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ai, art, artificial intelligence, gods of titan and other tales, memoir, reflections, robot, science fiction, writing
If you’re following developments in AI-generated art, then you’re familiar with the negative criticisms: AI is garbage. AI is racist. AI is plagiarism. AI is putting artists out of business. In the face of such backlash—all of which I take seriously—why would I even consider using AI to generate illustrations for my latest book?
The only criticism that might actually hurt my feelings is that my decisions are putting artists out of business. The reality is that Gods of Titan and Other Tales generated more income for other artists than any of my previous works, because I hired a professional comic-book illustrator to draw a six-page story that’s included in the book, and we plan to work together again in the near future. And in The Second Omnibus, there’s another six-page comic-book story I paid an old friend to draw, plus I hired a talented young artist from the Philippines for the cover illustration.
In my work as an editor of other people’s books, I’ve referred several projects to a UK-based artist who does excellent book cover design, original illustrations, and maps. I’ve also used Shutterstock to get images for several of my own books, and though I can’t imagine the artists get paid much for the image licensing, I have to assume that if the scenario was completely worthless to them, then they wouldn’t have a relationship with Shutterstock.
It’s also worth considering that, as far as my fiction series and most of my other books go, I am the artist. My interiors and covers have often featured my original drawings and paintings, logo designs, and cover designs. So who would I be putting out of business—myself?
With that context in mind, I enjoyed playing with AI to add some visual flair to the latest book. I got images I thought were pretty cool for the chapters and cover, far more than I had the time or skill to draw or paint on my own, and within my limited production budget. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to get paid for illustrating the book. It was either AI or me or nobody.
While exploring this relatively new technology, I learned a lot through research and reading and discussions with other creative types, and thought more about the implications of AI than I would have otherwise. It’s been a recurring topic on this blog in the two years I’ve been working on Gods of Titan.
I also found ways to use AI that would help the artists I’ve employed or referred to. By playing with the robots and feeding them concepts I was working on, I could eventually get visual results that depicted a certain mood, or color scheme, or scenario I was going for—something I could show my artists not with the intention of asking them to replicate it but as a springboard for stimulating ideas and inspirations, a starting point they could work from to do their own thing. Sometimes it’s easier for everyone if you can show someone an image rather than write a thousand words telling them about what you have in mind—kind of like taking a photo from a magazine to your hair stylist instead of trying to explain the haircut you want.
And as a writer and artist, I found ways to bounce ideas back and forth with AI image generators and chatbots to initiate a flow of creative ideas. This was especially helpful to me as I haven’t had a critique group to work with in a few years. And even if I did, no one wants me calling them at three in the morning to argue the moral implications of building a positron machine to send messages back in time. But robots? They don’t mind my weird insomnia at all.
Can AI be used for nefarious purposes? Of course. A hammer can be used to build a house to shelter people, or it can be used to bash in their skulls. Nuclear fission can provide electric power to an entire a city, or blast it off the face of the Earth. A tool or tech is not inherently good or evil, though its uses most definitely can be.
Finally, from the philosophical perspective of a lifelong reader and writer of science fiction, it seems natural to creatively explore a technology that once dwelt exclusively in the realm of fiction but has now become real. Incorporating a sci-fi tool in the production of a sci-fi book feels like too tempting of an opportunity to pass by! If I had a total lack of curiosity about AI, I would probably not even be qualified to be writing SF in the twenty-first century. When writing about the asteroid-mining frontier, how could I not be interested in the current real-life frontiers in space exploration, robotics, genetics, and more? Did you know a new aircraft is being designed to explore Mars, and that its name is MAGGIE? Meteor Mags would love it!
While I understand the criticisms and fears about AI, and I feel they are all legitimate things worth discussing and addressing through public policy and efforts to improve the tech, I couldn’t see those things as reasons to not take the robots for a test drive and see what they could do. The printing press might have put a lot of monks out of a job of transcribing manuscripts by hand. The camera was once feared as putting painters out of business. Desktop word-processing software might have threatened the jobs of typists. And on and on. But technology keeps moving forward, and creative people can move forward with it. The future keeps arriving with every passing second. What will we do with it?