Why Ai art is good actually
I just washed some clothes, no need to explode just yet. What I did was basically gathered dirty or used cloth, put it into the washing machine, and watch that sucker go. In theory, I didn’t do the actual washing, yet we still say I did in fact do the washing even though I did not beat my clothes with a rock at the river like in olden times, we still say I washed my clothes.
The AI images took the world by storm in what felt like no time at all we heard about AI images winning art competitions, we saw a lot of AI-generated images, and most of all we saw endless memes made with AI. Suddenly everybody could make an AI image. Just write out a prompt and BAM there you have your image.
What I believe to be an odd benefit from this is that people are consuming less and making stuff instead. In a strange way, AI images come from the idea of the individual and it takes some time and tries to tweak the image to something the creator wants. You might say you yourself did not make the image, but as I said before I did do the washing even though the machine did it for me.
What AI images do is give potentially endless amount of creativity. If you have an image, a character, a scene, or anything of that nature you can make it in just seconds. Gone are the days when you need to learn how to draw just to make stuff.
People aren’t just making cool or weird images either. I’ve seen folks using AI to build characters for their DnD campaigns, plan out tattoo ideas, and even design little birthday cards. Like, stuff they never would’ve done without it. It’s kind of wild how low the bar is now to just make something.
Me and my guild in World of Warcraft has spent a lot of time lately trying to make epic images of our characters. We came up with different scenarios and poses, and we made them into jokes and it actually brought us closer together.
Now there are plenty of people like illustrators, IT people, and writers losing their jobs due to AI and that is a problem. This post is more about the everyday person and not companies, but I fully recognize there is a problem here. As a writer myself, I do fear the growing need for AI.
With AI I spend more time “making” images of characters and places I can use in future projects. Now, you could say if people are just making more AI art aren’t they just making more stuff for consumption?
Well technically, but people are swallowing an alarming amount of shorts and TikTok during the day so if you place that with people looking at AI art you haven’t really changed anything. People are on their phones a lot but there is a limit. You simply replace one thing with another, and you contribute instead of just consuming blindly.
Before, if you couldn’t draw or paint or code, you sort of felt like you had no business creating anything “cool.” AI kind of kicks that door down. It gives people who were on the outside a chance to play too. And sure, maybe it’s not masterpiece-level stuff, but it’s still yours. That counts.
Look, I know making an image with AI isn’t the same as carving a sculpture out of wood. One is instant and effortless; the other is skill and craft. And yeah the wood carving is objectively cooler. But even if all you ever do is generate goofy Studio Ghibli-style memes, you’re still making something. You’re putting stuff out into the world instead of just swallowing an endless scroll. And I think in a weird, modern way that might be one of the keys to feeling a little more human.