The robots are teaching us how to be human

The rise of AI might be the long-term saviour of the arts

AI is going to kill us all.

That’s certainly been the vibe lately, particularly amongst creative types.

And look, I get it. AI scrapes work from human writers and artists to provide watered-down versions that it provides for free or low-cost, making money from plagiarism whilst also blocking real creatives from being able to earn an income from that same work.

AI makes people think that a 700-word article should take 30 seconds to produce, and that imagery can be conjured up at the click of a button. For those of us who toil away for hours to make these things from scratch out of our own heads just to get paid what was a pittance to begin with, it’s massively devaluing our craft.

And yet.

The backlash has begun. People are already sick of AI-generated content because it lacks soul.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Sure, there are plenty of people claiming they can spot AI at a glance because of em-dashes or whatever, and yeah those people clearly just didn’t know what an em-dash was and are mad that other people did, but most people aren’t identifying individual pieces. They just have an over-arching sense that a lot of writing and artwork out there is becoming… a bit shit.

There’s a growing feeling that we’re being fed more and more surface-level drivel, which is fuelling a hunger for greater depth. I’m seeing increasing numbers of readers asking for something that will make them feel, that will tell them something they didn’t know, that will shock or surprise or transport them.

In an effort to combat AI, people have been saying they would actively seek out essays that contain typos, pictures with slightly wonky lines, because mistakes are signs of humanity. That reminds me of the story that artists from certain cultures - including Navajo, Persian and some Islamic groups - intentionally put mistakes into their work because only god could create perfection.

Well, god and robots.

It’s interesting that it’s the flaws in work that we look to as proof of human authenticity. Those parts that we worry about and try to erase. The bits we feel like we did wrong. That’s the sign of a real, living, breathing, feeling creature at work. A being that’s not perfect, that doesn’t run on pre-designed programmes, but who is just trying to say, “this is how I feel, this is what I see… do you get me?”

What we’re seeking, now, in writing and art, is soul. We’re tired (already - it didn’t take long) of banal and empty shadows of other people’s work. We want something that is powered by heart, blood, oxygen - life.

In the short term, there’s no doubt, AI is hitting creatives hard. And we are not, for the most part, a people who are sitting on loads of savings that will carry us through this challenging time. We were living hand to mouth before, and now AI has tied one hand behind our backs.

But, it’s not all doom and gloom. In the long term, I do think this could be good for us.

AI is showing the value in real human art.

AI is already sabotaging itself - because of the way it works, scraping existing content to make its own, and because there is now so much AI-produced content out there, AI software is beginning to replicate itself. That leads to quality gradually deteriorating. So the stuff it’s churning out will get worse, not better.

Meanwhile, consumers are getting fed up. They’re demanding more. They’re actively looking for human-made art that speaks to them with a human soul.

Eventually, they will value that enough to pay a premium for it. (Or, at least, like, something vaguely resembling fair money.)

Gatekeepers - who are motivated by market demand - will stop obsessing over grammar and connections and education, and start looking, primarily, for the humanity in a work.

Hopefully artists themselves will stop worrying about their education and connections so much, and feel more free to create. In my work with writers, I hear so many tell me that they’re afraid to start writing because they never finished school, or even just because they don’t have a Creative Writing degree. Just so you know, neither of these things are necessary for a writing career - and they’re certainly not necessary for writing talent.

I am optimistic that this is a return to celebrating what makes us uniquely human in our art - a chance for us to all stop worrying about what people will think or how aesthetically pleasing we are for social media, and to focus, instead, on speaking our truth, sharing our real experiences. That’s what art is - saying something honest, which others will then relate to. Because it’s real. Because it’s human.

It’s not a beautiful time for artists right now, and I understand why everyone feels so down about the rise of AI. But I do believe that this is the very start of a creative reckoning.

This period in time is proving what happens when you take away human artists. When you don’t value the arts enough. And it’s going badly. People are unhappy. It’s about damn time the broader population started appreciating what we do, and, as always, you don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone. So now they see us. Now they want us back.

Art and stories have been part of our shared humanity since our earliest days on this planet. They’re what connects us all. Sure, robots can churn out content, but it’s empty content at best. It’s not art. It doesn’t move us. It doesn’t speak to us. And, as humans, that need to speak to other humans and have them speak to us runs deep. We won’t forget it - we will always return to it.

So hang in there, keep speaking. Share your truth. Share your humanity.

Verify you’re not a robot.