Why we need artists not AI

 

Many creatives are now feeling under pressure from the emerging threat of AI. I always say I'm not naturally talented. I've spent many years trying, and often failing to learn drawing and various media. It's disheartening when you spend many hours on a drawing or piece of printmaking and mess up only to have to start again. However it's through those failures the greatest learning occurs. You learn to commit to creative decisions, you have to try and think around mistakes. Often when it seems all hope is lost on a piece you try a last ditch attempt to save it and have what artists term a "happy accident". You learn something entirely new that you wouldn't have if everything had gone right from the start.

Over the years of devotion to your craft creative people develop a toolkit of skills they incorporate into their projects. They also discover their unique voice, they create in a way that only they can. Our style, or creative voice, is a complex amalgamation of skills, emotions, experiences, and the unique lens through which that individual sees the world. When we put our work out there we're giving others a peek through our window, a chance to see and experience the world anew.

The portrait above is a painting I did of one of my North Ronaldsay sheep, Bobble. I have lots of photos of him, however that painting was a labour of love. I sadly lost him a while ago and I put all the love and joy he had given me into that piece of art. It's a testament to what I thought of him. 

No computer can recreate the human experience, because it's not human. There is literally tons of artwork for sale, online and off, and when you buy from the artist you're buying from a person you've somehow felt a connection to, you're buying a little piece of their soul. I don't know what the future will be for any of us if creativity becomes a matter of inputting data into a computer, we will lose something very valuable, we will lose connection to the world around us and to others.