When Tenebrous Press put out an open submission call for art and writing for a special magazine addressing the AI crisis in the creative world, the image of an AI angel immediately came to mind. I pictured an angelic figure, humanoid in outline, but made up of computer and other electronic and mechanical parts and far too many wings and eyes. Threatening but also appealing in its beauty.
This video time lapse gives some idea of how many different stages I went through in the drawing process. I love working with digital drawing software (I may be anti-AI but I am not anti-technology) because you can experiment and switch elements in and out until you are 100% happy with the finished product. I spent untold hours on this one, more than I’ve ever spent on a drawing before, and often dropped or redid sections when I had a better idea. I’ve never put this much detail into a drawing before either, so I got to let my super obsessive side run free as I perfected each little part.
The speed with which AI has become an inescapable nuisance has been unsurprising but depressing just the same. The data used to populate these writing and art programs was stolen without the creators’ permission, the output is often undependable, absurd, and in some cases, outright dangerous, and the environmental impact of the amount of power it takes to generate the often useless or inferior product is immense and ever-increasing.
If you can’t tell, I’m not a fan. I think computers can be very useful tools, but this feels like we are crossing a line into technology for technology’s sake rather than it being an overall good in society. I encourage anyone reading this to support creatives who are fighting back against AI. It is a very challenging time to be an independent creator and every little bit of encouragement is a HUGE deal!
(You can purchase Thank You for Joining the Algorithm here and you can purchase a print of my finished “AI” angel image here.)