Recently social media platforms have seen the many AI ‘art’ trends flood the algorithms. However, is it really art to simply take someone else’s hard work and imagination, and request that a computer uses their idea to create something you can then stick your name on?
As people began to ‘create’ images in the style of Japanese artist Hayao Miyazaki, a debate sprung up, with Miyazaki’s past words on being ‘disgusted’ by the use of AI sparking conversion around whether using AI for ‘art’ was acceptable. Given that these people were not using their own imagination and creativity to make the images produced, it doesn’t seem right to deem what they made art, when they had essentially just typed a few instructions into a computer.
Additionally, this lack of imagination is causing massive damage to the environment. The UN have stated that AI requires huge amounts of raw materials and water to function, with an estimate that global AI related infrastructure may soon consume six times more water than Denmark. This catastrophic amount of damage AI is doing hardly seems justifiable, especially in the case of AI art.
This lack of imagination is causing massive damage to the environment.
Whilst it’s important to nurture and encourage anyone’s desire to create art, using AI is not exercising your imagination, and it’s disrespectful to the original artist, especially in the case of Miyazaki who has previously expressed that he thinks AI is an insult to life itself. Does anyone really think it’s okay to use massive amounts of water on maintaining AI systems when much of the world still doesn’t have access to clean drinking water?
Surely we would all benefit more from stepping away from AI in the creative sphere, and instead pushing ourselves to improve in our artistic abilities. Trying and failing is what allows us to get better and it sparks new ideas, as opposed to current ideas simply being regenerated, given AI can only regurgitate existing information, rather than create original ideas. What may initially look like a simple Instagram art post could really be a cog in the machine harming our environment.