OPINION: AI advancement heralds an artistic devolution

By AIDAN MA ’23 VISUAL MANAGING EDITOR

If you have been on social media at all lately, you’ve likely heard of the latest technological phenomenon: AI art. Programs like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E have exploded in popularity as of late, sparking much discussion and controversy about intellectual property, creativity, and the nature of art itself. With a prompt as specific or broad as the user wants, a piece that might take a professional artist hours to bring to life is created within seconds. This image isn’t pieced together or collaged from other images off the Internet either; every image generated by one of these programs is wholly original—to an extent.

These works are not created out of thin air. To have the necessary information to run, they must be fed vast amounts of images created by real artists, turning them into code that they can then imitate. That means that a user could theoretically “commission” a piece from any artist in history, dead or alive, if their art is even remotely present on the internet. The possibilities are boundless and the ideas are limitless, but one central question emerges: where does this leave artists?

When lines of code can imitate the various idiosyncrasies of an art style, the position that artists hold in this world becomes unclear. The hours of work it took to create a piece and the years it took to nurture the skills needed to get to a commercial level suddenly become irrelevant. We live in the age of convenience, and when everything, from food to household chores, can be ordered and done with a tap of a finger, why wouldn’t creativity be the next frontier?

Ethically, AI art lies in an ambiguous position. Artists never consented to having their images used and consumed by these programs to churn out works faster than they could imagine. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the companies running these programs, with a group of artists filing a class action against Midjourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt, the companies responsible for some of the most prolific AI programs out at the moment.

Some argue that what AI does is arguably the same as what people do, just at a much faster rate; after all, learning is all about being influenced by those around you. Yet, the key differences between machine and human learning is that people learn to improve, and AI programs learn to replace. It becomes much clearer the position these artists were put in when they’re art is actively used by technological giants for this sole purpose of replacement.

The ethical dilemma of programs like these is complex, but AI art forces us to confront the uncomfortable reality of technological progress and automation. At its core, the purpose of automation is to reduce the skill and labor it takes to produce. In a perfect world, this would benefit the entire population: employees could work fewer hours, products would cost less, and everyone would be satisfied. But AI art doesn’t do any of these things.

Aside from subjective quality (there is an argument present that AI art is just plain bad), it actively hurts

By HENRY RITTS ’24 STAFF WRITER

Last November, Xander Hoishik ’24, a 5th former, performed live at The Gem, a local speakeasy. His band, Twilight of the Frog Gods, played an over 2 hour set list, featuring fan favorites that ranged from Barracuda by Heart to Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen to Brutal by Olivia Rodrigo.

Hoishik has been the guitarist for the band ever since it came into being four years ago. He first got into guitar when he received one for Christmas at the young age of six. Eventually, he began to take it more seriously and originally took lessons with

Oaklawn-Tuttle Director of Vocal Music, Yoon Soo Lim, when he was in 5th grade.

Through Earth Song Creative Arts, an educational, music and wellness program, he was placed in a band with his current bandmates. Although some shows are still through Earth Song, most of Hoishik’s gigs are independently driven by the band.

“I really look up to guitarists who can hold their own in a band, some of my biggest inspirations are real strong at not just guitar, but at songwriting and performing. I really look up to people like Hendrix, Tom Morello, Matt Bellamy, Jerry Cantrell, and Slash,” Hoishik said.

He also had this to say about creatives and consumers alike. The lack of story, labor, and soul—the integral processes of creation—needed to generate these pieces devalues them from the start, and while that might keep gallery artists safe, graphic designers, illustrators, and various other commercial artists face a much his love of music, “I love the creativity of music because you can do anything you want, and the expressiveness of it. I don’t feel there is any better way to express yourself. People interact with me here at Hill, and those people who came to my show would never have expected me to do what I did at the show. You get into a completely different character when you are performing. Everything around you, the world. the audience goes mute. You are just in the moment playing music. There is no other feeling like playing live.” grimmer future.

If you have ever been to one of his gigs, you can truly see his respect for showmanship and rock and roll. He even played through a lacerated finger last November.

In an interview with the Twilight of the Frog Gods’ singer, Camryn Snow, she praised Xander for being “very confident” and “extremely talented.” Looking forward, Xander hopes to play more shows at bigger venues with more songs. Although the Twilight of the Frog Gods has only done cover work, he says that “we have about 18 originals in various stages…and our goal is within the next year to play a show that is only originals.” This future album remains unnamed as he is focusing on producing, “50 or so songs, so that we have a wide range to pick from.” He spends most of his nights working diligently in sound production for this music. He says he is able to make time for music despite the often overwhelming demands of The Hill School.

The Twilight of the Frog Gods are performing live at Rivet here in Pottstown in late April or early May.

The zeitgeist of the 21st century is one of unrestrained progress and technological advancement, with change in every corner of the world and in every corner of our lives. These changes, for better or for worse, will be staying with us for the foreseeable future, but from the flagrant intellectual property violations to the utter absence of soul and artistry, I can only draw one conclusion: out of all the technological advancements made in the last couple of years, AI art just might be the worst of them all.