Creating art, in any form, is hard work. From the initial idea, to the finished product, it’s a process. In that process, with its most difficult moments, and with its moments of entering the flow state, is where joy is found. For any true creative, the point is not simply to finish the product as quickly as possible, it’s to create the best work that you can based on the ideas that you have, which gives the greatest satisfaction that many people – including myself, have ever experienced.

My chosen art form is fiction writing. I’m not sure when it started, but over the last six months or so, more and more literary magazines are making you certify that you didn’t use AI to compose your work when you submit it. AI? Never in 1 million years would I ever consider such a thing, but clearly many people would and that is a sad state of affairs.

I contend that no true creative would ever use AI. AI “art” is an extreme simplification, and bastardization, of the creative process. It is nothing more than a shortcut to create content. Using AI cannot, and will never, lead to that amazing moment of completion that every artist has felt. All it can do is give small dopamine hits without ever satisfying – like eating nothing but cotton candy. By God, who asked for AI in the creative world? Not true creatives, that’s for sure, but those who only see the business side of creating, who want to make money in the shortest time possible. Or those who want to feel creative, but for whatever reason aren’t, and it helps them scratch that itch without ever putting in the real work.

Let me stress this again – writing is my happy place, but at the same time it is also often very, very difficult, but that’s simply par for the course. Entering a few words and hitting the “generate” button is abhorrent to all I hold dear, and should be to any true creative as well. It is exceptionally difficult to get anyone to even consider your work to begin with, and now I have to compete with AI bullshit too? What a nightmare.

If you love to create, or just love certain things that others have created – through their love and passion and pain – then please, please, please do not use, advocate, or support AI generated art in any form. If creativity – especially writing! – is handed over to computers, what is left of humanity? Without it, don’t we become little more than machines ourselves? Want your humanity back? Don’t worry, there’s an app for that, and it entails not buying into all of this bullshit. There is no better time to re-humanize yourself than now. Go draw a picture, go write a story – it doesn’t matter how rough it is, it is yours and yours alone and something that could only be created by a human brain that has had every single experience that you have had and could never be created by anyone but you. Isn’t that a glorious thing?