Are You Overreacting to AI?
In spite of many concerns, AI can be a wonderful tool for creators.
“In 5-10 years, AI will give individuals the power to produce at levels full-sized studios do.”
- Michael Persin
Yeah you can quote me.
I know a lot of creative people (especially here on Substack) have negative thoughts about those who leverage AI. I, however, fully welcome this new tool. We only have a limited number of hours a day, and we all cannot be masters at everything. Writing, art, marketing, finances… there is so much that is required of us creators to be successful. I’m sure many of you have a job, and sadly in this economy, sometimes 2 jobs (or if you’re like me, struggling to find even one source of income.) Thankfully, AI can be used to take the burden off of us, and give us a level of certainty and guidance when we otherwise would not be able to find it.
Ethics in AI are indeed a serious concern. Plagiarism is a major issue, and nobody wants to support an artist who brazenly copies (steals) the works of others. Here are a few thoughts I’ll share about how to resolve some moral quandaries regarding AI:
Use AI for rudimentary tasks
Calculating, programming, spelling and grammar checking, verify composition in artwork, formatting, analyze plot holes, etc. There’s nothing wrong with using AI to speed up the process of verifying the integrity and standardization of a piece you are working on. This could potentially save you a lot of time and effort.
Use AI to leverage business needs, like marketing and finances
Some business-ended tasks can be frustrating and confusing. Marketing is both a critical yet tricky skill for many writers and artists to master. Naturally, many of us are introverted which makes this hurdle even a greater struggle. But with AI we could potentially enhance our marketing strategy to reach even greater audiences.
Sample your own works and create an AI model to maintain your unique style.
This could be an effective means to create original content while not fearing plagiarism. If it’s all modeled off your own original works, then no one will complain right? This could potentially save you trouble fine-tuning your prompts as the AI learns off of you.
Ask Permission
Simply ask other artists and writers if you may use their works using AI, and potentially offer to pay them to create an AI model after their works in a mutual agreement. I actually have a business idea around this concept which would reward royalties to artists who participate. You can even leverage blockchain technology to verify whether someone has a license to use an artist’s AI Model.
Use AI to fill in blanks in projects you are currently stuck in.
We all suffer from writers block. It’s unavoidable. To pass through this, sometimes we just need an external source to feed us information. It’s like trying to find a missing puzzle piece. Sure, inspiration may come to us in time to overcome these blockages, but why wait?
Use AI to find out what you *don't* want.
Quite often, the prompts that you provide will not yield the results that you have been looking for. When I first started using it, I attempted to parse my prompts dozens of times to try to get the result I wanted to no avail. This and itself could be very helpful if instead of trying to get something from AI, you use it with the intent to narrow down the infinite well of choices and ideas.
With these few examples, we can use this new technology to not only help us get a leg up in our creative careers, but do so guilt-free.
What do you think? Do you feel AI can be a force for good? Or do you still believe it's a nefarious creation with the nasty intent to completely erase human creativity? Let me know in the comments your thoughts about AI.
Thanks for reading!
The marketing and business side of things I can see. But to me, the point of art is not merely "good writing" or entertainment or even the "product" created. The point is that it is a window into the human psyche or subconscious. Using AI in any way within your own work immediately disqualifies it from that. Finding inspiration within yourself to finish the thing when you are stuck is the entire point of doing the thing, imo.
It is an unfortunate symptom of our grab anything not nailed down and strip the copper from the walls moment that we can't allow any time to figure out exactly what a tool is and how to use it wisely.