The Sensible Hypocrisy of AI-Phobia

I have been a graphic designer, illustrator, and author since grade school. I remember sitting on the slopes of our farm outside Eatonville, Washington at a very young age, overlooking my family’s 40 acres. Tanwax Creek lazed through our valley, evergreen slopes rose to form a waving cushion under the majesty of Mount Rainier. I would open my notebook and start writing and drawing whatever came to mind.

At that age, I read voraciously: classics, like Shakespeare’s plays, the Iliad, and the Odyssey; contemporary scolds like Brave New World, Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies; escapist works like the endless novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and tales of Doc Savage. These formed narratives in my brain from which I would write my own childish works and create illustrated adventures. As I sat in our forest, pretending that decayed tree stumps were mountainous docking cities for spacecraft I imagined from discarded vacuum tubes, I relived the adventures of Flash Gordon and John Carter.

Of course, there were the Lord of the Rings books, the Foundation trilogy, works by Arthur C. Clark, and many more.

All of these informed my childhood memories, but the greater impacts were from the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths. My sister and I attacked waist-high bracken fern among the trees of our forest just like Jason and the Argonauts faced skeleton armies. I hated the vulgarity and brutishness of those so-called gods but reflected on the meaning of the moral lessons involved.

The most technical inspiration for my writing and art came from Marvel comics, including expanding my vocabulary with some of the crazy words they used—brobdignagian, anyone? I loved it. The works of Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, and so many more ate up my after-school afternoons and fed my creativity.

I went to college to study art, sleeping in the furnace room of a generous friend’s apartment, having lunches of saltine crackers and ketchup lifted from the school cafeteria because they were free, and being given an “unofficial withdrawal” by merciful teachers instead of failing grades because I couldn’t afford art supplies. Still, I showed up and tried.

I presented my portfolio after a six year stint in the Air Force to a massive federal agency and got hired into their graphics department, working to support the global nerve center of very secure facilities. My presentation and print products were viewed by presidents and congressman and helped identify some of the world’s most vile monsters.

From hand-lettering and pasteup skills used when I hired on, I introduced our talented teams to photo typesetters, photo typositors, large-format printers, and various computer systems, and procured some of the world‘s most foundational computer art programs. I trained the staff and helped the art department, TV studio, graphic designers, photographers, and eventually web designers to help them create even better products.

In my spare time I painted and drew, having my works recognized and awarded by national and international programs and competitions. Several of my personal works were licensed by international entities in original and print form for use throughout the world. My digital creations graced corporate how-to books and appeared on the covers of magazines.

Now retired, I have now advanced those skills into the modern age, adopting artificial intelligence (AI) as a creative power tool. My career field has seen entire creative industries overthrown, including hand-lettering being replaced by computer typography and design; book distribution by hand copying being buried by the printing press and then Internet dissemination; and image imagining by observation being overtaken by camera obscuras, then photography, then software-aided handmade digital image creation, then AI.

In each case, these advances sounded death knells among many moguls, decrying the reduction of imagination and ability, the selling of souls, and loss of jobs. Some of the warnings were valid; certainly there are far fewer manual creators today than before. But in each case, the advances benefitted billions.

The AI toolset is the same. As with the above-listed industries and many others far beyond the graphics world, the introduction of AI protocols require adjustment, investment, and the handling of fear. But they have helped billions, even far beyond mere humanity, and in many cases have brought welcome change.

I am against adoption without thought, however. Just as any artist who claims that a piece he or she slavishly copied from a photograph is their original work is not telling the whole story, neither is it honest for anyone to claim that un-retouched AI pieces are fully their own creative works. Yes, the results wouldn’t exist without their imagining them, but it is dishonest to claim that artwork created from a four-word prompt is just as creatively valid as the Mona Lisa.

And, realistically, who wouldn’t want access to a tool trained on the greatest artwork in history across a vast array of influences and styles, accessible within moments and infinitely adjustable? I mean, does it sound hypocritical to reject such a tool when history is filled with similar tool upgrades, for better or worse?

I ghost-wrote novels in college, for goodness sake. Isn’t AI usage often just loathe form of collaboration?

Ultimately, AI is just a tool—a game changer, for sure, but a tool. Think as you use it. Be honest as you take credit for creating with it, just like admitting you created that painting from a photograph. It can be a great reference tool, can’t it? Recognize its value for timely global mass benefit. Judge the political, financial, and environmental ramifications and its potential impact on humanity en masse and as individuals. Be professional about the quality. But don’t just run blindly from it.

How much AI is good? I never want to be dependent on it. I have tried several AI tools for writing and image creation and found the inconsistencies just too severe to be considered final. Much editing is always required. Which is good, because to use my latest trilogy as an example, I came up with the basic idea, the vast majority of the details, and most of the writing before turning it over to an AI tool. Even then, I only use it scene by scene, if needed—the “I’ll do it all for you!” options only multiply the errors—a LOT. Ultimately, I most often deferred to my own skills. Still, I was grateful for the ideas AI suggested and learned much about the craft of writing from its hints. But all in all, its use required much, much editing throughout the whole process.

By the way, I used no AI on this article. Just because I could.

As an artistic technical director, I spent good money for products that enabled teams to put out good products quickly: Image and font libraries, digital maps, labor- and time-saving tools, interchangeable products, global instant communications. Good was done as a result, and I didn’t sell my soul to do it. In fact, lives were saved because of those teams and their tools.

AI is an inevitable industry upgrade, in many, many areas, whether you like it or not. Explore it; don’t be run over by it. Use the right tool for the job, and think as you use it. Be critical. Be honest. Uplift others.