AI Sucks.
AI is not punk. AI is a tool of The Man. Of billionaire Tech Bro sociopaths and accelerationists. AI is not subversive. Edgelords and petty contrarians utilizing AI does not make it so. AI is not revolutionary. Sentimental schlock will not save the suffering. AI is lazy. AI is a cheat. AI is plagiarism. AI is slick and facile. AI produces Pablum for the masses, shat out as easily as it's digested, no different than any banal meme of the week.
AI is not art. It can't even be called Digital Art. It isn't art, period. Digital art still has a human component. AI isn't even in the same league as any of the long traditions of collage, assemblage, or found art, or even of electronic music, musique concrète, or music sampling, or of, in writing, the cut-up technique.
If one is going to steal shit, as all artists, musicians, and writers do - "there is nothing new under the sun" - one should at least have the decency to put in one's own work. The blood, the sweat, and the tears, and fucking make it one's own, rather than simply letting a computer algorithm regurgitate vapid, plasticky-looking, fumble-fingered, dilettante-pleasing, scam and hoax-facilitating, uncanny-valley kitsch.
AI does not democratize art. It is designed to take ownership of it. To render it even further into a mere commodity. NFT's anyone? To appeal and pander to the masses, unschooled in the arts. To render true artists, photographers, writers, musicians, and actors, irrelevant, unworthy of making a living, as they cannot compete with the speed and high turnover that, among other things, social media affords this AI kitsch. Anything real, anything tactile, will soon pale in comparison to any of these fantastical images that seem to fool far too many people; undiscerning audiences raised on decades of ridiculously "airbrushed" magazine covers and multi-million dollar CGI popcorn movies that look like video games. And as education becomes less and less of a priority, the quality of the written word will matter less and less, as well.
And AI is absolutely being used to fool people on a daily basis. To distort reality for the sake of a buck. Not only to devalue these various "creatives", of all stripes (painters, cartoonists, sign writers, stained glass artists, ceramicists, blacksmiths, furniture designers, yarn artists, cake artists, fashion designers, and so on), but as yet another way to scam the gullible with impossible products, and separate them from money they don't have to begin with.
To, in fact, devalue the individual, the consumer, the employee, the everyday Joe; losing jobs to AI-powered automation, forced to communicate with soulless chatbots and their frustratingly meaningless automated replies, and everyone's favourite, the indignity of the self-check-out. Of course the youth are so anxiety-ridden, now, by this mess we've all left them, they're welcoming the lack of human interaction. Great.
And, even more worryingly, to further sabotage the already broken political process, with fake images, spread through memes, that not only successfully fool fans and detractors of any leader or candidate, alike, but allow them to also deny reality. To claim that legitimately damning photos, authentic audio or videos have been, in fact, faked, whether they actually believe that to be so or not.
There's a difference between something that's clearly (or should be) satirical, and something that purports to be authentic, even if expressing something in a humorous way. And, unfortunately, that line is becoming hazier and hazier, as people seem to, somehow, be less and less informed, in this, supposedly, the information age. Not to mention the rationalisations: "well, 'they're' doing it". But as we move further into this age of disinformation, it is imperative that the left does not engage in this sort of chicanery. There are enough damning statements and real photographs of various political foes. Just because the (alt) right does it is not a good reason. Of course it was already an issue, to some extent, with Photoshopping, but AI is clearly compounding the problem. Some might say, purposefully. Indeed, all aspects of this malfeasance are being used by grifters, strategists, and propagandists, alike, to full effect.
In sum: Fuck AI.
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