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Several days ago, Brandon Sanderson posted a video and a companion blog in which he explored his thoughts on art and tried to get at the root of why he doesn’t like generative AI in art spaces. I found myself nodding along as he worked his way to the idea that generative AI removes an essential component to art creation (us) and that, in so doing, denies artists the necessary experience to grow in their discipline.
I cocked my head and raised a brow. That’s it? That’s not far enough, Brandon.
For maybe as long as I’ve been published (a decade this fall!), I’ve used the line, “Timothy Johnson fears nothing more than the future, so he writes about it and hopes he’s wrong.”
I think that’s important contextualization for who I am as a futurist and precog (admittedly, I don’t think I’m a very good one), but I think it’s good to frame all of this with the sentiment that I hope I’m wrong about generative AI, or large-language models (LLMs), which is a less-sexy name but probably a more accurate and responsible one we should be using (and I will use for the rest of this post).
I struggled with this post because not only is it a very complex issue (one I’m betting the non-artist techbros will challenge), but I think I had illusions it would be my definitive take on LLMs and its position in art. I’d write about it once, and that would be that. But, I know these can’t be my last words on the subject because, well doggonit, I’m a human being, but more to the point, LLMs are still so new and changing so rapidly that my takes on it are evolving, too.
Suffice to say this post may exhaust you (it exhausted me to write it), but it won’t be exhaustive.
