Illustration: Sharon Vidan @hereandtherebooks (c) - Photoshop work.
Do you worry about the speedy progress of AI? Do you see the title AI wherever you go on the web? If so, please keep reading my initial thoughts on this whole thing!
Most of my recent conversations with friends and colleagues over the past few weeks have been about the rise of AI; having read sci-fi most of my teenage years and also during my 20s (thanks, Moti Vidan, for letting me read your Asimov books, Roger Zelazny's, and not to mention William Gibson's) And also, because I'm a neophile I find this whole thing super intriguing. I might title this piece of writing Confessions of a Neophile.
While I also feel uncertain about the future of art and design in the face the speedy AI progress, I must admit that I already use AI tools daily:
- I use dictation to write on a Word document (following Joanna Penn's podcast advice about the AI-assisted author)
- I use Grammarly to edit what I've dictated.
- I use Chat GPT to outline marketing post ideas and play around.
And what about Photoshop? Procreate? Would you not consider these tools to be man/woman and machine working together? I have been using Photoshop for more than a decade now!
Since I come from a visual arts background and am an artist/designer, the only things I have kept shy from so far are Dall-E and Midjourney. These are the visual art AI tools. I tried using Dall-E briefly, and the results were creepy.
Also, I love the craft and process of hand drawing and drawing from life and observation. But I will give it a go to understand better what it is about rather than use it for commercial purposes. To understand the competition! :)
AI will also give rise to people gathering in small groups to do crafty activities, cooking together, drawing, and making art. Maybe even hiding in secret groups around the deep dark web. This has already happened in Patreon, for example.
Therefore, On the optimistic side, there might be more value in the future for handmade crafts, writings, and music than before. If art is about connection and relationships, how can you build relationships with machines and robots, aka AI? Time will tell.
Should we start building our artsy caves in the mountains yet?
Sharon x