I have tried several times this year to write more about developments in AI (and Art) but I keep giving up because I keep getting sucked down “rabbit holes” and I find it hard to see the wood for the trees. OK here goes – I dislike and distrust AI. It’s overhyped. The visual stuff looks horrible. It’s dangerous. Unregulated it is going to cause a lot of damage in our societies/brains/education/communities/environment. I think that is the nub of it. We are told that our glorious AI-powered future is imminent, yet what we’ve actually got is unprofitable, unsustainable generative AI that has an unassailable problem of spitting out incorrect information. Its an expensive dead end.
If you would like to read a more articulate assessment of the current state of (digital) economy I can recommend Ed Zitron article on the Rot Economy – its in a slightly different league to the Cory Doctorow’s Enshitification explanation of why platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube used to be good to use but are now annoying and almost impossible to use. Can you find the video you just watched on Youtube? Me neither. I have struggled with WordPress ever since it “updated” itself to include all sorts of AI features I will never use. My Windows 11 PC isnt much better. It forever flips a “news” screen in front on my eyes in the midst of me doing something else, like typing a blog
Ed says “Things are being made linearly worse in the pursuit of growth in every aspect of our digital lives, and it’s because everything must grow, at all costs, at all times, unrelentingly … Our digital lives are actively abusive and hostile, riddled with subtle and overt cons. Our apps are ever-changing, adapting not to our needs or conditions, but to the demands of investors and internal stakeholders that have reduced who we are and what we do to an ever-growing selection of manipulatable metrics.” I was delighted (and not surprised) that 95% per cent of the more than 10,000 people in the UK who had their say over how music, novels, films and other works should be protected from copyright infringements by tech companies called for copyright to be strengthened and a requirement for licensing in all cases or no change to copyright law. AI companies have no right to our work.
I have decided to give up on writing about AI and so instead I will you with the best commentry on this current state of madness I have come across: AI Peas by Stephen Collins.
Have you seen this Apple advert? Take a moment to watch it. It makes my blood run cold. Surprisingly the tech bros at Apple thought it was a good idea to show this advert which depicts a tower of creative tools and analog items (like paint, trumpets and record players), being crushed into the form of the iPad. It’s a pretty grim vision of the future. It a good visual metaphor for what is happening to creatives right now.
This year has been the toughest year I have experienced as an artist, for a myriad of reasons, and the art market seems to be struggling generally. Yes there’s war in Ukraine and the Middle East (and elsewhere in the world) and “the Cost of Living Crisis” and terrible cold and wet weather in the British Isles hasn’t helped either.
It seems evident that it’s more difficult getting my work seen. I cant help but think that AI and the “enshitification of the internet” is at least partly responsible. I feel a bit like I am being slowly crushed by the Apple crusher. It’s sapping my creative juices. I don’t quite know what to do about it. Cory Doctorow explains how enshittification works “It’s a three-stage process: first, platforms are good to their users. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, there is a fourth stage: they die.”
This is probably the reason why I can’t find any useful results on google – lots of top ranking website are full of AI nonsense. It’s also why fewer people are seeing my work on the internet. My posts are pretty much hidden on Facebook, Instagram and invisible on X. Images of my paintings do not show up on Google as much as they did say 3 or even 6 months ago. Many other artists report a similar decline in interest from potential customers.
I have started to visit my local library again in search of real books with in- depth facts. The only decent thing on Google these days is Wikipedia. I find that Youtube playlists are so random as to be useless and a search on Pinterest results in either pins I have seen before (in other words I have already saved them) or one unrelated to the search term I just used. Tech companies are burning up the planet with their massive data centres in the hope that one of them will “win” the AI battle and then charge us all for what used to be better quality and free.
What’s this got to do with you? Everything. Doctorow says that enshittification is coming for all industries. “From Mercedes effectively renting you your accelerator pedal by the month to Internet of Things dishwashers that lock you into proprietary dish soap, enshittification is metastasising into every corner of our lives. Software doesn’t eat the world, it just enshittifies it.” Think about your printer – a new printer is cheap as chips but the ink costs a fortune and you cant use non-proprietary ink and your printer will know, and refuse to work.
Corry Doctorow’s big hope is that “Stein’s Law will take hold: anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop…if everyone is threatened by enshittification, then everyone has a stake in disenshittification.” Actually, there’s a lot more to it than that. You’ll have to read his articles to find out what USA and EU are planning to do to break the monopolies of the big tech comapnies.
I just hope that independent artists like me survive the process or else everyone will have to console themselves with souless AI-derived art their ipad/smartphone/tablet device instead.
See below for some scary examples of AI “Art”. It’s a nonsense view of Derry if you didn’t know.
“Painting of Derry City by Emma Cownie” – Thanks AI. I can give up now. NOT.
Just in case some of you are saying. It’s Londonderry not Derry. AI is no better at conjuring up a view of Londonderry. Take a look! Although there is a river this time.
“Painting of Londonderry City by Emma Cownie”
How about Three Cliffs Bay? I have painted that many times. Sure AI will do better at ripping me off. Well, no.
Painting of Three Cliff Bay by Emma Cownie – Yes, it looks NOTHING like Three Cliffs Bay
Yes, we can laugh at AI’s efforts and say they look nothing like those places or my paintings but it’s all doing damage. AI can never replace human creativity. AI cannot suffer and struggle like humans. It just produces a wierd pastiche of the thing it is meant to be. It’s expensive rubbish. It’s costing us dearly. Emissions from data centers of the likes of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than they let on.
We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. Don’t accept those tracking cookies. Try a different search engine. Stay on the website rather than downloading apps (you can use ad blockers on the website you can’t on the app). Don’t buy everything via Amazon if you can buy it in a real life shop.
We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device. Put down your phone/tablet and read a book or look at a painting made by a real human being. Join artists’ mailing lists so you can still follow their work no matter what the big platforms do to hide their work.
Oh, did I mention I have a 20% off sale on? Starting Sunday until Monday 14th. You have to join my mailing list for the code 20% code but you can unsubscribe at any time.
