Creativity and Generativity are wildly different concepts and practices. To make something just for the sake of making something without any real thought or passion and / or just to make a quick buck is generativity. One generates a thing for a specific and artless purpose. As they say “trained rats could do that” or maybe more to the effect of “a thousand apes at a thousand typewriters would produce Shakespeare given enough time”. And we totally have that today in the whole Generative AI slop community.

Yes, it makes something. Is it good? That’s somewhat a matter of opinion. I call it clanker slop. Pure garbage. Utter trash. Absolute shit. And I have similar words and feelings for those that use AI to do the making that a person would normally have done, ie. image making or writing. I’m not going to call what AI makes anything near “art” or “creative”. However it is generative, as it says in the name. Does AI have a place in society? No. But maybe in the manufacturing world, or mining industry, perhaps something generally too dangerous for a human to do or do safely. Like nuclear or chemical waste management and remediation. By all means I encourage industry to produce machines that can think enough to do that kind of a job. I know we need to start somewhere with the use of AI, however I’m not sure we have started where is best for the product or the people of Earth. Quite the opposite.

The Boston Dynamics robots that can walk themselves around, jump up and down obstacles, and even dance are terrifying as well. Both the humanoid and the quadrupedal robots alike. something about them having all this ability and nothing behind it is deeply concerning. I understand how they are telling us that they have to be controlled by humans at this point however at some point they will be more autonomous if not completely AI driven. This is how we get Terminators. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Maybe a little bit of both. More will be revealed.

I’m off topic.

Creativity is not just generating an end result, a product. It takes something more in the way of thought, inspiration, an idea, willpower. I’m not completely sure I’ve reached the right word for what I’m trying to say, and I don’t know if I ever will. That’s human. Writing a prompt and making a machine do all of the actual labor of generating the thing is absolutely not being creative. It’s one thing to have an idea and totally different to execute it. I’ve heard some say that they have all these ideas yet not the skill, time, patience, ability, to produce the idea. To that I have nothing to say besides “tough, we all lack time, patience is a virtue and virtue is it’s own reward, learn the skill, develop the ability”.

I have ideas and lack all of the above to really bring out what I see in my mind. But I make do and make the damn thing myself, poorly usually but I still make the effort and make the thing. Is this poorly written? Maybe, most likely.

YouTube can teach you anything if you have the time to sit and watch a video on it. It’ll give you the foundation and then you can go out and hone the skill yourself. I’ll admit I’m coming from a place where I worked really hard on developing skills and I had an amazing support system and teachers throughout the process but that doesn’t mean I did nothing for myself. Teachers gave me the foundational skills and I used books and YouTube and ‘zines and other people to help hone the skills to a moderate edge. I’m far from the best. Never will be. As I was told a number of times “it’ll never be an Audubon Society print or drawing”. But whatever. That’s not the point. It was never the goal.

Ultimately I do what I do because I like to do it. I make what I can when I can and I know that it isn’t often enough but I have a family and a job and other responsibilities. I create when I can. Like now, I’ve got a minute or two to do this and I am. If that isn’t good enough, so it goes. I was also told a number of times that you ”either have the artist bug or you don’t. You either need to create or you don’t”. Basically it’s all or nothing, either go in for it a thousand percent or give up. To that attitude I have very few words and very few of them aren’t vulgar. So it goes.

Creativity is about the journey and the process. For me the end result is less important. Do I like to have something nice when I’m done? Absolutely. Is it the only thing I’m going for? No.