Burning tokens

The beautiful light on my morning walks inspired me to experiment with impressionist painting AI image styling. Ironically Impressionism is all about conveying feelings one had of a scene at the moment. Photo filters are not a new gadget. It’s the seemingly artistic processing that’s freaky. For an instant, I fall for: "it’s so good, why would anyone want to paint anymore ?". But a second, I discard the image. The image collapses back into what it is: no more valuable than the photo it came from.

I thus sympathize those who believe that AI won’t kill art. At the same time I equally support the point of view that art will lose some credit (needless to say that it’s a shame). The intellect, perspective, and patience deployed toward technology is quite astonishing. I bet AI people have not deployed anywhere near as much brain power toward their relationships with their parents. Or perhaps they did and everything makes even more sense.

AI may do to art what smartphones did to photography and music. I can sense the philosophical downgrade. Demographics, technological, political, and other dynamics supersedes my narrow vision. Perhaps I’d be sad if I cared more about art, angered by the slop and distressed by abuses. I’ll be all that at some point, AI or not.

I’ve ignored most trends which is what kept me relatively functional professionally. I had to get on this bandwagon just like I had to learn JavaScript. Everything comes and goes. JavaScript is still there, like a hydra. Typescript being its latest head. I guess I should be grateful I don’t have to write it myself and truly learn it. Carelessness seems deeply integrated in AI usage. It undeniably makes things faster than us. Speed and technique are not all there is to a job well done. Not just in art.

The fact that you can “make an app” in an hour doesn’t make it useful, profitable, or reasonable. Why pay for something excellent when you can build a significantly shittier version yourself? AI tools are the new hardware store, the new art supply aisle, the new tutorial tab. It’s the same DIY impulse, industrialized. Very American. You can always take the time to make a thing. Don't forget that it's an option. One that requires compromises and acknowledges scarcity.

It feels wrong to hear developers confidently say they haven’t written a line of code in months. I can see a forming dichotomy between commercial and artisanal creative digital work. Commercial thinking will be AI assisted, abundant, fast, and shallow. Artisanal thinking will be slower, manual, and scarce. You can take the time to make a thing. This will always remain an option.

Everyone knows there is more to life than speed and convenience. It’s missing Quality entirely – not only quality of the outcome, but of the process. Burning tokens is not a creative act.

Some said I’ll regret this lukewarm stance when AI cures my cancer and gifts me back years of freedom. I struggle to believe the story. Right now the dominant narratives feel either too narrow or too transhumanist. In contrast the near future is pretty clear: AI will be a fantastic economic opportunity. In today’s fragmented and extreme socioeconomic landscape, asymmetry the rule. Thus whether or not we’re entering the era of personal software or not, a minority of established entities will take most of the profit while advertising a benefit for humanity. The desire for AI, like eugenics, comes from forgetting that we are part of nature, not its engineers. So far using on AI to build infrastructure is like growing blueberries in Arizona.