An Artists Perspective
Written for English Composition I at The University of Oklahoma - Professor Conrad - Spring 2023
On the 13th of July 2022, the company Midjourney released a beta version of their artificial intelligence-driven art generation program of the same name (Twitter.com). To use this program users must do so through a social media application called Discord. The application has seen immense growth throughout its release, growing by three-hundred thousand active users in just one week, and had almost three million users in September 2022 (Heidorn). This massive growth within the artificial intelligence art world has caused panic amongst many artists, who now fear for their jobs and are attempting to fight back. When analyzing an argument someone is trying to make it is important to understand their perspective, world views, and values. This is especially important when you as the reader may not completely agree with the arguments being made. In a New York Times article titled "Op-Ed: Beware a world where artists are replaced by robots. It's starting now", Molly Crabapple, reveals their values and shows an artist's perspective of this growth. The author's worldview comes from the struggle of the art world. Their values come from the idea that art is a way of life and something they have dedicated countless hours towards. They are afraid of what is to come and what it means for their passion. They want to express this fear through strong imagery, and well-thought-out writing. This shows the author values art coming from a place of emotion and using art, in this case writing to evoke emotion within the audience.
Molly Crabapple is an artist and author. She has lived an interesting life of travel, art, and storytelling (Drawing Blood). Molly has dedicated their life to art and their words are the most fitting, "When the world watched me hardest, when my brain burned itself bloody, I could draw. No matter what, I had that. It was all I needed." (Drawing Blood). This dedication to art gives Molly strong feelings of repulsion, anger, and fear toward this wave of generated art. These feelings are expressed throughout the article and show how the author values the human emotions related to art. My words do no justice to Molly's when describing their feelings. "Art is not scrubbing toilets. It's not an unpleasant task most people would rather have the robots do. It is our heart. We want to do art's work. We make art because it is who we are, and through immense effort, some of us have managed to earn a living by it." (Crabapple). The author has carefully crafted this article to entice the reader to keep going, and slowly builds up their arguments using strong imagery and many references.
Molly as an artist uses strong imagery words to not only express their feelings but paint an image for the reader. Almost every paragraph has words carefully picked. When talking about the quality of the images they write "a certain soullessness" (Crabapple) instead of just saying the art can be bad. The smallest change in wording shows how strongly Molly feels about this topic; "a _massive_ theft … LAION _sucked_ up … _scraped_ up all this work … _spits_ out an image … _eliminating_" (Crabapple), even using a made-up word like "vampirized" (Crabapple). These strong words highlight the perspective of an artist who wants to evoke emotion in their audience. When I read through this article I get a clear feeling that Molly is an artist with words, but also afraid of what is to come. It's as if they are describing a monster they've seen.
The author also has a good understanding of writing shorter content like this online article. They want to keep the reader engaged, while not coming off as overly aggressive initially. In the first few paragraphs, I am left unsure of how Molly feels about this topic, stating "Midjourney can churn out polished, detailed images based on text prompts…They are improving at an astounding rate" (Crabapple). I am left wondering which side of the fence they are on, and I feel like I need to keep reading to understand better. As the words continue to flow, this wonder is slowly met with the imagery mentioned previously, and I get a better understanding of where this article is going. Further paragraphs are each started with a thesis in a sense. "This replacement could only be accomplished through a massive theft…These data sets were not ethically obtained…While they destroy illustrators' careers, AI companies are making fortunes" (Crabapple). The first sentence is then followed with statements and facts to prove the point. It is clear to me that Molly has faced immense challenges to reach their achievements in life. These challenges have built into a sense of fear and resentment towards the idea of a robot taking their job. All of these feelings Molly has are represented through words and emphasize how they value emotion within art. A sense of resentment and fear can also be seen through the references Molly uses. These references add a feeling of credibility, and I believe give the reader the chance to make their own decision at the end of the article.
Throughout this article, there are seventeen references to other articles, Twitter posts, and images. In my opinion, this is a way to let the reader make their own decision at the end of the article. The author wants to evoke an emotion within the reader. Each step of the way shows a bit more of the artist's worldview. At first glance, so many references give more credibility to the article. A few of the references mention either how much money is being made by generated art companies or a quote from other artists giving a negative opinion of generated art. These seem placed to strengthen the argument that artists are fed up with this new industry, and how much money is being taken from artists. These simple references don't require much further of a dive for the reader while other references show the author wants to give the reader both sides of the argument. Other references throughout the article show different sides of the argument, letting the make a choice based on the feelings conjured inside of them.
In the second paragraph, the source is an interview with author and artist Derek Murphy. Derek through the interview talks about his use of generated art in a more positive light. Artificial intelligence can create things quicker and in some instances better than what the user could do themselves (Murphy). Derek also touches on artists being frustrated by this new technology. They mention artists are "upset because they don't feel like AI art is 'real' art. They think that art requires skill and hard work, or passion, like the struggle to create something is where the art comes from." (Murphy). This continues until Derek states they don't believe this idea (Murphy), calling it "a leftover of the starving artist mentality" (Murphy). This dichotomy of ideas continues in the next reference from New World Notes, which is self-described as "The Internet's longest-running metaverse news and culture site" (New World Notes). The author of this article states "I've actually considered using Midjourney for images in New World Notes posts" (New World Notes). The references throughout this article show me Molly wanted to be clear about her opinion but give the reader different sides of the argument to make their own decision. Art is meant to give the audience an emotion, this emotion can be negative or positive but if something is felt the artist has done their job effectively. This again shows the author wants to evoke a feeling within the reader and exemplifies the artist's perspective. Ultimately, Molly as an artist who fears the future wants to give the reader the feeling of dread, the feeling of fear Molly feels. This is seen most clearly at the end of the article.
The conclusion paragraph of this article comes to an intense climax with only seven words. "We are, after all, on 'team human.'" (Crabapple). If nothing else in the article brought up feelings within the reader, this last sentence and the idea of choosing 'team human' or not is meant to remedy that. Every portion of this article was created with one goal in mind, to make the reader choose a side by the end. What better way to do this than polarize the subject by making the reader either be on the side of humans or the side against humans? Molly's worldview as an artist and artist shines through in each sentence but is the brightest at the end. To me, this is an extremely powerful ending to the article. When creating a painting, the artist must think through every brushstroke to achieve the desired result. This is seen through every medium from sculpture to writing. Molly has worked for years to come to a point where she can use her medium to fight for what they believe in. They have done an excellent job expressing their fear, disgust, and anger towards this wave of generated art. The reader is presented with not only Molly's feelings but given everything they need to decide which side they want to be on. In the end, this analysis shows Molly Crabapple's perspective. As an artist and author, they value the idea of human emotion being the most important part of art and how important creating emotion within the reader is to them.
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