We Are The Art | Brandon Sanderson’s Keynote Speech

Keep making music. Here is author Brandon Sanderson eloquently explaining why AI generated slop will never be art: ▶ this video tl;dr: the final product is just a receipt of the effort, the sleepless nights, the self-doubt and personal transformation that goes into creating art. They have found a way to automate creating this receipt, without the personal transformation that an artist goes through, a process which leads her to learn more about herself and her place in the world. An artist will find a way to leverage generative slop into this genuine process, but the by-the-bucket gruel generated in seconds from a prompt will always be a simulacrum of the real thing, despite how good it might sound. I am pivoting from sterile software engineering where only product and revenue are the guiding metrics, to others where artistry and this personal drive for self-expression will always be valued, despite the attempts at diluting the field for a quick buck by talentless hacks. The world will always care about Art. It is the most human of instincts.

I used to have this feeling, and I just got over this hurdle. I now continue coding by hand with zero AI usage. It's amazing how much better you feel when you get to use your brain. What really helped me was many perspective shifts perspective shift 1: the people that never cared about programming/engineering finally left the room. the people chasing the trends, trying to grift, or just after money are finally gone. we can finally be in a room and just talk about good engineering. the people we as engineers never wanted to hear from are off attempting to force the world to use a tool that everyone 40 and under passionately rejects (this is spicy for HN terms, but the avg joe hates AI. people aren't stupid - they know they only stand to lose from it in the longer term). perspective shift 2: I just read Zen, and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It taught me a lot. I came away from that book understanding what "quality" means at a very philosophical level, and it gave me a lot of confidence for some fuzzy thoughts I already felt. it's too abstract to explain here, but it does a good job of explaining that there is perceived and strong difference between caring something into existence, verses just generating something into existence. this book breaks down how quality is not some artifact that lives in what you're making, and or is some feeling you get when you look at something that is aesthetically pleasing - quality is an event that occurs before you mind has differentiated yourself from the thing subject/object you're admiring - and in that moment, quality arises from the care you give it. there must exists energy and care towards what you're doing for quality to arise. generating anything with AI will never bring that fruition. many people try to counter this stance by saying that they iterate with AI forever, and assume that iteration is a the same as the caring event described in ZATAOMM - but the difference is that grading output is not the same as creating/authorship. it's must a read and deep study I think if you're into programming and this mental state perspective shift 3: This talk from Brandon Sanderson called We are the Art [1]. I personally do a lot of creative coding - like games and such. this talk does a great job of breaking down how art and creation ultimately lives in the person. I won't summarize here, just a must a watch perspective shift 4: I got off all the mainstream social media site bc the PR machine for AI is relentless. of course you're going to feel like crap when every site says, future generations will be homeless, K shaped economy, permanent underclass, etc. you gotta log off these sites to create some distance with the beast - it's not you, the world really is just messed up rn. Also I barely browse HN anymore. this place is the public square for VCs and people who lost hte plot with technology - I just happened to be here, and wanted to help my fellow programmer grinding through the same mental trenches I was in perspective shift 5: go find some programming communities on discord. I'm in a discord with like 5000 active members that really care about coding, and doing so without AI. this is a very active discord. once you realize there is a strong community still building like this, it really showed me we're not low in numbers, and there still a large group of people that will celebrate engineering efforts done by hand. and there are still people that need to understand these machines at a very deep level - you're efforts aren't wasted perspective shift 6: look at AI on the job as a way to get your work done faster to get home to do real programming. work code can be trash, home is where the real work is done. The analogy I’ve been telling myself is that it’s like going into a gold mine - no one wants to be in the mine, but i do like leaving with gold. i gotta pay the bills, but i don’t need to love it. perspective shift 7: The overall environment we live is just depressing and is remi

> The surge of AI, large language models, and generated art begs fascinating questions. The industry’s progress so far is enough to force us to explore what art is and why we make it. Brandon Sanderson explores the rise of AI art, the importance of the artistic process, and why he rebels against this new technological and artistic frontier. What It Means To Be Human | Art in the AI Era ▶ this video