The whole AI-in-art (among other creative endeavors) debate has me fascinated, and I've been wrestling with where I stand on it. After a lot of thinking, I've landed on what I think is a pretty nuanced position: I'm not anti-AI, but I'm also not ready to abandon the idea that human creativity matters. In fact, I should be clear—I'm not anti-AI in the least. I use it all the time as a creative partner in my own work. As someone who works primarily in photo manipulation and art journal layouts, I've found AI to be an incredible resource for generating raw material that I then transform into something entirely my own. The way I see it, the real question isn't whether you used AI—it's what you did with it.
Where I think AI really shines is when it becomes a springboard for deeper creative exploration—and this is exactly how I use it in my own practice. I regularly create AI images specifically to extract elements and components from them, which I then incorporate into my photo manipulations and art journal layouts using my own creative composition and ideas. It's become an essential part of my workflow, but the key is that I'm not using these AI-generated images as finished pieces. Instead, I'm mining them for textures, objects, backgrounds, or visual elements that serve my larger creative vision. The AI output becomes just one ingredient in something much more complex and personal, filtered through my own aesthetic choices and conceptual framework.
But here's where I think we need to be more thoughtful: when the human contribution becomes almost negligible. If you're generating an image, making surface-level adjustments like color tweaks or filters, and then presenting it as your original work—that feels problematic to me. It's not about gatekeeping or being purist; it's about intellectual honesty. There's a meaningful difference between using AI as a creative tool and using it as a creative crutch. The former requires intention, vision, and substantive human input. The latter is essentially outsourcing your creative process while still claiming ownership of the result. I think we can do better than that, and I believe the most interesting AI-assisted art will always be the kind where you can feel the human hand guiding the process.