Before beginning a new art piece, I search Pinterest for inspiration.

I used to be able to spot AI art instantly, but as time goes on, it begins to replicate human art more and more. I thought I had found a beautiful reference piece, and was curious who it was by. After reverse image searching it, I discovered this detailed work was AI-generated. 

It’s becoming common for people to resort to AI content when stumped in their own drawing process. Some will use it as a tool to aid their work. This has sparked controversy in the art community on whether the use of AI in art is “cheating” or not. 

While working on our skeleton unit in Visual Arts, we had to turn a preexisting painting into a skeleton. Many struggled with this, so they resorted to AI, which turned it into a skeleton for them to use as a reference. Others preferred to do it old-fashioned and study the skeletal system to replicate it in their chosen painting.

I chose to try and get a better understanding of the skeletal system, hoping it’d help me comprehend the assignment. In the end, my piece looked similar to those who used the AI resource.

So, which is the better way of creating art?

I believe both ways of going about the assignment were valid. AI can be helpful to artists in their artwork, but it starts to become a problem when it’s not used as a resource but rather as a replacement. 

“AI can serve as an aid for artists and can be beneficial as a reference but not as a replacement for making art the old-fashioned way,” said South Forsyth High School art teacher Sarah Rising. 

According to the Pew Research Center, three in ten people view AI as a major advancement in visual arts, and the rest see it as a minor advancement.

While these advancements can be seen as something positive, it also makes people worry about whether AI will steal people’s jobs, especially in the animation industry. Artists already have a hard time making a living with their passion, and AI is making that much more difficult. Many find it too expensive to hire real artists when there’s a much cheaper alternative in the form of a computer program with a low monthly subscription fee. 

One video game developer reported to the New York Times that he had difficulty finding a reasonably priced artist to commission. Then, he discovered popular AI art programs. 

“Mr. Waldoch said he didn’t feel guilty about using A.I. instead of hiring human artists, because human artists were too expensive to make the game worthwhile,” said Kevin Roose, a journalist for the New York Times.

I find it disheartening that human artists are slowly being replaced by artificial intelligence. I don’t think any robot could ever replace the talent humans have held for centuries, but it’s becoming clear others don’t value the hard work it takes for artists to build their skills.

Commissioning an artist can be expensive, but it’s important to consider the years of work an artist put in for their art to be so detailed, realistic, or personalized. The work you commission is a showcase of hard work and progress, whereas AI is a cheap copy of the human spirit.

One of the greatest living animators, Hayao Miyazaki, who founded Studio Ghibli, was once shown an AI-generated video of a zombie. Miyazaki recalled a good friend of his who suffers from disabilities.

“Now, thinking of him, I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is,” said Miyazaki in the video. 

AI won’t be able to perfectly replicate emotion and pain better than any human artist would, which is why I will always value the art of humans, no matter how expensive it may be. 

“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” Miyazaki continued in the video.

Miyazaki perfectly articulates how many artists feel about AI art being used as a replacement for hard work. 

Human art may never be perfect, but it’s real. Its emotion is real, and that will always be more special than anything a robot could attempt to replicate.

Whether a book or a painting, it’s a showcase of human trial and error, a demonstration of the hard work it took to achieve that final piece we enjoy, and it captures the human experience that AI cannot understand.

I am hopeful that humans will always continue to make art and not let AI overshadow our passion.