The Devaluation of Human Creativity Will Impact Wine Too

An Artist, a programmer and winemaker walk into a bar...which one doesn't leave?

Back in the day, I wrote a newsletter for a winery client. In one issue, we wrote about the constant battle to keep the feral pigs at bay and stop them from eating the grapes and digging up the vines. We wanted a cool image depicting man vs. boar. So, we commissioned an artist, gave her direction, got back comps, gave her notes, got back a new image, and made a couple of suggestions for changes. The whole process took two weeks and we had our illustration. It cost about $600. The Newsletter looked great.

The image you see above is not that artist’s. But it’s better. Rather, above is an image created by Microsoft Bing Image Creator Powered by DALL-e. I gave this AI image creator the following prompt: “Boar in a vineyard with grapes on the vines running at a man who is standing his ground and staring down the animal in art deco style.”

It was generated in approximately 30 seconds. It cost exactly $0.00. It’s mine. I can use it in any manner I please. I don’t have to worry about copyright.

How would you like to be a 25-year-old, budding commercial illustrator today?

I want to further demonstrate the power of this technology. But I want to also emphasize that this image-generating technology is in its infancy. It sometimes gets things wrong. Sometimes you get six fingers. Sometimes an apple comes out looking like a pear. The point is that what I want to show you is the result of rudimentary AI technology that is going to get a great deal better.

PROMPT: “An old man and an old woman, sitting at a table drinking wine.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine in watercolor.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Cubist style.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Fauvist style.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Impressionism style.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Rococo style.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Bauhaus style.”

PROMPT: “An old man and old woman, sitting at a table, drinking wine, in Surrealism style:

Quibble if you will as to the fidelity of the various artistic genre, but keep in mind that it took no more than 30 seconds to create these original images based on my prompts and, again, this is a very early stage in the evolution of IA image-generating technology.

The creative arts are in the process of being devalued severely. It is not unjustified to consider commissioning commercial art from a live artist as nothing more than charity and a desire to create a job where the job isn’t necessary. If you don’t find this development sad, then I don’t know what I can say to you about the human condition that will move you.

What was once an art that required training and craftwork is turning into a contest between who can create the better prompt. And while this is most certainly a talent—and one that will benefit from education—it isn’t art and it isn’t tradecraft.

In each of my Fermentation newsletters, I place a piece of art at the top. It’s there to represent some element of the article that follows it. I generally search for a piece of public domain art from ARTVEE, a repository of public domain art. Some images are better than others, some more famous than others, and some are better representations of my message than others. But all of them were created by human beings—some hundreds of years ago.

It’s always an enjoyable challenge for me to do the search and find just the right image for the article. I don’t need to do that anymore. The image at the top of this Fermentation entry was created and downloaded in 30 seconds using the prompt, “A sad day for an artist who knows their art is no longer needed and is smashing their artwork done in the style of Abstract Expressionism.”

Indeed.