It seems your perception of reality is one where people should be mocked for celebrating nature but celebrated for actively diminshing the beauty and interest of the world. Please delete your account
"thank you for being honest! i am personally not interested in engaging with creators who use tools to think better, write faster, and navigate complexity more efficiently. i prefer my content artisanal, inefficient, and ideologically pure." xo
no one said writing has to be optimized for efficiency. but the idea that it shouldn’t be—that clarity, iteration, or increased output are somehow bad—is just gatekeeping dressed up as virtue
What if you actually listened to the nearly 100% commentary coming at you - from real humans - telling you our motives? All of us are saying something else. Why do you know you're right, and we are wrong, about our own minds?
Hoping to engage in this discussion by leading with some assumptions of my own: I understand how historically tech/ innovation has allowed for efficiencies that were initially viewed as ‘the undoing’ of process, but proven to be incorrect. But, right now, I am very much against AI. I know it can be integrated into a creative process for some but it can also bypass so many important steps which allow a creative to learn and evolve. This concerns me as AI is not a distinct innovation but a way to shorten or bypass traditional processes, and i can’t see it claiming its own realm of artistry like painting to photography or film to digital.
Jane Jacobs speaks on how forgetting tradition and process historically is to blame for cultural dark ages, and I guess I also share this concern.
I also want to inquire why AI generated content should be exempt from critique (or policing as you say) by others, as thats how all writing and art evolves and stays relevant.
i appreciate the thoughtfulness here, truly. but i think you’re misreading what AI does in practice for many of us. i’m not bypassing process—i’m accelerating access to it
there’s this false binary being floated that either you struggle manually, or you’re skipping growth. but growth doesn’t come from formatting footnotes by hand or memorizing Adobe workflows—it comes from engaging your own thinking more deeply and consistently. and AI lets me do that at scale
as for the idea that AI can’t claim its own artistic territory: that’s simply premature. photography wasn’t seen as an art form at first either. neither was collage, or film, or jazz, or the synthesizer. every new medium feels “lesser” until someone with vision proves otherwise
and re: critique—i never said AI work shouldn’t be critiqued. critique is welcome. reductionism isn’t. people aren’t engaging with the work, they’re just trying to sniff out whether it was “too good” to be human. it’s a purity test, not literary analysis
lastly, the whole “artists should struggle” thing i reject completely. romanticizing suffering is one of the most spiritually bankrupt defaults in modern creative culture and i'm not sure why people are so drawn to do it tbh
i’m confused — AI isn’t formatting your footnotes or making Adobe workflows, it’s writing passages of the piece right? how does writing the piece fall under the category of “grunt work” in writing?
if a writer needs AI to get to a complete piece because they struggle to articulate it themselves, then has writing actually become more accessible to them? if anything i feel like acquiring writing skills becomes less accessible if you prevent yourself from practicing them / start to believe you don’t have to. once the model gets paywalled or the model weights degenerate (both things that can and do happen to these corporate LLMs) then that access gets lost
"Access to process" is crazy. That's literally just the process. Have chatgpt tell you what "process over product" has historically meant to any number of creatives throughout history. But be sure to tell it to be honest and imagine itself as a human with empathy
I'd just rather follow people who aren't using these tools and are doing the painstaking work of writing and creating without them, like myself. Even the creators of AI are terrified of what it will do the human psyche and society, but yeah, this is totally just another case of baseless fear toward new technology. Only commenting because this post didn't offer any reason to dislike it other than jealousy, false nobility, or needless abstinence.
I would have to break down my entire worldview to answer your questions. I think there are millions of things to value more than efficiency, as most of the problems in modernity have been created by an underlying myth that our issues are mechanical and can be solved through more efficiency, which they cannot. And your last question is asked in the form of a lie - you're assuming that I believe that inefficiency is morally superior, because you assume that I because I don't value efficiency like you, I must therefore value inefficiency. My moral concerns with AI have little to do with efficiency, and far more to do with the fact that this is a novel technology that its proponents claim will upend the world in unpredictable ways. As we didn't understand how social media was impacting our minds as we adopted it, we don't know how AI will impact our minds: the unreality it might create. And AI is more powerful than social media in that it has the ability to accelerate everything - including and especially the processes/tech/systems we know to already be problematic.
When I said I would rather follow people who are putting the real work in, it's not about me valorizing inefficiency - it's about me valuing artists and art and the craft of writing. It's about me understanding how hard it is to write, and that allowing AI in even to help write an essay is a slippery slope toward a world where novels are made through AI, films are made through AI, etc. There's a reason the art world is in agreement that this technology is inappropriate. Humans have made decisions again and again to not use certain tools because we understand that the cost is not worth it. There are appropriate technologies and inappropriate technologies. That's how many of us feel about AI.
She won't read any of this because her is dead because she asks AI to do all of it branding it as "efficiency". Maybe put this in a chat gpt format and probably she'll see it . Won't retain any information tho
“And your last question is asked in the form of a lie - you're assuming that I believe that inefficiency is morally superior, you assume that because I don't value efficiency like you, I must therefore value inefficiency.” This was all they needed to see. Good words mate
Yes there is, art is about going through the process, going through it you learn, your brain evolves, you develop. Using AI takes you out of having to go through the process, you don't learn shit and you don't actually do anything. You're not cool, you're not "efficient" you're not "ugh stop being the purity police" you just sound like a lazy b who doesn't actually create but rather mushes generated shit together and calls it "efficient". You're not fooling anyone, you're not a pioneer, you're not revolutionary, you're just lazy and stealing from other artists
Yeah I couldn’t disagree more with the whole sentiment of this piece. While I agree that policing people’s use of AI is certainly annoying, and the puritanical overtones that the policing can exhibit is insufferable, it is simultaneously true that AI is eroding our connection to art.
At one point you mention that AI helped you bring to life songs that you had written. While i find it admirable that you seek to involve yourself in multiple forms of art, the act of utilizing AI to make up for your lack of technical mastery over an instrument is just lazy. Art is not just the fruits of our labor; it’s the whole process that we take to get there. Instead of using AI to make up for your lack of musical talent why not take the time to learn the instrument? would that not also be a more rewarding experience anyways?
One of your comments suggests that you see the utilization of AI as a means increasing efficiency. I agree. But the current widespread utilization of AI isn’t being implemented in a way that’s meant to help artists efficiency, rather it’s doing the opposite by replacing them, which is an existential threat to the many mediums of art that we engage in.
appreciate the passion, but calling it “lazy” to use tools that help translate fully formed creative ideas into tangible output isn’t just elitist, it’s historically illiterate
by that logic, we should all go churn our own butter and learn violin before we’re allowed to express emotion through sound
art isn’t a hazing ritual (as i mentioned in this essay). it’s not made sacred by how inefficiently it’s created—it’s made sacred by what it conveys
i spent years writing those lyrics, journaling melodies, feeling the emotional shape of each song before tech caught up to let me share it. what you’re calling “lazy” is actually the culmination of a decade-long internal process. i didn’t skip the art by any means
and no, i don’t need to spend another decade learning Ableton or classical piano to satisfy your idea of what “counts.” that’s like telling someone with vision but no camera they’re not a real photographer until they build the lens from scratch
as for the broader “AI is replacing artists” claim—respectfully, the people being replaced weren’t making irreplaceable work. real artists don’t vanish because a tool showed up. they adapt. they evolve. they create anyway
AI isn’t the death of art. it’s the death of the gatekeeping that pretends struggle = virtue
i take care not to label myself as anything in life—bc i am many things and no one title defines me
but to answer your question: i didn’t train traditionally, and i don’t play instruments. but i did write the songs. the melodies lived in my head for years. i directed the emotional tone. i chose the sounds, the pacing, the vibe
so maybe i’m not a “musician” in the classical sense—but i am the reason those songs exist
i’m comfortable living in the grey. i don’t need a title to know the work came from me
On the topic of musical ventures - I agree it's a moot point to expect someone who wants to produce an album to learn all of the tools (both digital and physical in most musical cases.) The process would be valuable to you and would likely improve the outcome of your work, but it often takes years to master instruments and audio mixing.
However, why didn't you seek out artists who do have these years of expertise to work with? You could have supported their ventures financially and you and your work would have benefited from the fruits of collaboration and organic feedback loops.
people feel the need to “police” people’s use of AI because many of us do believe this attempt to normalize the use of AI is antithetical to the whole act of creation. You are comfortable living in the “grey”because I think you understand that you can’t claim a label if you’re not putting in the work to earn it.
AI is trained on many other artists work, so no, you can’t claim that the work wholesale came from you.
You use AI to edit, and yet I found a lot of this essay repetitive, as well as ignoring the main concerns about AI usage. You assume everyone who doesn't want to engage with AI is doing so because they think the work is worthless, but plenty of people understand that there are applications of AI that can be used as tools to assist creative work that still don't want to engage with AI. That's hardly the point people want to make when noting something as "AI-generated."
What most people critique is the theft from artists and the "productivity grindset." Using AI tools for removing repetitive statements and working through thoughts is entirely different from using a generative AI tool for creating a new image out of prompts. Generating images or music using AI is combing other people's work to create it, mostly without their knowledge. Yet the response to that is that it's simply another, newer technology.
The fact is: the calculator didn't steal formulas to be produced. Writing doesn't require stealing words from other's mouths. A synthesizer, while often using recorded sounds, still does not write a full song, and sampling work requires credit to be uploaded to streaming sites without risk of legal action. Collaboration requires credit. There's a reason why copyright law states it will only issue copyrights to original contributions and not any solely-AI generated work.
People are allowed to be interested in productivity and efficiency, but the desire to generate as much as possible using AI is not everyone's interest. It doesn't make them lesser than people who choose to use it, and it doesn't make them jealous of other's success with AI. This piece, which critiques people for thinking they're superior for not using AI as an editor and processor, clearly expresses a superiority of using it as such. It suggests near the end that others don't edit to remain authentic, which is simply not true.
If AI is helping you do your work better, it simply isn't ringing true here. You included subpar images created by midjourney, created circular arguments, threw in references to Plato and Buddhist thought out of context with little to connect them to your argument, and didn't have a rebuttal for the valid critiques of AI work. You didn't even touch on its impact on climate or online communities that have built their creative businesses only to have algorithms flooded with poorly designed midjourney art products. I'm glad you're proud of the creativity you express with AI tools, but publishing work pieced together by generative AI isn't cheating: it's theft.
Lol. Weren't you the one that said "taste is the new intelligence"? If that's so, congrats you have become tasteless. This was pure tackiness and vitriol towards your own insecurities. And the AI images have the same vibe as 2014 "boss" imagery. Ew.
This article should have been you arguing that your use of ai did not impede your individualism in your creative process. Instead, you weirdly chose to claim all detractors are jealous of you. It was very weird and reads very self-consciously. You have an argument, just stick to it?
Also, are we seriously claiming that presidents in hoodies "opened up conversations about formality, accessibility, and how we relate to power that wouldn't have happened otherwise."? Like come on.
Also, I encourage everyone to check out their newest posts on X! It really details their creative output.
AIs environmental impact alone should make one despise it, especially that of image and video generation. Generating an image using a powerful AI model takes as much energy as fully charging your smartphone. And the waste of water (https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/how-much-water-does-ai-consume)! We live on a finite planet with finite resources in the thick of a climate crisis.
Next, previously one would have to either create the art themselves or pay artists to create one's vision. If you're a writer, you're an artist – don't you want to be paid for doing your art? So do our fellow visual artists. You want to make a series about presidents in hoodies? Learn to draw or pay someone who does.
Machines should do our hard labour not create our art. "I want Al to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for Al to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." Author and videogame enthusiast Joanna Maciejewska.
this is the kind of comment that sounds like it’s rooted in moral clarity but is actually just aesthetic LARPing in the language of ethics
not to mention, the moral panic around AI’s environmental impact is wildly selective. do you apply the same outrage to video games? to TikTok servers? to Netflix streaming?
you’re condemning AI for using electricity… on a publishing platform that uses electricity… from a device that uses electricity… while linking me to a website that uses electricity
unless you’re sending handwritten letters by candlelight, miss me with the performative asceticism
Ah yes, the classic "you critique x yet participate in x" deflection. As a massively influential species on this planet, it is our collective responsibility to take care of it.
Supporting the use of AI is abhorrent for the data centers which contribute to environmental racism and degradation alone. The shear amount of energy and new infrastructure it requires is extremely destructive, especially on our Black communities in the south of the US. It is imperative that we give a fuck and actively work against that harm by refusing to participate in the product that drives it.
(Not to mention it removes your voice from a piece by replacing it with an algorithmic assumption of what is the most consumable content.)
I don’t want to read AI influenced first person content because I trust your intuitive system as an overruling animal more than I trust the alg. That’s what’s valuable about writing for me, and it’s intolerably distracting to me to know a writer is using AI to grapple with their own opinions. It makes me want to step away and let them figure out what they think. Sorry that this distresses you, but if you mean what you say, it shouldn’t. You can simply join the mainstream culture and leave us purists up our own asses. That’s absolutely fine. :)
This resonates with me a lot. Regardless of the domain application I don’t think AI replaces the grind. It just removes the friction of getting your ideas out there
I agree that throughout history, as you point out, innovation in art has always been seen as a threat to the previous ways of creating it. AI is different, however, in that it is attempting to pass itself off as human. When photography came along, no one was like "wait, is that a painting?". It was something new and completely distinguishable. One of the central goals of AI technology has been to advance to the point of it being indistinguishable from human creation: the more it looks and sounds like our thoughts and words, the more successful it is perceived to be.
For me, that right there is the root of the underlying unease surrounding AI. It completely destroys our ability to trust our own senses. So when people question whether your writing was generated by AI, I don't believe you need to take offence in that. It's a valid concern regarding a technology that is begging us now more than ever to question everything we see and hear. AI is destabilizing on a biological level for many, which is probably why people react so viscerally to it.
This article for example: you admit to using AI in your work, but since I don't (nor any of us) have any insight into your process of using AI, I don't actually know what is "you" as a writer or what was created by AI. I don't know if you read all the books you quoted above or prompted an AI to give you perfectly-suited snippets. Perhaps you should include a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts outlining your process to help readers understand where AI comes into the equation? That might mitigate some of the concerns about your writing's origins.
i hear what you’re saying, and i appreciate your comment but i'd like to clarify something since you mentioned not knowing what’s “me” and what’s not in this piece:
it’s all me.
every idea, every reference, every sentence was shaped by my voice and intention. i’m not outsourcing my thinking. i’m using tools to support it—just like anyone else might use Grammarly, or a copyeditor, or an index full of quotes they didn’t write from memory. none of that makes the work less mine.
and this piece wasn’t written because i’m offended by AI purists. it was written because i’ll continue using whatever helps me think and write more clearly. not to deceive anyone—but because it works. because it serves the ideas.
if a piece resonated, then it resonated. that’s real—regardless of the tools used to express it. and if it didn't land, that's fine too.
but this impulse to retroactively dissect it and question its validity after it already made you feel something is quite strange—definitely wouldn't classify it as literary critique
regardless of whatever it is, i won't be rearranging my process to accommodate it
I agree that how you choose to write is entirely up to you. We all have our own unique processes and tools that we use. Obviously, we're not out here writing our Substack posts with quill and ink. But due to the nature of AI being a technology that strives to mimic human writing to the point of not being able to tell what is human and what is machine, it's our responsibility as the humans to be transparent about how we're using it. Readers have a right to know. That's because human creation has value.
If the painting by a celebrated artist you paid a million dollars for was discovered to be a fake, it would suddenly be worthless. That's because the value was in the understanding that the work of art was authentic. The person who painted the fake also invested a huge amount of time and effort into forging the artwork. One could even argue the artistic merits of the forgery. But it would still be considered worthless because it's just a copy of the original that was aiming to profit off of someone else's original work. That is how most nowadays see AI, I would argue: a cheap forgery bent on profiting off of the struggles of humans (I might add that AI would not be anything without having learned everything it knows from our struggles).
I'm certainly not calling your writing a copy of the original, because of your clarification of how you use AI above. Readers today just don't know what is a full-blown forgery and what has just been supported by AI. That's why I'm saying that a disclaimer or clarification on your use of AI in each post will help people differentiate your work from someone who uses AI to write an entire post.
It totally depends on what you use AI for. Like, it's super cool to imagine Abraham Lincoln wearing a hoodie. Sure, I'll give you that.
But lots of people misuse AI. Like men creating AI girlfriends to abuse them or Chatgpt doing the iconic Ghibli on your pictures. That's fucking disgusting. If you support that, you're weird
i guess you didn't read the full article bc the gist was: idc what people who don't understand AI think about what i do with AI, on Substack, or anywhere else in my life
More than permission—encouragement! I think we should all be using all the tools we possibly can to help reduce the friction of bringing our ideas into reality. Not doing so is a disservice to ourselves and to the people who might have connected with the work that goes unshared.
Why would anyone bother to spend time reading, listening, or looking at something you couldn't be bothered to take the time to create yourself? Holy yap. Did ChatGPT write this drivel for you too?
Disappointing and lacks inspiration
This wasn't a post about inspiration. Thanks for reading.
I didn’t say it was about inspiration, if you could engage your full brain without AI you’d know I meant that your writing is uninspired
LOL you have a good one, Ana. xo
@ grok what did ana mean when she called me uninspired
Ana thank you for making me LOL - Your comment is also disappointing and lacks inspiration
I guess this is what you consider inspirational?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-163877308
Pretty disappointing if you ask me 😂
It seems your perception of reality is one where people should be mocked for celebrating nature but celebrated for actively diminshing the beauty and interest of the world. Please delete your account
Sure Cole, I’ll get on that right away! You trolls crack me up. Go write something with substance instead of just lurking in the comments.
@ grok how do i tell brian his perceptions are clear through the way he interacts with other people
Oh how sad... he can't think for himself...
Your comment invites comparison to your Substack but you should not invite comparison to your Substack.
Why not? Are we not here to compare thoughts?
Thank you for being honest! I am personally not interested in engaging with creators using ai at this time, so, good to know!
"thank you for being honest! i am personally not interested in engaging with creators who use tools to think better, write faster, and navigate complexity more efficiently. i prefer my content artisanal, inefficient, and ideologically pure." xo
Not every single thing in this world has to be optimized for maximum efficiency. Least of all writing.
no one said writing has to be optimized for efficiency. but the idea that it shouldn’t be—that clarity, iteration, or increased output are somehow bad—is just gatekeeping dressed up as virtue
What if you actually listened to the nearly 100% commentary coming at you - from real humans - telling you our motives? All of us are saying something else. Why do you know you're right, and we are wrong, about our own minds?
Girl stfu, you're not an artist. You steal from other artists and try to brand it as “efficiency” no one's falling for that. Entitled b
Hoping to engage in this discussion by leading with some assumptions of my own: I understand how historically tech/ innovation has allowed for efficiencies that were initially viewed as ‘the undoing’ of process, but proven to be incorrect. But, right now, I am very much against AI. I know it can be integrated into a creative process for some but it can also bypass so many important steps which allow a creative to learn and evolve. This concerns me as AI is not a distinct innovation but a way to shorten or bypass traditional processes, and i can’t see it claiming its own realm of artistry like painting to photography or film to digital.
Jane Jacobs speaks on how forgetting tradition and process historically is to blame for cultural dark ages, and I guess I also share this concern.
I also want to inquire why AI generated content should be exempt from critique (or policing as you say) by others, as thats how all writing and art evolves and stays relevant.
i appreciate the thoughtfulness here, truly. but i think you’re misreading what AI does in practice for many of us. i’m not bypassing process—i’m accelerating access to it
there’s this false binary being floated that either you struggle manually, or you’re skipping growth. but growth doesn’t come from formatting footnotes by hand or memorizing Adobe workflows—it comes from engaging your own thinking more deeply and consistently. and AI lets me do that at scale
as for the idea that AI can’t claim its own artistic territory: that’s simply premature. photography wasn’t seen as an art form at first either. neither was collage, or film, or jazz, or the synthesizer. every new medium feels “lesser” until someone with vision proves otherwise
and re: critique—i never said AI work shouldn’t be critiqued. critique is welcome. reductionism isn’t. people aren’t engaging with the work, they’re just trying to sniff out whether it was “too good” to be human. it’s a purity test, not literary analysis
lastly, the whole “artists should struggle” thing i reject completely. romanticizing suffering is one of the most spiritually bankrupt defaults in modern creative culture and i'm not sure why people are so drawn to do it tbh
i’m confused — AI isn’t formatting your footnotes or making Adobe workflows, it’s writing passages of the piece right? how does writing the piece fall under the category of “grunt work” in writing?
if a writer needs AI to get to a complete piece because they struggle to articulate it themselves, then has writing actually become more accessible to them? if anything i feel like acquiring writing skills becomes less accessible if you prevent yourself from practicing them / start to believe you don’t have to. once the model gets paywalled or the model weights degenerate (both things that can and do happen to these corporate LLMs) then that access gets lost
I've been writing for over 30 years. I'll be okay. Thank you so much for your concern though.
I don’t think they were suggesting you learn the alphabet, sis
I love how people who don't understand AI assume you can just plug some magical prompt into an LLM and one-shot an entire essay. It's really cute.
i’m a phd student in computer science and robotics. the first time i saw GPT was on arxiv so can you be civil lol
Kill shot. No response
Nearly everyone here understands the situation better than you, it appears.
OK! Very telling last sentence!
You don't know why people are so drawn to artistic suffering? Then you sure ain't like the rest of us here.
Here's my graduate thesis about studies connecting artistic madness and genius. The scientific backing is very thick. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LBBiP_32tQoRxUj28YG_ac2q1dRccQ-Y/view?usp=sharing
Did AI not tell you about that?
Here's why: AI cannot judge for you, it can only perform.
You are the judge. You asked the wrong questions.
Thank you for posting your gradute thesis!! I look forward to reading it :]
"Access to process" is crazy. That's literally just the process. Have chatgpt tell you what "process over product" has historically meant to any number of creatives throughout history. But be sure to tell it to be honest and imagine itself as a human with empathy
I'd just rather follow people who aren't using these tools and are doing the painstaking work of writing and creating without them, like myself. Even the creators of AI are terrified of what it will do the human psyche and society, but yeah, this is totally just another case of baseless fear toward new technology. Only commenting because this post didn't offer any reason to dislike it other than jealousy, false nobility, or needless abstinence.
as i mentioned in the post, there is nothing noble about suffering through an inefficient creative process
but to each their own, i suppose
Efficiency is a tremendously dangerous thing to value over other concerns.
why? why is being efficient dangerous? what should you value more than efficiency? what makes being inefficient morally superior?
I would have to break down my entire worldview to answer your questions. I think there are millions of things to value more than efficiency, as most of the problems in modernity have been created by an underlying myth that our issues are mechanical and can be solved through more efficiency, which they cannot. And your last question is asked in the form of a lie - you're assuming that I believe that inefficiency is morally superior, because you assume that I because I don't value efficiency like you, I must therefore value inefficiency. My moral concerns with AI have little to do with efficiency, and far more to do with the fact that this is a novel technology that its proponents claim will upend the world in unpredictable ways. As we didn't understand how social media was impacting our minds as we adopted it, we don't know how AI will impact our minds: the unreality it might create. And AI is more powerful than social media in that it has the ability to accelerate everything - including and especially the processes/tech/systems we know to already be problematic.
When I said I would rather follow people who are putting the real work in, it's not about me valorizing inefficiency - it's about me valuing artists and art and the craft of writing. It's about me understanding how hard it is to write, and that allowing AI in even to help write an essay is a slippery slope toward a world where novels are made through AI, films are made through AI, etc. There's a reason the art world is in agreement that this technology is inappropriate. Humans have made decisions again and again to not use certain tools because we understand that the cost is not worth it. There are appropriate technologies and inappropriate technologies. That's how many of us feel about AI.
You’ve articulated similar thoughts I had so well. Thanks for your eloquence and cogency (if that’s a word!)!
She won't read any of this because her is dead because she asks AI to do all of it branding it as "efficiency". Maybe put this in a chat gpt format and probably she'll see it . Won't retain any information tho
you want that to be true so desperately.
perfectly said!
Beautifully said!
“And your last question is asked in the form of a lie - you're assuming that I believe that inefficiency is morally superior, you assume that because I don't value efficiency like you, I must therefore value inefficiency.” This was all they needed to see. Good words mate
Yes there is, art is about going through the process, going through it you learn, your brain evolves, you develop. Using AI takes you out of having to go through the process, you don't learn shit and you don't actually do anything. You're not cool, you're not "efficient" you're not "ugh stop being the purity police" you just sound like a lazy b who doesn't actually create but rather mushes generated shit together and calls it "efficient". You're not fooling anyone, you're not a pioneer, you're not revolutionary, you're just lazy and stealing from other artists
Yeah I couldn’t disagree more with the whole sentiment of this piece. While I agree that policing people’s use of AI is certainly annoying, and the puritanical overtones that the policing can exhibit is insufferable, it is simultaneously true that AI is eroding our connection to art.
At one point you mention that AI helped you bring to life songs that you had written. While i find it admirable that you seek to involve yourself in multiple forms of art, the act of utilizing AI to make up for your lack of technical mastery over an instrument is just lazy. Art is not just the fruits of our labor; it’s the whole process that we take to get there. Instead of using AI to make up for your lack of musical talent why not take the time to learn the instrument? would that not also be a more rewarding experience anyways?
One of your comments suggests that you see the utilization of AI as a means increasing efficiency. I agree. But the current widespread utilization of AI isn’t being implemented in a way that’s meant to help artists efficiency, rather it’s doing the opposite by replacing them, which is an existential threat to the many mediums of art that we engage in.
appreciate the passion, but calling it “lazy” to use tools that help translate fully formed creative ideas into tangible output isn’t just elitist, it’s historically illiterate
by that logic, we should all go churn our own butter and learn violin before we’re allowed to express emotion through sound
art isn’t a hazing ritual (as i mentioned in this essay). it’s not made sacred by how inefficiently it’s created—it’s made sacred by what it conveys
i spent years writing those lyrics, journaling melodies, feeling the emotional shape of each song before tech caught up to let me share it. what you’re calling “lazy” is actually the culmination of a decade-long internal process. i didn’t skip the art by any means
and no, i don’t need to spend another decade learning Ableton or classical piano to satisfy your idea of what “counts.” that’s like telling someone with vision but no camera they’re not a real photographer until they build the lens from scratch
as for the broader “AI is replacing artists” claim—respectfully, the people being replaced weren’t making irreplaceable work. real artists don’t vanish because a tool showed up. they adapt. they evolve. they create anyway
AI isn’t the death of art. it’s the death of the gatekeeping that pretends struggle = virtue
would you call yourself a musician then for having put those songs together despite their use of AI?
to be clear, you're doing exactly what this article was about
the real question isn’t whether i am a musician—it’s why are you so emotionally invested in policing whether i am or not?
maybe reflect on that before responding.
i take care not to label myself as anything in life—bc i am many things and no one title defines me
but to answer your question: i didn’t train traditionally, and i don’t play instruments. but i did write the songs. the melodies lived in my head for years. i directed the emotional tone. i chose the sounds, the pacing, the vibe
so maybe i’m not a “musician” in the classical sense—but i am the reason those songs exist
i’m comfortable living in the grey. i don’t need a title to know the work came from me
On the topic of musical ventures - I agree it's a moot point to expect someone who wants to produce an album to learn all of the tools (both digital and physical in most musical cases.) The process would be valuable to you and would likely improve the outcome of your work, but it often takes years to master instruments and audio mixing.
However, why didn't you seek out artists who do have these years of expertise to work with? You could have supported their ventures financially and you and your work would have benefited from the fruits of collaboration and organic feedback loops.
people feel the need to “police” people’s use of AI because many of us do believe this attempt to normalize the use of AI is antithetical to the whole act of creation. You are comfortable living in the “grey”because I think you understand that you can’t claim a label if you’re not putting in the work to earn it.
AI is trained on many other artists work, so no, you can’t claim that the work wholesale came from you.
You use AI to edit, and yet I found a lot of this essay repetitive, as well as ignoring the main concerns about AI usage. You assume everyone who doesn't want to engage with AI is doing so because they think the work is worthless, but plenty of people understand that there are applications of AI that can be used as tools to assist creative work that still don't want to engage with AI. That's hardly the point people want to make when noting something as "AI-generated."
What most people critique is the theft from artists and the "productivity grindset." Using AI tools for removing repetitive statements and working through thoughts is entirely different from using a generative AI tool for creating a new image out of prompts. Generating images or music using AI is combing other people's work to create it, mostly without their knowledge. Yet the response to that is that it's simply another, newer technology.
The fact is: the calculator didn't steal formulas to be produced. Writing doesn't require stealing words from other's mouths. A synthesizer, while often using recorded sounds, still does not write a full song, and sampling work requires credit to be uploaded to streaming sites without risk of legal action. Collaboration requires credit. There's a reason why copyright law states it will only issue copyrights to original contributions and not any solely-AI generated work.
People are allowed to be interested in productivity and efficiency, but the desire to generate as much as possible using AI is not everyone's interest. It doesn't make them lesser than people who choose to use it, and it doesn't make them jealous of other's success with AI. This piece, which critiques people for thinking they're superior for not using AI as an editor and processor, clearly expresses a superiority of using it as such. It suggests near the end that others don't edit to remain authentic, which is simply not true.
If AI is helping you do your work better, it simply isn't ringing true here. You included subpar images created by midjourney, created circular arguments, threw in references to Plato and Buddhist thought out of context with little to connect them to your argument, and didn't have a rebuttal for the valid critiques of AI work. You didn't even touch on its impact on climate or online communities that have built their creative businesses only to have algorithms flooded with poorly designed midjourney art products. I'm glad you're proud of the creativity you express with AI tools, but publishing work pieced together by generative AI isn't cheating: it's theft.
Lol. Weren't you the one that said "taste is the new intelligence"? If that's so, congrats you have become tasteless. This was pure tackiness and vitriol towards your own insecurities. And the AI images have the same vibe as 2014 "boss" imagery. Ew.
how's your 1 subscriber doing?
How come you attacked the person's subscriber count & not defend yourself on the critque of being "tasteless"?
This article should have been you arguing that your use of ai did not impede your individualism in your creative process. Instead, you weirdly chose to claim all detractors are jealous of you. It was very weird and reads very self-consciously. You have an argument, just stick to it?
Also, are we seriously claiming that presidents in hoodies "opened up conversations about formality, accessibility, and how we relate to power that wouldn't have happened otherwise."? Like come on.
Also, I encourage everyone to check out their newest posts on X! It really details their creative output.
is this satire?
sure.
The Tommy Wiseau / Brad Podray move, nice.
AIs environmental impact alone should make one despise it, especially that of image and video generation. Generating an image using a powerful AI model takes as much energy as fully charging your smartphone. And the waste of water (https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/how-much-water-does-ai-consume)! We live on a finite planet with finite resources in the thick of a climate crisis.
Next, previously one would have to either create the art themselves or pay artists to create one's vision. If you're a writer, you're an artist – don't you want to be paid for doing your art? So do our fellow visual artists. You want to make a series about presidents in hoodies? Learn to draw or pay someone who does.
Machines should do our hard labour not create our art. "I want Al to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for Al to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." Author and videogame enthusiast Joanna Maciejewska.
this is the kind of comment that sounds like it’s rooted in moral clarity but is actually just aesthetic LARPing in the language of ethics
not to mention, the moral panic around AI’s environmental impact is wildly selective. do you apply the same outrage to video games? to TikTok servers? to Netflix streaming?
you’re condemning AI for using electricity… on a publishing platform that uses electricity… from a device that uses electricity… while linking me to a website that uses electricity
unless you’re sending handwritten letters by candlelight, miss me with the performative asceticism
Ah yes, the classic "you critique x yet participate in x" deflection. As a massively influential species on this planet, it is our collective responsibility to take care of it.
Supporting the use of AI is abhorrent for the data centers which contribute to environmental racism and degradation alone. The shear amount of energy and new infrastructure it requires is extremely destructive, especially on our Black communities in the south of the US. It is imperative that we give a fuck and actively work against that harm by refusing to participate in the product that drives it.
(Not to mention it removes your voice from a piece by replacing it with an algorithmic assumption of what is the most consumable content.)
Who's purity testing now?
I don’t want to read AI influenced first person content because I trust your intuitive system as an overruling animal more than I trust the alg. That’s what’s valuable about writing for me, and it’s intolerably distracting to me to know a writer is using AI to grapple with their own opinions. It makes me want to step away and let them figure out what they think. Sorry that this distresses you, but if you mean what you say, it shouldn’t. You can simply join the mainstream culture and leave us purists up our own asses. That’s absolutely fine. :)
It’s becoming clear that many purists seem to have reading comprehension issues.
Mmm, how convenient for you.
This resonates with me a lot. Regardless of the domain application I don’t think AI replaces the grind. It just removes the friction of getting your ideas out there
100% — and glad to hear it resonated :)
I agree that throughout history, as you point out, innovation in art has always been seen as a threat to the previous ways of creating it. AI is different, however, in that it is attempting to pass itself off as human. When photography came along, no one was like "wait, is that a painting?". It was something new and completely distinguishable. One of the central goals of AI technology has been to advance to the point of it being indistinguishable from human creation: the more it looks and sounds like our thoughts and words, the more successful it is perceived to be.
For me, that right there is the root of the underlying unease surrounding AI. It completely destroys our ability to trust our own senses. So when people question whether your writing was generated by AI, I don't believe you need to take offence in that. It's a valid concern regarding a technology that is begging us now more than ever to question everything we see and hear. AI is destabilizing on a biological level for many, which is probably why people react so viscerally to it.
This article for example: you admit to using AI in your work, but since I don't (nor any of us) have any insight into your process of using AI, I don't actually know what is "you" as a writer or what was created by AI. I don't know if you read all the books you quoted above or prompted an AI to give you perfectly-suited snippets. Perhaps you should include a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts outlining your process to help readers understand where AI comes into the equation? That might mitigate some of the concerns about your writing's origins.
i hear what you’re saying, and i appreciate your comment but i'd like to clarify something since you mentioned not knowing what’s “me” and what’s not in this piece:
it’s all me.
every idea, every reference, every sentence was shaped by my voice and intention. i’m not outsourcing my thinking. i’m using tools to support it—just like anyone else might use Grammarly, or a copyeditor, or an index full of quotes they didn’t write from memory. none of that makes the work less mine.
and this piece wasn’t written because i’m offended by AI purists. it was written because i’ll continue using whatever helps me think and write more clearly. not to deceive anyone—but because it works. because it serves the ideas.
if a piece resonated, then it resonated. that’s real—regardless of the tools used to express it. and if it didn't land, that's fine too.
but this impulse to retroactively dissect it and question its validity after it already made you feel something is quite strange—definitely wouldn't classify it as literary critique
regardless of whatever it is, i won't be rearranging my process to accommodate it
I agree that how you choose to write is entirely up to you. We all have our own unique processes and tools that we use. Obviously, we're not out here writing our Substack posts with quill and ink. But due to the nature of AI being a technology that strives to mimic human writing to the point of not being able to tell what is human and what is machine, it's our responsibility as the humans to be transparent about how we're using it. Readers have a right to know. That's because human creation has value.
If the painting by a celebrated artist you paid a million dollars for was discovered to be a fake, it would suddenly be worthless. That's because the value was in the understanding that the work of art was authentic. The person who painted the fake also invested a huge amount of time and effort into forging the artwork. One could even argue the artistic merits of the forgery. But it would still be considered worthless because it's just a copy of the original that was aiming to profit off of someone else's original work. That is how most nowadays see AI, I would argue: a cheap forgery bent on profiting off of the struggles of humans (I might add that AI would not be anything without having learned everything it knows from our struggles).
I'm certainly not calling your writing a copy of the original, because of your clarification of how you use AI above. Readers today just don't know what is a full-blown forgery and what has just been supported by AI. That's why I'm saying that a disclaimer or clarification on your use of AI in each post will help people differentiate your work from someone who uses AI to write an entire post.
It totally depends on what you use AI for. Like, it's super cool to imagine Abraham Lincoln wearing a hoodie. Sure, I'll give you that.
But lots of people misuse AI. Like men creating AI girlfriends to abuse them or Chatgpt doing the iconic Ghibli on your pictures. That's fucking disgusting. If you support that, you're weird
oh you mean like this: https://x.com/wildbarestepf/status/1906389129346289873
i guess you didn't read the full article bc the gist was: idc what people who don't understand AI think about what i do with AI, on Substack, or anywhere else in my life
take care xo
I'm blocking.
who's the purist, then?
why is it cool to use ai to make an image of abraham lincoln in a hoodie but not abraham lincoln as a studio ghibli character?
Because Miyazaki spent years in developing his movie frames. You can't steal that and call it a "filter".
Abraham Lincoln is dead. It's silly to imagine him in a hoodie
How liberating to read. Thank you for giving yourself permission to use it — and, in sharing your view, giving us permission too.
More than permission—encouragement! I think we should all be using all the tools we possibly can to help reduce the friction of bringing our ideas into reality. Not doing so is a disservice to ourselves and to the people who might have connected with the work that goes unshared.
Why would anyone bother to spend time reading, listening, or looking at something you couldn't be bothered to take the time to create yourself? Holy yap. Did ChatGPT write this drivel for you too?
love when someone accuses you of not writing your own work and then blocks you before you can respond—very bold. very brave. very allergic to dissent.
i did create it myself.
the thinking, the structure, the argument—that’s all mine. the tool supported the work, it didn’t replace it
if you read something and assumed i couldn’t be bothered to make it, that’s not a reflection of my effort
that’s a reflection of how uncomfortable it makes you to see someone use new tools well