Why AI has made artists more valuable

Written by Kiara Maharaj, 18 August 2024

Creative Crises

When people go through my sketchbooks and stories, the first thing they ask me is: where do you get your ideas? I also hear this narrative among creatives that there are no new original ideas left, that everything has already been done. I also come across people looking at an artwork and asking: what’s the hidden meaning? What’s the purpose of this artwork? And then there are the numerous issues that creative people experience on a daily basis. I hear things like: “i have so many ideas but i don’t know where to start”. Or “I can’t seem to find any inspiration anymore” or “I’m feeling art burn out” or “i wish i thought of doing that”. And now with AI generated images all of these feelings are intensified.

I have so much to say about all this, but it all boils down to one thing: the currency of ideas. Where do ideas come from?

Idea generation

Our brains are for making connections and analyzing information - not storing large amounts of information.

By consistently capturing and organizing ideas, inspirations, and references, artists can have a rich source of material to draw upon.

When we look through old sketchbooks and the experiments of studies we captured in them, we get re-inspired with those ideas mixed with any new experience we gained since. Thus our brain makes connections that seem unrelated or impossible - we never run out of unique or “original” ideas.

We may all have the same eyes and nose and ears, but no two people have the exact same senses. In other words, we all perceive reality in vastly different ways. Thus your reality is unique to you.

Meaning

Even though your perception is unique, the emotions you feel can also be felt by another person. In other words - another person can resonate and empathize with the same emotion you felt while perceiving something.

This is how art becomes meaningful - it’s about stories, and emotions. But you can only create this meaning in your work once you’ve done your own exploration of how you experience reality. And this is another reason why artists should use the second brain method, and why a sketchbook is our perfect second brain (and why we should take it everywhere).

Your advantage against AI

The only difference between AI generated images and an artwork developed by a human is humanness - the unique lens through which we perceive reality. The AI program can only do what it is programmed to do, and only learn what it is programmed to learn. It lacks depth. It lacks emotions. It lacks experience. The kind of things that makes us humans cry or yell or dance.

This is our advantage when creating meaningful art that resonates with other humans.

Our brains are the most powerful supercomputers there are, connecting millions of neurons and millions of tasks, and millions of images and data simultaneously. Combined with our sentience, no program or computer can ever match it.

If we’re talking in computer science terms, think of your second brain as the data set you train your first brain with. Just as the AI program generates images based on a data set it was trained on, in the same way your first brain (the AI) will work with your second brain (the data set). The only difference is that the AI program has no uniqueness the way you do. It borrows and reproduces without including its own uniqueness - because it does not have fascination or inclinations to things.

With the rise of AI and generated images, we are realizing the importance of human craft. There are those who will always look for a human made artwork, because those artworks have meaning which resonate with another human. This was always the case, but it is now becoming more prominent, a striking difference, between machine and human. And this is what makes human artists more valuable. My recommendation to all human artists out there is to continuously invest in your craft, your skill as an artist (in whatever field), and truly master your craft.

In my E-book, The Second Brain Method for artists, I discuss the ingredients of a second brain sketchbook, and the key ingredient: fascination.