AI makes us breathless.
One model release follows another, and each day a new creative tool promises to revolutionize the creative landscape, prompting new artistic possibilities into existence. Headlines are either doomsday predictions or bold revelations of a brave new world. Nations compete on a global scale to win ‘the AI race’ while companies build data centers in Patagonia. Our feeds are filled with synthetic content - slop - that’s either really absurd or absurdly real, making it hard to distinguish whether a song, a video, an image or entire books were written by someone - a person - or by a machine.
In between, we’re trying to live our lives; doing a job that might not exist in five years, teaching our children things they might not need to know anymore, riding cars that no longer need drivers.
So let’s take a deep breath. In. And out.
As artists and creatives, we find ourselves searching for what’s left to do. If AI can make what we’ve been making, what is it that makes us unique? If there’s a shortcut to the creative process - the friction, pain, struggle, trial and error it takes to make something - what are we losing? And even if we’re free to create in whatever way we want, using whatever tools we want, does the market still value our work? Or is speed and efficiency the only game in town?
There are rational ways to explain what is happening: understanding how hype cycles work, dismantling empty promises, demystifying chatbots, blaming capitalism. But there is also an emotional truth to it. What it feels like when things are changing. The fear of not being able to do
what we love anymore. The grief over what we might be losing.
This zine aims to give space to both sides.
In the following eight chapters, we investigate how things are changing, which questions arise and how we might make sense of it all. Instead of choosing sides, we’re applying a pragmatic stance to AI and creativity: the sexy middle ground between panic and excitement, where a space opens up, so that we can take a moment and breathe.
We don’t need another CEO telling us what will happen to creativity. What we need are more artists and creatives shaping technology, experimenting with it, subverting it, collaborating with it in ways that are critical, meaningful, playful, expanding our collective imagination. This is how we establish new narratives. It’s how we gain confidence, enact agency and navigate a constantly shifting environment.
We - the people - need to own the story, not anyone else.
The above is the introduction of Creative Purpose at the Dawn of AI, a 94 page zine by Mozilla Foundation released today.
It’s about AI and creativity and how we might make sense of it all.
It was written and edited by Severin Matusek and Günseli Yalcinkaya.
Collages by Dakarai Akil, art direction by Lumír Španihel.
Produced by Alice Smith at co—matter.
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