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Hi everyone. Spring has sprung in New York and I spent the weekend venturing outside to escape the Horrors of online.

I’ve been thinking a lot about generative AI recently and whether it discourages people from confronting or trying hard things. Last week’s AI discourse, which built off the backlash to the AI Studio Ghibli trend, affirmed this feeling for me.

What are we taking away from ourselves by offloading the mundane, the practice, the process, to AI? I think we risk losing our abilities to think, to learn, and to create.

I think it’s appropriate that I write something about this topic in the same week that I am talking about Severance (coming Thursday). In Severance, the whole concept of the severance chip is to detach you from the boring, stressful, and monotonous workday. For many of the protagonists, severing is also a way to detach from their internal suffering for eight hours a day. But as they come to understand over the course of the past two seasons, detaching yourself completely from the hard stuff is not necessarily good for you.

Last thing: Today’s letter is sponsored by 1440 Media. Learn more about them below.

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Chat, is “typing prompts into OpenAI” an artform?

It was inevitable that AI would become a lightning rod in the culture war. Now, the topic of generative AI has become a sort of purity test for artists online.

The latest discourse stemmed from the AI-generated Studio Ghibli memes that blew up on X after OpenAI’s new image generator went live last Tuesday. Tech bros and conservative politicians were the ones spearheading the trend, leading to a dayslong debate over what AI should be used for and what constitutes art. For every AI image, there seemed to be a post espousing the joys of learning how to make art yourself. 

Ultimately the primary question coming out of the discourse is this: Does AI make art more accessible?

It depends on what your end goal is. If you are looking to learn or try a new artistic medium, the barrier to entry for engaging with arts and crafts is already low without AI. You almost always have access to a pencil or paintbrush or free software that allows you to express yourself creatively. 

In reality, what many people arguing in favor of genAI want is a near-perfect product instantly. These people aren’t interested in learning how to make something. Rather, they are looking for a quick fix of dopamine or validation online. 

The streamer xQc jumped on the Studio Ghibli trend and, after getting comments about creating AI slop, summarized what many AI evangelists seemed to think about art.

“Why would I care? I don’t consume the method, I consume the product,” xQc said on a stream. (A likely thing to say from a creator who has been accused of stealing content from others for his own channels.)

The AI Studio Ghibli images are less so art than memes to be consumed once and immediately discarded after a new trend presents itself. That’s the thing about trends — they don’t last.

Most people are not creating AI images with the intention of having it be impactful. Instead, they are using AI as a tool for keeping up with the hamster wheel of the internet and the constant demand for new content.

Some insisted that AI allows non-artists to become artists, which just feels like an argument for argument’s sake.  Because if you want to participate in an AI trend, just say that. Most people online enjoy participating in the latest viral trend. It doesn’t make us all artists or creators.

Clearly, I’m not a big fan of genAI. I don’t find it useful in my personal life. Also, as a writer, I find the prospect of AI training on my work discomforting.

I’m also skeptical of what genAI is doing to people. In a time when everyone expects convenience and instant gratification, I fear the rise of genAI is fast tracking us toward a WALL-E-esque future in which we are overdependent on technology to do and think for us.

The key takeaway from this discourse is that a lot of people are looking to devalue, undercut, and discredit creative professionals and artists. This sentiment is a clear product of the anti-intellectualism and threats to expression that have been on the rise in recent years. It’s an enticing prospect to get AI to perform tasks you don’t like, know how to do, or want to do in an instant. But what value do you personally get in the end? 

I don’t believe in completely removing friction or difficulty in your life. I don’t say this in a suffering artist way. I mean it in the sense that practice, failure, falling short, and starting again are critical to the human experience. It helps us grow. If no one wants to learn new things or practice old ones, we risk losing our skills, abilities, and resilience. Is that not what the old adage of life being about the journey, not the destination, is all about?

There were many people encouraging others to make their own art or commission small artists to make their creative visions come to life instead of using AI. I shudder to think of all the people who are missing out on all of the different mediums for creative expression. Nothing brings me more joy than doing arts and crafts with my friends, even if I’m not good at it. The point is to try something and to express myself. 

Despite all this, I don’t actually consider myself to be an anti-AI hardliner. I don’t think it’s practical to say that people shouldn’t use it. Like most technological advancements, its ubiquity is inevitable. 

In fact, it’s already happening. We use AI, intentionally or not, everyday because it is embedded in most of our social media and web products. But I think there are ways to use it more responsibly as a creative tool, especially in the arts.

I have a lot of respect for artists who use AI as a tool for creative collaboration. Imogen Heap is one of these technologist artists that come to mind. I’ve always found her outlook on AI to be interesting. In an interview with Musicradar, Heap had this to say about using AI as a tool compared to using AI music generators to pump out songs.

“I live and breathe music, and I know that the human story is what people want,” she said. “I'm not excited about AI making stuff that sounds like something a human could do — I want to hear things that humans have never imagined.”

She has created a vocal model for artists to use called ai.mogen, which can make a singer or instrument sound like her. It is a model that she created, controls, and has ownership over, which I think is critical when we think about AI, artists, and collaboration. 

We are learning the boundaries and capabilities of AI and what it can do to help and assist in the artistic process. AI can unlock possibilities and streamline processes so that artists are freed up to do more. However, that potential often gets lost in the online conversation in favor of the sexier prospect of on-demand, instantaneous art. Moving forward, I think we must keep valuing and experimenting with the artistic process — because that is where the humanity in art lies.

8Tracks

Every Monday letter gets a playlist. This week is about feeling the sun and welcoming spring into your heart. Go outside!!!

• The Steps - Haim

• Solar Power - Lorde

• I Know A Place - Muna

• Sally, When The Wine Runs Out - Role Model

• Bumblebee - Dora Jar

• 4 American Dollars - US Girls

• The King - Sarah Kinsley

• Be Sweet - Japanese Breakfast

Yap Sesh

Other stuff I want to show you

• If you were on the fence about the AI Studio Ghibli memes, the fun quickly ended after the official X accounts for the White House and Israel Defense Forces used OpenAI’s new image generator to make photos of an ICE arrest and the Israeli military in the style of Studio Ghibli.

• Niall Horan and Dua Lipa both released 5th anniversary projects for their 2020 albums. Five years feels a little too soon to do an anniversary drop, don’t you think? At first, I thought it was because the pandemic cut these album cycles short, then I remembered that Future Nostalgia catapulted Dua Lipa into the stratosphere for like two years. Although, I do think we should give more love to Niall Horan’s Heartbreak Weather because it did not get its time in the sun! 

• There was a lot of discussion over influencer Remi Bader’s weight loss surgery, which she revealed last week. A lot of people were disappointed, as Bader rose to prominence as a plus-size influencer and there has increasingly been a cultural shift back toward thinness with the rise of weight loss drugs like Ozempic. 

• On a related note, read this Substack essay from Amanda Richards on fat influencers losing weight, but here’s an excerpt: “Fat influencers earned their influence by asserting their fatness loudly in a world that dared and rewarded them to do so, and their followers cheered them on from the sidelines, engaging with their content and clicking their links and buying their collabs. Now, some of those very same people have distanced themselves from that assertion, shrinking their bodies while simultaneously dampening the volume on their old messages and turning up the dial on new ones — health, bodily autonomy, personal catharsis, whatever.”

• Kenan Thompson responded to the speculation over Morgan Wallen’s abrupt exit during the latest episode of “Saturday Night Live” and his cryptic Instagram Story after.