Leo

I usually stick to story work on this account and try to let the art speak for itself, but art itself has been under attack over the last year or two, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

Generative AI, the kind that runs ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini, etc is not beneficial to our lives. It has been pushed on every front, with promises that it will make various aspects of life run more smoothly, be more widely accessible, or more convenient. It has done none of these things in any significant way. It is wildly destructive to the environment; forests are knocked down and lakes dried up to build data centers, and freshwater is consumed at a deeply alarming rate. It is becoming nearly impossible to trust anything you see online.. maybe a year ago one could distinguish AI generated images, but it has now nearly surpassed distinction.

Generative AI has taken over colleges, high schools, and universities, being used by students and teachers alike and breeding distrust and terrible work ethic. It has quickly crept into digital and graphic design fields and pushed out real designers in favor of sloppy, generic work. Art and photography contests have been taken over and ruined frequently, and misinformation has spread like wildfire due to the LLMs engrained in search engines like Google. We have traded the beauty and strangeness of human art and effort for an environment-destroying, rapidly advancing enshittification machine.

I can think of no redeemable qualities for GenAI and condemn it entirely.

I am incredibly grateful for the uniqueness, creativity, and community of the people in the Inq28 and larger miniature painting circles I connect with on here. I'm not a particularly "famous" account or creator, but I feel strongly attached to the community here. I see you all in your genuine weirdness and support you. GenAI is only going to get more omnipresent and smothering until it burns itself up, but real art and connection is made all the more valuable in this time. I thank you for your creativity.

- Leo