By The Newsroom

Published 12th Jan 2024, 11:45 GMT

I’ve been following a debate about AI images being used in Brand advertising, for Nike, or Coke, or whoever. Will it one day? There are companies trying very hard to make it happen. And for no better reason that they will make money from it. Will we have AI models replacing real ones? AI photos replacing real photos of real people? I sincerely hope not. Here’s the downside of this trainwreck of a direction of travel.

Firstly it undoes all the progress made in gender equality and diversity in advertising and the media, both in the outputs and the people creating it. It’s a distinctly anti female concept, to replace female humans with computer generated models. And you know it’s going to be men generating those images for the most part, and including their preferences and ideals into the program and outputs.

Secondly, it replaces entire ecosystems of creativity. If you replace the photographic models with an AI image, you’re also losing the hairdressers, the makeup artists, the fashion stylists, the set designer, the photographer, the lighting guy, the director, and the interns and runners and youngsters who want to enter those sectors. All these individual creatives, and the social and humanitarian interactions, replaced with a piece of software. It’s deadening.

Making real things artificial is not progress. It’s hubris. It is immoral, unethical, anti human, anti Christ, and wrong, according to Bird Lovegod. Picture Adobe Stock

Creativity is one of the core aspects of humanity. If we are so foolish as to strive to outsource that creativity to machines, we are losing one of the primary attributes of our very selves. Surely people can see this? But then, when did seeing something is a terrible idea prevent humanity from rushing headlong towards it.

Thirdly, it’s not real. Replacing the real with the artificial is a common obsession of our age, packaged and sold as progress. Replacing real food with artificial food has caused, and still causes, and will continue to cause, an absolute worldwide pandemic of malnutrition in the form of obesity. In the UK it’s at 25 per cent. In America it's 40 per cent. This is a direct result of replacing real food and drink with the artificial. How many people get cancers, have heart attacks, have mobility issues, are sick, because of this ‘progress’? Hundreds of millions? Billions? There is no advantage other than profit.

Here’s another reason to ensure AI is very carefully implemented. Did you watch the TV series about the Post Office scandal, whereby they prosecuted and imprisoned and drove to suicide hundreds of completely innocent people? And are still defending themselves for doing so?

Computers versus humanity, humanity striving to defend itself against injustice being forced on them by machines. Humanity being sacrificed on the altar of technology and profit. Again and again and again. It’s already happening and with the expansion of completely unaccountable AI, it can only get a thousand times worse.

Progress is when you move in a direction that takes you closer to a pre considered destination. Moving forward is not progress if you are heading in the wrong direction. Making real things artificial is not progress. It’s hubris. It is immoral, unethical, anti human, anti Christ, and wrong.

And this is the crux of it. What should AI be used for? Crunching huge data sets, yes. Replacing human beauty and creativity? No. Replacing real things with artificial things, absolutely not. And that’s the problem. Artificial intelligence being used to create artificial everything else. That, fellow humans, is not progress. Not. At. All.

Why artificial intelligence needs to stay out of the creative industries: Bird Lovegod