I do believe AI has, or can have, a useful and responsible role in some essential industries. But when it comes to creative imagery used for promoting your own individual expression, it’s the equivalent of showing up to a holiday cookie exchange with a 100 calorie gas station baggie of Chips Ahoy.

Nah, Chips Ahoy are at least reasonable chocolate chip cookies. This is showing up to a bake sale with a bag of potato chips.

(Here to belatedly add that a great percentage of visual creators, when asked politely if you may use an existing image of theirs in a blog post with a linked credit, will say yes with enthusiasm! We’re not Smaug jealously guarding our art hoards, we just don’t like being counterfeited by companies)

That you shoplifted

There’s multi-faceted argument, too: bad for artists, bad for culture, bad for the environment, and also *bad art that fails to convey what art is intended to*. The sameness of it all has started to shine through.