In an AI-obsessed world, skill and talent still matter

JUNE 21 — I used to think art appreciation courses were rather twee.

Then AI-generated art was produced and I realised how much it mattered that people understand what art is, and what art isn’t.

What I think defines art the most is that thing machines cannot replicate, apart from in science fiction — humanity.

If you learn art history you will have known that what art is most appreciated or the styles that are most popular will change with time.

In the beginning it was realistic portraiture, oils or majestic sculpture pieces but soon we had impressionism and then avant garde.

What did all of them have in common? People.

A machine can only know and replicate what it is taught or fed but the thing is, it does not have in itself a self-determining mind or the capacity to do that very human thing, which is to imagine.

I was rather distraught a week ago when a bunch of writers I follow were excited about using AI generated art to make their own book covers, calling another local writer’s AI covers “amazing”.

It is such a shame that those who are supposed to be discerning about the written word do not apply the same discernment towards art.

Yes I have been wistful about not being skilled enough at illustrating my own fancies but that is called the limitation of human existence.

We can’t all be good at all things, and sometimes we have to make a choice between being very good at some things instead of being appallingly mediocre at everything.

I follow many artists on my socials to the point when their work pops up, I can recognise it.

Artists and anyone trained, whether at school or self-taught, labour long years to learn skills that range from colour theory to shading, perspective and mastering their chosen medium.

With time, they develop a style and in that, writers share that elusive, time-bought distinctness that marks their work as uniquely theirs.

I have often sighed that people do not seem to appreciate writers or written work as the labour, to them, seems invisible.

Like artists, writers too must practise. It requires reading and playing with words, finding the ones they like and do not like, deciding just how they will start or end sentences, paragraphs, chapters or whole books.

I appreciate the authors I read all the more because I know just how hard it is to hone that style and how maddening it is to have their words stolen wholesale or copied so badly it enters the realm of parody.

The columnist said that journalism, publishing, animation and the arts all seem to be dying as technology now seems to be dedicated to creating soul-less reproductions. ― AFP pic

Over many years with different publications I could recognise the work of journalists I edit without even reading the byline by how they misused or overused certain words, or their inability to use apostrophes.

I know that it seems that journalism, publishing, animation and the arts all seem to be dying as technology now seems to be dedicated to creating soul-less reproductions instead of cleaning up the oceans or learning to talk to whales.

In 30 to 40 years, even into the next century or beyond, I will bet that AI-generated works will not be displayed in museums and we are not going to see an AI-written or performed song be hailed in a list of 100 best songs of all time.

AI wouldn’t even be able to write a best song list because AI does not have taste. You can no more teach taste to a machine than you can tutor a cow into speaking Cantonese.

Now more than ever, creatives need to put their names on things, stamp their ownership on their creations and declare this is mine, and it indisputably so.

So I implore writers who think they can save money by asking some tool to make them a book cover to just look for an actual artist.

A proper illustrator will be someone with whom you can talk to about your vision, who will listen to your suggestions and explain to you, gently, why a neon pink heading on a bright yellow background is just not going to work.

Use chatGPT to make quick PowerPoints for those meetings that could really just be an email and not the book you hope people will remember you by.

Choose art, not shortcuts.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.