AI in Art: Are We Slowly Erasing the Joy of the World?

Just the other day, I overheard two of my teachers talking about turning themselves into superheroes from Marvel comics. Intrigued by the unusual topic, I continued to listen to one tell the other how, by putting their pictures into ChatGPT, the generator would create an image of them as one of their characters. Much to their disappointment, the app was unable to capture their distinctive features, and the end result turned out so bland that it could represent any other person and not necessarily themselves. 

The interaction, while it should be trivial in the grand scheme of things, got me thinking: why should we use AI to create “artwork”? The machine has so many uses, such as giving feedback on school presentations and generating flashcards to study for tests. It can be used for many great things, but making “art” shouldn't be one of them. 

The “art” AI produces is soulless and often confusing. Personally, the blank eyes staring into nothing makes unwanted chills creep up my spine, and to my knowledge, thirty fingers are not common in humans, but AI does not seem to catch the memo. Besides, humans have the unmatched ability to capture the essence of the world around us. We are able to not only paint compositions correctly, but to express the emotion of every touch, interaction, and expression between people and nature. Unlike AI, which literally just modifies (terribly, I may add) existing artwork, humans are able to portray the feeling of existing in every brushstroke or graffiti line.  

Art is life, and asking a lifeless machine to create it seems ironic, despite people’s endless excuses for using it. For example, the never-ending argument that “AI makes art accessible” is just plain unconvincing. Art has always been available to people, from the present day, where affordable materials are widely obtainable , to prehistoric times, where we only had our fingers and animal blood to paint on walls. And don’t even start justifying that you “don’t have the ability to draw”. Art, like any other skill such as doing math and writing an essay, is exactly that: a skill. You have to practice, again and again, until you are confident enough to present the piece you worked so much on to the world. 

With that said, let me ask again: why use AI to create “artwork”? There are infinitely better ways to turn yourself into a superhero, model, or whatever else you want to be. Buy the materials necessary, practice, and draw whatever you would have asked  the machine to generate. Or, if you truly don’t have the patience to learn this new skill, commission a real artist to do so! Art is life and joy, and asking a spiritless computer software to create it seems contradictory and deeply disappointing.