ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FREE
No AI was used to assist, reduce or replace the human creativity.
100% genuine human thought and execution.
MY STANCE ON AI
"Balanced in the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave."
- Pink Floyd
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. How we assimilate, react to, and perceive that reality now is how we are going to live with it in the future. AI offers an unprecedented set of perceived benefits to basically every aspect of our lives; art, technology, healthcare, entertainment, engineering, research, food, transportation, military, finance, politics or life and death decisions.
I see AI as a breakthrough technology, a truly historic era, and a legacy of humanity, but legacies aren't always what we want them to be. The sheer speed at which we are racing into the unknown with only (best case) the hope of a better future for all or a carefully crafted agenda (worst case) planned by the largest investments in history by corporations and governments, scares me. We're all jumping into the void of practicality and novelty without a second thought. The biggest flock making the biggest mistake in the history of this planet.
The corporations that make these new AI models have learned from their past mistakes. Earlier, more open models were much more susceptible to human intervention and thus changed in ways their creators didn't like, but at the same time more accurately reflected human behavior. Now, the leash is shorter and the new AI models use much more controlled and sanitized data sets, repeating only “correct opinions” and “approved information”, reflecting only their master's values. The "people" input boils down to a very tight, modifiable, endless data-provider.
We are data cattle, and our purpose is to feed the new apex.
Our artificially created need for over-security and excessive comfort is exchanged for basic knowledge and skills, resulting in an ultra-corporate dependent society that cannot survive without Google maps and air-fryers, giving them every more power and control, incessantly clicking the "accept" button on each ToS and losing a part of not only our privacy, but also our souls.
As you can see, my stance is not optimistic, but rather realistic with a hint of "conspiracy", you know, that term that changes to "fact" in a matter of months. Even though I can admit that AI can have many positive aspects, I feel that, at this point, making the case for AI is like defending my own extinction. You may think I'm just a nutjob (maybe I am), but I'd rather be wrong than dead.
AI its the Great Homoginizer, packed as the ultimate democracy, everyone can be an artist, a musician, a chef, a truck driver, a programmer or a physician. The lines that define us as individuals are blurred and now we can finally merge into the gray generic mass of AI operators. Welcome to the future.
This is the new iron locomotive and it needs meat to keep going, you decide if you are part of it. Think first, then decide.
VALUE, VALUES AND ETHICS
"...scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."
- Ian Malcom
Since I started as a designer and later as an illustrator and visual developer, I have had the work of the early masters as my personal vector of inspiration and energy. Each one of them used the tools available in their respective ages, just like I do now. I try to use and learn a variety of techniques and mediums as I can, from traditional methods to digital canvases.
"AI is just another tool" is some of the biggest nonsense I've ever heard. No it's not. Pretending that these AI models are only there to "help" you get "inspired", "boost" your creativity, "spark" an idea or as the "starting point" to create something is, in my opinion, bullshit. We somehow navigated entire millennia using nothing but our brains to create extraordinary things, but now we're selling ourselves on the idea that getting a little artificial push is more than an excuse for mediocrity and laziness.
Typing a promt, hitting enter and getting a high-resolution image generated by an algorithm using petabytes of datasets, and then retouching it, makes you not even an AI-assisted artist but a mere AI operator. AI-based art will create an unprecedented amount of art that is soulless (by definition). Oceans of meaningless content (yes, much more than we have now) where everyone is an artist, and no one really is. That is a future I don't want to contribute to.
I believe my contribution and value as a visual developer is based on what I feel is right, both technically and ethically. I decided to take the hard way of creating using nothing but my own mind, hands, and heart not just because it feels right, but because it's fulfulling and rewarding.
So, that is the guarantee of my work; genuine human thought and execution, with all its flaws and imperfections. This is the hill where I'm willing to die, and will probably do.
"NO AI", "NO AI" logo and "Broken Processor" logo created by Marco Luna, 2022.
If you want to be part of the "NO AI" movement, feel free to download the logo and use it as a seal of "Artificial Intelligence Free" for your own work.
