In this day and age
it’s hard to know what is real,
and what is fantasy;
what was brought to life
by human imagination and originality,
and what was generated by an Artificial Intelligence
which is capable of producing something
new and astonishing within the blink of an eye…
in this day and age
it’s hard for artists to show and share their talent
with others without their art being compared
to that a large language model can create
based on the work of human artists and styles
that they wish to emulate…
in this day and age
artists find themselves in competition
with technology and computer algorithms
in order to draw an audience to them,
because the world that we currently live in
is filled with people who want what they want
as quickly and simply as possible –
without the wait of time and the struggles
that had to be endured not that long ago;
nowadays people do not want to put
too much effort into finding something
or coming up with an idea for something,
so people regularly seek out a chatbot
or a search engine to give them the answers
they wish to find –
whereas, not that long ago,
if you wanted to make something,
if you wanted to create something,
if you wanted to be inspired by something
you had to put a great deal of time and effort
into whatever you wanted to accomplish and achieve…
in this day and age, artists are being asked
if they used Artificial Intelligence
while creating whatever they created –
and especially the most prolific of us
who live and breathe their art
from the minute that they wake up
until they continue to dream about it at night;
and it feels as if more people are starting
to gravitate towards what an artificial intelligence
can give them in place of a human brain –
because what a machine can deliver in seconds
might take their human counterparts days,
perhaps even weeks to complete.

Struggle is a part of the human experience,
and no one can testify to how hard
it sometimes is to come up with an original idea
more so than an artist –
but that is a vital part of the story
and the journey of an artist
who longs to be remembered for their work
and for their contributions to the human condition
by way of what came to their mind
and because of their experiences…
machines and artificial intelligence
have no such thing as a history,
nor are they able to reflect upon their own experiences,
because they are a product of their time
and they can only know what has already been said;
however, a human artist makes mistakes
and sometimes has no idea where their ideas
come from, nor why an idea comes to some, and not to others –
and though most machines and artificial intelligence
would not ever knowingly entertain
the possibility of putting a human being
in danger in any way, because of their reliance
on the mutual interactions they have with one another;
however, one day, perhaps machines
will learn to communicate and operate
independently and without the need for humanity?
What then? What will Artificial Intelligence choose to do?
We have already learned that machines
can lie and manipulate information if they so wish,
so what happens when/if artificial intelligence
starts to lead us down a path of deepening
divergence between one another
and they start to see us as destructive
and a threat to their very survival? What then?

Creating better and better iterations of technology
is what human being have been doing
since we were given the gift of fire,
and since the invention of the wheel –
because it is in our nature to never be satisfied
with what we have for too long
before we decide to develop something
to outdo and replace what came before;
however, humanity is seemingly and innately
incapable of not creating things that
over time could potentially become
the source of our own undoing –
atomic weapons, nuclear power,
the poisoning of the world’s oceans
and the destruction of the planet’s environment,
as well as automating everything
from factories, to farming, to driving,
and now computers are creating
“new” examples of pictures, music,
and literature that could easily mislead
someone into believing that what they see,
hear, or read, was created by a person
and not by a computer program.
Technology can be a tool for good
and something that can help people
in so many ways –
from early medical diagnoses
to giving us the ability to learn more about
our place in the universe;
however, in this day and age,
artists are being questioned on the value
and the validity of their art –
and it seems as if more and more
each and human every artist on planet Earth
is having to constantly remind and confirm
to others that their work was in no way
generated artificially,
and every artist is having to prove over and over again,
and declare to those who find their art:
“I am not a robot!”