In 2023, artificial intelligence (A.I.) transitioned from an idea to a threat and a sales pitch. For years, artists have utilized A.I. technologies like neural networks and language models. But, the explosive growth of text-to-image generators like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E has given rise to concerns that A.I. is encroaching on culture. Still, A.I. images tend to lack human essence and seem aesthetically irrelevant on their own.
A.I. can’t innovate and can only create prompted approximations. This has led to concerns about the devaluation of culture into just one more source of data. Some TikTok users even posted an A.I.-generated song in the style of popular artists, prompting discussions about what constitutes real music.
In the 21st century, we must take seriously what differentiates humans from machines. A larger threat is that we are becoming more like machines in our thinking and creation, reducing human thought and life to fit standardized data sets. Writer suggests that, rather than worrying about whether bots can replicate human work, we should force ourselves to create truly human art that reflects our full extent of human powers and aspirations.
We may need A.I. to prompt us to revalue what only humans can do, meaning humans will have to put in more effort than just rearranging images and words.
