Note: This is purely an opinion piece, not a deep scientific analysis of any kind.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIf you\u2019ve been browsing social media and reading news, you\u2019ve likely noticed that AI has been with us for a while now. It\u2019s seeped into our everyday lives, and it continues to be a source of controversy for a wide variety of reasons, especially when it comes to creative fields. An artificial intelligence will write articles, paint pictures, and even make videos of a giant cat fighting Godzilla<\/a>, if you so desire, all with the click of a button \u2013 the sky\u2019s the limit, so to speak, and many are indeed excited by the prospect of this supposedly brave new world, but\u2026 do we actually want this? Is this a good thing?<\/p>\n Well, I can only give you my answer, and that answer is no.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not just talking about the obvious things, mind you \u2013 like how it\u2019s disrespectful towards human artists and creators who pour their heart and soul into their craft, or how it impacts the environment, how it potentially puts people out of jobs, and so on. And yes, this is also why you can\u2019t buy new RAM these days without selling your kidney. I could also argue for days about why I don\u2019t consider AI \u201cart\u201d to be art. Imagine if William Shakespeare walked up to a random person on the street and said \u201cMy good man, I want you to write me a tragedy about two star-crossed lovers from rival families\u2026 Oh, and make the ending really bittersweet, will you?\u201d. And then, X amount of time later, that person comes back and hands him a finished copy of Romeo and Juliet that he \u201cwrote\u201d by copying and paraphrasing the work of others, stitching each phrase together like someone making a ransom note out of letters cut out from newspapers and magazines. Would you still credit Shakespeare with the play? Is the random person an artist worthy of reverence? Is the end product even a work of art? In my opinion: no and no and no. Inputting settings into my air fryer doesn\u2019t make me a gourmet chef, and being able to write a prompt doesn\u2019t make you an artist, either.<\/p>\n Same deal with gaming. Remember that recent story<\/a> about Unity claiming we\u2019ll soon be able to \u201cprompt full casual games into existence\u201d? Imagine those things flooding the market. Gaming already has an issue with oversaturation \u2013 the colossal number of low-effort productions and asset flips drowning out potentially promising releases has been a problem since the Steam Greenlight days, back when Steam Greenlight was still a thing. I\u2019m not sure how being able to prompt thousands of new AI-generated Candy Crush clones is going to make things better for us, but that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n Yet even putting that aside, much of what makes gaming so exciting to me is how the creative spark and distinct vision of developers and designers is translated into an interactive medium. I want to feel the breath of the poet in every digital nook and cranny of the work, with all its bumps, quirks and potential imperfections \u2013 I don\u2019t want something that a machine barfed into my lap based on some instructions.<\/p>\n In addition to the above, I feel AI has also altered the way we handle online spaces, and how we interact with the world in our increasingly screen-bound lives. One of my most repeated phrases lately has been \u201cis this AI?\u201d, which, I believe, tells you a lot about how the way we exist online has changed. The emergence of artificially generated content has given too many people the ability to deceive and mislead, and it\u2019s become increasingly unclear what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not. The fake Einstein quote \u201cDon\u2019t believe everything you read on the internet\u201d has been a meme for as long as I can remember, but with AI, I feel things have leveled up quite a bit, and not in a funny, \u201chaha, Albert Einstein didn\u2019t actually say that\u201d kind of way. And the worst part is that many people seem to be falling for it. Even I do, from time to time. In fact, I\u2019ve even had times where I initially dismissed legitimate art because I thought it was made by AI, and it frustrates me that we\u2019ve created this climate of doubt and uncertainty that ends up hurting real creators in the process.<\/p>\n Also, consider AI bots like Grok or ChatGPT. From what I\u2019ve seen, we\u2019re already at a point where many people pretty much just turn to these tools for everything instead of actually thinking for themselves. When I see people on X run to Grok for every small thing, and then watch the AI confidently give them a completely wrong answer to their question, it\u2019s\u2026 a bit depressing, I\u2019m not gonna lie. Not only are we seemingly losing our drive for critical thinking, it seems to also facilitate this mindset that whatever the AI says is true, because it\u2019s an authority figure of sorts. I mean, it\u2019s a machine \u2013 so how could it be wrong?<\/p>\n So, on one end of the spectrum, we have blind belief, while on the other, there\u2019s paranoia and suspicion: AI has conditioned many of us to question everything, to treat every piece of content with potential doubt, because so much of AI is, unfortunately, based on pure deception. There was a recent incident<\/a> where VideoGamer and its Resident Evil: Requiem review came under suspicion of using AI to create not just the review itself, but the reviewer as well \u2013 that\u2019s right, fake people were seemingly being passed off as real humans, which really highlights the entire problem in a borderline dystopian way that almost calls to mind the old Hideo Kojima classic, Snatcher<\/a> \u2013 a game where androids take the place of flesh-and-blood people within society. That\u2019s the gist of the cultural impact I was alluding to in the title of this article: AI has restructured the way we use technology and the internet, making existing issues even more pronounced and harmful.<\/p>\n You could also make the argument that humanity has evolved and invented technology to make life easier for itself \u2013 we\u2019re weak little creatures, but we use our minds, and that\u2019s our greatest asset. I\u2019m certainly not against technological advancements. It\u2019s what we\u2019ve done for hundreds of years. Most of our lives are made possible now because of technology, so it would be hypocritical of me to dismiss all forms of AI. I\u2019m sure there are ethical and beneficial ways of using it (medical or scientific, for example), and it\u2019s probably good for speeding up certain organizational tasks, but when it comes to any creative and artistic field? Sorry, but no. I don\u2019t believe it has a place there.<\/p>\n So, in conclusion\u2026 uh, AI bad? I mean, yeah, there\u2019s that too, but I suppose I was trying to highlight the whole \u201cwhy AI bad\u201d part of the equation from my personal perspective. Do I have a solution? Well, some transparency wouldn\u2019t hurt, for starters. As I said in my article about the whole Clair Obscur AI kerfuffle<\/a> from last year, artificial intelligence is already here and it\u2019s probably not going anywhere. But I do feel it\u2019s a definite slippery slope, and if we let the line between human creations and AI-generated content blur too much, it\u2019s probably going to hurt us in the long run \u2013 as it already has.<\/p>\nCreators and creations<\/h3>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nArtificial reality<\/h3>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe genie in the bottle<\/h3>\n