Exploring artistic endeavors has always been a hobby of mine, but with the recent advent of generative AI, I have some questions and concerns. I bet many of you are too.
AI can create images and (soon) videos with just a simple prompt, given by anyone. AI can write you an essay, it can do your homework, it can code your website, it can even read you a book. Some AI services can sing for you again, just from a single, vague prompt, or even sing for you.
It's about as interesting as it gets. Will everything we enjoy in the future be artificially produced? Not by humans, not with human creativity and the kind of flaws that make us human in the first place, but by cold algorithms that are merely meant to mimic human creativity?
What is real in the first place? What is art? Surely you've used social media in the last few years, you know that AI-generated images are already flooding it, and tricking millions of unsuspecting people into these “images”. What actually is, or is this art created by real humans… this speech was given by real humans… but no, the line gets blurred all the time.
Well, I'm an optimist, and as a creative, I choose to focus on the positive, especially for creativity…
Here's how AI is helping me be creative without destroying the humanity of my art.
For me, AI has been extremely useful for music production (but not in the way you might think).
So I like to do pretty much everything that was ever creative out there. I have always loved exploring the arts, and favorites include writing books, composing music, and developing video games.
Now, with writing books, I don't think it's okay to use AI, unless you really need to simplify a few paragraphs and make them more concise. Small touches.
Music production, though, is my biggest hobby, and I think I've found a great middle ground in using AI without it literally making the whole song for me.
See, I can't quite afford to hire singers or rappers all the time, nor am I willing to depend, and wait on other people for just a hobby, so I created the sound. Started paying a monthly subscription fee for doing AI. Service
And it has been fantastic. If I need a hook for my song, or some spoken word, I can just trial and error the AI generating the voice until I get the right results, the right inflection. , with tone and voice. So already the AI is doing quite well for me. A job I'm willing to involve myself in subscription services, which I usually avoid like the plague.
Now let's talk about game development – a monumental task for just one person, depending on the project you're aiming for.
I've done some simple 2D platformers, but now I want to aim higher, and create an open world 3D game. Now it is borderline impossible to do alone, or was…
However, in my opinion, AI is not there yet, but give it a year or two, and we'll have perfectly capable video and image processing AI at our fingertips, like OpenAI's DALL-E. It is worth noting that DALL-E is already available as part of the subscription service. I'm just choosing to wait a little longer, until it's ready for me to make videos, not just photos.
Because I need a lot of graphics in a video game that needs to be animated. But also, because generative AI has some quirks, still, and it needs a little more time to mature and polish.
Images and videos aside, AI is already able to help with the programming aspect of game development, or any type of coding. It's been useful for me for a while now – even something as simple as programming the physics and collision engine of a 2D platforming game is easier than ever, because I no longer have to code it from scratch. , and trial and error is minimized.
Thanks to the popularity of ChatGPT, coding can take a lot less time these days.
ChatGPT can start me with a solid engine, or check my existing engine for programming errors. it's awesome.
And while we're on the subject of image and video generation, we can go back to our music production thing – I want to make music videos for some of my songs. Traditionally, this has been either extremely expensive, if I choose to hire someone to do it for me, or extremely time consuming, if I choose to do it myself.
Realistically, all I need is some trippy graphics, compatible with the beat. That last sentence alone is enough for Generative AI to make me make a music video. Or at least theoretically it will be in the near future.
Like any other tool, AI is what you make it. It can be a wonderful commodity, or a total disaster, depending on how humans choose to use it.
OpenAI's Chat GPT
You're reading this, so you're likely a technology enthusiast who is already well aware of all the concerns people have about AI, and rightfully so. Everything we covered at the beginning of this article – it can erase the humanity of most artistic work. It can take away jobs from creative people, especially artists. It can be used with millions, if not billions, of fake, yet reliable “photos” and videos of people, including real celebrities and politicians, doing or saying things that They never actually did or said.
But again, I choose to look at the positive side of it, and it is huge. As a creative myself, this has really helped me pursue my hobbies easier and cheaper than ever before. This leads me to believe that I can, in the near future, accomplish what I thought would be an impossible pipe dream – develop that ambitious video game I mentioned earlier.
AI will open many doors for creative people, although it may also close some, but hopefully it will balance itself out.
Recently I even argued that AI could help us be more present in the moment instead of staring at our phones all the time.
So, that's my experience and opinion on AI for now.
What are your thoughts on creative AI, and its potential impact on creativity and creativity in general?