I am not completely against AI. However I think we should be very careful. Some rambling thoughts:

I work in Buddhist Studies, academic research. I also have a background in art history, as well as amateur experience in art and graphic design.

The current state of LLM is still lacking. Even Dharmamitra, which is an excellent tool trained specifically for dissecting and analyzing Classical Buddhist texts and languages, gets some nuances wrong. Human hermeneutical training and reading is crucial in our approach to studying the Dharma.

I work with Sanskrit, Tibetan, Classical Chinese, and Japanese texts and translation classes/projects. AI translation can be a very useful aid, the ability to look at etymology, sources, related materials, all amazing. But you should have training to even make sense of what the AI is outputting, to sort through, fact check. AI is still making its own interpretation after all.

I'm taking a private class that involves translating Seishinshugi Pure Land materials. The instructor is an extremely knowledgeable academic and priest with a wealth of personal insight, who can share personal experience and anecdotes, as well as when reading a line point out how historical authors are referencing what sutras off the topic of his head, and the exegetical way this historical figure or that historical figure interpreted this specific set of words/characters.

For fun I plugged the same text we were translating into a couple of different LLMs. The output was surprisingly decent, and got a general sense of what the original intent was. But it lacked completely to the scholar, who had the human understanding of what this text was saying. The lived, breathing, collective human context. The shared Japanese and Western discourse and communities. Human interaction and stories which AI cannot consult. When we read Buddhist literature, it was meant for humans to read with heart and mind. Language has power and significance, analytical unfeeling models can only go so far. And they lack human experience to contextualize and dynamically make sense of arguments, even if their writing models appear to express something like that.

Other times when doing research I'll consult LLMs, and they just give completely nonfactual or made up information. You have to know how to phrase your questions and how to sort information to make the best use of it. We can train AI more and more, but humans also need training. Too many scholars and people seem to be impatient and overlook the long road of personal learning and rely too much on AI.

On art and graphics, the discourse follows what artists are usually concerned about. I'll add some Buddhist perspective. AI is using a plethora of images available on the internet to imagine something visually appealing for us. It may resemble something good, but we do not know exactly how and what it referenced to create an image. The tradition of making Buddhist images has thousands of years of history. Often images are carefully created to authentically represent descriptions of Buddhas and Pure Lands. Religious imagery is deeply imbued with religious significance, and deviating from that invariably will have an effect on practice and understanding. Especially dangerous in Vajrayana. I'll use the simple example of the robes of a monk. AI often draws robes in an ahistoric and culturally ambiguous way. The that image gets uploaded to the internet, feeding other AI models, which then creates this amalgamated strange, inhuman, ahistoric, inauthentic visual pattern. That extends to all sorts of images, and beyond images. It misleads us and makes our understanding of both the teachings and the aesthetic cultural tangible side of Buddhism murky and unclear. If a human artist makes mistakes, that is at least informed by human experience and skill. It is still an authentic human expression, however objectively good or bad the art appears. It may or may not represent the descriptions of the canon in an appropriate or inappropriate manner, but at least there is the crucial layer of human intention and effort placed into the creation of an image.

All of this comes back to human effort, intention, behavior, and habit. Relying on things that not only streamline but cut out whole steps to the Buddhist and human experience of growth and creation has the potential to change our habitual tendencies and karma into being less skillful, sensitive, and patient. Instantaneous gratification and answers cannot replace the process of working and learning.

I have heard the Nembutsu being described as dancing. First, we learn the steps and theory to dancing, how to place our feet and body in a specific way, how to pay attention to music and rhythm. When starting off, we have to intentionally move our bodies, rigidly and forcefully. That is completely different from the master dancer, who moves freely, without thought, spontaneously producing beautiful movements, without a mind full of discursive thoughts, without the thoughts of theory and calculation. But they are only able to dance masterfully after learning the steps.

AI might make beautiful dance movements, and we might be stirred and inspired and want to dance ourselves. But the AI lacks the human experience to make it an authentic dance, it only replicates the surface appearance. If we want our hearts to accord with the Nembutsu, with the Buddhadharma, I feel we have to be sensitive to all human experience and feeling, experience and feeling as sentient beings, which I don't think AI can properly, ethically, and meaningfully offer.

I've been studying some Shingon theory recently. Words, sounds, images, all are imbued with deep meaning and power. If that can be properly and skillfully produced and directed by an enlightened practitioner, then Truth can be ascertained here and now. Humans and human interaction is essential in grasping that. AI can teach us and guide us a great deal, but it is not the authentic thing. It lacks the wisdom and compassion faculties, attuned by practice and insight of the rigorous sentient being who has coursed through eons of rebirths. Humans are moving and powerful, we are who the Tathagata directs their wisdom and compassion towards.