Quick Take
Artificial intelligence is hovering over the work of creative people, especially those in the graphic arts, writes photographer and writer Donna Maurillo. Instead of feeding human imagination, AI, she writes, is giving us the equivalent of fast-food meals. Here, she applauds Lookout’s recent focus on art in Santa Cruz and explains how AI is affecting several artists – particularly graphic designers.graphic arts, writes photographer and writer Donna Maurillo. Instead of feeding human imagination, AI, she writes, is giving us the equivalent of fast-food meals. Here, she applauds Lookout’s recent focus on art in Santa Cruz and explains how AI is affecting several artists – particularly graphic designers.
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When I read that Lookout would be doing a series featuring Santa Cruz County artists, I was delighted. We are lucky to reside in a community that supports and values the creative work of the people who live here.
I say this because I’ve seen a steady creep of artificial intelligence into the territory of our talented artists. These are the people who invested their lives and their work into discovering new ways to think. New ways to present ideas. New ways to help us examine the world.
That is what makes the growing use of AI in creative work so unsettling.
MADE IN SANTA CRUZ: WHY ART MATTERS | Explore Lookout’s ongoing series here
Creativity is almost exclusively the purview of humans. We are always thinking of better ways to analyze our lives, to express an insight, to tell a story, to share an emotion in ways myriad other creatures cannot.
However, technology has reached the point at which we can plug a few sentences into an algorithm and produce an imitation of the same products. Right now, we can ask AI to write a mystery novel, compose a sonata, design a painting or even to use 3D printing to produce a bracelet and the earrings to go with it.
Is that a good thing?
The question is not whether AI can produce something that looks like art. Clearly, it can.
The question is whether what we gain in speed and convenience is worth what we lose in human thought, experience and expression.
Here’s what happens when we input a request into an AI site. The technology is built to scour the internet for anything that has been created already, including copyrighted material. Then it pastes those elements together to fit our request. It has no creativity of its own.
It does no thinking. It has no new ideas. It merely assembles the elements that artists have already created and calls it original art.
Several local artists I spoke with came to a similar conclusion: AI can be useful, but it is a poor substitute for the human mind behind the work.
Landscape painter Lynn Jaye said AI is affecting graphic designers, particularly when businesses are looking to save money on branding. “I can see how businesses that don’t want to spend money on artists for signage, ads or posters might want to rely on AI,” she told me.
This notably happened in Santa Cruz with signage at The Salty Otter, which became a community flashpoint – and a headache for the owner who had good intentions.
But, Jaye reminded me – and as happened at The Salty Otter – people can spot AI pretty quickly. Oftentimes the product has less personality. Although, Jaye did say she had seen some renderings that were “quite beautiful.”
Acrylic painter Grace Oliver said, “AI is great for creating schedules, helping with a quick marketing plan or doing other time-consuming administrative work. But you can tell AI artwork right away because it lacks personality and style.”
She compared AI-generated art to a McMansion: technically a house, but generic and indistinguishable from others.
That gets to the heart of my concern. More and more, it seems that the world is being trained to settle for the equivalent of fast-food burgers when we used to value chef-inspired menus. We look at what AI can spit out, and we call it art.
In reality, it’s just a rehash of someone else’s creation. We are given an imitation of what we already have instead of demanding something new and inspiring.
Oliver put it more bluntly: “AI-generated art is a lot like gambling. Sometimes you can win big with it, but most of the time, it doesn’t give you much.”
Ed Penniman, a landscape painter who began with commercial art, offered me a somewhat more optimistic view. He believes AI will affect the creative process, but that human ideas and conceptual work will retain their value.
“AI will have an impact, but not on the value of original, conceptually executed creative work,” he said. “I think in the future there may be a clearer bifurcation between concept (ideation) versus execution (craft skill) in terms of value.”
Watercolor artist Mary Hopf also sees a legitimate role for AI, but not as a replacement for human expression. “I believe AI has a place in contemporary life – as a tool for research, ideas, psychology, marketing or even as a creative aid,” she said. “But when it replaces genuine human expression, especially in art and advertising, something is lost.”
She said that AI-generated art can feel artificial and disconnected from the honesty and imperfections that make human creativity meaningful.
That distinction matters.
The imperfections are often the point. Human art reflects experience, emotion, mistakes, obsessions and individual ways of seeing the world. Those things are not flaws to be engineered out. They are what make a piece of art worth looking at.
Many artists believe that AI-generated art lacks emotional depth, it doesn’t reflect life experience, and it has no consciousness behind it. The art becomes a soulless product rather than a multidimensional reflection of the human experience.
Some artists have expressed anger when they see work that’s been produced with AI. We’ve seen nationwide boycotts against companies using AI to replace artists. Some of those companies include Coca-Cola, The Walt Disney Company and Hasbro.
Relying on artificially created art can deprive real artists of income, as these major companies did. But it can also deprive us of a thoughtful way to express an image or a piece of music. And when AI systems are trained on creative work without meaningful permission or compensation, artists have every right to question who benefits from that arrangement.
The minute artists in any medium post their work online, it’s already fair game for AI theft. It’s also leaving companies and organizations open to litigation regarding copyright infringement.
Artists are becoming wise now in the ways to protect our creative property. Some arts organizations are even offering seminars on how artists can protect their work and file lawsuits for the compensation they are due.
None of this means we should reject AI outright.
Is AI useful in any way at all?
Yes. It can prompt ideas. It can suggest elements. It can offer places to seek more information or different perspectives. It can perform routine tasks that eat up valuable creative time.
But it cannot create a new piece of art. It can give us only what we already have. It will always look machine-generated because that’s exactly what it is. Whether it’s an image or a book or a musical score, it will always look or sound like computerized output.
Penniman believes human intelligence might become even more valuable as creators learn to write better prompts and use AI during the concept stage. He believes there could be an ancillary non-AI value as creators use AI prompts in the concept stage and self-describe their vision for a piece of work before execution. This new area of refined prompt development, he says, will help create a more concrete image in the artist’s mind before the execution begins.
That might be the most constructive way to think about AI: not as the artist, but as one more tool available to the artist.
Like any tool, it’s all in the way we use it.
But let’s please be careful about what we call art.
Donna Maurillo studied art at UC Santa Cruz, where she graduated with honors. After retiring from a career in corporate communications, she has returned to photography, her first love.
