𝐈𝐬 𝐀𝐈 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐟𝐭?

Hoyt Emerick (An AI Generated Poster)

Please take a moment to read this. 🙏🏻

A well-meaning Candy Apple Blue enthusiast recently sent in this AI interpretation of our original photograph of Hoyt. This image won our poll earlier this week. Despite its fabulousness, it now appears to be a bombastic, over-the-top rock-star movie poster.

A task that, likely, required only a few minutes to execute with a simple command prompt in AI would have taken me days to design in Photoshop. But at what cost?

AI "command prompters" might be unintentionally stealing or plagiarizing from real human authors' copyrighted works. This not-so-great AI takeover is replacing artists, musicians, filmmakers, book authors, mastering engineers, cartoonists, and photographers. It's even infiltrating the job market.

I don't know about you, but my electric bill has almost doubled since the AI takeover. Information-mining data centers are polluting our country, evaporating our water, distorting our perception of reality, and destroying lives. The environmental impact alone is grossly negligent.

I might sound old here, but maybe it's because I am. I'll be 54 this year, and I'm a proud Gen Xer. If these big tech companies don't stop putting profits before people, there will be no real art left. Hell, there might not even be a planet left. What will become of future generations?

I know all of this might sound trite or even contradictory coming from someone who's in an indie synth-pop band. Our original music is produced with vintage drum machines and synthesizers, most of which date back to the 1980s. But please know that we work hard to compose original lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions. It's our greatest hope that our works will make a real human connection. We use our own voices and put our lived experiences into our music creation.

So, let me ask you this. Do you think that AI technology has gone too far? And, if so, where do you draw the line? Could you answer honestly? Is this image AI slop or true artistry?

Sincerely, Carly Emerick (songwriter, audio engineer)