The Future is Behind Us
The future is approaching so fast that it’s already behind us. Think as a bullet whizzes by your mind is only capable of processing the whistle after it matches sound to scenario, after your ear hears it, after the shot was fired, and it’s already a great distance past you in an instant, seconds before you realize what just happened.
That’s what it feels like. AI, machine learning, stable diffusion. It’s become a daily-usage tool that makes my workflow more efficient, automates a lot of processing, and has, just as of two days ago, 2/15/2024, become capable of video from a text prompt. It’s fascinating, and horrifying in equal measure.
What it Means to Make
As a professional designer and amateur artist, I am of course filled with mixed feelings. There’s no denying that AI has been built on the backs of artists’ stolen content and works. There’s also no denying at how blazing fast it is at automating work that doesn’t require critical thought. And it’s good. Insanely good. Good at taking a few breadcrumbs of a concept and writing entire worlds, business proposals, branding goals… Fully fleshed out concepts from thin air.
I now use ChatGPT instead of Google to search for things because everything on Google is SEOptimized, key-worded to hell, and trying to sell me something. If I need to find a good lesson plan to help scaffold my coding or artist journey, Google has hundreds of courses it wants to sell to you. Proprietary softwares, a coaching class, accessories that make your work station look and feel better, etc. ChatGPT on the other hand, will produce an answer and help fine-tune it to my specifications, from a simple conversation.
In answer, Google has also created an AI that cannibalizes it’s own content for a quick-answer format. It’s even begun to create content for Google Images.
Digital Ghosts
AI art has also been used for content and marketing campaigns. My work received an email campaign that had obviously AI-created images (it was meant to look like a house party with guests enjoying wine). My immediate thought was that it was uncanny. My next thought was that the entire email strategy, user journey, and content, must have also been created or assisted with AI.
An entire marketing campaign, a ghost. And it would probably still work.
A lot of this feels hopeless in a strange sense. Content, media, strategy, now video. Everything can be created artificially. At that point, what’s the point of it being produced and sold or used for promotion? If anyone can create it out of thin air, then why is it a marketable product for some? Money is mostly made from an imbalance of knowledge or skill, and this skill doesn’t take much.
For that matter, a lot of these platforms that are being marketed on are made up of ghosts themselves. Botnets, bought followers, fake personas and false clout-creation to generate hype… Is it hollow things being sold to hollow people in hollow stores?
Advertising will Find You
The first time I saw a boat-billboard my heart sank. You can’t escape advertising. I fear for a time when it’ll be beamed directly into your eyes, or come from your skin, or be send through the breeze amidst a forgotten forest.
So many people and companies have so many things they want to say, and so many insecurities they want to capitalize on. By screaming louder, targeting you, and finding new and creative ways to absolutely wreck your peace, they plant the seed of doubt and convince you that your life could be better with their perfect product.
Even paid, premium services are now floating ads into the stream, but of course the higher-priced, even more premium service won’t have any (for now).
You can’t escape it.
Real Consequence
Magic the Gathering has used AI art in their promos. Wacom, a company that sells digital tablets to artists, for the literal sake of creating art, also used AI in their marketing promotions.
Thankfully a lot of their target demographic has called them on it, but the fact that it was even an option and that they executed it as a functional plan is disheartening.
Record layoffs from gaming companies have started 2024 off with a bleak tone. More jobs are predicted to be lost or degraded due to AI.
Disconnect as a Solution
I hope the whole thing eats itself alive.
I hope that as a result of creative work and content being automated as a produced commodity, humans begin to create for the sake of creating. Write, draw, and paint to express. Make music. Sing. Sketch a thought on a piece of paper and treasure it with such a burning hope that it ignites something within you. You made this. No one can take that.
I don’t know where the future will end up, or where we’ll be. I don’t know what any creative market or digital workspace will look like, but I hope that humanity is on the other side of it.
I hope automated ghosts strategize and produce automated content on an automated platform rife with automated responses, and I hope that somewhere in between the tall desolate structures of an automatic ecosystem designed to churn through itself, that the sparks of human creation and expression burn bright.
That is where I hope to be.