The Creation of AI…Art
September 7th, 2022
DALL-E 2 and Adobe Photoshop
I made this when AI generated art first boomed, back in 2022. AI was, in my opinion at the time, very talented at making simple specific pieces but not so good with creative specificity. Meaning that if one wanted to get something to look as closely as could be visualized, or as accurately as was described through carefully and precisely written instructions, it would be necessary to to go the extra mile and do the work to achieve that vision.
For me, this meant I needed to learn how to use graphic design tools for more than just the basics of photo editing, e.g. removing blemishes or resizing images. This piece is important to me because unlike all the art I had the AI generate before, it was the first time I actually used the AI generated art as a tool to achieve the vision I had instead of simply accepting the art as it was given to me. This piece is made up of many layers of AI generated art to compose my rendition of “The Creation.”
In this case, we are God and the AI is our child, made in our image. The lightbulb signifies the way we feed the AI our ideas, and the result in this case is the creation of this piece (sort of like a 4th wall break).
As with any technological innovation, there are tangible inequities woven deeply into the structure of the creation and sustenance of the product. While I have little power to substantially affect how these systems are developed or deployed, I’d like to contribute towards at least supporting mental health care for the communities who essentially donated their time for subpar wages and risked lasting PTSD and other mental health issues in the process.
One hundred percent of the proceeds from minting this NFT will go towards the Kenya Aliance for Mental Health, a nonprofit focused on making mental health care more accessible in those communities. Every subsequent sale will be split 50-50 with the seller and the foundation. You must be 18 years or older (or whichever is the legal age in your area) and possess a valid credit card tied to your name, or if purchasing with crypto you automatically attest that you are of legal majority age within your jurisdiction to be making such a transaction.