Artistic Collaborations

There is a lot of justified concern racing through the artistic community about AI and its implications. Writers, painters, illustrators, designers, musicians and actors are correctly worried that their work and aspects of themselves, (i.e., their image and voice) may be sampled with little or no regulation at the present time. I support the conversation about fairness.

At the same time, I like the idea of creative people opening themselves to re-thinking artistic expression. Right now, I see and hear a lot of knee-jerk calls for maintaining the heavily commodified and hierarchal statis quo.

If you think about it-- since the beginning of the copyright process, playwrights have made their artistry available to professional and amateur theatrical groups. These groups, paying royalties and following specific guardrails, have produced productions that are, in essence, artistic collaborations with the playwright. Why not consider the a promptograph, (to use photographer Boris Elgadsen's word,) a similar partnership? The quality of such collaborations will vary, it's true. But is Pearl Cleage considered a lesser writer after a mangled production of Blues for an Alabama Sky? I doubt it.

For the present, I experiment with such collaborations. I am very open to the possibility of paying royalties one day, provided that the quality of output becomes more consistent than it is now. I do not sell any of my promptographs, try to pass them off as anything but AI and I try to limit the images I share of people in my life. For now, it is a fascinating opportunity to extend my own imagination and to flex my own creative muscles. I still think this is what art should be about.