Are They Your Words or Mine? A Creative's Perspective on AI

‘In Deep Conversation’ Acrylic on Canvas

A few months ago, I was standing in line near an Army base with a group of young soldiers waiting to renew our drivers licenses. We started to chit chat and one talkative guy turned to me, oozing with excitement about how “AI was going to take over everything so that all we have to do is stay home and enjoy life!”

Wow.

So… I asked him what he loved to do and how he would spend his time at home. He immediately told me that he would go on long runs in the morning and spend evenings drinking beers with friends.

I followed up with more questions: ‘Who would design and make his running shoes?’ ‘Who would grow the food he would eat?’ ‘How would he pay for beer?’

He had all the answers of course: “AI will do it all and the government will pay for it!”

I opened my mouth, but was speechless.

Where could I even begin? How could my words possibly compete with whatever content he’d consumed to form his world view?

One final, meek question: ‘Won’t you get bored?’

He looked at me as if I was the one out of touch with reality.

And perhaps I am.

As my own thoughts become more tangled and messy, and too often stuck inside my own head, non-human content gushes forth like a fire hose:

A bot who has all the answers, and can say it faster, easier, smoother.
Computer-generated photos, art and music
Websites, books and classes all created by simply asking AI

Here’s what really stabs my heart — we’ve somehow lost our ability to listen to each other, but are more than ready and willing to listen to a computer.

And of course, AI is never at a loss for words.

But whose words are they really?

Last month I received a legal document in the mail – a class action suit against an AI company accused of copyright violation. Turns out one, or more, of my books were uploaded without consent (and these are only the ones we know about). Which of course might explain why I’ve seen words and phrases I made up, spilling onto other people’s pages. But oh! I ‘could’ get up to $2000 under the class action suite! $2000 for decades of experience, hundreds of hours of time, not to mention all the heart and soul and fear and angst that goes into birthing a book. Yes, an insult.

AI isn’t some intellectual guru on the hill steeped in earned wisdom. It’s a machine who has ‘borrowed’ information and ideas from Creatives and without any remorse or compensation or even acknowledgment can share it with anyone who asks.

Is it then ethical for a person who plugs their questions into a chatbot to sign their name on what comes out?

That of course is a question for Ethics Experts to answer.

But for my part, I’m flabbergasted that we’ve allowed this to happen.

The Creative Process, my friend, IS the struggle

The Creative Process is all about trying to find the right words, and embracing the mistakes, the messiness. It’s filled with unused art supplies that seemed like a good idea at the time, and alternating highs of inspiration battling side-by-side with lows of rejection and the ever present fear of not being good enough, with creative surges tempered with creative blocks, with paintings consigned to the back of the closet, and half-baked ideas waiting for the skills to bring them across the finish line. It’s the hours deliberating over how this word or that will roll off the tongue, or fall flat.

Having an idea is one thing. Coaxing it into life is the Magic. And in my book, that Magic belongs to humans.

But maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m the one out of touch with reality.
Maybe we should sit back and let computers do everything.
And that perhaps a jog in the morning and beer with friends is what life is all about.

Or maybe not.

My words may tumble out of my head and land inelegantly on the page—But I promise you. They will ALWAYS be my words.

I never have—and never will—use AI to write my words, or paint my stories, or write my books, or design my classes.

The day I do will be the day I stop calling myself a Creative.

Instead, what you get, my friend, is messy me stumbling over myself and trying to make a difference one color at a time.

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Hi, I’m Beverly

I’m passionate about inspiring women to think outside the box, unearth their inner vibrancy, and surround themselves with colors that make them feel alive and hopeful!