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As I was painting the background I found myself thinking how easy it would be to drop an AI generated one in behind things to save myself time. I’m no fan of AI, but I realize that it isn’t going anywhere. Pandora’s box has been opened and, in the US at least, our lawmakers are barely capable of legislating things that have existed for the entirety of their lives. And I mean just BARELY. The level of ignorance we tolerate in our elected officials is staggering, but let’s not get stuck on that.
I know that AI is something all people will have to contend with from now on, and I feel the pull of laziness that something like a magic do my work for me button creates. For me the problem, if you want to call it that, is that my art is so low grade, or perhaps distinctly unskilled if you prefer, that any AI things I drop in around it throws my lack of skill into STARK contrast. I have to maintain a certain level of mediocrity so that my work at least remains cohesive. AI art even at its worst is already better than I am at my best. So, in some sense, I’m locked out of taking advantage of it. At least as far as my comic is concerned. I suppose that’s a good thing in so far as it will at least keep my work “pure”. I’m not sure the purity of my work is work defending, but it is unquestionably human in its myriad flaws.
I always assumed that the robots would come and take away jobs from field laborers, or coders, or the kinds of things people don’t enjoy doing. When they finally arrived they started by taking away the things that are the most human, like art, and music… How desolate. A dystopia that no one saw coming, and yet it is so perfectly miserable that I can think of no better representation of a pure dystopia. A world where humans toil for the robots that make the things that pacify us. Truly I value the gift of Iluvatar in this moment. In the far green country there will be no robots. Not yet anyway…

And on that cheery note I welcome you to another week of whatever it is that I do here. I hope you have a nice Monday. Please take note of the support links if you see the value of this human’s struggle. I will bring more of it to you on Wednesday. Until then, fight for the users.