On Art, AI, and My Alleged Lack of Integrity

Nothing annoys me, and quite frankly hurts my feelings, more than someone suggesting that I am dishonest. In fact, I am told all the time that I am too honest for my own good, so I find that accusation particularly difficult to swallow. 

And yet, yesterday I was indirectly told that I lack integrity. 

All because I made a poster using AI. A poster for a student fundraiser I amhelping organize, where handmade objects created by students are sold. I took photographs of the actual work, gave AI the images, told it what information to include, and asked it to isolate the objects and arrange them into a composition. It made a rather arbitrary mash-up of the objects and put text over the top. 

That was it. A poster. 

First came the suggestion that I was being hypocritical by using AI to advertise handmade objects. Then came the comments that I was "killing artists" and that we have a whole school full of artists, yet we use AI. 

For clarification, the poster was published on our department's Instagram page. Since we don't engage with comments through that account, there was no opportunity to respond to the criticism there. Following the controversy, the post was removed. 

But because I am the ruminating type, I kept thinking about what happened, whether I was in fact being a hypocrite, and what exactly I had done that was supposedly so terrible. 

So here goes my opinion. 

First, although I work for an art department, I am also an artist myself. What follows is my personal opinion, not necessarily that of the department. I don't know what the department's official position on AI is, whether there is one, or who gets to decide what that position should be. 

I am writing this because I want my opinion recorded somewhere rather than having my name associated with something without the opportunity to explain myself. 

Obviously, I have little control over gossip. That will go where it goes, no matter what I say. Some people are remarkably confident in their ability to judge others, as if they were all-knowing, unmistakable guardians of universal truths. I wish I had that kind of certainty about anything. 

Anyway, moving on. 

AI has nothing on me 

I'll start by saying that I think AI has nothing on me. 

The type of work I do requires physical manipulation of materials, whether that is printmaking or sculpture. The materials, the process, the physical labour, and the relationship between the object and the viewer are fundamental to my practice. 

I have no fear of losing my art to AI. 

Unless the Terminator franchise turns out to be a documentary, I honestly think I'll be fine. 

I also think that artists working in traditional physical media have something that AI cannot simply reproduce: the actual material experience of making and encountering an object. 

That doesn't mean they are immune to the economic consequences of AI, and it certainly doesn't mean that other creative professions have nothing to worry about. 

AI-generated content is probably a much more immediate threat to graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, musicians, translators, and many others. I won't speak for those groups because I don't know their individual circumstances or how they feel about the future of their professions. 

And I am sure there are many more affected fields that I haven't mentioned. I'm not pretending this is an exhaustive list. 

But this isn't really about whether AI will replace artists. It's about whether using AI for a particular task automatically makes someone a hypocrite or an enemy of art. 

And I don't believe it does. 

Tools. What is allowed and what isn't? 

I think AI is a tool. A complicated tool with real ethical problems, yes, but a tool nonetheless. 

I give it prompts. I provide it with content. I decide what works and what doesn't. I reject things, make changes, and steer the outcome. 

I'm not suggesting that this is exactly the same as carving wood, welding steel, or drawing something by hand. Of course it isn't. But why does the difference automatically make it illegitimate? 

Where exactly do we draw the line? 

As far as I'm concerned, unless you're making finger paintings in the sand using your own excrement, you're probably using tools developed by someone else. 

Some people think legitimate woodworking should be done only with hand tools. Fine. But what about table saws? CNC machines? 3D printers? 

What about welding? Should that be allowed, or should we go back to medieval forges before we can claim that what we're making is art? 

And what exactly is the qualifier here? 

Does art have to be difficult to make? Does it have to require years of technical training? Does the amount of physical labour determine its artistic value? 

If I spend three months making something that someone else could make in three hours using a machine, is my work automatically better? 

And who gets to decide? 

There is also the question of access. Who can afford a forge? Who has access to expensive equipment, workshops, training, and unlimited time to develop specialized skills? 

These are not new questions. They have been part of discussions about art for a very long time, and they inevitably lead us to questions of privilege. 

New technologies have always challenged existing definitions of art. 

Photography is an obvious example. Its development challenged painters whose work depended heavily on accurately representing reality. Some artists adapted and explored possibilities that photography couldn't offer them. Others resisted the change. 

Eventually, photography became an art form in its own right. Go figure. 

I'm not suggesting that photography and generative AI are ethically or technically the same. They aren't. AI raises questions that photography didn't raise in quite the same way. 

But the history of art is full of technologies that changed what artists do and how they do it. 

Change can be frightening. It can also open doors. 

And I think we should be careful about assuming that our preferred way of making art is the only legitimate one. 

Is originality the qualifier? 

Then there is the argument that AI steals other people's art to make its own images. 

This is where things get complicated, and I think there are legitimate concerns. 

AI models have been trained on enormous amounts of existing work, often without the knowledge or consent of the people who created it. There are serious questions about copyright, compensation, ownership, and whether companies should be allowed to profit from that material. 

I am not dismissing any of those concerns. 

But there is another argument I hear quite often: that AI-generated images have no creative value because they are essentially combinations of things that already exist. 

Really? 

I mean, aren't we all, to some extent, just mashing things together from the past? 

No artist works in a vacuum. 

Are we really so arrogant as to believe that our ideas are entirely original and belong only to us? 

I work in an art program. I cannot tell you how many times I see similar ideas appearing semester after semester. Similar forms, similar concepts, similar solutions to the same artistic problems. 

Does that mean the students are stealing from one another? Not necessarily. It means we are all exposed to similar things, influenced by what we see, and working within a shared visual culture. 

I am constantly being fed images, ideas, and information. They enter my brain whether I invite them or not, and eventually some of them find their way into my work. 

Denying that would, in fact, be hypocritical. 

Now, I understand that human learning and AI training are not the same thing. The scale, mechanisms, ownership, and commercial implications are different, and those differences matter. 

But I don't believe that the presence of influences or existing visual material automatically makes a result worthless. 

For me, the more interesting question is what someone does with those influences. 

And that brings me back to my supposedly offensive poster. 

I did not set out to create a masterpiece of contemporary art. I needed to advertise a fundraiser. 

I photographed actual objects made by actual students. I provided those photographs to AI, told it what I wanted, and made decisions about the result. 

Did I make every element of that poster by hand? Obviously not. 

Did I ever claim that I did? No. 

Would that poster have existed in that particular form without my involvement? Also no. 

But more importantly, why are we even discussing whether this poster qualifies as art? 

It's a poster. 

Its purpose was to communicate information and encourage people to come to an event supporting students. 

Not everything we make has to be an artistic statement. Sometimes things simply need to get done. 

Why not ask a student to make the poster? 

Then there is the argument that we have a school full of artists, so why on earth would we use AI to make a poster? 

Well, here's the thing. 

One student had already voluntarily made numerous posters for this very fundraiser. I am grateful for the time and effort they put into it. But how much more can I reasonably ask of someone who is not getting paid for their work? 

I think an art school has two responsibilities here. 

One is to support emerging artists, give them opportunities, and recognize their creative work. Absolutely. 

But the other, equally important responsibility is to respect their time and labour. 

Students are not an endless supply of free labour just because they happen to be studying art. 

And let's not pretend there isn't a power imbalance here. 

When a teacher or staff member asks a student to do something, is that request really happening between equals? Can the student comfortably say no? 

Maybe. Maybe not. 

The point is that we are in a position of authority, whether we intend to exercise it or not. That comes with responsibility. 

I'm not saying students shouldn't volunteer. Of course they should, if they want to. Volunteering, collaborating, and contributing to something they care about can be rewarding. 

But there is a difference between appreciating someone's generosity and treating it as something we are entitled to. 

And then what happens when you need more? 

More posters, more changes, another version, something done differently? 

How many times can you go back to someone and ask them to do more work for free before it stops being a favour and starts looking like an unpaid job? 

I didn't feel comfortable doing that. 

I needed to make a promotional poster, and I wanted to be able to change things as many times as necessary without asking anyone else to spend their time on it. 

So I used AI. 

Could a student have done it? Of course. 

But if we want someone to do professional design work, follow specific instructions, meet deadlines, and make revisions, perhaps we should pay them. 

I find it rather ironic that, in the name of protecting artists from being exploited by AI, the proposed alternative seems to be asking artist students to do more unpaid work. 

How is that protecting artists, exactly? 

If we believe that artistic labour has value, shouldn't we start by respecting the labour of the artists right in front of us? 

A school full of artists is not a school full of free labour. 

And now, the environment 

Let's address the supposedly despicable environmental consequences of using AI. 

Yes, I am aware that data centres consume enormous amounts of electricity and water. I am aware that the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure has serious environmental consequences. 

I do think about this, and I do wonder how much responsibility I carry as an individual user. 

But let's put some numbers into this conversation, because moral outrage without proportion is not particularly useful. 

According to published estimates, one hour of video streaming can consume approximately 77 watt-hours of electricity, including the viewing device, network, and data centre. 

A study of AI image generation estimated an average of approximately 2.9 watt-hours per image. 

That's roughly the equivalent of generating 26 AI images for one hour of streaming, based on those particular estimates. 

Now, before someone runs off to prove me wrong, these numbers are not universal. They come from different studies, measure somewhat different things, and depend on the technology being used. Different AI models can have very different energy requirements. 

But they do give us some perspective. 

I stream videos, too. I use the internet, store photographs, consume digital entertainment, and participate in all sorts of activities with environmental consequences. 

I never claimed to be environmentally flawless. 

Quite the opposite. 

What I question is the extraordinary selectivity of the outrage. 

Why is using AI to make a poster treated as an act of environmental destruction, while hours of streaming videos are considered perfectly ordinary? 

Why do we scrutinize one technological choice while barely noticing others? 

Think about all those photographs of breakfasts, pets, holidays, and countless other things we upload and store somewhere in the cloud. All of that requires infrastructure. All of that consumes resources. 

I am not saying that storing a photograph is equivalent to generating an AI image. It isn't. Nor am I arguing that streaming is evil and AI is innocent. 

What I'm saying is that if we're going to make environmental responsibility a moral test, perhaps we should at least understand what we're measuring. 

AI's rapidly growing infrastructure is a serious environmental concern. It deserves scrutiny, regulation, and accountability. 

But suggesting that someone is destroying the planet because they used AI to generate a promotional poster, without considering the scale of that activity or comparing it to other everyday choices, seems rather disproportionate to me. 

We all make compromises. 

I certainly do. 

And I don't believe that my particular compromise makes me morally inferior to someone whose compromises happen to involve different technologies. 

Time is a resource, too 

There is another reason I use AI, and I am not ashamed of it. 

It saves me an enormous amount of time. 

English is not my first language. I use AI to proofread what I write, correct my grammar, and make sure what I'm trying to say is readable and understandable. 

I used to pay people to do some of these things for me. 

Now I can do much of it myself, with assistance from AI. 

Does that affect the people who used to earn money providing those services? Of course it can. I am aware of that. 

But I also have only so much money and time available to me. 

I use AI to help me understand medical information and prepare questions for my doctor. It doesn't replace medical advice, but it can help me make better use of the limited time I have with medical professionals. 

Getting a doctor's appointment can mean taking half a day off work, sitting in a waiting room for hours, and then having a conversation that lasts a few minutes. 

I have only so many days off. 

And quite frankly, I would rather spend them at an artist residency in Spain than sitting in a doctor's office unnecessarily. 

I have one life. 

Only so much time, only so much money, and only so much energy to spend on things. 

AI has been a blessing to me in many practical ways. It has saved me countless hours and allowed me to spend that time on things I find more meaningful. 

Like making art. 

Or simply living my life. 

And yes, it saves me from jobs I don't particularly want to do. 

Like poster design. 

I know that convenience doesn't automatically justify every use of technology. But I also don't think convenience, affordability, and accessibility are morally insignificant. 

They matter, particularly to people who don't have unlimited resources. 

I cannot escape AI any more than most people can. It is increasingly built into search engines, phones, graphic programs, communication systems, and countless other tools we use every day. 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't question it or decide when not to use it. 

But it does make the idea of complete technological purity rather difficult to maintain. 

So, am I a hypocrite? 

Let's go back to the accusation that started all of this. 

Hypocrisy means claiming to hold certain principles while acting against them. 

So which of my principles have I betrayed? 

I have never claimed that all art must be handmade. 

I have never argued that artists should refuse technology. 

I have never claimed that AI should have no place in creative work. 

I believe in supporting artists. I believe in supporting students. I believe in manual skills, material knowledge, artistic experimentation, and the value of creative labour. 

I also believe that using AI for a practical task does not automatically contradict any of those things. 

The fundraiser was organized to support students and the department. 

The objects being advertised were made by students, by hand. 

The photographs were of their actual work. 

One student had already generously contributed numerous posters, and I didn't want to keep asking for more unpaid labour. 

I did not conceal my use of AI. I did not take an existing paid commission away from someone. I did not pretend that the poster was handmade or claim artistic credit for the objects in it. 

I simply used a tool to complete a task I was responsible for. 

Could the institution decide that generative AI should not be used in its promotional material? Of course. 

If that is the position the department wants to take, then let's have that conversation and establish a clear policy. 

I would respect an established policy even if I disagreed with it. 

But a policy is not the same thing as an individual's moral judgment. 

And that's where I have a problem. 

You can dislike AI. You can refuse to use it. You can criticize its environmental impact, its training practices, its effect on artistic professions, and the companies developing it. 

You can disagree with my decision to use it. 

I am perfectly capable of accepting disagreement. 

But there is a difference between saying, "I don't think AI should have been used for this poster," and telling someone they are "killing artists." 

One is a position worth discussing. 

The other is an accusation. 

And I find it particularly strange that this happened in an environment dedicated to art, where we supposedly encourage experimentation, critical thinking, questioning assumptions, and challenging established ideas. 

Shouldn't we be capable of having a disagreement about technology without turning it into a judgment of someone's character? 

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. 

I am not claiming that AI is harmless, that every application of it is justified, or that the ethical questions surrounding it have been resolved. 

I am willing to have my arguments challenged, and I am willing to change my mind if someone presents me with convincing reasons. 

But I am not willing to accept that someone else's disagreement with my choice automatically makes me dishonest. 

I never claimed that AI has no consequences. 

And I certainly never claimed that making a poster with AI was some great contribution to contemporary art. 

I made a poster to advertise a student fundraiser. 

You may disagree with how I made it. 

But you don't get to turn that disagreement into a verdict on my integrity. 

And so no, I do not believe that makes me a hypocrite. 

And yes, before anyone asks, AI was involved in proofreading this text and helping me examine and strengthen my arguments. The experiences, opinions, and conclusions expressed here are mine. I make no secret of using a tool I have just spent several pages defending.