You cannot express yourself with AI

Some may argue that generative AI makes artistic expression accessible to everyone. The problem with that argument is that artistic expression can consist of absolutely anything, so long as you’re the one doing it. As long as you have some shred of creativity, the world is your oyster. When I was a child, I’d draw comic books constantly. They looked like absolute shit, but there was genuine effort behind them so nobody cared about the presentation. As time went on, I got better at drawing. Rather than completely overhaul the comics art style, I refined it. I made those crude designs cleaner, and gave these line art creations subtle detail in their facial expressions.

Norm

This is Norm, a character I created a few years ago while screwing around with my wife’s phone. One of those fancy, new fangled ones with the stylus. When I got the chance to test it out, I immediately drew a penis That act of impulsive vulgarity became the basis or Norms face. The origin of his face informed his character: A loser that tries really hard but never, ever succeeds. My wife and I both laughed at him and promptly lost the stylus forever. It's absence wasn't that important, and Norm kind of stuck around in our lives. Most recently, he was added to our Switch 2 Tomodatchi Life island. I don't believe him to be anything more than a sophisticated in-joke between my wife and I.

Yet, whenever I draw him I make a point to give him a small tinge of rage in his eyes. He's good natured and ultimately harmless. There are even rules for how a "Norm comic" should be composed. I wont go into them, but the most obvious is that each one contains a little kid laughing at him. If I were to develop it further, I'd probably do something subversive with that. Of course, this is a shitty doodle character. I don't need to put effort into it and the concept isn't that great to begin with. Still, my wife and I enjoy him and of course I'm going to treat it with respect and have some kind of vision for it.

You can’t make Norm with AI. The "creative process" (what little there was) that led to his existence doesn’t exist within a text prompt. Furthermore AI can’t properly create a version of Norm that works, either. Norm sits in this extremely fine grey area where he’s funny, but not depressing. You root for him, and hope that he’ll manage, even if he never does. The design has been repeatedly tweaked in an effort to make him somewhat more realistic than everyone else around him. The contrast is meant to fill the viewer with a weird dread.

Still, I tried to use ChatGPT to create Norm with the following prompt:

This should be enough to get the character design down, which it kind of does, but not really. even if you can't tell, it doesn't fit my mental image of who Norm is.

See Norm in theaters July 1993

ChatGPT never saw the sketch I made, but the fact that it got his appearance somewhat correct is more a reflection of how undefined his design is rather than a testimate to how good ChatGPT is at generating images. Norms isn't fat, he has a large head and a dad bod. He's also quite well kept. When I draw him, the disheveled look is a reflection of his self image more than it is objective reality. Of note, I never prompted it to make him look disheveled. He just does. I tried to tweak it to better reflect the intended art style and this is as close as it got.

This is just bad

This doesn't reflect my vision any more or less than the first one, which wasn't even a drawing. Clearly, nobody with an artistic vision should use generative AI to create images. It can't do it. The vision in my case being a doodle character with an incredibly simple backstory. Nothing about Norm is difficult to emulate. In fact, anyone could write a Norm story and it'd probably work. Yet, this thing can't even properly represent him visually.

So no, you're not an artist if you're using ChatGPT to create images. Art comes from intentionality. Even the lowliest dick drawing has some level of expression behind it. Something that the intended audience is meant to feel. Even if it's poorly done, it can still be effective. These images that ChatGPT generated are something less that "poorly done". They're slop, unworthy of merit, regard, or even the slightly moment of your time. They exist here to demonstrate a point and nothing more. Still, they kind of sicken me.