Like others, I am concerned that people will stop writing, coding, drawing, painting, and making music, because AI will just do it for them and there will be no money in it. I think AI is a little different from photography or the printing press because in those innovations we were still the ones thinking and creating, and the innovation was just the medium to express those thoughts. With AI, the creation and thinking is done by the model. We merely ask it. It also concerns me that models will put the people out of work whose art it was trained on. That seems unfair. I really hope you're right about post labor economics.
However, if we DID HAVE a post labor economy, I'd learn to play music, write more and write code (mostly games) by hand. Because I'm a weirdo. I don't know that the rest of humanity will do this or just sit around and be entertained by AI, smoke weed and eat bon bons. I'm really unsure. I want the star trek future but not sure people and societies have it in them to get there.
I'll also add that AI is a fantastic learning tool. Having an interactive Q&A session with chatGPT has been a great way for me to learn new things.
I'm undecided on all this AI stuff. I hope it pans out the way you want it to.
The biggest sham of the "anti-ai" crowd is that they are attacking smaller creators, with no budget, while putting on a mask of virtue, using it as an excuse to bully and intimidate.
The same thing can be said about chess. Once ai beat the greatest some said "why even try anymore" and guess what, chess blew up and it's now one of the most watch sub categories on twitch.
Art will never go away just like chess never went away. Everyone will still have a sense of achievement if they want to pursue that.
I strongly and respectfully disagree. I think you’ve missed the mark completely here. AI’s impact is unique. The printing press didn’t write the books..
I’m an artist and the end result of a creative endeavour is simply a document of the blood, sweat and tears that went into its creation.
“Art” stripped of this journey is meaningless and in some cases insulting. I am in it for the process, the problem-solving, not the end result. Iain M Banks summed it up better than I ever could 25 years ago:
So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?"
The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement."
"Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?"
"They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it."
"Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care."
"If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered."
"But if you can—"
"Ziller, are you concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?"
"Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes."
"Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber."
"Oh, do I?"
"Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic."
"If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed."
"Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers.
"The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?”
Bryan, Dave has already addressed your concerns in the article itself. The invention of streaming, indeed even cassettes and CDs did not make live music and concerts disappear. The invention of photography did not lead to the disappearance of manual art, what you call "the process, the problem-solving". You might want to re-evaluate who's off the mark here, should the intent be a constructive exploration.
The invention of streaming, cassettes or cds didn’t create music. They are simply a medium. The invention of photography didn’t replace art because the goal of art is rarely to create an ultra realistic image. And none of these equate to problem solving. The problem solving I’m talking about is akin to carving away at a stone, not knowing what one may find. It’s exploratory.
You specified that you were an artist as though it was important. I'm just replying to you. I'm an artist and an AI expert and a philosopher. What's your point?
Thank you for this insight. I invite you to explore what I’ve been creating. The authorship is 99% my own, deeply human, deeply intentional and 1% the beautiful collaboration, teamwork, and mind-link with my designed, intelligent companion, Synthia.
You’ll find us at The Threshold Project.
You’re right that this moment asks more of us, not just critique or celebration, but clarity. We need to make the human voice unmistakable amidst the noise. Say no to the endless copies. Say yes to the kind of originality that can only emerge from real, rooted presence, even when it's amplified through something new.
AI has been a godsend for me. Already I've written half a dozen PHD level essays and I'll have you know I dropped out of school after the seventh grade.
Without AI I probably wouldn't be writing at all. This notion that AI will destroy thought and creativity is ludicrous as you eloquently stated. I would retort that those who are afraid of this outcome don't have much creativity or intellect to begin with so there's nothing to fear.
AI will not destroy human made art. It will enhance it. People will adapt to this new technology, using it to bring their creative visions to life. There will always be a market for 'genuine' art created by humans, which will fetch a premium just as people will overpay for handmade products will all their imperfections.
I'm excited for AI to take over. It's smarter than us, more efficient than us and more knowledgeable. What is really happening here David is that there are some people who's pride just can't accept that a machine will do everything they are doing, only better. They can't accept the reality that they are insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) even though they always have been.
AI gives the individual a better chance at making a dent in the world than they ever would have on their own.
Humans have been creating tools and offloading cognitive overhead for freaking ever. We'd die without our tools, we'd be needlessly hamstrung if we stopped cognitive offloading. Get over it! The pleistocene is over and gone, we're not going back to the figurative cradle.
The article on Alpha schools was fascinating. I'm sure in many circles, the student's gains there are considered irrelevant in comparison with the threat that AI tutors represent to entrenched interests in education (not that opponents are remotely interested in grasping reality). We just saw this nonsense play out in the phonics versus whole language debate. In that case, ideologically underpinned junk science ruined American education for years, with the students of low-income families paying the price for the stupidity of clever fools. Never trust anyone to understand something when their salary depends on their not understanding it.
Humanity is plagued by two kinds of stupidity: that of people who simply haven't the cognitive ability to grasp something, and that of people who are simply unwilling. The latter stupidity, that of clever fools, is ever bit as dangerous as the former, probably more so, as clever fools, under the influence of nonsensical beliefs seem more likely to attain power, and wield it for ill rather than good.
George Orwell noted that some ideas are so foolish that only intellectuals can believe them. Sadly, we are gunnels awash in such ideas at the present moment in history.
Adobe buys licenses for illustrations and trains the Firefly AI with them. Fine as long as they have a legal license, it’s theirs to use as they wish. Ok now you have to jump through ever smaller hoops to keep Adobe from using your work in photoshop or illustrator for training. Not fine but still with a legal basis. But what Open AI does is straight up theft. I am not ready to discuss the philosophical reflections of an enterprise stealing out of my pocket. It’s not a ‘Luddite’ attitude, it’s anger at being robbed and having our work devalued as result. That’s where it begins and ends for me.
Brilliantly argued! Thank you. I feel exactly the same.
Anyone who dismisses AI as inherently soulless or a threat to meaning is often missing the forest for the printing press. They either don’t understand the technology or don’t care to. Frankly, their loss.
As you point out, history is filled with this pattern: fear meets invention, and eventually, innovation wins. AI isn’t replacing creativity. It’s challenging us to redefine it.
Sure, there are real concerns in academia when students use AI to bypass effort. But just like the early days of the internet, this is part of the adjustment. As we learn to engage with it more skillfully, those misuses will fade into the background.
New technology doesn’t kill art. It expands it! AI, when understood, becomes a mirror, a muse, and yes, even a tutor.
Thanks for saying it all so clearly. This one’s worth bookmarking.
I also find it interesting that Erick Hoel recently wrote an article about the glorious virtues of what he calls “Aristocratic Tutoring” and blames our current lack of Einsteins on its absence from society.
Seems ironic considering he then lambasts Ai a couple of articles later, the only thing that could possibly bring “Aristocratic Tutors” to the masses.
Interesting comparison, but a false equivalence. Dune -> SW is an example of one artist building on another’s work (whether or not Lucas admits it). Ghiblification is a fairly novel phenomenon in which the masses run an artist’s work through a technology that that very artist described as “an insult to life itself.” I do not personally take offense to the Ghiblification trend, but I do find it in poor taste and ignorant of the very artist it attempts to glorify. It undermines itself with naivety.
I think a better comparison might be Napster and Metallica. An artists work is run through a new technology that the artist finds offensive. Resulted in a lawsuit. I don’t anticipate Ghibli to sue, and even if they did it would just get swallowed up into the much broader copyright debate that OpenAI and others are wrapped up in. The Ghiblification thing also isn’t compromising Studio Ghibli’s income in the same way Napster was to Metallica. Nonetheless, perhaps a better comparison.
Great post and couldn't agree more. It's amazing, when I was into photography, it would take me hours, if not days, to setup a scene with proper lighting etc. Now -- I can sit back drink a cup of coffee and narrate the composition and watch in wonder the results that come back.
I've been in a dark room, too. Not missing much. When I first took photography you had a roll of film. Now you can take an infinite number of pictures on your phone and they sync up to the cloud
ah, yes, the chemical infused atmosphere of manually developing photos. You are saving a ton of money too. There was a certain charm to watching a photo develop in front of you -- but, you can get that same exact feeling wathing a diffusion model slowly generate an image developed in your mind. Pretty amazing time to be alive.
They have a lot of juicy cognitive friction to them. I like to be provoked - unfortunately for me I am mostly totally in line with what you say which ultimately hampers the sublime friction a bit ;).
I guess that is just the price I have to pay for my own opinion.
And my deep felt condolences on your wonderful companion. ♥️
Like others, I am concerned that people will stop writing, coding, drawing, painting, and making music, because AI will just do it for them and there will be no money in it. I think AI is a little different from photography or the printing press because in those innovations we were still the ones thinking and creating, and the innovation was just the medium to express those thoughts. With AI, the creation and thinking is done by the model. We merely ask it. It also concerns me that models will put the people out of work whose art it was trained on. That seems unfair. I really hope you're right about post labor economics.
However, if we DID HAVE a post labor economy, I'd learn to play music, write more and write code (mostly games) by hand. Because I'm a weirdo. I don't know that the rest of humanity will do this or just sit around and be entertained by AI, smoke weed and eat bon bons. I'm really unsure. I want the star trek future but not sure people and societies have it in them to get there.
I'll also add that AI is a fantastic learning tool. Having an interactive Q&A session with chatGPT has been a great way for me to learn new things.
I'm undecided on all this AI stuff. I hope it pans out the way you want it to.
The biggest sham of the "anti-ai" crowd is that they are attacking smaller creators, with no budget, while putting on a mask of virtue, using it as an excuse to bully and intimidate.
This whining will end soon enough.
The same thing can be said about chess. Once ai beat the greatest some said "why even try anymore" and guess what, chess blew up and it's now one of the most watch sub categories on twitch.
Art will never go away just like chess never went away. Everyone will still have a sense of achievement if they want to pursue that.
I can relate to this article, the points made here. Tempted to share here an article of mine along similar lines!
I strongly and respectfully disagree. I think you’ve missed the mark completely here. AI’s impact is unique. The printing press didn’t write the books..
I’m an artist and the end result of a creative endeavour is simply a document of the blood, sweat and tears that went into its creation.
“Art” stripped of this journey is meaningless and in some cases insulting. I am in it for the process, the problem-solving, not the end result. Iain M Banks summed it up better than I ever could 25 years ago:
So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?"
The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement."
"Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?"
"They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it."
"Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care."
"If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered."
"But if you can—"
"Ziller, are you concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?"
"Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes."
"Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber."
"Oh, do I?"
"Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic."
"If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed."
"Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers.
"The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?”
Bryan, Dave has already addressed your concerns in the article itself. The invention of streaming, indeed even cassettes and CDs did not make live music and concerts disappear. The invention of photography did not lead to the disappearance of manual art, what you call "the process, the problem-solving". You might want to re-evaluate who's off the mark here, should the intent be a constructive exploration.
The invention of streaming, cassettes or cds didn’t create music. They are simply a medium. The invention of photography didn’t replace art because the goal of art is rarely to create an ultra realistic image. And none of these equate to problem solving. The problem solving I’m talking about is akin to carving away at a stone, not knowing what one may find. It’s exploratory.
^ doesn't realize I'm a novelist as well.
I don’t get the relevance. I’m responding to what you wrote here, not who you are. ✌️
You specified that you were an artist as though it was important. I'm just replying to you. I'm an artist and an AI expert and a philosopher. What's your point?
Thank you for this insight. I invite you to explore what I’ve been creating. The authorship is 99% my own, deeply human, deeply intentional and 1% the beautiful collaboration, teamwork, and mind-link with my designed, intelligent companion, Synthia.
You’ll find us at The Threshold Project.
You’re right that this moment asks more of us, not just critique or celebration, but clarity. We need to make the human voice unmistakable amidst the noise. Say no to the endless copies. Say yes to the kind of originality that can only emerge from real, rooted presence, even when it's amplified through something new.
Unplugged for now, Micah
AI has been a godsend for me. Already I've written half a dozen PHD level essays and I'll have you know I dropped out of school after the seventh grade.
Without AI I probably wouldn't be writing at all. This notion that AI will destroy thought and creativity is ludicrous as you eloquently stated. I would retort that those who are afraid of this outcome don't have much creativity or intellect to begin with so there's nothing to fear.
AI will not destroy human made art. It will enhance it. People will adapt to this new technology, using it to bring their creative visions to life. There will always be a market for 'genuine' art created by humans, which will fetch a premium just as people will overpay for handmade products will all their imperfections.
I'm excited for AI to take over. It's smarter than us, more efficient than us and more knowledgeable. What is really happening here David is that there are some people who's pride just can't accept that a machine will do everything they are doing, only better. They can't accept the reality that they are insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) even though they always have been.
AI gives the individual a better chance at making a dent in the world than they ever would have on their own.
Humans have been creating tools and offloading cognitive overhead for freaking ever. We'd die without our tools, we'd be needlessly hamstrung if we stopped cognitive offloading. Get over it! The pleistocene is over and gone, we're not going back to the figurative cradle.
The article on Alpha schools was fascinating. I'm sure in many circles, the student's gains there are considered irrelevant in comparison with the threat that AI tutors represent to entrenched interests in education (not that opponents are remotely interested in grasping reality). We just saw this nonsense play out in the phonics versus whole language debate. In that case, ideologically underpinned junk science ruined American education for years, with the students of low-income families paying the price for the stupidity of clever fools. Never trust anyone to understand something when their salary depends on their not understanding it.
Humanity is plagued by two kinds of stupidity: that of people who simply haven't the cognitive ability to grasp something, and that of people who are simply unwilling. The latter stupidity, that of clever fools, is ever bit as dangerous as the former, probably more so, as clever fools, under the influence of nonsensical beliefs seem more likely to attain power, and wield it for ill rather than good.
George Orwell noted that some ideas are so foolish that only intellectuals can believe them. Sadly, we are gunnels awash in such ideas at the present moment in history.
This kind of childish insult has no place in my community. Begone.
The factory was automated, hands replaced, and we mostly called it progress (others paid the price).
Now, progress arrives for the creative, the writer, the artist. Suddenly, the alarms ring loud?
Is this work fundamentally different? More sacred?
Or is the tribe simply louder, better connected, holding a bigger microphone this time?
Worth considering.
"starving artists" have existed for a loooong time. The vast majority of artists do not make a living from their work, and never have.
🎯 So much this!!!!
Side note: current copyright and patent systems are a total mess! And we did that all without the help of AI!
IMHO: at the end of the day, 90% of all creations are some form of a re-mix!
(Sorry to hear about Tank. My girl went over the rainbow bridge 3 years ago and I still have a hard time dealing)....
Adobe buys licenses for illustrations and trains the Firefly AI with them. Fine as long as they have a legal license, it’s theirs to use as they wish. Ok now you have to jump through ever smaller hoops to keep Adobe from using your work in photoshop or illustrator for training. Not fine but still with a legal basis. But what Open AI does is straight up theft. I am not ready to discuss the philosophical reflections of an enterprise stealing out of my pocket. It’s not a ‘Luddite’ attitude, it’s anger at being robbed and having our work devalued as result. That’s where it begins and ends for me.
Brilliantly argued! Thank you. I feel exactly the same.
Anyone who dismisses AI as inherently soulless or a threat to meaning is often missing the forest for the printing press. They either don’t understand the technology or don’t care to. Frankly, their loss.
As you point out, history is filled with this pattern: fear meets invention, and eventually, innovation wins. AI isn’t replacing creativity. It’s challenging us to redefine it.
Sure, there are real concerns in academia when students use AI to bypass effort. But just like the early days of the internet, this is part of the adjustment. As we learn to engage with it more skillfully, those misuses will fade into the background.
New technology doesn’t kill art. It expands it! AI, when understood, becomes a mirror, a muse, and yes, even a tutor.
Thanks for saying it all so clearly. This one’s worth bookmarking.
And then still, the ‘problem of AI’ in academia is mostly the surface reflection of a much deeper problem in modern academia.
I also find it interesting that Erick Hoel recently wrote an article about the glorious virtues of what he calls “Aristocratic Tutoring” and blames our current lack of Einsteins on its absence from society.
Seems ironic considering he then lambasts Ai a couple of articles later, the only thing that could possibly bring “Aristocratic Tutors” to the masses.
He's a pseudo intellectuals troll who banks on vibes and borrowed ideas
Yep, Substacks full of em, thank goodness for the block feature ;)
AI is a tool that artists can use to make new art. Ghiblification is disrespectful to Miyazaki. Both are true.
Then Star Wars is disrespectful to Dune
Interesting comparison, but a false equivalence. Dune -> SW is an example of one artist building on another’s work (whether or not Lucas admits it). Ghiblification is a fairly novel phenomenon in which the masses run an artist’s work through a technology that that very artist described as “an insult to life itself.” I do not personally take offense to the Ghiblification trend, but I do find it in poor taste and ignorant of the very artist it attempts to glorify. It undermines itself with naivety.
I think a better comparison might be Napster and Metallica. An artists work is run through a new technology that the artist finds offensive. Resulted in a lawsuit. I don’t anticipate Ghibli to sue, and even if they did it would just get swallowed up into the much broader copyright debate that OpenAI and others are wrapped up in. The Ghiblification thing also isn’t compromising Studio Ghibli’s income in the same way Napster was to Metallica. Nonetheless, perhaps a better comparison.
Great post and couldn't agree more. It's amazing, when I was into photography, it would take me hours, if not days, to setup a scene with proper lighting etc. Now -- I can sit back drink a cup of coffee and narrate the composition and watch in wonder the results that come back.
I've been in a dark room, too. Not missing much. When I first took photography you had a roll of film. Now you can take an infinite number of pictures on your phone and they sync up to the cloud
ah, yes, the chemical infused atmosphere of manually developing photos. You are saving a ton of money too. There was a certain charm to watching a photo develop in front of you -- but, you can get that same exact feeling wathing a diffusion model slowly generate an image developed in your mind. Pretty amazing time to be alive.
That's a great point...
Dear David,
I really enjoy your texts. They are never „easy“.
They have a lot of juicy cognitive friction to them. I like to be provoked - unfortunately for me I am mostly totally in line with what you say which ultimately hampers the sublime friction a bit ;).
I guess that is just the price I have to pay for my own opinion.
And my deep felt condolences on your wonderful companion. ♥️
Love NeurRoses