Keeping in mind that AI is barely out of infancy, creations like the one I mentioned yesterday show its real potential and also confirm what I once said about the elimination of art from the pool of viable professions. There is no way any artist outside the realm of greatness, let alone aspiring ones, could survive competing for their share of the art market with algorithms that are capable of creating a piece of art as good, if not better, in a matter of seconds on demand. This is simply a question of when, not if, and I don’t mean a timeline spanning centuries, not even decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see auction houses offering AI-created paintings for sale before the end of this decade, although their authorship may initially be hidden under pseudonyms. Who knows, maybe the next Banksy will turn out to be an AI in disguise.
But this vision of doom does not necessarily mean the end of human creativity; it simply shifts the emphasis to the non-professional, private sphere. We will continue to paint, write, make music, or express ourselves in any other creative way, just not for sale but for our own eternal pleasure. Because if we stop doing that, the alternative is not particularly encouraging. In the not-so-distant future, we could face a progressing infantilization of our lives—the reality of the starliner Axiom may become our reality here, on Earth. So forget about the Terminator; watch WALL-E instead.
hidden pilcrow 