A new video by Brandon Sanderson puts a finger on a point I’ve felt but hadn’t quite articulated.
I’m not a Sanderson fan so please divorce that from your counter-arguments. I’ve never read anything by him and have no plans to. I don’t care about his beliefs or politics.
I do know he’s dead-on here.
Sanderson explains why AI art is not art in this new video. It is worth the 18 minutes of your time.
Try to imagine a world where anyone can summon a movie or a book or an image with a few prompts.
There is no artistry in this. Certainly no struggle. No failure, no triumph. The result is a flattened, disengaged landscape where we’re all staring at our screens, consuming without thought.
When I wrote Flame and Crimson I pieced together a narrative of sword-and-sorcery that did not exist, or at least was not articulated in that manner. So I embarked on a journey 5+ years to tell that story.
I researched and read. Wrote and threw away a lot of my writing. I made missteps and went down cul-de-sacs that I had to abandon. Some days were agony. A couple times I despaired if I’d ever succeed. But I did.
And along the way I learned, and grew. Both my thinking and my writing.
At the end I experienced an intense and lasting source of accomplishment and pride that has not dissipated.
I became a better person.
None of this occurs when you just prompt a machine.
Gatekeeping is a curious counter-argument I’ve some make. “You hate AI because you’re a gate-keeper!”
One YouTuber has made this argument (I won’t link to him; I’m not a fan). But his argument is that Sanderson is a gate-keeper, and this person can’t wait until the gates are thrown open and he can make movies out of his books (which are quite likely AI written) with a mere $200 annual AI subscription.
What this person has let slide clear over his smooth brain is that he isn’t “making” a movie. And the one he “creates” will not be watched.
If anyone can create a movie with prompts, none will be popular. We'll all be able to "create" our own entertainment and keep ourselves endlessly amused, to our own quirks and specifications. There will be millions of movies “made” each day. I'll leave it up to you whether this is a good thing, for the artist trying to make a living or our species as a whole.
When did learning a craft, and the act of performing challenging work, and overcoming obstacles, become gate-keeping?
Writing is accessible to anyone who wants to learn it. Some are of course more naturally gifted or faster learners, but almost anyone can become a good writer, in time.
Think of what becoming a good writer does to you, as a person.
Think of the skill acquisition. The feeling of accomplishment when someone compliments you on your writing, not a machine’s. Think about how many books you’d have to read to become a good writer, and how that reading would change you, expand you as a person.
This is what Sanderson is arguing here. The point of art is not the outcome, which is the receipt, but the struggle of making and how it transforms you as a person. The journey is more important than the destination.
And he’s exactly, 100% dead-on.
I am not a luddite; I use technology all the time like everyone else. I’m not even anti-AI. I’m just anti-AI for the arts.
This is what art is all about, and why it must belong to people, not machines. Using AI to create art for you is not making art. It’s little more than turning on a television set, and about as transformational.
Our name is on the cover of the book we write; even if it sells no copies you have accomplished something amazing. I high-five anyone who takes the time to create.
We are the art.
Thanks to Brandon Sanderson for his clear articulation here.
