CONFESSION - I HAVE USED AI

My name is Stuart Semple and I have used AI before.

I know, I know it’s disappointing.
Many of you are shocked, dismayed and downright angry.

I can’t contain the guilt anymore. I need to own this, to hold my hands up and apologise.

I did use AI to create an image a few years ago.

Since then, the internet rumour mill has generated a Stuart-shaped witch hunt aimed directly at my head.

It’s laser-focused, specifically targeting me; its objective is to cancel me and my work.

AND WHAT IS THE CHARGE?

Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese Meal?

No. This morning I woke up to an email from a journalist.
The allegation is clear. I used AI to help me visualise a phone I was hoping to create.

I know it’s not big, it’s not hard, and it definitely doesn’t look good on my end of year report card, but the fact is, I’m guilty as charged, your honour.

Shackle my wrists, lock me up, swallow the key and walk me towards your gallows.

A few years ago, my niece was going through hell with her mental health.
I sat by her bed on suicide watch, scared to take my eyes off her or nod off for a few minutes.

And the cause, or at least the thing that was exacerbating her condition, was social media.

This isn’t a new story. We are now starting to understand the impact of short form content on our neurology.
The impact of social media on bullying, shaming, and essentially hijacking our youngsters’ dopamine receptors at a formative stage is now undeniable.

We’ve seen governments ban social media for people under the age of 16 in various countries at this point.

The science is clear. This stuff isn’t good, and our kids shouldn’t be exposed to it.

So I thought I’d do something about it.

DUMB PHONES FOR SMART PEOPLE

I had an idea for a really cool retro dumb phone.

The thing would be waterproof, run all weekend on a single charge, have no apps, but would enable you to SMS your mates and basically have a great time in the real world.

I did all the research, found a manufacturer and worked out what it would look like.

I called it BURNR.

I launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.
Like any crowdfunder, the goal is simple. Raise the cash, get the phone made, and the backers would get the phone when it was ready.

Standard. Sorted, or so I thought.

A couple of years ago AI was new in terms of generating images.
And there are still a lot of questions to be asked and answered around that.

I get the moral argument about it stealing artists’ work and taking away employment, and I understand the environmental impact.

I also understand it’s a baby and none of us really know how it will grow up.

I fed it images of various retro objects from the 90s - transparent pagers, flip phones, and a series of drawings I made. It’s important to get your head around this bit - I didn’t give it images of artists’ work.

I worked with it to create an image of the dream phone I hoped to make.

After a couple of hours of back and forth, what was in my head was finally on the screen.

YOU STILL NEED HUMANS

I then passed the image to a designer in my studio to finish off and make good.
Then we hired a fantastic CGI designer to create additional views of the phone and animate it.

(CGI render of BURNR by a real living breathing human)

I then had a series of images and videos, one of which started with the help of AI.

I saw that work as something similar to an architect’s rendering of a building they hope to have built, or a mock-up for a car, or a render of some packaging.

To build anything, we need to visualise it first.

If conceptual art is your trade, then I guess if you get brain rot, you must be unemployed.

Side note: I spend my days like a hermit, isolated in a painting studio wrestling with canvas and paint and my own inner critic.

I’m in no way capable of making crisp product renders good enough to show a crowdfunded backer what a product might look like, and honestly, the phone idea was just that, a side idea. It’s not my art. But artists can - and should- be creative outside their art-life. We are human beings afterall. Doctors can also be swimmers, and bus drivers might also be opera singers. The myth of artists being one-trick ponies needs ot disapear.

We launched the campaign.

A lot of people were excited about it, with various magazines and publications reporting on the idea of a phone to help young people’s mental health and the charity that the profits from the phone would go to.

But the internet wasn’t so understanding.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL!

KILL THE WITCH

Within a few hours, I was flooded with demands for an explanation.

“IS THIS AI?” people demanded.

I told them it was.

Then all hell broke loose.

Within minutes, comment after comment about how I was using AI for my art.

It hit social media, then tens of thousands of DMs hit my inbox.
People telling me how despicable I was and that I should end my life.

Then, eight hours later, it stopped.
Like someone had turned the tap off.

I’ve never used AI for my actual art (the stuff you see in galleries and museums - it can’t hold a paintbrush yet). As the critic Jerry Saltz says, “90% of AI art is crap.”
I’ll go as far as to say that it’s probably much more than that, and I’m not convinced any of it is actually art.

Anyway, that’s not the point.

AI was a tiny starting point for a much larger process that involved real humans, and it was just for an initial look at an idea at the start of the BURNR project.

TROLLS: 1: PHONE: 0

Well, the bad news was that the internet succeeded in putting people off backing the project.

The crowdfunded phone never hit its target.

Nobody was billed.

If a crowdfunder doesn’t hit its target, meaning the amount needed to actually get the thing made, no backers are charged.

No money changed hands, no money was raised, the project did not continue.

The backers were disappointed because they believed in the phone and the project.

I was a bit sad because a lot of time, effort and work had gone into it, and it wouldn’t see the light of day.

IT WAS NEVER A FAKE PHONE

Over time, the story has morphed.
Like a Chinese whisper, game of telephone, the story flwoed through the weird wide web at the speed of thought.

By the time it had pinged itself around the globe a few times it came back anew.

The new tale is that I used AI to pretend I had a phone that I didn’t, it wasn’t real and I stole money.

I AM GUILTY

So here I am, penning a response to the journalist. The right of reply.

“Did you use AI to create an image of a phone?”

And my answer:

“Yes.”

But also,

“I’d never do it again.”

I bricked my phone ages ago and turned off anti-social media.
I can only tell you how happy I am not to have all that drama in my life.
It’s the most positive thing I’ve ever done to help my paintings.

And my niece?

She’s doing great. Living her best life. I’m so proud of her.

And a big part of it was putting the phone down and enjoying the real world.