It’s easy to say AI is evil because it is copying art made by humans. It feels as if AI is the world’s blatant plagiarizer that creates really bad art. There is truth there, AI today is a bad imitator at best and is far from being original. On the other hand, what’s creativity? Isn’t it connecting the dots that exist to make something new? Can we claim that humans created airplanes and it’s a completely original idea? Or should we see it as a copy of the bird? Interestingly, the bird and the airplane have a few common characteristics, like the wing shape, tail controls and the streamlined bodies, so the inspiration for human flight may be coming from birds but the airplane itself is a new creation from humans.
I believe AI is no different than a tool that can help us achieve greater heights, more creativity that we have not imagined before. Yes AI can displace some jobs that require completing manual and at sometimes boring tasks in the process of creating, just as Leonardo Da Vinci who mixed his own paints may not spend his time doing so today. I wouldn’t want to mix my own paints or build my own canvas to paint on because my love is for painting, I want to paint, express my imagination on the canvas and if the canvas or the paints that I can buy in the store don’t serve my dream then I am happy to build the new mediums myself but we as humans are standing on the shoulders of giants, to go explore the next level.
AI will help us and hurt creativey and entertainment. If I mixed my own paints, I’d understand the composition, color theory in practice, which will help me be a better artist. Now that someone else is doing that work, I miss out on that. However, would we consider Da Vinci’s paint making capabilities more significant than the Monalisa or the flying machine designs? I believe paints and canvas are just tools, what you do with the tools and how you express your imagination is what truly matters. Tools matter a lot and without the right tools we have no choice but to make crude art, don’t get me wrong, but tools are only a means to an end, tools by themselves are not going to change the world, someone has to do something with them. Some will take AI and make good use of it, like creating art, eliminating drudge work and some will use it for destructive things.
What will you use AI for, will you adapt to the changing tools in the toolbox or wthe choice is clearly yours!