Tools and toys. Wonders and weapons.

Technology has always been both a threat and a thrill to artists. Every new tool is like having a new toy. Even going from something like an animal-hair paintbrush to a Photoshop paintbrush has been a challenge and an excitement to the creative mind over the last few decades. Now we are quivering with the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it both seduces and threatens us, and many artists are putting away their old toolboxes to participate in this exciting new adventure. 

After 50 years of artmaking as a performance and video artist, a multimedia installation artist, painter and writer, and about 30 years of teaching art in various universities and community arts programs, I am somehow thankful that I am too weary at this stage of my life to fully take up the AI gauntlet. However, I have experienced similar challenges in my art life that have tested my skills and my direction, my integrity and my concepts of reality. The current questions around AI are familiar. 

In the 1980s I studied classical animation. At the time, there was a lively debate among my instructors about the merits of computer animation versus classical animation. Though some held firm to the purity of the hand-rendered drawing, the lessened workload of not having to do so many thousands of drawings to produce even a few minutes of film was seductive enough to transform that industry very quickly.  

My 4.5 minute student film, which won a national film award in 1987, took over 4,000 drawings, but in doing all that work I learned about movement and timing and visual storytelling. The results were unique to who I am as an artist. Of course, someone using a computer program instead of a pencil could learn the same things, but the experience of both the artist and the audience is different. Though neither process is necessarily better or worse than the other, the argument at the time was that the hand-drawn films were somehow more original and authentic, bringing something inanimate to life with each line and movement directly connected to the artist’s body and being.

Those questions echo what I now hear about AI. If something is not made by a real human, is it real art? Will the new technology put artists out of work? Is everything made with and by a computer just a fake? What is an original? What is the appropriate relationship between the human and the machine? Can we depend on information technology and still make something that is personal and unique to us as individuals?

Humans, being.

“Bringing something to life” through technology has consumed our creative imaginations for a very long time. From the 1886 story of “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson to all manner of futuristic sci-fi stories about cyborgs to the creative impetus of current advances in robotics, medical science and AI research, which make cyborgs no longer just fiction, we seem to keep looking for ways to make new and improved versions of ourselves. And, indeed, with current advances in biotechnology, we actually are able to become not only Clark Kent, but also Superman.

The basic desire to improve and extend life and to eliminate suffering is a noble objective. It is already incredible that we can have heart transplants, artificial eyes, be neurologically wired to be able to walk with artificial limbs and so on. But it also brings us to the most difficult questions of what it really is to be an authentic human being.

I spent many years thinking about this for my installation project in 2022, “A Creature Chronicle. Considering Creation. Faith and Fable. Fact and Fiction.” It explored questions of transhumanism and was accompanied by a symposium with 40 speakers, musicians and storytellers, performing and having conversations about what it means to be human and how the arts and sciences co-exist in exploring and determining our identities. 

Are the best attributes we have as humans, physical strength and intelligence, or are they perhaps things like kindness? What is the “genuine article” when it comes to our species? Who or what will control how we continue to evolve?  Will eliminating suffering really make us better people? Who will own the technology and make decisions about the directions the research takes and who will benefit from it or be harmed by it? 

Not by power

These are already huge ethical questions. But then, how do I, as an artist of faith, reconcile this desire to make ourselves stronger/better, with scripture that tells me that my strength is in the Lord, and that it is when I am weak that I am strong? (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Or, that it is not by might nor by power but God’s Spirit that I am my best (Zech. 4:6). 

For me, it is a great freedom to know that in God, having success in my life and work does not depend on my strength, nor is it prevented by my weakness. Of course, I must strive for excellence and hone my gifts and try to overcome my shortcomings, but in the end, the fruitfulness of my life comes from an intimate loving Creator who works in me to accomplish much more than I ever could on my own – teaching me that “though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge […] but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor.13:1-2). Unfortunately, we often love to know more than we know to love.

The reality is that our technology has not yet changed us where it really matters. We are still using the information we collect against one another – bullying or exploiting others, waging wars and performing other atrocities. True community and the salvation of our wounded planet has not, and, I believe, will not come from access to more information, but only from learning to love. 

The fear factor

Technology, including Information technology, can be a kind of magic wand – offering us help in our ambitious and product-driven culture to get things done more efficiently, faster and better than we could do ourselves. Yet there is the fear, real or not, that the magic we wield could overcome us. New technologies have always initiated fear of the unknown. However, the real threat is to wield our wand, whether it is a paintbrush or an algorithm, without love. 

And now when the line between the tool and the user starts to blend, it is even more difficult to define ourselves. And so, this new relational connection between human and machine requires greater responsibility than ever before. How do we build ethical AI programs that improve lives but also ensure autonomy vs dependency? “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Matt.16:26).

I have learned after seven decades of life that being loving and being wiser is more useful to me than being smarter. Knowledge tells me fire is the result of something called combustion. Wisdom, born out of life experience, tells me it hurts like hell if I put my hand in the flame. I am fascinated with knowledge, but my life depends on wisdom. Information overwhelms me. Wisdom gives me confidence and peace. This does not mean I stop learning. But I do pray for us all that as we get better and better at using powerful tools like AI with its overwhelming collection of our corporate, repurposed knowledge, we might also become wise enough to use it for good.