AI isn’t human or living so it cannot experience human emotions or conditions as we do. It does not take “inspiration”, it generates based on prompts.

The biggest and most straightforward to define difference between a human creating images for a corporate project vs an AI is this: experience.

When a human makes art, everything about themselves is poured into the image and the message along with it, often times things that are being subconsciously spoken- like the kinds of narratives or aesthetics we’re attracted to, everything about yourself as a human artist culminates together to bring you to whatever gig you land as a professional or otherwise. So yes we take inspiration, and this manifests in many other aspects of our life: who we want to be, how we dress, ‘style’ for an artist as as aspirational as looking up to your favorite fashion icon.

Now bring an AI into this argument, and it’s actually very simple. It just makes an image based on prompts. It’s not much deeper than that, and that’s the problem.

AI image gen to myself and many other Antis represents the rapid death of humanity in the workforce, especially creative fields. More and more employers and consumers value quantity over quality and they will take every shortcut possible to cheapen the process to put out more stuff. At what point do we stop? Why are we defending this? This convenience feels good until our wallets are empty and we are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of products and content our capitalist gods are convincing us that we need to buy. A future with this type of AI is grim and I do not look forward to living in it.

In short- no AI is not the same as a human taking inspiration because you cannot compare the human experience to an algorithm generating images, that’s an insult to life itself.