When I was in high school, I attended a magnet school for the arts, which meant that around 70% of the students had auditioned for competitive admission to a specialized program in theatre, visual arts, dance, music, or creative writing. This meant that there were often two versions of each art course: there was the version of the course intended for (and restricted to) the students studying in that discipline, and there was the general version, intended for everyone.

You know what the missing piece of the puzzle was? It was that AI art isn’t for artists.

Like, it can be. But for the most part it isn’t.

Here’s a “thread” I wrote back in October, in the pre-ChatGPT era, right when everyone was freaking out about AI art, and I’m pulling it out again to add some commentary on which of my thoughts have shifted and which I still think are relevant.

You know what the missing piece of the puzzle was? It was that AI art isn’t for artists.

Like, it can be. But for the most part it isn’t.

Like, when you think about it, if you need a bowl, you can commission a ceramic artist to make a beautiful one for you, right? Or you can make one yourself, which will give you varying results depending on how skilled of a potter you are. Or you can just go buy a bowl at Dollarama, because you need a bowl, don’t have (or don’t want to spend) a shit ton of money, and Dollarama gives you enough choice that it’s not really worth dealing with a potter or becoming one. It’s just a bowl, for god’s sake. Who cares?

I don’t. I ask my friends if I can steal their ideas instead. If we’ve been friends long enough, I’ve probably done it to you.

(This is only partially a joke.)

There are 3 main categories of books about creativity, in my opinion:

1. Self-help books (which are, in my opinion, terribly useless, though they sometimes include a few interesting ideas).

2. Books written by researchers (which tend to make more objective claims and which I personally find more interesting).

3. Books written by journalists, which tend to be either/or.