#but y’all ai bros really trying to bring about the death of creativity

[britcision]

Thinking about how people keep pushing AI as a “well not everyone can [creative skill]” and I just… I don’t understand how they don’t see the problem with that

Because no one’s born good at drawing, or writing, or building 3D models

The whole point of having creative skills is that you need to learn how to do them. By doing them badly, often for quite a while, until you’ve tried enough things to work out what you like

And being able to word a prompt to an AI to actually get what you want is certainly a skill, and it’s certainly creative, but you’re never going to learn to draw, or write, or whatever else you’re bemoaning if you just want to push a button and get a result

And sure, it’s not like we’re going to completely run out of creatives; people with moral fibre are still going to avoid using the blatant theft that is generative AI, and will still be actually creating their own things and building skills

But if you advertise your AI and intentionally sell it to people as “hey don’t learn to draw you can just poke this button and say it’s close enough”… you’re actively discouraging people from actually trying anything

Your first attempts at any art aren’t going to look like a master’s. You’re going to be unsatisfied with your own skills over and over again, usually right before you make a drastic improvement

That’s just how creation works

And giving up and trying to make an AI do it for you instead of keeping trying and actually learning and building new skills is going to kill a lot of peoples’ creativity

It’s okay if you can’t draw as well as you’d like to. It’s okay if you can’t write a beautiful novel on the first try, or even the little oneshot you really want.

You’re going to make a lot of things that are bad, and a lot of things that are meh, and a lot of things you’ll be embarrassed you made in another ten years. Because you need to make all of those things before you can make something great, and because you need to understand that everything you think was bad and meh was pretty damn good for a beginner, and some of it will be great, and in another fifteen years you’ll see that too.

You will not become a better artist by switching to AI because it’s “easier”. You will not become a better writer by writing prompts instead of stories.

Every time you’re tempted because “the AI’s will look better than anything I make”, you are the only reason that statement is true. You might redraw your old pieces every year just to see how far you’ve come, or bury them never to be seen again, but you’re the only person limiting your creativity.

People make art with typewriters, and by throwing things at a canvas, and write single scenes and cracky one shots and snippets and round robins

Trust me, every artist you’ve ever admired knows exactly how hard, and frustrating, and time consuming it is to try and get an image from your brain into the outside world. And how many times you want to give up, or feel like you failed.

Your favourite artist has trashed a thousand pieces you would love to have seen because they weren’t good enough, or didn’t work out the way they wanted

(Yes, artists, the WIP folder gathering dust counts unless you go work on it right now)

A lot of creative efforts don’t see the light of day, and every single one goes into every single piece that does get shared

I’d love to be better at drawing! To be faster, have a better grasp at proportions and perspective and honestly to have more patience for shading and such instead of just grabbing the blur tool because it’s close enough

But those skills are underdeveloped, and are going to stay that way because the time it’d take to get good at drawing would be time I could spend writing, and that is where the demons in my soul got their hooks in first

So now, after twenty years of near-continuous work, I can write very quickly, very fluidly, and damn well… and don’t have the patience or time to try and push the same inspirations into a medium I’m less good at

(I do occasionally become possessed by an image strongly enough that I draw it anyway. I do this knowing going in that it’s going to be far from perfect, but it’ll be the best I’ve got right now)

(Also reading art tutorials and tips from great artists for 20 years does also help even if you don’t practice and I have the doodles to prove it)

And if I want a visual reference for a character… I use HeroForge to make one myself, because there are a billion creative tools that offer so much more control than just “prompt an AI until it works”

They’re not perfect, but they’re the best I can do

And if I keep doing it, and keep building those skills, that best is gonna get better and better

I’m getting better at drawing the more I give in to moments of inspiration

It’s going to take much longer, since I’m not doing it every single day (every year is still questionable), but it’ll still happen as I keep doing it

The only thing stopping everyone else from doing exactly the same is the refusal to try… and giving up on themselves and just using AI instead of trying something different