A Hard Case Against A.I.
An Illustrator's Primal Scream
Yesterday afternoon, my shirt sleeves were stained with watercolor and I was at my podcast saturation point. It was time to go home. I was thumbing through Instagram, avoiding a giant pile of watercolors I needed to scan, when a vibrant watercolor food illustration caught my eye. It was shared by an art director at a French magazine I’ve been working with over the past couple of years. They quickly divulged that they use artificial intelligence to illustrate the magazine’s articles, including the ones pictured, and how this new technology needs to be embraced in the future. Gut punch!
Maybe I’ve been wearing my traditional-technique-noise-cancelling-headphones the past couple of years as this new technology has scared my community silly. I work with watercolor and how can that ever be recreated by a bot? The reason why I was shaken was because not only can my work (in theory) be replaced, but people in power (said art director) are already making the decision to not work with real artists anymore in favor of AI, even as compensation has devolved into peanut shells for living artists.
So how were the illustrations? Taking a close second look, I could tell they weren’t made by a human. The water marks, something that distinguishes good watercolorists from the bad, were visible. Was this a keyword added in the creation? “Give us watercolor that’s more watercolor-y!” The planes defining the form of each object didn’t have the delicate watercolor ring that forms when watercolor dries slowly, pulling the pigment to the edges. The rim of a wine glass looks slightly cracked as how would a bot know? They weren’t good or bad. They just represented one less artist getting a job.
Listen, this whole story has my stomach in knots. Instead of throwing in the towel and choosing despair, here are a few reminders to myself as I process this new reality.
Choose humanity. I know that AI cannot replace human experiences, the absurdities of daily life, the act of crying to get through a difficult moment, the sheer joy of the first stroke of watercolor on paper. This is all a good reminder to continue crying, oversharing, encouraging young artists and not give up on the work that I’ve felt called to do since I was a small child.
Limit your exposure. Does it really take 5 more minutes to write your own email? And so what if it does? Are we all so busy now that we want to fully erase our potential typos and irregularities for the sake of productivity? I make a choice not to use AI in any shape or form. The more it is fed, the more it removes us from any limited power of self-expression we may have.
Don’t lean out. It’s easy to feel defeated. I’ve heard of college students checking out from the first day of orientation because they feel that all jobs will be replaced in the near-distant future. Continue drawing, seeing, practicing being engaged with the world and other people. These are deeply human acts that can never be taken away.
Take care, dear reader. And don’t drink the watercolor water.
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