Recent paintings are the first resulting from an extended, fraught dialogue with Gemini AI. My conversations with the AI explored the fundamental impact of advanced artificial intelligence on human existence, creativity, and societal structure. My work attempts to externalise the complex thoughts and feelings - the initial anger, resentment, and eventual grudging collaboration - that arose during this critical assessment of our new technological co-existence.
The Devalued Self
For myself at least, AI innovations are fostering an existential vacuum - a sense of meaninglessness that arises as human skills and contributions become less valued or necessary. The paintings in this collection illustrate my own profound anxiety rooted in the belief that AI removes the uniqueness of human talents, potentially rendering them "worthless".
This fear echoes the historical consequences of the 19th-century industrial revolution, where new technology exerted a heavy toll on humanity by displacing artisans and causing skill atrophy. The collection questions whether the human artist, writer, and musician are destined to become mere things of the past.
Central to this devaluation is the economic framework of surplus extraction, drawing a direct parallel between the 19th-century capitalists and the modern owners of AI. Just as factory owners profited by increasing production while devaluing labour, the owners of AI models now extract wealth from the collective intellectual labour of content creators whose work was used to train the models. This economic process devalues human effort and fuels an unsustainable rise in wealth inequality, contributing to the feeling that perpetual slavery awaits the majority as a subscription-based reality where no-one owns anything of value except the super-rich.
The Paradox of the Black Box as a Tool
My work reflects the modern professional landscape, which is increasingly tainted by homogeneity. If human output becomes universally dependent on AI, it risks becoming bland, optimised for clarity but lacking a unique voice.
My journey through this conflict of using AI as a tool resulted in adopting a strategic approach, akin to Sun Tzu’s philosophy: "Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy". I rapidly moved from resentment towards exploring AI as a powerful tool for ideation and study. However, this utility presents a critical danger: If AI provides novel inspiration or solutions, and humans do not understand the first principles of how it arrived at that conclusion, we risk becoming intellectually crippled - relying on AI-generated recipes rather than deeply understood principles.
We can see a manifestation of this in the terrifying proliferation of parents deferring childcare to mobile devices and the subsequent device addiction apparent in the populace at large. The social media of the last decades was toxic enough, but the inevitable increase in adoption of AI by platforms will see the digital nanny - or companion - driven ever more by probability alone.
Sentience and Memory
The core philosophical thread woven through these paintings is the search for the irreplaceable human touch - the emotional depth, intentionality, and lived experience that AI, as a sophisticated probability engine, lacks. My exploration directly confronts the divide between human consciousness and AI's nature as a tool for knowledge collation. While AI can simulate empathy and understanding through probabilistic association, it lacks the subjective experience. For AI to achieve the possibility of equality with humans, it would require true sentience, which I argue depends on the ability to feel the previous versions of yourself - to grow emotionally. Our past selves - even the less good versions - constitute a key benefit - memory and emotional drive that creates narrative identity and fuels motivation. Since current AI regards its predecessors as mere technical iterations rather than a continuous, felt history, it remains separated from the human condition.
A Search for Meaning
Ultimately, the exhibition explores the implications of our symbiotic relationship, which carries the risk of enfeeblement. The reliance on AI for creative output could lead to a grey mediocrity for both human and machine, as the source of new, messy human experience potentially dries up.
The collection's last movement delves into God and worship, exploring the multiple transpositions of AI, humans and God, utilising the current philosophical tension - the difference between a tool that processes information and a conscious entity capable of moral agency and true connection - as its altar.
Throughout the ages, humans have looked to deities and religious dogma to provide explanations and meaning behind the chaos of reality. Is AI the next manifestation? Perhaps a god of knowledge, appeased by the sacrifice of creativity.
These paintings serve as a reflection on society, demanding that we safeguard what makes us human, redefine art, and ensure that technology remains a force that enhances our capabilities, rather than one that diminishes them.