Beth Spencer is an artist and writer who is easily excited by art supplies and drawing animals. She started the Human Intelligence Drawing Challenge, encouraging creatives to make their own badges to symbolize human-made art.
The most prolific writers, designers, artists, musicians, and illustrators don’t develop their skills quickly or easily. “Even the masterpieces that have been produced on tight timelines are the sum of decades spent patiently laboring on other works,” record producer Rick Rubin wrote in The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Rubin describes creativity as a lifelong journey and practice, with art being a sensory byproduct rooted in raw emotion.
If human-made art is born from experience and inspiration, what about all the AI-generated art flooding the internet? Can algorithms tell authentic stories that resonate in the same powerful way?
“You can use your own lived experience to write a children’s book that comes directly from the heart,” picture book artist Sarah Dyer told me. “It helps form a much more genuine narrative that comes from somewhere that’s deeply rooted in your own personal experience.”
Machines, on the other hand, create images using algorithms trained on human art. It’s a question at the heart of the ongoing debate about what artificial intelligence means for artists and, even more, for creativity itself: can computers express themselves creatively?
Even Adobe, the developer of Photoshop and a suite of widely used creative tools, doesn’t seem to think so. Its website says AI is “quickly becoming a vital tool for artists,” alongside an image of a child surrounded by butterflies, sunbeams, and stars. The company calls its AI generator “a technology that “finds patterns in big datasets and uses that information to create new content.”
The image generator is a content-creation tool. Content is meant to make money. Perhaps that’s why AI art can appear soulless, at least to this artist’s eyes. No software has lived life the way you have. No technology has supported a friend through an illness, lost a beloved pet, or fallen in love. A computer can’t experience the joyful spark of a new idea. An algorithm knows nothing about the sensations of pushing paint around in a sketchbook. Datasets don’t put years into a daily drawing practice.
Companies and individuals alike are pumping out photorealistic AI content at breakneck speeds, saturating social media with slick imagery that often looks like it was made by a robot. Will this drive up the value of traditional human-made artwork by making people appreciate anew all that goes into it? We can only hope.
One day when I was feeling particularly frustrated by the onslaught of machine-made photorealistic images online, I picked up my iPad and started sketching. I played with the words “created with human intelligence” and a hand holding a pencil. This badge declared that my art and words are AI-free. I didn’t intend it as anti-tech, but as pro-human.
I then offered the “created with human intelligence” badge as a download to anyone who promised not to use AI in the work they were highlighting alongside my image.
When I put out an Instagram call suggesting that artists draw their own version of my scrappy, five-minute sketch of the human intelligence badge, they answered. More than 1,600 artists worldwide have created unique interpretations of the original badge. They say it’s been a way to connect with fellow artists, celebrate creativity, and support each other.
“I really wanted to participate because supporting human artists is so important right now,” Caitlin Caudle wrote when sharing her badge on Instagram. “Creativity and soul are integral when it comes to art, and I hope people will value that above something quick and cheap.”
The badge, like my artwork and writing, reflects my values and years of daily drawing. It took minutes to draw but it’s infused with decades of experience.
Art doesn’t require photorealism to have resonance. It does need soul and feeling behind it. That’s where AI images fall short.
Devoting more time to a creative practice might be the most effective response to the tidal wave of AI images. Write and share your stories. Draw, paint, and experiment as much as possible. Join an art collective online or in your community. Support artists.
When you buy art created by humans, you’re helping them pay their bills and buy food for their families. You’re letting them know their work is appreciated and has value. In return, you get the originality and heart that machine-made images can never produce.
