Recently, I read an article in the spring issue of Wired Magazine by Megan O’Gieblyn, who writes about philosophical guidance on our encounters with technology. In the piece, she responded to a question from a reader who felt conflicted after receiving an AI-generated painting from an artist friend. The painting was personalized and beautifully framed, but the recipient still felt a sense of disappointment and wondered if those feelings were justified.
At first, I was taken back by the question. But after pondering I understood the nuance. The gift giver, an artist, chose an AI-generated painting rather than creating one herself. Should the recipient really feel disappointed, given the saying, "It’s the thought that counts"? I generated a painting in DALL-E3 from a prompt of "Paint some flowers in some bright colors with a sunset." It took me 1 minute.
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Megan explored the concept of a gift, describing it as something that comes into your possession at no cost or effort, existing outside the economic concepts of debt and fair exchange. She suggested that the friend's disappointment stemmed from the realization that the AI-generated painting required no real creative effort from the artist, beyond the initial prompts in AI. As an artist, the friend has a unique creative talent, yet chose to offer something that lacked the personal touch of her own artistry, making the gift feel generic and impersonal to her friend.
While AI is fascinating and fun to experiment with, especially for marketing and other applications, I believe nothing replaces human artistry. Megan insightfully remarked, “There’s a difference between art that achieves a sublime universality and a product that is benignly universal.”
AI-generated images, in their current form, often feel like creations by committee, designed to meet specific market goals rather than expressing genuine creativity. It will be interesting to see how this technology evolves over the next decade, but I hope it enhances rather than diminishes the personal connections that true artistry brings. What are your thoughts on how this friend felt after receiving her AI painting for a gift?
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