I mean, goddamn, it's almost August of 2026, and we're still in the peak contentious stage of "all things AI". And, you know, I understand why. I get it. It's a fast-moving technology. It's impressive and terrifying at the same time. Everybody's worried. Everybody's still referencing Skynet. Everybody has concerns. Everybody's finding new things to be afraid of. I understand all of that.
However, what's also happening is that AI removes a perceived barrier to entry for creating things. Obviously, someone who's never painted can now "make a painting." Someone who's never played a musical instrument can "make a song." Someone who's no good at photography beyond using their phone can "make a photograph." There are a lot of reasons AI is so appealing, er, tempting.
One comparison I've drawn is this. Let's say a massive alien spacecraft arrived from another galaxy and decided that you, personally, would have access to their technology. Their technology lets you do almost anything. You want to see what's inside Area 51? Done. You want to spy on your neighbors? Done. You want to see what's happening on Mars? They have footage. You want to go to Mars? They can take you. You want something teleported from somewhere else into your possession, effectively stealing it? Done. Need somebody "taken care of?" They can do that too.
Just prompt them to do it, and it'll get done.
Now you might think that's an insane example. And why am I focusing on all the negative things this alien technology could do?
Because it's a thought experiment.
What I'm saying is this: if an alien civilization handed a human that much power and simply said, "Tell us what you need," corruption would almost certainly follow. Not because every single human would become corrupt, but because the temptation would be real. Very real.
Most people would stop just short of doing something awful to another person. Most people would stop just short of secretly spying on someone. Most people would stop just short of stealing. Even if it were literally push-button simple. Even if all it took was nodding your head and letting alien technology handle the rest.
But the temptation would still be there.
That's how I think about modern AI.
We're generally not using it to do overtly malicious things to other people. Instead, we're succumbing to temptation. And if you're already an artist, a musician, a photographer, or any other kind of creative person, you've probably raised an eyebrow already. You've probably thought, "Wait a minute. Why would I 'make' a 'photograph' this way if it completely sidesteps what I actually do as a photographer?"
And here's where my current thesis currently lives:
We absolutely have the right to criticize how people use AI. The reason is simple: we're criticizing people's intent, not the technology itself.
The companies building these tools also carry responsibility, just like any company releasing world-changing technology. We can't endlessly hide behind "rugged individualism" and insist that everyone is solely responsible for every consequence while pretending the companies distributing these systems have none. We can't keep repeating that while the world burns. There has to be some responsibility from the multibillion dollar companies creating this technology, and from the people enabling it. Never mind the governments.
But where my criticism really lives is with people.
It's about intent.
Yeah it's ignorance, naivete, lack of skills. "I had AI make me a flyer because I don't know how to design one." Fine. Then they post it with three spelling errors, bizarre typography, 7 fingers on somebody's hand, and every other artist immediately recognizes it as painfully obvious AI.
That's not AI's fault.
That's human intent.
The people I'm becoming genuinely hostile toward are the ones acting maliciously. The people posting AI-generated images as if they're real photographs they personally created. The people inventing fake influencers and fake personalities whose entire purpose is manipulating or scamming other people. The people uploading tens of thousands of AI-generated songs every week onto every platform imaginable, ranging from mildly interesting to painfully generic, then presenting it as though it's their artistic output.
That's human intent. That's human delusion.
AI is simply the alien civilization that showed up and made all of this ridiculously convenient.
Human beings have always been remarkably good at lying to ourselves, lying to each other, and exploiting any technology that lowers the barrier to doing something difficult, intimidating, or profitable. I think humanity is heading toward a reckoning.
Maybe not this year. Maybe not next year. But eventually we're going to have to draw a line in the sand and say: let AI do what it's genuinely good at. Let it do the things that actually benefit humanity. However, what human beings create still has value simply because humans created it.
I cannot seem to explain this to certain people.
There is no inherent creative value in something AI outputs. End of story. There isn't. It's not possible.
Because what is creative value, really? It's human experience.
Everything I make, every photograph, every drawing, every note I play on a guitar, isn't just the product of the moment. It's the product of 50 years of living before that moment ever happened. Human beings recognize that in one another.
When an 83 year old woman tells you stories about lessons she learned 50+ years ago, you listen with reverence. Not just because she's 83, but because she possesses experiences you don't. We respect lived experience. We value it.
And it's not just elderly people who deserve that respect. It's anyone who's actually been through something. That's what we're acknowledging when we appreciate another person's work.
We're acknowledging their life, not merely their output.
Ironically, AI is forcing some people to think more artistically, more philosophically, maybe even more spiritually, about what human beings actually are and why we create in the first place. Simply because now we have these metaphorical aliens that can instantly generate something convincing enough to fool/satisfy most people.
Hell, I use generative AI myself, but in a very specific way.
When I dictate journal entries or essays like this one, its a benefit of efficiency for me, but I'm incredibly strict with it. I tell it not to rewrite me. I tell it to clean up the grammar a tiny bit (especially if I am rambling on and on), tighten the prose a little, but also stop inserting endless line breaks, stop adding cheesy phrases, and for the love of God, stop using fucking em dashes.
I've almost trained it into becoming an extremely sophisticated speech-to-text editor like my iPhone has, but, you know, just more accurate. That's useful to me because I speak the way I write. My journal entries end up 100% what I dictated, what I edited manually after my dictation was typed up, and what I chose to add after re-reading/proofing.
But if I say, "Write me an essay about the merits and pitfalls of professional sports," then sit back, copy whatever it outputs, and paste it under my own name, what exactly am I doing with my life?
I'm stripping away the only thing I actually had to contribute: My experience.
I'm robbing other people of the opportunity to hear something filtered through 50 years of being alive. Look, maybe my perspective is wrong. Maybe it's useful. Maybe it's entertaining. Maybe it's none of those things.
But at least it's mine.
Tbh, fellow humans, rest assured: a reckoning is coming. It's already happened for some people, and it'll continue happening for the rest of us. I know some of you will keep pumping out AI slop and trying to pass it off as authentic. And some of you will use AI to run scams you probably would've run anyway (and fuck you for doing so btw).
But when all of this eventually settles down, I think human importance will actually increase. It's just going to be a little messy getting there.