The Blog is Dead. Long Live the Blog!
Happy 2025!
After a long deliberation, I've decided to ditch my fancy-pants website host and go back to Blogger. I could go into sordid detail about my difficulties with the host company, but suffice it to say that when they were bought out, the transition did not go well. (Now whether or not I can get my domain name to transfer seemlessly is another matter. I've spent the better part of the morning trying to do just that, with little to no success. We shall see...*)
In the meantime, I thought I'd blow the dust off the 'ol web log and write an entry, even though it won't be read by anyone except myself and perhaps a handful of mindless bots. For as we teeter over into the Brave New World of artificial intelligence, I've determined to doggedly continue to put my words -- and my art -- into the digital void. At least for now.
As many of you know, I've always been keen on embracing new ideas and technologies; but over the last year I seem to have lost my initial enthusiasm for AI, or at least in the way it's currently being used. It seems that the naysaying Luddites are right: the companies jostling to get ahead in this space have been willing to do just about anything to line their pockets, including hoovering up every artist's body of work with the eventual goal of replacing human input altogether.
My opinion won't add much to the growing chorus of techno-doom, though. The trend's been with us ever since the Industrial Revolution, after all, and will only continue to accelerate. When budgets are tight, most clients will swap out quality for a slightly lesser, substandard product if it's quicker, or cheaper, or both.
I can't say I blame them.
That being said, I don't have to like it.
People will always want art made by humans, those of us in the creative fields have been reassured. Yet I would counter that while this might be true, for all practical purposes it will ultimately come down to cost and the robots will win. Just as photography and the half-tone process replaced countless thousands of artist/engravers in the 19th century, so AI imagery will replace the scraps of what was left to artists in the 20th; i.e., technical/medical illustration, scifi/fantasy bookcovers, game and film animation. Even the teaching of art seems slated to go the way of the dodo.
What's a 21st century artist to do, then? I don't have the answer. All I know is that, even if there was no longer any societal value given to drawing or painting or telling stories, I would still do so.
It's part of who I am.
*UPDATE 1/8/25: I'm still wait to see if the domain address will transfer over from the defunct site, a process that could take up to 72 hours. So I apologize about the confusion and/or mess that will be happening here on the blog as I update my ancient template and so on to turn it into my main website.
Comments