Why I Choose to Use AI Applications

In this post I explain why I use AI video and image generators and audio plugins.  ONCE.  I refuse to argue more with the art communities who have become hysterical about AI includng very famous and mostly wealthy artists who have yet to test it.  It is a waste of time.

The image in this post is a parody of AI.  It is an alien spawn that eats human souls then emits pink flamingos.  One should have a sense of humor about these things.  Or better drugs.

1.  AI is not one application.  There are many tools and toolkits which solve different problems.  Audio plugins for mixing, say the Izotope series, are not stealing from artists.  They are making the mixing task much more efficient in terms of time and quality.  Mark that last word: quality.

2.  The efficiency gains are enormous.  That alone justifies my choice.  Yes, I know how to mix without them but being able to use one plugin to do the job of a dozen is a huge benefit in time and system performance..

3.  I am not a videographer or graphics designer.  I have extensive experience with VRML and other graphics applications.  VR was fun but labor intensive as hell to create a single scene.  It made no sense to keep writing code for players that all refused to stick to the specifications and standards for interoperability then died a quiet death in the marketplace forcing me to keep rewriting the same content or to stash the player, convert real time video that is stunning and fun in the VRML format, or delete it.  I stashed it and released videos.

4.  I am a songwriter and video producer who delivers to YouTube.  I need the video. I don't want to nor can I afford classic video production.   It slows down releases and often is not much value add in a marketplace that pays pennies when it pays at all.    Streaming services have eviscerated the music market which itself is piratical by design and desire of its financiers.  You can explore that topic elsewhere but for now my position is indies need every advantage they can invent, "forge, fuck, hide or deal" as the Airplane sang.  Full stop.  We need cost effective imaginative videos.  AI graphics generation enables that.

5. AI trains the imagination.  This bit escapes the well heeled artists who have yet to try it. The process of specifying images, making them through compositing, working out camera behaviors, trying for continuity, inventing characters, writing music and lyrics for the animation all increase one's understanding of storytelling in a visual medium and improves the lyric writing and music processes in ways I will describe in later posts.  It is not easy and it is not guaranteed.  It takes practice but most of all, it takes a strong disciplined imagination.  For storytellers who want to do more long form work, it is pure gold.

6.  The objection of merit is training AI on copyrighted works then eviscerating the market for the creators of those works is cruel.  That's true.  Industry and government must negotiate equity.  I don't know how that will be achieved but without original work, training stops and the foundation models founder.   It is deadly to stand in front of a speeding truckload of money.   Ask the musicians who watched their record income evaporate.  We had to adapt or die.  The choice is the same for graphics artists and musicians who say they cannot compete.  They can.  AI is a disruptor but so were pianos for harpsichord players, radio for printed music, amplified guitars for jazz banjo players, synths for string players, word processors for clerk typists, on and on.  It is the same dammed fight everytime and the technology almost always wins if the money is there.  Stop the nonsense and start figuring out how to survive in the brave new world.  

7.  It's fun.  It works.  Moving on.

8.  Quality.  Those who throw around phrases such as "AI slop" claiming it is inferior art or not art are whistling past the graveyard.  The Stanford studies indicate that customers for images are increasingly favoring AI images not because they are cheaper but because they are higher quality.  That sucks for some of us including commercial musicians but there it is.   Those of us who had to compete with The Beatles or Pink Floyd or Steely Dan or Kate Bush understand that better is better.  It doesn't mean stop.  It means try harder and learn more.  Originality is still a favored quality of bespoke art.  It means you can't retire on proceeds from one song or image or video.  You never could but some think that the case.  Get over it.

Enuff said.