AI Art is not a creative exercise.

Not in the expressive sense.

AI Art generators are amazing.

I'm sure some of you have seen my work with it, so this isn't coming from a place of hate, but a place of love.

AI can generate amazing visuals, but amazing output =/= amazing input.

What I mean by that is that a real creative outlet isn't just a means to an end.

It's not about escapism.

It's not about eye candy and getting those hits of dopamine.

A real creative outlet is where you go to scream into the void until you've let the universe know how you feel, and it responds with a resounding "It'll be all right."

A real creative outlet is where you go when your heart is torn into a million pieces and the paper you're writing your poetry on is stained with tears.

That's not what AI Art is, and I don't think it ever will be that.

I love AI generators, I use AI tools for almost everything I do now...

I love the amount of fun I have with them and the amount of productivity it adds to my workflows...

...but it's very important to make a clear distinction between creative output and creative input.

We all now have the ability to do as much creative output as we can possibly manage, I just hope we never forget that the output was never the goal with creativity.