AI Is Killing Us and This Industry
Rue Ramacho
January 8, 2025
Have you noticed the rise in AI usage in this day and age? AI consumes information it is fed and spits out all that information rolled into a ball. As AI becomes more available to the general public, it has started to pop up everywhere you look. Take a walk through your local mall, can you spot any advertising that uses AI? How about those cheap graphic T-shirts? Scroll through your YouTube recommended videos, is there that one thumbnail that looks just the slightest bit off? Think about that Snapchat filter that transforms your selfie into some artwork such as Studio Ghibli or GTA. Have you been guilty of copy-pasting entire essays from programs such as ChatGPT or Instagram AI? You may just use these AIs for a good giggle or as an easy time-saver on an essay but little do people know, these AIs are becoming more advanced and getting better at creating human-like artwork.
Take this picture for example. If you stare at it long enough, the imperfections are apparent. The eyes are wonky and misshapen as are the lips and ears. The decorative piece on the forehead isn’t coherent. The clothing design is barely understandable almost like it fuses into the skin. There’s no soul behind it, no passion, no emotion. Sure it could be a nice art piece, but it feels so lifeless. There wasn't an artist behind the screen spending their time perfecting the little details line by line. Possible hours of love weren’t poured into this drawing because it is an amalgamation of other artworks that were made in under ten minutes. This artwork has no tether to life or real work behind it and because of that, some might say it shouldn't exist.
Now take this next picture made by a real artist. See how this artwork is coherent? The shading is well done and the colors are soft and pleasing to look at. This artwork is called “A Girl With A Black Cat” and was made by user Rodger Haus on X, formerly known as Twitter. It went viral gaining 43 million views and 12,000 reposts.
If you check that picture again, you’ll see that you have in fact, been deceived. It’s AI.
See how misleading that was? There aren’t nearly as many mistakes as in the previous photo. This AI artwork was advanced enough to fool you and 12,000 others who reposted and shared this photo. Those who reposted were also artists and didn’t take kindly to being tricked. Many of them took it upon themselves to redraw the piece remixing the work with different styles, characters, and short animations sporting the hashtag; “#SUPPORTREALARTISTS”.
What’s the point of hiring hard-working artists if you can just manufacture creativity? Hayao Miyazaki, the creator of the well-renowned Studio Ghibli, was shown a test animation that incorporated AI. He was appalled by this, “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever…I strongly feel that it is an insult to life itself…I feel like we are nearing the end of times, we humans are losing faith in ourselves.” Miyazaki doesn't have the best views of AI, and neither do most people who consider themselves artists. If most big animation companies (or any companies) started using AI for their projects, it would put many people out of jobs. Animators already struggle with the industry's competitiveness. Unlike AI, when an artist draws, it involves various techniques. The understanding of depth, proportions, anatomy, lighting, texture, and contrast, cannot be downloaded into a human brain instantaneously. But it can be downloaded onto a processor, and that processor can only learn by copying art made by human hands.
People disliking the use of AI in work environments aren’t limited to animation or artwork. Schools have been having issues with the use of AI in students' assignments. Carina Casissa, an English and Journalism teacher at Seaside High, was asked whether she thought AI was diminishing a student's learning ability. She stated, “Yes, because students think they can use it as a means to pass school so they don't actually use their brains which can impact them long term…For example, I think about one of my students becoming a doctor and mid-surgery, asking ChatGPT how to do the surgery and that's just not acceptable.” When a student misuses these applications to carry them through their classes, they don’t absorb any of the knowledge or skills they are supposed to be learning. Joshua Davis, a 10th-grade English teacher at Seaside High School says “...it reduces their ability to critically think. However, it seems like critical thinking is becoming less and less of a necessary skill in society.” In the opinion of the art teacher at Seaside, Sylvia Vasquez, “Interactions and human emotion is what makes us empathetic as a society.” When these teachers were asked if they thought their jobs or other jobs were at risk of being taken by AI, their opinions were similar. “I believe it could. I saw there are classroom robots that teach and monitor students. Not sure if my feelings were intrigued or disturbed in the idea of that..’ states Vasquez, and it is possible that in the future a classroom could be taught by a machine. We are no strangers to technology teaching our children, just think of the Edgenuity courses that Credit Recovery students are placed in. Almost any job you can think of can be replaced with the right amount of time and the correct programming, the arts are just unfortunately the first to go.
The very existence of AI “art” defies the meaning of art. Art, noun. “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Art is a process meant to be enjoyed. A sculpture made by robotic hands won’t bear the unique fingerprints of the sculptor. A program made of binary creates images at the click of a keyboard, but never spends hours drawing and readjusting so that the image invokes a feeling in someone's soul. They are never to feel the waves of emotion after playing Mozart on the ivory keys of a fortepiano. They know not what it means to be human, for they will never be human. Joshua Davis articulates his opinion on AI as this, why not “...just let Elon Musk put a chip in your brain and become a cyborg so you can scroll TikTok while AI does any task that takes a sliver of effort and never bear the burden of thinking again…”
Picture 1: AI-generated fantasy artwork.
Picture 2: “A Girl With A Black Cat” by Rodger Haus on X.