We keep hearing that artificial intelligence will render most of us obsolete. And many creative people are legitimately worried that these tools can so easily make images that could destroy all artists’ livelihoods.

I can see why. You type in a few words and get a picture in seconds. It’s pretty unsettling.
Much of this fear is familiar. It happened 150 years ago when photography arrived as a radical new technology. In the late 1800s, realist painters had to adapt or perish.

That’s when modern art was born—first impressionism, then cubism—and in a few decades, the art world was completely transformed into something exciting and relevant to changing times. It happened because, despite the upheaval, artists kept doing what they do best: solving problems creatively.

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I have no idea how we’ll respond to this powerful new transformation. But I’m pretty sure the answer will lie in authenticity. Software may do a lot of “creative work,” but it can’t touch the messy, complicated truth of being human. The challenge for us is to keep making art that isn’t artificial—to stay real, and to let our work be real too.

I’ve spent two years experimenting with AI tools, with not much to show for it. They’re far better than I am at organizing and proofing, but after countless hours of tweaking I’ve never made anything I love love. When I generate an image in Midjourney, its origins are always obvious in the colors and design. When I ask GPT for a sentence, it often comes back with hackneyed phrases that sound tinny to my ear.

It’s like that teleported steak in The Fly, or the old joke about the talking dog—it speaks, but it doesn’t have much to say.

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Let’s put technology aside for a minute and consider a deeper issue for artists.

Even if you’re not a professional with a career at risk, think about how much authenticity you put into the art you make. Are you striving to draw perfect pictures, to follow trends, to make something marketable? Or are you making art, or music, (or essays) that only you could make—because they grew from your childhood, your struggles, your culture, your deepest feelings?

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I’ve been thinking about this in my own work too.

I’m not really afraid of being replaced by R2D2 (actually, C3PO more likely), but I do feel the encroachment of technology all the time. The algorithm nudges me when I post a YouTube video. Comments breathe down my neck as I write an essay. The relentless scroll of Instagram makes me hesitate to share a drawing at all.

These are all complex games with dense rule books. They offer endless advice on optimizing scripts, tweaking words for SEO, posting at the perfect time on the perfect platform. All of it promises the same thing: play the game correctly and you’ll be gloriously, independently wealthy.

But the cost is subtle and corrosive. You start following formulas, chasing trends, making what the market wants instead of what only you can make—superhero movies, autotuned songs, NFTs. The creative race insists there are only winners or losers. You must be a wild success or a hopeless failure.

I’ve felt the hot breath of that meme at my studio door for years. I’ve watched it crush YouTube channels, Instagram portfolios, and independent podcasts. That growl that aims to engulf what we make, that labels us “creators,” that dubs our work “content.”

I’ve felt it, smelt it, and now it exhausts me.

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I’m ready to step back from the relentless flames and pause, to see if I can truly feel myself again, rediscover what I really care about, what I actually want to say and to whom, how I need to spend my remaining days. That may take a short while or a long one. I may disappear or simply dial back to what I want to do, rather than what I feel I should.

At the same time, I don’t plan to run away from AI or its many permutations, all the incredible new tools becoming available every day. No more than I would give up my camera, my microphone, my laptop, my phone — or my brush pen. I love my tools and want to master the new ones, even as I step back to reevaluate what I make and why.

And I have little time for people who dismiss them out of hand. To refuse them altogether isn’t caution or protest, it’s a failure of imagination. Curiosity has always been the fuel of art, and turning away from these tools outright is less principle than retreat.

If you’ve never tried ChatGPT because you’ve heard it wastes electricity or steals artists’ work or enriches billionaires—or any other objection fed to you by the algorithm—give it a try anyway. Download it and use it for a while for things both frivolous and important. Let it teach you something. Then make up your own mind.

It’s not the instruments that matter, it’s the song. It’s not the printing press, it’s the tale. What will endure are creations that explore and convey the truth about this flawed, searching creature: the authentic human being.

Your pal,

Danny