Hello lovely family and friends

CHATGPT!

What do you think?

I shall plunge right into the ChatGPT debate/protest currently raging around the world. Please add your thoughts and comments below the blog, I would love to hear your ideas.

One of my email crew sent me some images he had generated using ChatGPT trying to copy my polar bear painting. Here they are (and, do you know, I felt guilty about copying them, probably because I am not a robot, so I asked his permission to use them):

My Painting (5 weeks of work)

5 minutes of typing in ChatGPT:

I showed my younger son the images, really wondering if he would think they were cool. But he said “But that’s stealing!” I guess, it is stealing my concept, my intellectual property so to speak, but once it is out there, anyone is free to plagiarise it. It’s the perpetual artist dilemma – you have to show your work in the hope of selling it, but as soon as you do, other people will copy it. And unlike, Michael Moebius, I can’t afford a lawyer…

German Artist Michael Moebius Wins $120 Million in a ‘Monumental’ Lawsuit Against Hundreds of Foreign Counterfeiters

Speaking of copyright, all the images that were used to generate these pictures were stolen from millions of images on the web, copied without the creators’ knowledge, let alone permission. If you steal from one person, you can go to jail, but if you get away with stealing from millions, you are either a big business, or a government.

One hundred years ago, you would have to have been a painter to create your own version of one of my paintings. Some years ago, I was taking part in an art exhibition and noticed someone surreptitiously taking a cell phone photograph of one of my award-winning paintings. My friend also noticed and said “Aren’t you going to tell them not to?” I said no, because I know it is going to happen, and because I know just how hard it is to paint what I paint. But now, a computer is more and more able to replicate what I do. My older son looked at the Chatgpt pictures and said “They look kind of cheesy, so don’t bother about it.” They look kind of cheesy now, but in six months? They will just get better and it can generate in seconds what takes me a month to paint. They won’t make an actual oil painting, yet…

If I was a digital artist, I think I’d be bleak, but perhaps they are already using it themselves as a jumping off point.

As some photographers are:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/17/photographer-admits-prize-winning-image-was-ai-generated

Years ago, I watched a black and white promo film made in the 1950s narrated by a cheery, quick talking man about how machines were going to make our lives better and by the Twentieth century, people would be working three day weeks, with four day weekends, because machines would take over more and more of our menial jobs…

So where are the robots that can clean the windows, toilets and sink? Even robotic vacuum cleaners are deeply confused by chair legs. It’s ironic that AI is threatening our creative livelihoods, but can’t clean a toilet…   How sad is that?

I saw this posted on Facebook:

OUCH

I suppose artists were stressed and upset when Photography was invented, as they feared losing their jobs, but more people paint now than ever, and photographs enable us to paint better. We will have to figure out how to make it work for us.

Some people are stressed about losing their jobs, and the actual creators of AI are concerned about that too:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/artificial-intelligence-pioneer-leaves-google-warns-technologys-future-rcna82242

I did roll my eyes when I read that article. That’s not like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, that’s like closing the stable door after you have sold the horse to the dog meat canning factory.

Well, we always have to adjust to the continually changing world we live in, and this is just another change to figure out.

I shall keep my part-time cleaning job (grateful not to be replaced by a robot), and keep painting and writing, because creating brings me joy. I won’t be asking ChatGPT to write my next blog, because I actually ENJOY writing to you. I paint because I am miserable if I don’t.

And in terms of other people’s creativity, I don’t want to read computer-generated poetry mish-mashed together from real poets’ work. I’m bored by the concept itself. I want to read the distilled essence of one person’s thoughts, vision and experience. That is poetry. To my darling poet friend reading this (you know who you are), please write more of your poetry! You bring joy to my heart.

  I don’t want to read an imitation patchwork AI novel. I want to marvel at the wisdom, morality, humour and insight of Jane Austin’s original novels, or be inspired to grow in courage and faith through reading Dee Henderson’s books, or the Lord of the Rings for the twentieth time. I don’t want cookie cutter entertainment; I want to be inspired and challenged by a real person. You gifted writer friend (you know who you are) I want to read your vision and wisdom! I need more than a computer collage to grow my soul. Use AI if it helps you to embody your vision, but refine it, and let it be YOUR vision.

And to those of you who want a painting, or a print of a real painting, by a human artist to grace your walls and enliven your soul, a heartfelt THANK YOU from those of us who yearn to communicate by putting brush to canvas.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/03/13/online-storm-erupts-over-ai-work-in-dutch-museums-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-display

Climbing down off my soapbox now, and wishing you comfort and peace in the midst of this turbulent life.

XX Barbie