I read a fascinating letter earlier this week, written by Jack Antonoff, who is the lead singer of the band Bleachers (one of their best known songs, and one of my personal favorites is I Wanna Get Better). Antonoff has written music with Taylor Swift and he is also a music producer. In his letter, Antonoff was basically blasting music creators who are using AI to create. Here are some excerpts for the letter:
“What we do has become an ancient ritual. . . . You don’t have to write music, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring out the band and play it. And yet for us, the idea of optimizing what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place. We (myself, the band and everyone I know, frankly) have never been looking for this work to become quicker or easier. We were never frustrated by the randomness and magic it takes. We do it for that exact reason — and without the process itself ::: nothingness.“
“So to everyone who is gassed up about the new ways you can fake making art, by all means, drive right off that cliff. We’re genuinely happy to see you go. . . .Generations coming will be engaging in the ancient ritual of writing, recording and performing as it comes to us from God.”
“So as we embark on this strange detour where the bad actors will willingly reveal themselves through slop, and the struggling great will be further spread thin to make an honest living doing what they were put on Earth to do, we (myself, the band and frankly everyone I know) remain more dedicated than ever to reveal what comes from within. Writing music, recording and performing it — that’s it. Nothing more embarrassing than considering there is a way to optimize that holy process.”
I don’t know where I stand on using AI in the creative process yet. I don’t feel as angry about it as Jack Antonoff seems to feel. Creating with AI is all still so new and continually forming and reforming. I remain curious and hopeful. (that being said, I never, ever use AI to write this blog and with all of my grammatical errors and run-on sentences and odd transitions, that’s probably obvious) However, I completely agree with Antonoff that the real joy in any creative pursuit is getting caught up in the flow of something bigger than yourself. Writing feels like transcribing downloads from an entirely different realm. Painting, sewing, playing music, woodworking, cooking . . . honestly, doing any creative pursuit often makes time feel like it’s stopped. Like most things in life, the true joy of any creation isn’t really the final product, it is the process of bringing the creation to life. As Antonoff puts it, it is the “revealing what comes from within . . .that holy process . . . as it comes to us from God.” And as he stated, this is an ancient ritual. Over the weekend, we went to an art museum which we had never been to before and again, I was mesmerized by the rooms and rooms of ancient art from all over the world, many of these pieces being centuries old. All of these pieces were made from the ancient ritual and holy process of revealing the downloads coming from within, or perhaps coming from God.
There is probably a place for AI creations. AI is really just a super fast conglomeration and reiteration of what humanity has already brought into the world anyway. But I truly do hope that we don’t let AI rob us of the sometimes painstaking, but beautiful, healing, cleansing, humane, revealing process of birthing our own creations into this world. If we are honest with ourselves, creating is really the point of living and experiencing life.
I started this blog on a complete lark in the summer of 2018 when my husband and I helped our eldest son unload his things into his new apartment, in his new city, for his first job out of college. In a sense, writing this blog saved me. It saved the creative part of me that perhaps I had let get a little dark for a while. Thank you for witnessing and being part of my creative process and my flow of thoughts and my emotions, as they came to me from within, as I transcribed them from something deep and yearning in my heart. It is not lost on me, that as I just helped my youngest child unload her things into her new apartment, in her new city, for her first job out of college, that I feel an intense need and yearning to come back to the blog to write. I have so much download, and Adulting – Second Half is my favorite place to put these downloads. Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. May we never lose the sanctity of the “randomness and magic” it takes to create.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.