thesis#
i keep pondering lately, what are we actually defending when we say “ai art is not real art”?
i do not have a final position yet. i am writing this to think in public, not to close the debate.
context#
while driving on a family vacation, i asked my wife to fulfill her duty as the passenger and dj some motown bangers. she searched on spotify and found something that seemed to fit the bill. most of the songs were recognizable, memories from my childhood, riding in the backseat listening to my parents’ favorites. however, the first song on the playlist was by an artist called the 19s soulers, which was an artist i did not recognize. this was a user created playlist so not everything might fit perfectly into the motown mold i was asking for, and that was ok. the song started and it was SOOO good. TOO good. i had my suspicions, but the music caught me so hard that i completely forgot. i asked my boys in the back seat to look up the artist and they did not even search and just responded “AI DAD - IT IS AI”. i felt so many conflicting emotions, including one of pride that my boys could tell the difference and they have some defense against being fooled.
the conversation around ai-generated images and music feels hotter every week, especially when a new ai music act gets attention or a contract. the reaction is often immediate and predictable outrage, fear, dismissal, and arguments about stolen style.
at the same time, many of us use ai to help write code, review pull requests, or shape architecture notes without the same emotional response. that contrast is interesting to me.
if i call code a craft, and sometimes an art form, then why does ai help feel acceptable there for so many people, but unacceptable when the ai helps write song lyrics? and if code can be expressive, why is the outrage concentrated in painting, illustration, and music.
my code has my fingerprints all over it, just as much as this website and the way i speak and write. it defintely qualifies as expressive. i make stylistic, logic, function, etc. choices that suit my style. how is this different from writing a book? but if you asked which one is acceptable to use ai and which one is not, i could guess your answer 99% of the time.
argument#
i see a few possible reasons, and none of them feel complete on their own:
- visual art and music are tied to identity in a very direct way
- audiences often connect to the “maker story”, not only the artifact
- creative labor markets in those fields already felt fragile before ai
- software teams have normalized tool-assisted output for decades
- code is often judged by function first, while art is judged by intention and feeling
still, even with those differences, i cannot shake the inconsistency.
when i use ai in code, i still feel like the author because i set constraints, reject bad output, and own the result. i do not think that is very different from guiding a visual generator, editing outputs, and curating a final piece. maybe the difference is only social permission, not creative mechanics.
this question also links to my concern about ownership in the danger of trusting the ai agent, where speed is useful but responsibility still has to stay human.
tension or counterpoint#
there is also a strong counterpoint i take seriously: in code, wrong answers fail in visible ways. tests fail, services break, users complain, and teams can trace accountability. in art, value is less binary, and that makes authorship feel more central and more vulnerable.
another counterpoint is economic, not philosophical. people may not be reacting to “is this art” at all. they may be reacting to “will this replace my livelihood”.
both of those points feel real to me.
and i think the later point is one worth exploring because the wide-spread availability of ai has “democratized” creativity, technical endeavors, etc. for people who might have great ideas, but not the musical or technical skill to carry out the plan. well, now they do. and that instant competition that was not present before can certainly feel intimidating and encroaching.
i am currently mostly pro-ai, but with caution. we should have caution regarding how the models are being trained (and on what data) and regulated. we should exercise caution surrounding who is doing the regulating, as well. ai is a powerful assistant, and as we all know from spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.
closing#
i am left with questions, not conclusions.
maybe we value human touch most where we believe the human story is the product. maybe we accept ai more where we believe the product is utility. maybe those boundaries are changing and we are all reacting in real time.
for now, i am trying to keep the question open…..when ai is part of the process, what still makes something mine, yours, or ours?
