A Picture Speaks 1000 Words in Multiple Dimensions

No art is better than AI art

I am confronted with a piece of production that I never thought much about. The art that is delivered alongside the written word. I work daily in type, in font, in key strokes on the keyboard.

I want to deliver these words to as many people as possible. Having a visual at the top of the piece not only seems to attract more eye balls and provides good looking sharables but hopefully adds some value to getting the reader’s mind ready for the piece they are about to read.

Thus far I’ve been using primarily AI generated art to cover this want. It worked for me because it was cheap (free), quick, and looked visually decent.

The cost function was important to me. I don’t have money to spend on an illustrator. I feel inherently wrong about having someone do a lot of work for me with out providing any value back to them. On these two fronts, the AI work fit well.

Yet I did not see the whole picture of what the AI art was delivering. It went beyond the cheapness of cost. It has cheapened the work. I don’t use AI to write, yet the thought if he uses AI for his images what would stand between him and using AI to do the writing? Maybe thoughts like those are not things that people deliberately think but even if it is only a subconscious waggling then that is enough for me to say no more.

I am loyal to authenticity. I value the work of humans and can tell the diffrence between real and fake. The use of AI does turn my gut sour. The decision to cease using these products seems obvious.

I am still conflicted as I use Grammarly to edit before submissions, which is, from what I can tell, a generally excepted form of editing. Yet it is AI. It does change more than just your comma placement and correct when you you double up words. It offers different ways to say things that are better. Going even deeper, the basic word processor spell check is an AI. It has learned what is proper and will instruct you on everything wrong that you are doing. The same cost function occurs.

I write a lot, and someone who would edit all my work would deserve to be compensated. Yet I don’t have the resources to compensate. The free solution is grammerly’s free editing software.

But more than the art, having poor grammar or misspelled words have an impact on the reception of the reader to your work. It is something I am thinking about more than I should, perhaps. What ever aids the work, I suppose, and delivers the best product should be used.

And if that product is supposed to be authentic, then nonauthentic forms of influence should be ceased.

All that to say that the art on my posts will be changing. You’ll see the first edit in this Saturday’s Murder of the Belvedere Eye (MBE).