In 2021, I released a book called The Bridgebuilder’s Creed (which is available to order here if you missed it!) and though I released it four years ago, it was written in 2016 after drawing a stick figure of an old man and a caterpillar.
Since then, I’ve heard more than a few takes from readers on the subject matter and themes of the book, and I find every little dissection of the story and characters fascinating. Recently, I heard one that really caught me off guard. The reader suspected that the book might touch on themes of AI.
In the book, an elderly bridge builder travels across a war-torn land called TerraQuill rebuilding the bridges he built as a young man. But when he learns of large caterpillars who weave indestructible silk bridges, he realizes he’s living in a world that’s moved past him. I absolutely see the parallels to generative AI usage—none of which were intentional.
I think the solitary artistic contribution generative AI will have on the human race is simply the conversation surrounding it. Two humans in a room talking about “what art means” will be generative AI’s legacy. Eventually, we’ll have two robots in a room talking about “what humanity means beep boop”, but I don’t think anyone reading this will see that day.
I don’t use generative AI. I’ve said it before, but I don’t need AI to ruin hands for me—I’ve been ruining hands professionally for twelve years. AI does, however, have something I don’t—a ceiling. It will eventually learn from itself, convolute its output, and repeat into oblivion. It’s an entropy machine, built at the entropy factory by entropy machines.
One of my family members became a quadriplegic in his teenage years. He spent his entire life in a chair, and while he eventually could use his fingers to navigate its control panel, he also discovered he could use them to paint digitally. The man was an artist despite every attempt from the world to limit him. But it was never about “having made something”… it was about “making something”. The heart, the growth, the humanity—it was all in the act. Not the product. Art doesn’t take place on paper or on a screen, or in words and sentences. It takes place in-between your mind and the medium. A place where you digest, interpret, and fail.
AI can not fail. When it adds fingers and combines limbs, it did so deliberately. To you and I, it looks wrong, but not to the model that constructed the image. Six fingers may not be what you wanted, but the model that compiled (not created) the image believes it succeeded. Even when the first prompt was a “success”, it wasn’t—the option of failure never existed. I grow every time I pick up a pencil and draw a comic page. Not because I succeed, but because I so often fail. The art exists within that growth, not because of it.
“Crafting and editing the prompts is still art.”
I agree! Like any writer building characters and worlds, that makes you an artist. But it ends there, as the models generate results with no interpretation involved, unable to question any aspect of the process. In those questions is where your idea—that prompt you spent all day crafting—becomes something more than itself. Those questions will never be asked with generative AI models.
If you use generative AI, you probably fall into one or more of these categories:
1 - You don’t yet have the talent to produce what you visualize. This isn’t a bad thing. I still feel like I don’t have the talent to visualize everything I come up with. I also feel like my creativity as a writer is limited by my capabilities as an artist. These are WONDERFUL struggles. I suggest everyone get to feel them. Nothing is as motivating as failure—pick up a pencil, and try it sometime! Show me your worst stick figures and I’ll show you mine.
2 - You don’t have the resources. This isn’t a bad thing. I wanted to tell stories with comics twelve years ago. I was working a 9 to 5 in an office, but I still couldn’t afford to hire an artist to draw my ideas. But I could afford the two second best things: time and art books. I taught myself how to draw, and I’m still teaching myself every day. I don’t care if you have ten minutes a day or ten hours—it’s enough!
3 - You don’t care about art. This is a bad thing. There has always been “bad” art out there—art made for the sole purpose of capital gain. Art made to disparage others. Art of presidents cosplaying as Superman. Art that has no redeemable qualities. And when you don’t care about art (and, therefore, artists) you just add to the pile. There will always be “bad art”—using generative AI, it becomes easier to add yours to the pile.
Which brings me to my last point. The ethics of it all.
I didn’t allow AI to train itself off of my art. But, if I could opt into it and pay some rent each time my art was referenced in a prompt, I’d sign up for that. If we were to move into this “ethical AI” space within the next couple years, my stance on AI’s lack of artistic integrity wouldn’t change. But if it could be used as an additional revenue stream for artists, even those who disregard the service, I could see that being a good thing. But, as it stands now, it’s clearly in the “wild west phase” that all new tech exists in early on. Remember, there was a time when YouTube had full episodes of TV shows uploaded in multiple five minute videos.
It’s my place to express how I feel about this technology, but never to stop others from using it.
Instead, I challenge you to challenge yourself. One stick figure at a time!
If you found any of this valuable and want to see what I’m working on next, I’m launching a brand new TerraQuill series called TerraQuill Horizons on Kickstarter July 18th. You can get notified when it’s live right here.
Support me on Patreon for $3 CAD a month here!
Grab some book or sketches here!
Thanks for reading—go make some comics!
A very lovely (and human!) read, my friend!