Ai? More like aye I ain't trippin

Cute Ghibli avatars, custom futuristic car kits, and 'real alien UFO footage'. Social media platforms are being flooded with ai generated content faster than we can comprehend, and it's starting to blur the lines of reality vs really great prompting. Is artificial intelligence going to take over my skills? My job? My life?! 

While this technology is both entertaining and daunting, it's important to know how artists, designers, and humans can take advantage of this inevitable tool. Let's dive into why ai has become not just a trend, but a way of changing the whole game. 

Pencils, markers, acrylic paint, watercolor, spray paint, and ceramic. All the brushes. From hand painted signs to custom portraits, I was deep in the artist mindset before I even started scale models. It also made me appreciate the artwork of other individuals. The amount of time it takes to find a medium and master it is just the first level. The next level is creating a unique and specific style that reflects who the artist is or the message they’re trying to convey. Not only does this take a certain skillset, but also years of personal or impactful experiences that can happen in one’s life.

Art is made from passion. The need to make someone feel something. Anything. Van Gough’s Starry Night is ART. But so is that cyan-rainbow pooping pop tart cat gif. WHY? Because it stands the test of time when it comes to feeling, and the creators knew exactly what they wanted to convey. Very different mediums and very different audiences, but both made for the people, by craftsmen.

All this art throw up just to say: I can draw good. So why is there now an app that can do that exact thing, but almost better? In fact, I’m not ashamed to say that ai has most definitely surpassed by artistic level when it comes to creating jpegs and pngs in cool effects. So were all those years of studying and appreciating great art just gone straight down the drain? I literally saved an ai generated post of Captain America concept art outfits for inspiration and I hate myself. It took a total of 6 seconds for some dude to just pump out a perfectly composed image in high quality. They had zero art training, and wanted to make some visuals they heard from their last bong session. AND IT LOOKS DOPE. There are endless “art” accounts on instagram with beautifully rendered artwork that took seconds to generate. What makes this so cool is that anyone can hop in and do it. Which brings us back to the classic statement you’ll often hear at art museums: “I could’ve made that.” Well now ya can buddy.

Sweeet, so now I can just throw in some chattgpt prompts and start selling tee shirts with this art on it right? Yes. Yes you can. But also, if this is something someone wants to do, does this hurt the other artists that have actually spent years creating their style? No, no it doesn’t. No one can stop this from happening, so all we can do is just let it happen. People will get praise and recognition for using this technology in whatever way they like, and there’s absolutely nothing artists can do to stop this tool from getting better and better each year. How gloomy right?

That’s the reality we live in. People can’t tell the difference between my weeks-long hand drawn illustration and the one I generated in seconds while writing this blog post. If I put both side by side, they’ll most likely choose the ai generated one as it will have more detail, better composition, and overall stronger style. Which is both heart wrenching and expected. So how can traditional artists rise during times like these?

Do what you love, and let it kill you. This was a phrase I painted on an abandoned school back before iPads were handed out during halloween. Regardless of all the pixel bullshit we’ve been seeing online, don’t let this stop you from creating what you need to create. People will always appreciate true artwork, and the rise of ai will eventually start to filter out what is generated vs what is crafted. I encourage artists to find new ways to expand their craft, using techniques and mediums that ai will never be able to replicate. And yeah, highly encourage artists to try their hand out at scale stuff wink wink. You’ll never catch an ai bot sewing action figure clothes and painting custom liveries (this is April 2025, so let’s check back in 5 years, I could eventually regret saying that).

Ai is here to stay. Ai is not bad, and it’s not great, but it just is. There’s nothing wrong with using these tools, because at the end of the day, that’s exactly what they are: tools. They’re made to help us elevate our stories and spread our messages. We’ll start to see more comic strips, videos, avatars, and ads that are impressive and mesmerizing, but there’s a certain point where we just have to go out and touch some grass.