Posted by Generative artificial intelligence is shaping up to be one of the most profound and powerful tools to come out of the 2020s, across a wide spectrum of applications. Though often the most famous in the world of chatbots and data analysis, AI has also made great strides in entering the creative landscape. The implications of this development range from widely accepted to hotly debated, blurring the lines of credit, and requiring a fundamental shift in how digital creation is regarded and treated.
As a Streamlining Tool
The most widely accepted and appreciated applications of AI within creative processes come from its ability to automate basic framework and functionality. Some of the best examples of this are illustrated within the ecosystem of an online roulette game like First Person and Lighting Roulette. Existing games are created entirely by hand, from the code to the UI, but AI could automate much of the process by developing the basic feature set itself. This would allow human developers more time to focus on expanding the range of tables, come up with new ideas and themes, and overall improve the efficiency of the service.
Ultimately, the level of integration as seen in online casinos is well accepted because it still requires a lot of human oversight, and it’s never being passed off as anything dishonest. By taking such an approach, AI as a creative method is essentially just taking over the delivery of a framework that humans have been following hundreds of times. Since there is little space for creative freedom, and it’s honest, there are no issues. It also still relies on human creativity as the primary guiding force beyond this point, so no levels of the more artistic parts of the process are overlooked.
Going a Step Further
The problem with AI in creative situations has instead arisen most visibly in situations of direct competition. This was the case with the 2022 Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition, where a competitor won the digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography category through the use of AI. Rather than digitally manipulating a photo himself, the competitor simply entered a text prompt into an AI image creation tool named Midjourney, eliminating any direct human element from the creative process. Granted $300 for first place, other competitors did not take this victory well.
The backlash against AI created via prompts and not human hands has grown so immense that major art-sharing platforms like ArtStation have gone so far as to hide AI art from users. Claiming that it violates their terms of service, AI creation on this level was labeled derivative of human projects without the correct compensation or attribution. As AI visual creative tools become more powerful, however, it becomes much more difficult to determine their usage, creating an ongoing struggle against dishonest actors.
Like it or hate it, AI in the creative process is only going to grow. In some instances, it serves as little more than a helpful tool, cutting costs while also allowing a consistent level of quality. Implemented dishonestly, AI could be used to take projects and thanks away from human hands, even funding cheaters in extreme circumstances. Having come so far and become so advanced this level of human-on-AI combat is a part of life now, and while it’s not exactly the Terminator movies come to life, it still illustrates a serious issue for creatives.
