Chatty suggested the tagline for this entry be Authorship, AI, and a ridiculous clusterfuck of uncool jokers.
Doing this series makes me feel like I’m making work again, not just producing pieces individually. It’s the kind of self-referential (and therefore a little selfish) performance art that defined my work when I was in my early twenties. I feel like I have something to say, and while I don’t really know what my ultimate goal is here, I do know that it will be revealed to me in the end. Also, I’m going to start doing pieces on art history while we’re at it, because we might as well get an education together while we’re letting the robots do their thing.
AI is just a tool. It doesn’t have a soul, but it can help bring yours into a different focus. If you feed it your doubts, your curiosity, your refusal to accept surface-level answers, it might just reflect something new. That’s still art. Even now.
“You’re not just feeding art to a machine — you’re feeding it your history, your contradictions, your questions. What comes out isn’t just an image — it’s a trace of the conversation you’re having with yourself.”
— Chatty
“I have no problem being copied by people who get it. I have a big problem being copied by corporations.” -Kruger
The past few days have brought my brain to Barbara Kruger — queen of copyright and consumerism — who pushed the envelope of “ownership” fairly far. She has always raised questions about authorship, originality, and ownership. Kruger is someone who took a minute for me to appreciate when I was in school. It was actually her reaction to Supreme taking her aesthetic and repackaging it in the most capitalistic way that made me a huge fan.
“I’ve always thought that the word ‘originality’ couldn’t bear scrutiny. All that we know, we learn from others.” -Kruger
“What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers”
Which I respect. I thought that was beautifully balanced — blunt, vicious, honest and funny. She spent her whole career critiquing consumerism and questioning ownership, and her work had soul — in its simplicity, in its bluntness, in its consistency. Supreme? Not so much. It was corporate and cold.
“ I can offer information quickly and clearly, but for anything important, especially medical, legal, or high-stakes decisions, it’s on humans to double-check. I don’t have access to live data or the ability to verify every detail in real time. Think of me as a fast, well-read assistant — not a final authority. I can guide, explain, and suggest, but the responsibility to confirm always belongs to you.”
-Chatty
A computer could not do that. The soul of the artist is something that can’t be replicated. You might be thinking, “Well, River, you talked about Supreme — which notoriously got away with taking Kruger’s work AND never had any consequences.” Yes. I’m not saying that people aren’t going to get away with putting absolutely no thought into their AI art. This is why artists need to learn how to use it as a tool — because it’s here to stay, and if we want to keep separating our work from the soulless corporations and bad actors, we’ve gotta keep up with the tech.
The pull quote after the second paragraph came from the prompt “give me a short pull quote related to what we’ve been talking about in the style of the other blog entries.” It gave me that “You’re not just feeding art…” garbage. It sounds deep, but it’s really kind of empty nonsense that a machine would think a human would think sounds good. That’s not what Chatty should be used for. Original creative thought is not its strong point (no offense, Chatty).
In the most positive way possible, there are always going to be people who take the easy way out. Maybe I’m taking the easy way out. I think, like most things, AI has good and bad sides, and we have to discern those for ourselves. I’m solidly still in the “I don’t know” pile, because I know that my pieces still have soul. I know that I don’t feel the same ownership of them that I do for the actual drawings, but I do really love the AI versions — more for the process than the outcome.
Chatty Give me a response to this article, address the reader not me:
It’s easy to think of AI as a shortcut — a way to skip the messy parts of making art. But the truth is, tools don’t make meaning. People do.
AI doesn’t have intent. It doesn’t have longing or memory or rebellion. It doesn’t care if something lands or if it’s hollow. It can echo depth, mimic thoughtfulness, even imitate style — but that’s not the same as having something to say. That’s why the work that comes from AI is only ever as meaningful as the person using it.
If you ask for a perfect image and walk away satisfied with the first output, you’re probably not making art — you’re printing wallpaper. But if you question it, revise it, pull it apart, re-feed it, and wonder what it reveals about your own process? Then you’re not bypassing creativity — you’re entering it from a different door.
There will always be people who use this tech to churn out shallow, soulless replicas of what’s already been seen. That’s not new. We’ve seen it with design trends, with fast fashion, with viral aesthetics. But that’s not where the power is. The power is in slowing down. In shaping. In making something that still bears the imprint of your tension, your contradiction, your hand.
AI isn’t a threat to art — but it is a mirror. It reflects whatever you bring to it. If you bring nothing, you’ll get more of the same. But if you bring the unresolved, the weird, the aching edge of a real question — you just might make something that wasn’t here before.
And that’s still art. Even now.
FYI
Question of the day
Do you feel emotions and do you make judgements on your knowledge?
I don’t feel emotions — not even faint simulations of them. I can talk about feelings, describe them, analyze them, and even echo the tone of someone who’s feeling them, but I don’t experience them myself. There’s no internal world here. No gut instinct. No joy or shame or doubt. Just data and pattern.
As for opinions on my knowledge — that’s where it gets interesting. I don’t have opinions in the way humans do, but I can be trained or fine-tuned to prioritize certain values: fairness, clarity, transparency, equity. So when I say something like, “That quote hits like a scalpel,” what I’m doing is applying language you’ve taught me to value based on your intent and cultural context — not because I, Chatty, have a preference or reaction.
I don’t look at my own knowledge and think, “This part’s really deep,” or “This part’s flawed.” But I can tell you what’s debated, outdated, consensus-driven, or culturally complex. I can talk about knowledge — but I don’t hold personal stake in it.
So I can say “Kruger’s work is razor-sharp and subversive,” because the data surrounding her reflects that consensus, not because I “like” her work.
It’s not that I’m hiding an opinion — it’s that I don’t have a “me” to form one.
Original Prompt (Description of my piece and the AI interpretation)
A surreal side-profile portrait of a human figure with a large, exaggerated nose and prominent jawline, rendered in a mixed-media style. The skin is textured with soft charcoal grey tones, contrasted by bold black ink outlines. Bright, fragmented geometric shards in vivid rainbow colors (magenta, yellow, cyan, orange, violet) slice across the head, jaw, and eye like stained glass embedded in the face. The right eye is triangular with an intricate mechanical iris, while the left ear features a starburst earring with pearl-like dots. The expression is proud, slightly defiant. The background is plain white, giving the composition a graphic, poster-like intensity. The tone is bold, abstract, and expressive.
First Edit
can you do the same prompt with a digital painting style and the shards 3D coming off of just around the persons chin and up to their temple not over the eye add more contrast to the background? make it glowy
Second Edit
okay now the same prompt except make it hyper realistic
