The Quiet Contradiction

The end of the year 2022 was loud on Artstation. Every artist was posting the same image over and over again. No to AI. It was a crusade… a war cry. Three years later, and where are we? Still as frustrated as ever… still as confused as ever. Where do we go from here?

At first, I was making a stand with my fellow creatives. I wasn’t going to use AI for anything. I dabbled in it when it first came out, I will admit that much… but when the revolt in Artstation happened, I let go of it and didn’t touch it again… until a year or so later. I can’t help myself. It was too useful for at least the brainstorming sessions. I still don’t use it for art, but I started using ChatGPT for writing purposes. 80% of what it spits out, I still don’t use. But it is unbelievably useful for at least getting my thoughts going.

ChatGPT really blew my mind when I used it heavily to edit my website. I am not a good coder. I have only ever written three to five websites in my whole entire life. Even though I could read html and css, I do not have a profound enough relationship with it to know instantly what’s wrong when my websites start to look wonky. It’s typical for me to spend hours on end troubleshooting the simplest syntax errors. This is when ChatGPT really helped me the most. For the first time ever, I didn’t just ask ChatGPT one or two questions, get the results, and then go on my merry way. No… this time around I spent hours chatting with ChatGPT, just endlessly tweaking and revising the CSS code I was trying to write. What would have taken me a week or two to write ended up just being one to two-night sessions with ChatGPT. It was amazing.

I feel like a cheat for using AI now. I still don’t use it for art…. that much I make a stance. But for writing ad copies and code, I find it immensely useful. I just wish the rights and ethical issues of its founding could finally be addressed by the courts. There is no denying that AI is useful, but if the AI companies can at least acknowledge that they did wrong when they first started, I would at least be satiated. I don’t know about any of the other creatives… but for me, this part is what irked me the most. If AI ever takes my job, so be it… I wasn’t going to stop drawing anyway. But the rights issues… yes, that still wounds me.

I don’t know where we will go from here. But as a person, I just need to be honest with my AI use. AI has wrecked our lives, but I can not stay mad at it.