AI means not you, not us.

Rowena Henderson's
Klimt Sunflower earrings

I wanted to write some ramblings about AI since quite a while. Here on my blog seems to be a better place than on social media. Here, only folks who care to read my posts without feeling that I rub something unwanted under their nose will hop by... (photos of some of my 2024 beadwork just for attention).

This blog article is dedicated with all my 💗 to Dini Alves, a soulful lady and talented bead-artist who passed away in December 2024.

 

Silver Wings, Happy Wings,
own design

 So AI... Sigh. I've always had mixed feelings about AI. AI is something that replaces humans a little bit more every day. Clerks and cashiers disappear. We are asked to scan our own stuff, to fill out forms ourselves.  It's easy... but so sad. People are replaced by machines in many places. Now if this was to give us more time to do our daily yoga, cooking and have more playtime with children, it would be nice. But in fact, it only takes away jobs, whilst money goes in the same fat pockets. The number of little pockets filled is diminishing at an alarming rate. Technology is nice, but it should be a tool for humans, not replace humans.

 

Mairi Carlson's Klimt Flower Garden

Halfpenney's Drum for IBW

In December I let myself be tempted... and asked an AI image generator to make something quick for my Christmas and New Year's wishes. It was fun to do and the result cute. AI can make cool images. And I don't consider them as mine, and also not as "Art"... Nope. An Art is something that implies skills and imagination. The resulting images can be really lovely. And at first sight, nothing seems wrong with having fun, having a play... But...

It made me feel uncomfortable. Because AI uses other people's work and mixes it.

I saw a post on Facebook - and although Facebook is not a reference, the text in this entry from the The Red Hand Files, by Nick Cave (a musician), answering 2 young songwriters, sums up my feelings pretty well:

 

"Open Heart" - Pregnancy Chime Bola, own design

Q1: I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT. I was talking to a songwriter in a band that was using ChatGPT to write his lyrics, because it was so much 'faster and easier.' I couldn't really argue against that. I know you've talked about ChatGPT before, but what's wrong with making things faster and easier?

LEON, LOS ANGELES, USA

Q2: Any advice to a young songwriter just starting out?

CHARLIE, LEEDS, UK

 

A: Dear Leon and Charlie,

 

In the story of the creation, God makes the world, and everything in it, in six days. On the seventh day he rests. The day of rest is significant because it suggests that the creation required a certain effort on God's part, that some form of artistic struggle had taken place. This struggle is the validating impulse that gives God's world its intrinsic meaning. The world becomes more than just an object full of other objects, rather it is imbued with the vital spirit, the pneuma, of its creator.

 

 

Teyema earrings, BWG Journal 103, Oct. 2024, own design

 

ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavours animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning. It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving.

 

Nancy Jenner's "Corrine" design
Klimtified by Yours Truly

ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That 'songwriter 'you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write 'his' lyrics because it is 'faster and easier ,'is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put it politely, should fucking desist if he wants to continue calling himself a songwriter.

 

ChatGPT’s intent is to eliminate the process of creation and its attendant challenges, viewing it as nothing more than a time-wasting inconvenience that stands in the way of the commodity itself. Why strive?, it contends. Why bother with the artistic process and its accompanying trials? Why shouldn’t we make it 'faster and easier?'

 

 

IBW free pattern - Beaded Marbles for Solitaire Board

 

Sue Wightman's Christingle Xmas Tree

When the God of the Bible looked upon what He had created, He did so with a sense of accomplishment and saw that 'it was good'. 'It was good 'because it required something of His own self, and His struggle imbued creation with a moral imperative, in short love. 

 

Charlie, even though the creative act requires considerable effort, in the end you will be contributing to the vast network of love that supports human existence. There are all sorts of temptations in this world that will eat away at your creative spirit, but none more fiendish than that boundless machine of artistic demoralisation, ChatGPT.

 

Sylvia Fairhurst's
Priscilla Pinguin

As humans, we so often feel helpless in our own smallness, yet still we find the resilience to do and make beautiful things, and this is where the meaning of life resides. 

Nature reminds us of this constantly. The world is often cast as a purely malignant place, but still the joy of creation exerts itself, and as the sun rises upon the struggle of the day, the Great Crested Grebe dances upon the water. It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning. 

 

This impulse – the creative dance – that is now being so cynically undermined, must be defended at all costs, and just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world.

 

Love, Nick

 

Nancy Jenner's Ginger Bead Man

Can you feel how it is all about things that one cannot see but know is real and important? Feelings are what makes us humans, real and true. I am not a God-this or god-that person. Maybe you aren't either but haven't ran away yet. So perhaps this will speak more to you: 

Reading the above lines, I strongly felt the same emotion when reading a chapter in Harry Potter -> the moment when he chooses to bury the House Elf Dobby without using magic. Out of respect, he pulled up his sleeves and dedicated time, effort and sweat to honor Dobby's sacrifice, for he died while rescuing Harry and his friends from Malfoy Manor, demonstrating his loyalty and bravery. 

Kathy Fritz's Champagne Bottle (IBW)

Art and acts of this importance should be meaningful, soulful. That's where our value resides. Inside of us, inside of what we do and create.

And this revealed to me why I didn't feel happiness or real satisfaction in the making of these images. 

 

If you've read this until the end, thank you! 

Happy New Year and much love to you.

Cath

Bow & Mistletoe, own design