PARTING WITH AI-GENERATED CONTENT

Over 18 months ago, I decided that I had to stare the future in the face in order to better understand it. So I bought a Midjourney subscription and began tinkering around with AI generative photo and video, as I wrote about here. I learned how to give specific prompts and massage the evolution of the image into something usable — or representative of what I had in my head. Despondent carnies, wild evangelists, closed up main streets, and interpretations of 1950’s travel posters.

I enjoyed this process, although I rationalized the time spent as a means to comprehending an amazing tool that was evolving before my eyes — quite literally.

Then something started to happen. Hollowness. There was a repetition and soulless product always looking back at me. I started to feel that the exploration needed to come to an end - even as I began to tinker with the video side of it. I should note that were I motivated to produce satire or comedy, there’s endless value and potential to AI content and what one can do — as long as it is always labeled as and understood to be AI. However, I always have been and always will be motivated by real humans — their intellect, struggle, sacrifice, fears, victories, faults, eccentricities, and wisdom.

Because of that, I was unable to find joy and value in the process. It wreaked of loneliness and manufacturing, not a great mix for a documentary filmmaker fascinated by human nature.

Furthermore, I have been unable to find it useful as a supplemental tool in any of my work. I don’t see a place for it in the style and approach that motivates me and my work. That’s not to form any blanket commentary on AI (that follows below) merely my experience and observations with AI photography and video.

Lastly, and most important, we already can see the exploitation of the technology by those motivated by nothing more than power and the almighty dollar. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic and maker of Claude AI, recently warned that “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years.” Safe to say, this years Big Tech layoffs and the recent jobs report confirm this.

As a parent of two incredible teenagers who should see the world as a place full of opportunity and adventure, I find this rapid adoption of convenience-over-practicality and speed-over-quality toxic to humanity’s trajectory. It’s irresponsible and greedy to utilize AI as a replacement for we can do ourselves — versus a tool to make us more efficient. Plain and simple. If you find that objectionable, check back with me in five years. If you still object then, you’re probably profiting off of the problem.

Like most things, it’s not black & white. There are values in AI we can likely all agree upon — analytical tools, ad-free and efficient searches, and productivity boosts with this and that. But when we scale these to liquidate human labor for the sake of a profit, we’ve lost our way. Last I checked, the American Dream doesn’t mean unchecked capitalism at the expense of those who built it.

So yeah, creating AI-generated content is fun at first. But to try to pass it off as ‘real’ or genuine in a storytelling sense — or to bypass an artist or animator for the sake of my own profits — is too unethical for me to rationalize in my creative world. It’s bad karma too.

Others can contribute, relatively unchecked, to the downfall of Western civilization. I prefer to look the youth and fellow creatives directly in the eye without that hypocrisy on my conscience. For now, an enjoyable analysis by Mr. Oliver sums up our likely trajectory quite nicely.