Hi. I’m about to say something probably controversial about art and AI. But as usual, I’m going to take the long way around.
I write for funsies. I write characters who are the intellectual property of other individuals. My “art” is arranging words, but it is not necessarily creating new content.
My husband is an artist. Professionally. Paychecks and everything. So, even though I’m not an artist, I’m artist adjacent and have had the remarkable privilege of eavesdropping on a lot of insightful conversations. I won’t be name dropping, but here’s what some really great art directors have said in my vicinity.
1. If you’re terrified of someone (or in this case, someTHING) stealing “your idea” just get more ideas. Don’t clutch that one thing as if it’s your life preserver. This is the death of creativity.
2. In our pursuit of more editable and digital forms of art, we have given the artist endless opportunities for rework. We have given the artist endless opportunities to erase all signs of mistakes, unwanted strokes, all signs of humanity from their work.
3. No matter how much AI “steals” from the work of human artists, it will never have humanity.
I’ve watched my husband self-critique for over ten years now because things weren’t perfect, or they didn’t turn out how he wanted. Has it made him better? Obviously, but at the end of the day, much of what he has done in the past could be replicated by AI (soon at least). What he does today with 3D, not so much. Yet.
I guess my point (if you’re still around after all that rambling) is that we can’t stop the future. We may not like the future, but we cannot stop it. (Unless you’ve got very expensive lawyers.)
Here is what you CAN do. Create things that transcend technicalities. Create things that are profoundly and painfully human. Create things that are beautifully complex in their approach to the human soul. AI cannot replicate humanity. AI can replicate composition, color theory, and the three act structure. It cannot replicate humanity and the soul that is in your work.
So make art that is as imperfect as it is human. Make art because it feeds you and those around you. Don’t make art because you want to own it. Make art because you need to.
In conclusion, I guess the only really controversial thing that I’m saying is don’t let the fear of the bogeyman dissuade you from communicating with the world in the way you were meant to. Don’t let the threat of AI steal your joy. Because for most of us, what we love about art is how it makes us feel and how it connects us to the creator and others who appreciate it. It isn’t the technicalities, and it isn’t the copyright. It’s the way it unifies us. I think we could all use a little more of that.
Sometimes when you look at history its easy to forget but vitally important to remember that humans have always been human, and will always be human. Who's on first was funny when it was written, its funny now, and it'll be funny in a hundred years. Humans never change.
I don’t understand why everyone acts like we are running out of resources or time. As far as we know, we are the only intelligent beings in the universe -- why not make the most of that? Go back to the moon and onward to Mars, plant a few flags, start the colonization and terraforming process. It’s not as if anyone else is using it.
Great movie, 4/5. There's a lot of philosophy involved with the lore in GitS. I'm probably going to have to see it again just to wrap my mind around the consequences of living in a post-singularity civilization. Man and machine are indistinguishable, cybernetic augmentation is just as common as a piercing or a tattoo. What would happen if we became so intertwined with technology that our brains are directly connected to the grid? Is it just a matter of time before we lose our individuality? How will justice be delivered if someone committed a crime while control of their body was overtaken by someone on the other side of the globe? I'm just getting really philosophical about this movie and the franchise as a whole.
Teatrum Mundi, I feel, is just as comforting as it is disturbing. My actions have no meaning whatsoever, they don't change anything, I have no free will. But. I was created for something, to serve a purpose, I'm not the universes accident else the playwriter would not include me.
I'm revising Islam and risalah, and with the recording angels, like, I started thinking, does every human have them from birth or do they come into existence when a person becomes a Muslim? If so, the rest of the world's being really rude to them, as in during prayer Muslims greet the recording angels but if everyone has them they're just constantly ignored
Disclaimer: these are my objective opinions on the topic and to why I think it is an issue. It is meant to be taken as such. This is not meant to be a critique of any particular work, as quite a few I have not seen. Second, this is long winded. You have be warned.
So I see that the annoyance for the day is the “whitewashing” of Death Note, which bothers me somewhat less than the whitewashing of Ghost in the Shell. So this got me to start wondering why. Probably because I watched far more of GitS than Death Note, and I liked the characters better. But that’s personal preference. And it’s not like this is the first story to be adapted like this. We have movies like the Ring, the Grudge, Seven Samurai, or possibly the biggest offender, Power Rangers. And perhaps Power Rangers is the best case study to find out why this goes wrong.
Power Rangers, for any who don’t know, is a cut and re-edit of the Japanese Super Sentai series with a slightly altered story, American characters, and in the case of the first series, tokenism that even a 5-year-old could notice. So why did it not face as much backlash as current adaptations? It literally changed so much that it became, in part, an entity in it’s own right. Not just a change in character names, or countries, but it temporarily got to the point that it was a completely different show, and if not for cheap budget constraints, would probably have diverged from its origins altogether. Also, probably the biggest factors that contributed to its success were the facts that A.) It was a “kids” show (more on that in a minute), B.) In the age before the internet, a lot of people didn’t know it was an adaptation, and C.) Despite the tokenism being borderline racist (the Black Ranger was Black, and the Yellow Ranger was Asian), intentional or not, any representation was an improvement.
The same arguments can be used for Seven Samurai. While the core plot might be identical, the settings are changed enough to treat the Magnificent Seven as an independent work. And even in the pre-internet age, it was more likely that the adaptation lead back to the original than the other way around. This isn’t the case with GitS or Death Note. These are manga/anime that were marketed to a much older audience and achieved high popularity. This means that the audience would be more critical of the work. The second problem is that the plot is almost inextricable from the Japanese culture. Stories that are action driven tend to be easier to adapt. But GitS and DN deal with a lot of moral and philosophical issues that are tied to Japanese ideology and culture that don’t translate. When this happens, it alienates a lot of the fan-base.
Speaking of fan-base, a lot of the problem can be rooted in nostalgia-play and the quick marketing rut that Hollywood has gotten into. Most movies today are marketed to pre-established fans (I’m looking at you Disney). Instead of innovating and investing in new ideas, safely market to a group that will definitely watch. This is what the comic book movie boom runs off of, followed by the live-action adaptation route Micheal Bay and Disney/Marvel are doing now. Nostalgia and familiarity are sure to lead to huge returns. And it works well a lot of the time, so it keeps getting done. The problem with this is that they tend to bunch up after a while. There is a manga and anime, as well as several live-action movie/tv adaptations of Death Note. In Japan, and in the culture it was made to be in. Why not be satisfied with an English sub/dub of that instead of trying to transpose it completely? Similarly, the idea of a live-action Mulan remake bugs me because there already is a Chinese live-action movie. A very good one at that. But this is where the representation bubble hits.
Representation is a major issue these days. Tokenism is no longer par for the course, so grudgingly putting in a minority character to fill a quota is seen as almost more insulting than no representation at all. And complete erasure of the culture that makes the source material work is no less than disrespectful. The very name of the main protagonist of Ghost in the Shell is Mikoto Kusanagi. It’s Japanese to the core. If you tried to anglicize it, it would end up being close to Brittany Excalibur. It is literally an in-joke of the culture that does not work outside of it. Tokenism plays a part in this too, as people are quite tired of the “magical white savior” archetype swooping in, appropriating the culture, and outperforming those born and bred in the tradition/culture. It’s pandering, disrespectful, and downright demeaning. And this goes for in-story and out. This is why Iron Fist hit a snag in Marvel’s otherwise unprecedented success. It’s why Doctor Strange comes off as somewhat awkward. It’s why every adaptation of Tarzan feels more and more uncomfortable. And it’s not like every use of that archetype is bad or is received badly. Avatar (the James Cameron movie), the Last Samurai, and arguably Atlantis the Lost Empire are good examples. But why? The leads are immersed in the culture, but by no means are masters of it by the end, their prior experience and perspective prove useful to the culture, but do not end up overshadowing it, and in a sense, they lose their origin and are unable to return to who or what they are. Jake Sully arguably loses his humanity, and can never return to Earth. Nathan Algren does this twice, his integration and the subsequent genocide of the Native Americans is key to his alcoholism and character, and after spending time healing from that trauma and learning with the samurai chooses to not only fight with them, but not return to America. Milo Thatch, is odd as he is not a fighter, but an anthropological archaeologist. He serves more as a facilitator of the Atlanteans to their own history/lore than someone seeking to absorb their culture for his own desires. These characters can’t just take all the good parts and leave, which in itself is an analogy for imperialism. They give up a part of their own culture to become part of another.
