I’ll be honest. This isn’t really a post about Instagram. It’s a post about AI.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’m strongly opposed to AI. I know that for many, there are elements of AI that feel like a blessing, but for me, it’s a hard no. AI is created by feeding the software with work (whether that is words or images) created by humans and used without their consent or permission. As someone who has spent the last 17 years putting her thoughts and images online, this is not okay. When I heard someone describe AI as “plagiarism software” I couldn’t think of a more apt description.
A couple of weeks ago, Instagram announced that they were rolling out a feature that would allow you to generate an image on the platform using only AI. Just type in a few words and voila, you have your image. But those images don’t come from nowhere. The AI software generates them using data it gleaned from images around the web and, presumably, images uploaded to Instagram and Facebook. (Both are owned by Meta.) To date, I have over 4000 posts on Instagram, most of them images.
The idea that Instagram has used my work to feed a machine that can now spit out similar work is repugnant to me. So I shared an indignant post with my frustrations and (save one story post yesterday) haven’t shared anything since.
I’ll be honest. I can’t say for sure that I’m leaving Instagram forever. I do hop on for a few minutes to see what people are up to (it is, unfortunately, the best way to keep tabs on my artist friends) and I do miss sharing what I’m up to. And my break has been short enough that I’m not yet sure what its impact has been or will be on my business. For all of these reasons, I might be back.
There’s also the matter of trying to find the line. Instagram isn’t the only software I use that is actively employing AI. Mailchimp asked me if I wanted to use AI to create the subject line for an email. (I did not.) Loom, the screen capture recording software I use to give feedback in Artists & Profit Makers, my online mentorship program, uses AI to generate video titles. (Though I always change them.) And Photoshop, which I use to edit my images, has AI image-building capabilities. (Though I haven’t updated to the newest version, and even when I do, I have no plans to use that feature.) I could go on and on because it feels like every tech company is rushing to jump on the AI bandwagon. If you do business online, it feels unavoidable.
I’ll admit, I’ve been struggling to find my footing online when every place is being overrun by something I find morally repugnant. And I’m not exaggerating. AI was built off the backs of all of our creative labor, without permission or compensation. This is labor exploitation in its most basic form, plain and simple.
The best way forward for me is to abstain from using AI in any form because I don’t believe in picking and choosing. As both an artist and a writer, I’m equally horrified by the theft of copy to generate AI headlines as I am the theft of art to create AI images. I believe that all creatives, regardless of their output, need to stand in solidarity with each other.
It’s easier said than done, I know. Especially because AI can feel so convenient for the things we struggle with. If writing isn’t your forte, AI feels like a blessing when you can use it to generate email subject lines or social media copy. But using that is no better than an author using AI to generate a book cover because they don’t want to hire an illustrator or graphic designer. If you find the latter abhorrent but not the former, I’d argue that you’re more interested in what is convenient for you than what is morally right.
I’m sure I’ll piss a few people off with that statement, but it’s how I feel. To quote Dumbledore, “The time will come when you have to choose between what is right and what is easy.” I believe for us, as creatives, that time has come.
I’m not naive enough to think that abstaining by itself will put a stop to AI. The cat is already out of the bag and it’s not going back in.
My biggest hope at this point is that we figure out a way to compensate the creatives whose work has been fed into AI systems. And this is more likely to come from lawsuits than laws at this point. (Though I’m also still holding out hope for a tech tax that leads to a Universal Basic Income.) I mentioned in this post that I hope that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Goldsmith case sets a precedent that could lead to creators being paid for work that is generated through AI. And several prominent writers have already filed lawsuits against the major companies that have built AI platforms and used their work without consent.
But these sorts of legal actions take time. When it comes to what’s going to happen with AI, there’s a lot of wait and see right now. Abstaining from using it is one small way I can resist.
But I’ve realized that, as a teacher, there’s another thing I can do. I think a lot of creatives are turning to AI tools because we’ve never been properly trained on how to take inspiration and use that to generate our own ideas and creative work. I’ve heard people talk about using AI to generate blog post ideas or even compositions for future paintings.
But here’s the problem with this approach. AI can’t generate anything new. It’s always an amalgam of what’s come before. Now, I know there are some people who will argue that there’s no such thing as a new idea anyway. But I don’t buy that for a second. I don’t believe that AI can generate anything new. But the human brain is incredible, and I believe that our ability to make connections still leaves space to generate things that are completely new.
We’ve just lost the ability to nurture that.
In a culture obsessed with streamlining and short-term results, we’ve forgotten how to do the work that leads to breakthroughs. We rarely take the time to take in inspiration, to fall down rabbit holes of our own choosing (not the shitty, algorithm-based ones social media pushes us down), to look at ideas outside our own fields, and to let our minds wander to synthesize all that input into something new.
But it is this – not plugging a few prompts into a piece of software – that is the real basis of not just human creativity, but human flourishing.
At the end of the day, I don’t want to live in a world filled with AI-generated art. I want to live in a world (both online and off) filled with art made by humans, with all their wonderful messiness and inefficiency. I want art that is slow, that takes time, that results from weeks or months or years of experiences, all brought together into something wholly unique.
Yes, the theft of creative work to feed an algorithm makes my blood boil, and I want all of us to be fairly compensated for our creative labor. But beyond that, a world filled with “art” made my machines just feels sad. And the minute my Instagram feed is only filled with AI-generated images is the moment I know I’ll walk away from the platform for good.
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PS. I mentioned that, as a teacher, I want to help creatives learn to better take in inspiration and generate ideas so we’re not reliant on AI. And that’s exactly what I’m doing in a training tomorrow all about Gathering Inspiration & Idea Generation! The training is available exclusively to members of Artists & Profit Makers, so click here to learn how to join.
Judy Freeman
I share your dread of the incredibly fast spread of AI. I’ve seen more and more sharing of images on Facebook that I’m forced to ask the poster if they crearted the image. The answer more times than not is yes, they did. When I probe deeper they say that they use a variety of apps such as MidJourney and that they alter the image to make it their own. I’m sorry but no amount of altering can make “it” their own. I try to find out if the original image that they work from is of their creation and the final answer is no. For some reason people believe that they are altering the image enough to make it their own. Sadly these people have absolutely no knowledge of copyright laws. They take the images created by AI and put them on water bottles, aprons, canvas bags and market them as their own. I can only see this evolving into an epidemic. And in so many cases these bad actors will claim to have created the image, misleading the public, that doens’t know the right questions to ask. The only way that I see this changing is for every original artist to stop and realize that this is a threat to our creativity. How do we get the word out?
Jenn Lamb
I hear this so hard. I guess the question is what’s next? If we remove ourselves from these social spaces that have been used to build our customer bases, how do we continue to do so? The mailing list is queen. Do we pull back to origins and live events that put our faces in front of others? What a wild time.
The folks I know in creative commercial industries use AI as a tool. They generate their own ideas and also ones with AI in brainstorms. They use generators to save days and weeks of work expanding images or crafting backgrounds in the new adobe tools. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to compete with the turnaround.
No answers. My own way forward will continue. I miss the spaces on the Internet we had 10, 15, 20 years ago. As I return earnestly to my practice after about 5 years of family care, transitions, moving it’s a changed landscape. Once upon a time we met likeminded people in cozy twitter chats, cheered each other in posts not yet sifted heavily through algorithms and grew organically. This new place I’m in is hyper regional vs the vastness of Cali. It will be interesting to see how all unfolds to say the least!
Lots of love your way Megan!!