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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Technology
Jess Harwood

AI ‘art’ is boring, soulless theft – and when I see it as an artist I see red

Jess Harwood artwork on AI and art
‘Who is behind AI “art”? The machine? The person who wrote the prompt? The tech bro who built the AI that scraped human artistic skill and creation to generate the “art”?’ Illustration: Jess Harwood/The Guardian

Last week I went to a gig by myself for the first time. I sat myself down in my single seat, possibly the youngest person in the room and one of thousands excited to see Split Enz. I loved it – I felt joy and heartache as the lyrics spoke of human experiences, really lived. I happily realised that I did not have to wonder whether Split Enz had used AI in their work (as I so often do nowadays) as these bangers were created long before it was even dreamed of.

As a visual artist and writer myself, when I see AI generated images, music or words presented as “art”, I see red. It’s boring, it’s theft, it’s soulless, sterile and it’s killing the planet through energy and water-guzzling datacentres. Someone suggested AI “visual art” should be called “Computer Rendered Artificial Pictures” (CRAP).

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