My Statement on AI

ARTWORK
Absolutely none of my art pieces were (or ever will be) generated by AI. It is impossible in any case since I only work with physical mediums, mostly oils on panel. I will never make artwork for sale on this site that has been generated by AI.

WRITING
Not one single word of any of my books was written by AI. Nor will a single word of any future books be written using AI. I firmly believe that no one is actually a writer if they use AI to write their stories.

GRAPHIC DESIGN
The vast majority of my work in graphic design was performed without any usage of AI. I typically use my own invented elements, licensed stock photos or art, and similar materials in the public domain. However, early in the process of creating book covers for my own work, I was extremely poor due to chronic illness and I needed much more elaborate landscapes and characters for my space opera novels. During this time, I used Midjourney for a small percentage of the elements. Despite logical reasons at the time, I regret having done this. I’m an artist myself, albeit one who is terrible at figurative work or illustration, so I would have liked to have hired another artist, but it was financially impossible. During this period, the backlash against AI was not nearly so fierce as it is today and AI was mostly considered an exciting and novel tool.

At the same time, never once were any of these AI elements passed off as my own original work and they were only ever integrated into larger pieces entirely of my own design along with stock art elements that I paid for and/or elements I created myself. Some of these AI elements have since been replaced. Considering all the adjustments and integration I did, I would say the cover with the most AI is still only around 20-25%, and despite this minimal use of AI, the covers reflect my graphic design style and identity. I understand that many will take a more absolutist position and reject my work for this reason. I respect that position.

Nevertheless, in the future, I will not be using any further AI art elements in my graphic design work. In fact, I plan to soon employ an illustrator to draw my characters for future book covers.

FURTHER THOUGHTS
There are many legitimate concerns regarding AI, including issues of privacy, stealing creative works, environmental concerns, and the ongoing high probability that it has produced an economic bubble. All of these objections have merit. I share them. Nevertheless, I do not believe that AI is inherently evil. It may be created by or profited from by evil people, but inherently, it’s just a tool. I do not necessarily take a hardline or absolutist approach to the subject, and I do believe that AI may have some legitimate uses, tasks that are tedious or impossible for humans to perform, or advanced methods of scientific or medical analysis that would take human beings decades to complete.

Additionally, I believe that most of the privacy and environmental concerns of AI usage can be mitigated or eliminated by running them offline. The exploitative usage of water and electricity for data centers (many of which may prove a useless waste of resources when the AI economic bubble bursts) is unethical and irresponsible. Indeed, if AI is to continue to exist, it must be managed thoughtfully and used ethically, not for outrageous profits by a greedy oligarchic plutocracy. I intend to either use it as ethically as I can or not use it at all.

That said, we must all choose where we draw a line between what is acceptable and what is not. I choose to draw the line with original creative works. It is possible, however, I may use it for other things, maybe those things that I consider tedious or impossible for me to perform alone. In any case, whatever AI usage I engage in, I promise to use it judiciously and thoughtfully, just as I might be judicious and thoughtful about how much I run the air-conditioning or how long I shower in the morning.

AN AI WARNING FROM AN OLD GUY
There will be those who choose to pretend as if it is the consumer that is responsible for AI’s pollution. “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!” was one of many slogans that encouraged consumers to clean up the environment aesthetically while corporations secretly dumped millions of gallons of waste into our waterways. This is an old trick that goes back many decades. In fact it is industry and corporations who produce the vast majority of pollution and environmental damage that the world suffers, while creating economic conditions that make it impossible for the general populace to avoid their products or services. This is what they are trying to accomplish once again with AI. They will attempt to make AI an indispensable part of our lives, and then blame us for the immense amount of water and electricity the data centers use. Don’t fall for it. AI could be an incredibly powerful tool to help all of us succeed, but if we are to use it, we must somehow seize control of the methods by which it’s used.