, “not unless it’s specifically in an AI art exhibit.”

If your child spent an hour drawing a picture or a cool robot, and then spent three minutes asking ChatGPT to draw a picture of a cool robot, which robot would go on the fridge? No matter how much cooler ChatGPT’s robot is, most people would probably pick the former.

Now ask: Does it matter if a computer can design an emoji, or a daily Google logo? You might say, “no, it doesn’t matter.” But it does matter, because up until now a graphic artist, someone who is passionate about their field, had been doing the design.

What should matter is whether art is created by humans, for humans. Art is transactional, art is a dialogue, art connects us to our ancestors from 45,000 years ago.

The inherently dialogic nature of art means, to me, that the written arts will be safer than the visual in the long run. In general, writing requires the “viewer” to invest more time and energy into the experience than a painting or graphic. If someone’s going to devote hours of their afternoon to reading something, they’re more likely to feel cheated if, during or after the experience, they realize the art was created by AI and doesn’t reflect legitimate human experiences, thoughts, or passions at all.

Oh sure, in the short turn I think the tech bros and the trend chasers will think that AI books are the future. But in the long run, people use art to connect with other people, not just to have something nice to pass the time. I hope that remains true, that we don’t commodify the act of interacting with art the way we try to commodify everything with the latest tech. I hope for the sake of my friends in the visual arts that there’s a sea change, that people value the work of human artists even if it looks like “something a computer can do.”

And I hope I’m right about writing, because I haven’t published my novel yet.