heads up: this a Long Post with Proper Grammar.
I don't normally talk about my Real Life on the internet, usually because there isn't a significant contextual overlap between that human and the creature I present myself as here. Unfortunately, for the past year or so I've felt really creatively devoid. Usually this feeling stems from an artistic slump caused by stress, overwork, or depression. I know how to cope with and resolve that, usually within a few weeks. But right now, even thinking about making something fills me with a murky existential dread. I question the value in both creation and publication. Even this manifesto came about after a long internal battle over whether I should even bother with the exercise. But perhaps through the act of writing it and putting it out there, I will rekindle some elemental faith in creation. If you take the time to read this post in its entirety, you have my sincere thanks. All opinions are my own and do not invalidate yours.
Professionally, I work as a designer for a company that has been building AI and algorithm-focused software for the past 5-6 years. This gives me rather privileged insight into how generative AI specifically can be useful, and how they cannot. It's also given me a more bird's-eye observational perspective on the recent frenzy that has grasped both the US economy and the rest of the tech industry firmly by the balls - which is to say, I mostly look on in horror as I see corporate executives and penny pinchers cram its square pegs into round holes while simultaneously ignoring the places it could actually have a meaningful, positive impact. There's all kinds of AI out there, but within the context of this manifesto I'll primarily be referring to prompt-to-image and prompt-to-text generative AI such as GPT.
I don't like talking about the relationship between creativity and money in our capitalism-based civilization. I also don't like voicing my internal cynicism. Actually, I don't like talking about any of this, but let me paint briefly in some ridiculously broad strokes:
In my fantasy, intellectual property does not exist. The reams of IP law, litigation, and copyrights exist in our current world because without them, we as artists would not be able to sustain ourselves. Imagine instead if artists make a living through their creative work without extorting said work for money to afford necessities like shelter and food. Licensing and terms of usage would likely still exist as constructs, but not for the purpose of defending one's means to live. They would instead become rules of engagement, manners to respect, frameworks for collaboration. Also, art is theft. The creative process is fundamentally, inextricably linked with stealing, copying, and iterating. We as humans mimic each other, learn from that mimicry, and reinterpret it, very often without permission. Therefore, a liberated and strong creative culture is one that is unafraid of and unharmed by theft among peers.
But that is not our culture or our world. Creatives fight tooth and nail for the crumbs left over by behemoth media and licensing corporations, often harming each other in the process. We are petty and stupid and draw imaginary lines in the sand to defend our "property" because we are keenly aware that without it, we have no means to generate Capital. And whenever a new technology is invented that other humans can use to clone or steal our property, we understandably perceive it as a threat; because in the hands of humans, tools all too frequently become weapons.
Now we've invented an engine which can absorb, internalize, regurgitate, and reinterpret information on a staggering scale. But it's still a machine, not a lifeform, and it needs fuel in the form of existing corpora. The companies who made these engines trained them on text and image datasets containing the intellectual property of hundreds of millions of humans. There is no "allegedly" here. Existing work must be ingested in order for the engine to function. The technology isn't actually "intelligent" yet by conventional definitions.
In my fantasy, generative AI for creative purposes could ultimately have a net positive impact. It could steal, regurgitate, and iterate without fear of taking away another person's income in the process. Our utilization of it would not be tied to the anxiety of harming oneself or others. And I optimistically believe that in a world not beholden to Capital, we'd be more inclined to use the technology for augmentation rather than substitution. Maybe.
Normally I eschew my humanity, or at the very least try not to think about it. Do you remember towards the end of Bojack Horseman when (obvious spoiler alert) his therapist unveils to him that his pattern of self-loathing and destructive behavior stems from an internalized equinophobia germinated by his parents and grown by both his peers and himself? This fear fights him anytime he tries to connect with others, pushing him away and feeding the spiral. Like any good anthropomorphic storytelling, it's a pretty accurate lens to view humanity from. I consider our species and our so-called "human condition" to be detrimental to this planet and the lifeforms on it, including ourselves. And the most human condition of all is our insatiable desire to be known. It's the undercurrent of socialization and civilization. Our autonomy fuels our ability to create in response to our lived experiences, yet ensures the impossibility of ever encountering another human that thinks in exactly the same way. No matter how much we empathize and share, we will never know each other with full clarity. And even empathy as an act is slow, intentional, and arduous. It's understandable that all of us practice it imperfectly and sometimes even ignore it entirely.
What does this have to do with using technology for the betterment of our culture? On average, we don't. We improve life for small groups of people, usually those in closest proximity to the technology's creator or wielder, and usually at the expense of others. We ignore or minimize the externalities and consequences, especially when they don't affect us or those in nearby circles. I'm not going to try to cite sources here or deliver a convincing argument. This is personal philosophy derived from my anecdotal experience as a human and my academic studies in sociology and STS, and you can feel free to disregard it. Regardless, I desperately wish that we would wield technology better, being the sole arbiters of that which we create. But the only way we'll improve to a degree I consider non-detrimental is through the impossible: finding enough resonance in each other through something beyond empathy, to awaken a collective consciousness spanning our entire species. The vast quantity of science fiction written on this topic indicates I'm clearly not alone in this thought.
I make things and share them in a futile search for this event horizon. During my life I've been fundamentally changed by observing/consuming/using things made and shared by others. I'm yet to encounter a more effective method of empathizing than reading someone's writing, listening to their music, watching their films, using their tools, etc. The effect is multiplied when they share their process, creative intent, and/or lived experience. We're all just storytellers and listeners deep down; to me, creation is the most compelling narrative. If I'm to be burdened by my humanity, I must devote myself to understanding others as deeply as possible, and to presenting myself as clearly as I'm able to through my work. This is why in my fantasy, where Capital as we understand it ceases to exist as a forcing function and humans are inherently altruistic and empathetic through their work, generative AI has tremendous creative potential.
In the real world, generative AI is instead (per usual) being used by humanity in primarily destructive ways, often targeting creators or creation itself. All publicized work in this new paradigm is automatically being scraped by data corporations and fed to their engines, fueling our own dysfunctional replacements. Because why use this technology for creative empowerment when we could instead cut corners and quality in exchange for a yet-greater transfer of Capital from Humanity to the privileged individuals who happen to hold the keys? And in the process, conveniently eliminate the dialogue normally shared through our human-made work.
For the past year or so, anytime I've thought about making, documenting, and publishing something I've caught myself asking, "Why?" Usually, it's spiritually fulfilling to participate in one of the few rituals I consider unique and sacred to us as a species. Raison d'etre, and all that shit.
Now, it feels worthless.
Why should I publish anything? So I can feed the data corporations as they refine their engines? The machines which will be used by other corporations to substitute and subjugate creativity rather than enhance it? It feels as if any potential value I could impart on others through the act of creation is offset tenfold. I know there are tools out there to make artwork toxic to training models, but that only covers a narrow band of my output. It's also indiscriminate - individuals who want to use it for training data for their own personal AIs get poisoned, and I don't want that. I have no quarrel with folks using my work in a manner that doesn't cause harm. And it's tiresome to add this undesireable step into my process when my creative time and energy are already constrained by things like my job and life obligations.
The abuse of this technology scars me intellectually. With my professional experience, I know I could nurture a generative AI model with my own backlog of information to do all kinds of fun things. Music using samples generated from reinterpreted field recordings, art of new ideas seeded by past illustrations, a conversational emulation of Sardine using a blend of personal conversation history and prompt injection. There's so many possibilities, and I want to explore them. I want to show the world that technology is what we make of it. That we can't put it back in the bottle, but we can choose how we wield it. That technological determinism is an utter farce because we as humans have fucking agency.
But I haven't done it yet.
I'm too crippled by this thought: "In order to demonstrate that, I must publish." I must take that tenfold risk of feeding the machines with whatever I've made, watching them rape and consume my work whole, churning it together with the stolen souls of a billion other artists into a sludge for corporations to mock us with. Maybe my close proximity to AI via my career has magnified the perceived risk, but I don't think so. To me, it has made the threat real in ways others do not yet see. The very empathy we build through creation and publication is being crowded out by mimicry and deception.
Forget publishing. Why should I even make anything when my species will use it as filth to drown itself in?
With my job satisfaction soured, my creativity stifled, and the tech industry cannibalizing itself, I entered 2025 in one of the worst depressions of my life. The outlets I would normally turn to such as art, music, or writing all reminded me of the Catch-22 I desperately sought to escape. The only reason I continued design work professionally was because I needed money to live, which furthered the spiral. (Maybe I should change my fursona from a cat to a horse.)
It was around this time I started devoting a lot more of my free time at a local makerspace, volunteering with the few non-designerly skills I possessed. It's a big reason why updates on my projects and this site became sparse. I fix people's cars, teach classes, and lend a hand wherever it's needed. Others help me in return with small projects, favors, and their own skilled labor. These small but meaningful acts of mutual aid give me enough strength to get up and go to work each day, knowing that by sustaining an income I am literally affording myself the privilege to participate in these exchanges. In a weird ritualistic sense, it feels like in doing so I am fostering a microcosm of my fantasy. I know none of us are decoupled from the inevitable crush of Capital, but in the moment I briefly believe that I am doing something only a human can do, in service of another human, for the betterment of humanity. It's the same feeling I get when I create something and release it into the world. Temporarily, it reprieves me of the curse of being human.
To an extent this has been healing, and I'm continuing to spend a lot of time volunteering and teaching to offset the mental damage pouring in from my job and the industry at large. Designing and fabricating the cyberdeck was the first large project I'd undertaken since the depression really set its teeth around me. Working on it was still painful. (Redesigning the display cover seven or eight times nearly broke me.) But I found the willpower to keep chipping away at it. I haven't worked up the courage to publish the files, though. One step at a time.
In times like these, please be patient with yourselves. Have real conversations. Create real work. Find focus amid the noise.
I still hate being human. But I'm still making things.
PLUR
anchovie