It’s rather revolting that we, as a society, have embraced the idea that we can replace art—and by extension, artists—with AI. 

If you ever use one of my favorite tools, Copilot, to create illustrations, you’ll notice that you get tokens to generate images. Typically, it’s one token per picture, limiting you to around 15 images daily.

We need to be honest about this: it’s laughable to believe that we can replace talent with tokens. AI-generated art lacks the skills required to truly create art. You don’t even need to know how to properly use a pencil. 

It’s frankly offensive to compare the great masterpieces of the past—think Da Vinci, Monet, or Van Gogh—with AI-generated prompts.

To go further and claim that these two are on the same scale is absurd. There’s no way to make that comparison without revealing a profound ignorance of art and a lack of knowledge about AI.

Don’t get me wrong, the tool is fantastic. But as a friend once expertly expressed to me: you’re not doing anything other than waiting for it to spit out an image you’re satisfied with. And that is absolutely true.

A true master paints and creates what they desire; they don’t throw partially articulated thoughts into a machine, expecting to get similar results by imitating something else. The issue is that the general public is buying into this profane narrative. By that measure, every text is a Cervantes, and every fortune cookie contains a master literary work—patently absurd.

It’s time we, as a society, call a spade a spade. AI is not creative, and it cannot create art. This goes beyond practicality. Even if we ignore the countless hours and immeasurable talent that give value to the Sistine Chapel, everything we appreciate about art loses meaning if we really believe it can be generated by AI.

In the compendium of resources, no text on its own has value, nor does color have meaning. AI lacks the divine spark that grants creation the power to observe itself. 

This collective, nerve-racking delusion speaks to how muddled our belief systems are and how ignorant our society has become. We are a mass of people who no longer hold respect for the sacred, too ignorant to see real talent, and too envious to recognize that real talent is developed, not prompted.

Would you mind providing me a caricature of Da Vinci, Monet and Van Gogh offended that we’re trying to reduce their talent to a prompt?– Created with Microsoft Co-Pilot