As a founder of a sleep wellness and creative arts company – Cosmation AB, I am asked this question by people who are speaking the answer in their mind even before they speak aloud their question. Its a loaded gun, a match already fixed, a destiny already foretold. Why bother creating art when AI can already write/draw/sketch/create photos or videos etc? The unspoken alternate question is, “Why bother starting a company to encourage people to be creative?” Why indeed?
Its been a nano-second since ChatGPT caught the public’s attention. Algorithms have not been new. Enterprises have been using automation to lower their operating costs for decades. I have had a career for two decades to do just that. The whole premise of industrial revolution has been to lower human intervention in the process of (mass) creation. It invariably reversed the logic of what was mass-produced and what was considered art. In the domain of post-consumerist society, art still held on to its relative dignity of finding joy and honour in manual work. The age of AI changed this almost overnight.
The Internet is rife with both pros and cons of this fast evolving situation, so I won’t bore you with this. I will simply share my beliefs on why it is even more imperative now to create art by hand, or at least by mind, more than ever.
Sure, AI can mass-create the “slop” – the populist, formula based art catering to the masses. Conversely, it also probably can create super niche art forms for its purveyors, provided it has enough data sets to gather “inspiration” from. But, it still cannot create matter. It cannot create something you can touch, feel, smell. It cannot replicate the state of flow, when you are deeply engrossed in creating your art. It cannot make you feel the meaning – of an art object, or of your life.
Does that mean nothing changes and we should all just relax? No! The lives of artists have been irrevocably changed, as their sources of income first dwindle and then transform. For the rest of us, creating art will turn into a practice of remaining human. While our daily attention has been hijacked by warring algorithms, it is important to claim some calm and focus for ourselves. Creating art is an excellent way to do that. Creating art with inspiration from our own evolving psyche is even better! That is why I created Awake (On Android and Apple, free companion app with our paid workshops)- a way to record our dreams, thoughts, inspiration on the go, which we can refer for creative work later.
In the age of AI, the ideal audience – the perfect reader, the perfect connoisseur, is a sum total of one person – yourself. Yes, it makes it near-impossible to make a livelihood out of art, but AI art can also serve as an inspiration to retain the human parts of ourselves that we squander everyday in service to endless scrolling, daily chores and the humdrum we call life. It can help us remember tiny fragments of inspiration and collect them in a virtual bottle that we can sip whenever we feel deficient. It helps us use our daily life as an inspiration-collection mission and then create art, just because we can.
If and when someone wants to see/read it, they can and will. Its not important. None of us are that important in the overall scheme of things. What is invaluable is our sense of self to remain intact when everything else is becoming artificial and mechanized. That is how art will serve the society.
Cosmation is on a mission to help us all do just that. All this and more, through our app Awake and our weekly workshops every Friday 18:00 CET. Join us today to join the revolution. https://www.cosmation.ai/events/creative-writing/
-Naina
CEO and Co-Founder, Cosmation AB