When even art is artificial
The AI threat to human creativity


Not long ago, the great fear about Artificial Intelligence was that it would grow so much smarter than mere humans that it would seize control of the world. Maybe it still will, someday. But now that AI is out of the box and generating a tsunami of "content," we're confronting a more immediate danger: It is polluting the internet and dumbing down our culture with synthetic, soulless, error-filled, imitative junk. A backlash has begun. In the right context, AI can be an invaluable tool for sorting through vast archives of data, connecting the dots, and helping scientists, doctors, engineers, and financial institutions do their work. But when harnessed to cheaply and quickly crank out articles, images, music, and art, AI replaces human creativity and self-expression with sterile imitation. "Great art, or even not-great art, springs out of an individual's personality/history," the author Joyce Carol Oates recently posted on X. "AI is a machine that can mimic, but has no emotional history."
None of that matters to corporations seeking cheap content — that execrable word — to fill the vast maw of the internet and popular culture. With nothing unique or personal to express, AI churns out uncanny mashups of writing and images in its data set — often laced with "hallucinations," or falsehoods. AI-generated writing and art are to real writing and art what Hot Pockets and McDonald's are to food. It is Tang in the place of orange juice. Every creative occupation — including screenwriters, photographers, illustrators, artists, and authors — fears replacement and intellectual theft by AI. Google is already paying newspapers to publish AI-generated "journalism," and AI summaries of real books are polluting Amazon. Before long, movie studios will feed successful scripts into AI and ask it to write a blockbuster. Instead of killing humanity off with Terminators, AI is numbing us with swarms of countless chatbots. It may diminish its creators by simply making us dumber.
This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
William Falk is editor-in-chief of The Week, and has held that role since the magazine's first issue in 2001. He has previously been a reporter, columnist, and editor at the Gannett Westchester Newspapers and at Newsday, where he was part of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes.
-
AI workslop is muddying the American workplace
The explainer Using AI may create more work for others
-
Japan poised to get first woman prime minister
Speed Read The ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected former Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi
-
The 5 best mob movies of all time
The Week Recommends If you don’t like a good gangster flick, just fuhgeddaboudit
-
AI workslop is muddying the American workplace
The explainer Using AI may create more work for others
-
Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber bailout
Talking Point Should the government do more to protect business from the ‘cyber shockwave’?
-
Prayer apps: is AI playing God?
Under The Radar New chatbots are aimed at creating a new generation of believers
-
iPhone Air: Thinness comes at a high price
Feature Apple’s new iPhone is its thinnest yet but is it worth the higher price and weaker battery life?
-
Is the UK government getting too close to Big Tech?
Today’s Big Question US-UK tech pact, supported by Nvidia and OpenAI, is part of Silicon Valley drive to ‘lock in’ American AI with US allies
-
Google: A monopoly past its prime?
Feature Google’s antitrust case ends with a slap on the wrist as courts struggle to keep up with the tech industry’s rapid changes
-
Albania’s AI government minister: a portent of things to come?
In The Spotlight A bot called Diella has been tasked with tackling the country's notorious corruption problem
-
The tiny Caribbean island sitting on a digital 'goldmine'
Under The Radar Anguilla's country-code domain name is raking in millions from a surprise windfall