"And things are automatic when you see them everyday,
Is it the same routine, or just some fucked up dreams,
That keep you walking, mindless all the way."
*Note: Today's post was originally posted on the Patreon! Join to get early posts on top of podcast episodes and new book serializations!*
Have you ever stopped to wonder why things get made at all? At some point it feels as if we forgot the reason for many things, and why the people who came before us made them, and now we're stuck doing it because We're Supposed To, only faster, dumber, and in more pointless ways. As if we're just filling space because that's all we can do.
That's kind of a depressing thought, but it's one I keep mulling on, especially when I hear complaints of soullessness in the art and entertainment world from people who excuse exactly that every other day and have done so for decades. Every problem we work through today isn't the fault of those who came before or those who created these systems. It comes from those of us who have forgotten the Why in everything we do.
And we don't want to admit this dead end we're reaching was totally avoidable the entire time. Changing course just meant abandoning every poor decision made for decades, and admitting we were wrong. Good luck with that. This is all our own fault.
So you've probably heard the news by now. The AI apocalypse is here and we're all going to die. Art is over now that anyone can type in a few prompts in a generator and get what they need to be satiated. The sanctity of art and creation is finished because machines can do it all for nothing. It's time to hang it up and go home.
This is the current atmosphere of the world of art and entertainment now, buoyed by people who kicked up no fuss the entire time they made their way to this end state they supposedly hate so much while supporting every decision that led to this moment. Now because it might infect some billionaires in a city that hates art and meaning on principle, it's suddenly a real problem. We need to make things illegal! We need to fine and harass people into complying with our betters! We need to combat automation and soullessness in art!
But none of this is happening, and it's never happened. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle when you don't even know how long ago it was let out.
 |
| We let it happen |
I watched the Telecommunications Act of 1996 happen which allowed Clear Channel to own radio. No one said or did anything as popular music was destroyed by this idiocy, just as they said nothing when auto-tune allowed corporations to bypass talent to put their own replaceable automatons on the charts instead. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched HD rob us of hundreds of talented game developers and studios because now they needed to sell millions just to break even. Nobody complained because they got their shiny graphics, even if the games became shallower and more automated. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched CG take over movies, leading to a uniform bland fake-computer image slathered over every film. Countless talented stuntmen and practical effects creators were thrown aside for sterile computer images. This happened at the same time sound mixing and acting all sunk into the grey goo of conformity. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched animation move to computers because it was "easier" and decades later no one can make a movie that looks as good as Akira or Secret of NIMH and we're supposed to ignore that truth because they can sometimes look like HD PS2 cutscenes instead. As long as we get our 9 millionth take off of Shrek with the same character designs, choppy animation, and low effort subversive snark "humor" somehow that's good enough to spout the empty catchphrase "Animation is cinema" when it has never been less cinema in its entire existence. This was not a change that improved art.
So my question is as follows: if you didn't care years ago when all of these mediums were being beaten down and flattened into conformity for corporations' ease of use, leading to what was already a factory belt-line production of effective automation . . . why do you care now?
This was always going to end here. We kept telling them it was okay, what right do we have to tell them to stop now? Why didn't we say anything earlier?
It's because we never cared about the art itself: we cared about consuming it quicker. All we wanted was more. More of what, exactly, didn't matter.
Computers have already been misused for decades to make art production easier (for the people in charge to manage) instead of smoother. They were originally sold as being able to assist artists in making what they were already making, just with less obnoxious distractions which would allow them to take less time and carry less of a load. And, as well all, know, this is not what happened at all. Was it supposed to destroy practical effects, passion, creativity, 2D art, entire genres, and make everything into one giant homogenized mud-genre meant for mass consumption by a people who otherwise no longer have anything in common with each other except what they consume?
Is this really it?
If that is the case, then why is this worth fighting for? Who cares about art made deliberately to remove the humanity from it, to fulfill a concocted outdated formula that hasn't been relevant since the twin towers falling was still fresh news? Why are we even consuming these things to begin with? To what end? What exactly is a computer going to take away at this point that we haven't already let them take away from us?
There already isn't anything left. We gave it away ages ago for automation, long before computers were even a factor. We did this because we wanted it this way.
What "art" is being defended by taking a stand against AI? I hate to break it to you but the large corpos and Hollywood are already using it. They were the first to use it and they're going to keep using it. You can get mad at an author for using an AI-generated logo for his first novel but that's not going to stop Tor Books from using AI-generated floating spaceships on their boring modern covers. But the latter, as they have been for the last quarter century, will continue being excused while those just trying to get by will be scrutinized.
It happens all the time.
 |
| This isn't AI, but what would change in this situation if it was? |
And, again, I hate to repeat this, but the reason this stuff is accepted is because we've accepted every change they made solely because we just want to be left alone to consume product. We've slowly lost our standards as to to what the purpose of art even is, as long as its repeating shopworn catchphrases and Current Year phrasing we can consume it proudly, call others names if they aren't consuming it, then move on to the next corpo product we are designated to worship. That's all it is now. There is no depth or ambition in any of it.
In this climate, what does automation even imply? Automation from what? Outdated genres, tired ideas, and safe content from corporate approved creatives who will lecture you if you don't support the machine? I hate to break it to you, but they're already on auto-pilot to begin with. They already have nothing to say. A machine prompt that they then tweak without saying it out loud won't make any appreciable difference in what they do.
It's because they have nothing to say in the first place.
This is what is so frustrating about the current AI hullabaloo. It is getting mad at students not hiring professional voice actors for free college projects that aren't monetized in the first place. It is screaming at shitposters making memes instead of badly editing existing art for free. It is grinding your teeth as Normie Joe puts in a couple of prompts to slap together a joke song to send to his friends. This is the sort of thing that attracts the most ire: not a megacorp creating entire opening sequences with it to cheap out on paying their already existing employees. The only explanation as to why this exists is because we no longer even know what we're doing with art anymore.
None of the above earlier examples take anything away from "real" art. In fact, it frees up artists from wasting their time and ability from doing the bare minimum (artists not having to live off porn commissions is a good thing) and are instead allowed to focus on improving their craft and finding something to say that isn't just repeating the talking points from their favorite streamer or news source. In contrast, a corporation generating an entire opening sequence to get the product out the door faster shows they don't even have a reason for said opening existing in the first place. AI or not, there was never any attempt at art here in the first place.
Instead of raging at normal people using tools to make throwaway pieces of content for fun, perhaps standing up to corporations who not only have the means to do better, but refuse to, is a better use of our time? After all, they are the ones who lowered standards in the first place, and even found ways to turn consumers against patrons with their own brand of insipid insults like "toxic fanbase", "x-ist, y-cel fans", and whatever else low IQ kindergarten name-calling they can use to explain why not consuming corporate slop is evil.
It's been over eight years since Patton Oswalt insulted James Rolfe for not being interested in a terrible looking movie that flopped because it was terrible, and nothing has still changed on this front. No one could even explain why the movie should exist to begin with without checking of a list of tropes they wanted to subvert. It's nonsense.
To be extremely blunt, the reason the proliferation of AI is an overall good thing is because it no longer allows mediocrity to be held up as genius when anyone can just automate their own mediocrity instead. Artists have to be held to a higher standard, and some people do not like that. Artists who adapt, who use these tools right, and who focus instead on rising above what a machine can do, have absolutely nothing to worry about. Why would they: a machine cannot copy originality and high quality. That goes against the purpose of something being automated in the first place.
We both deserve and need this to happen, because, at this juncture, it's the only way to finally snap us out of those dull haze we've been stuck in for far too long. We need to finally start looking up again. There is more to life than
this.
I know you've probably heard all this before, I'm not saying anything all that new new, but I think it needs to be kept in perspective as to why the old industries are currently dying and why newer ones are springing up in their places. It isn't due to AI--it is due to what allowed AI to spring to life in the first place. Focus on the real reason this is happening, not the end result. To do otherwise would be missing the forest for the trees.
AI is not going away. You don't have to like it, but you're going to have to accept it. We're also going to have to handle it better than this:
Anyone who can be replaced by AI, should be. It's really that simple.
The whole purpose of art is to bare your soul and stretch yourself to connect to others in a way that only you as an individual can. If a machine can replicate that then it can't be all that special to begin with.
But it can't, and we need to recognize that. What it can replace are clichés, tropes, genre checkboxes, and generic thought, all of which every industry is currently clogged with. If it finally blocks the drain and floods all this nonsense out, then that can only lead to good things. In the end, we will be forced to finally move on.
This is the end result of wanting to make everything automatic. It was never going to end any other way.
I don't want this piece to come off as mocking or insulting, but as more of a chance to stand reevaluate where we're heading and, for the first time in my existence on this planet, to try and stop letting things decay--to finally move forward in the correct direction. That is part of the reason I'm doing all of this, after all. I want to contribute to a better world, not a dying one. I've already watched the decay of all the above industries happening in real-time over the decades, and I will no longer be a part of that.
Thankfully, I'm not going to have to be.
The solution is to finally put things in their place and to strive for more than mediocrity--to stop accepting decay as normal and The Way Things Are. No, it's not normal, and it's not the way things have to be. It's only normal if you let it be, and we don't have to do that anymore. With the creation of some many independent and small creator-owned spaces now, you have an endless sea of options before you. Why would you ever want to stay on a sinking ship?
At the end of the day, there is no AI apocalypse and nothing is getting worse that hasn't already been allowed to get worse for decades. No, instead this is a wake up call and a signal for us to finally take a new path forward.
What we need instead is hope for the future, and I think we have more reason to feel confident for a new path now more than ever before.
The only thing that's dying is the old ways, and in this case it's more than earned. We've got much better things to look forward to, and it's about time.
