Art Preserves Humanity, AI erases it

Walking down the aisle of my local Dollar Tree store, looking for a birthday present, a puzzle caught my attention. My sister was turning nine so I thought a puzzle was a good gift. This particular puzzle had two fuzzy cats all cuddly and cute, and I thought “perfect!” My sister absolutely loves cats but unfortunately she is allergic to the hair. So I thought a cat puzzle would be the most amazing gift for her, I would be gifting her a cat with no allergic reaction. As I looked closely at the puzzle, however, I realized it was actually an AI generated photo. I was shocked and honestly a bit upset at how far the use of AI has gone. When I look back on my childhood and think of the many times I did puzzles, it made me realize how important they are to development. Puzzles aid in childhood development by helping kids see patterns and allowing them to critically think about how parts can make a whole. They can also show you the world, piece by piece, and would often make me dream of traveling and think, “What a beautiful place to be.” But an AI generated puzzle does not give me the same feeling. It relays a distorted and false reality of the world. I kept looking for more puzzles that were paintings or photographs but most puzzles at the store were unfortunately AI.

As AI and technology seeps its way to the arts and critical thinking areas of our world, there is a steady decline of creativity. As a college student, I have seen how many people around me rely heavily on ChatGPT. It can be for something so simple like looking for a place to eat but it can also escalate to having ChatGPT write their own essays. It becomes so normalized to say, ‘Just ChatGPT it’ or ‘I’m just going to ChatGPT it’. Since it is normalized we fail to see the damage that it continuously does. But why should we care?

Creativity has been on a decline. Many people even look down on the creative field. To them STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) are more important than artistry. We live in an ever evolving world. I can understand why STEM would seem like a number one priority but art really plays an important role in development especially in early childhood development. A few benefits of how art aids in development are as follows: motor skills, language development, and decision making. Children are able to hone their motor skills while crafting. A simple action of scribbling with a crayon could really tune their motor skills by allowing them to feel the crayon in their hands and make a couple motions with it, almost simulating writing with a pencil.

What color should I paint these flowers? Should the sky really be blue? Children are able to ask themselves questions and also figure out a solution.

According to an article by PBS Kids for Parents, “Many preschool programs emphasize the use of scissors because it develops the dexterity children will need for writing.” Even just using scissors aids with a later skill that we use in life. You may be wondering how it promotes the development of language? In doing art with children, we interact with them. We let them know what a glue stick is, we point out the paintbrush, and we describe what we are going to do or how the art piece turned out to look. All this helps the child learn how to use their voice. As they grow older they understand how useful descriptive words are for them. Finally, it enhances their decision making. What color should I paint these flowers? Should the sky really be blue? Children are able to ask themselves questions and also figure out a solution. This assists them in reinforcing their problem-solving solutions, an extremely useful skill to have growing up and especially as adults. Mary Ann Kohl, an art educator and author, once said “If they are exploring and thinking and experimenting and trying new ideas, then creativity has a chance to blossom." So in a world where we are letting a machine dictate our creativity, we are slowly killing our chances to grow.

Jason Challas, Art Instructor here at West Valley College, strongly believes that the creation of art is a form of expression that is available to everyone and doesn’t necessarily require expensive materials. He thinks art "teaches creative problem solving through play and experimentation which is central to the kind of thinking that made this region what it is. Creating art enables us to communicate in a way that other art forms cannot.” Through this interview, I understood how important art is. Like he said, appreciating art makes a well-rounded human. In terms of AI, Challas thinks that it is an interesting experiment on the way thinking works and how humans process their creative thinking vs. machine learning. But in terms of art he thinks it is a useful tool when it comes to removing unwanted items or coming up with variations of ideas. Just like when photography was first introduced in the creative field, everyone questioned it at first but it is now welcomed in. There will always be change but one learns how to adapt. Challas does not believe that AI will be replacing Creatives, as he likes to call people who create, but rather it makes their job easier. He is very hopeful for the future of Art because “As long as we have something to say (and, well, these days there's plenty to talk about) it will always be an essential part of the human experience to create and view art and not leave it to AI to make it for us.” Art is an essential part of the profound human experience, and as he told me, it can get inside of you when you really love and appreciate it.

In recent years, we have seen a rise in the use of Artificial Intelligence to enhance and support the critical thinking process . We also see it rapidly replacing the arts, both physical and musical. One can just type a prompt in AI and receive a full digital art piece in just minutes. So now the people who poured their hard work into that skill, have been left in the shadows. The problem is AI is not stopping there. Hayao Miyazaki, the creator of Studio Ghibli, was once presented with an AI-generated animation. Let’s set the scene: Miyazaki is presented with an unthinkable animation of a fleshy looking creature. The presenter tells Miyazaki that “Artificial intelligence could present us grotesque movements that we humans can’t imagine”. He was disgusted and thought back to his friend who has a disability causing his muscle to stiffen, unable to reach out. Miyasaki then goes on to say, “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is…I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself." Miyazaki is upset at the fact the AI generator, or technology as he referred to it, has no sense of humanity. If Artificial Intelligence can create unnatural and distorted images or videos, what does that mean for our future and our empathy towards others?

Jason Challas says, “As long as we have something to say (and, well, these days there's plenty to talk about) it will always be an essential part of the human experience to create and view art and not leave it to AI to make it for us.”

If we let AI take over art and creativity, a part that makes us humans and connects us to every age of humankind, then we are screwed. For centuries, humans have used art as a way to express themselves but also as a way to document their lives. An article written by RevArt states that “Art is one of the oldest forms of human expression. Long before humans developed written language, we were drawing images on cave walls, capturing stories, rituals, fears, and aspirations.” Take for example, cave paintings. If there were no cave paintings to be found, then we would have never known that humanity has been alive and evolving for many years before us.

This past December I walked through many museums and churches in Italy. Seeing all its rich history and beautiful art pieces made me think about how art and many art mediums have always existed in human history. The moments that are frozen in time on those canvases are valuable. They can show history, stories and moments in life that the artist deemed important to record. In Florence, during the tour of the Academia Gallery, one painting in particular stood out to me. This painting is called Vallombrosa Altarpiece (Assumption of the Virgin), made in the 1500s by Pietro Vannucci, a highly respected Renaissance painter. The attraction I found in this painting was the vibrant colors the artist used, how the oil on canvas looked and how the artist worked with these materials to really capture the humanistic aspects of the characters in these paintings.

At last, I had to move on but I took a picture of it and every time I see it, I am reminded of those feelings of admiration and fascination I felt while I marveled at the painting in real life.

Artificial intelligence is changing the world. There is always something new, there is always something to talk about. We constantly see it changing our lives. Take a moment, think about how you have used AI in your life. It might seem like a benefit for us and has shown quickness when generating, but it really does harm us. In letting the machine do the work, we do not realize that we are slowly losing our humanity in the process.