If artificial intelligence is going to be an unavoidable part of the modern creative world, what does a healthy relationship with it actually look like? On Thursday at 7PM, the Digital Media track explored that tension in the Hilton Galleria 6 with “Creatives & AI: Can We Co-Exist?”
Moderator Fern the Geek (artist, blogger) led a nuanced discussion featuring sci-fi/fantasy author Clint Hall, software developer and YouTuber Kris Kersey, software engineer and cosplayer Malcolm, and Jeff Ello, an AI specialist in higher education with decades of experience in film.
Fern opened the session by acknowledging the complicated history creatives have with emerging technology, likening the disruption to the advent of the sewing machine, while also calling for a moment of reflection regarding the very real harms and livelihoods already impacted by rapid AI adoption.
The panelists examined how AI currently intersects with their daily work. Kersey noted that vetting and integrating AI into software development over the past nine months felt like managing a team of junior developers, ballooning his codebase from 20,000 lines to 400,000, while also noting that he carefully curated that development. Malcolm noted that AI has transformed his day job. In his spare time, AI can quickly research and summarize videos and other information on costuming techniques, rather than him watching manually to determine if there’s anything relevant to what he’s trying to learn. It makes his life much easier. Ello demystified the underlying technology, reminding the room that large language models are just statistical tools assembling words from massive datasets.
When the discussion turned to creative integrity and personal identity, Hall noted he keeps a strict boundary between his corporate day job (where AI is a required tool) and his fiction writing. “When I put a book on the shelf, I want to know I wrote it,” Hall said. He challenged aspiring creators to carefully weigh their choices. “Think about are you sacrificing a piece of your soul using AI? It’s a conversation you owe yourself.” However, he also acknowledged that he’s coming from a position of privilege where he has a job he loves and allows him to take care of his family. While he’d love to be a successful author, he doesn’t depend on it.
Kersey, coming from an open-source world with software development, noted software engineers have traditionally shared code openly. That’s how they learn, and therefore they’re excited and happy to give AI their software coding. Kersey noted that one of his children wants to become an artist, and he’s teaching that child to use AI as a tool rather than fight against it because AI will continue to exist. But he acknowledged artistic communities had their work stolen without consent.
Malcolm noted that many creators feel a profound sense of loss after spending decades mastering a craft only to see industry norms shift toward AI overnight. Ello noted that part of the struggle is that AI development didn’t occur ethically. If it had, the process would’ve taken a lot longer. Society would’ve had a decade or more to get used to adjustments. At the same time, he challenged whether art is “What’s in my brain or what I have the manual dexterity to make? If I can tell AI what to do, am I still the creator?” He referenced how we have FX and other digital tools because people lacking physical creativity still wanted to do creative projects.
When Fern asked what needs to change for creatives and AI to co-exist, Ello mentioned how art is about the performance. AI can make music where no one can tell if its human made or AI. The money in music isn’t the music itself; it’s the live performances. AI can’t do that. But you will have people doing live performances of AI generated songs.
Ello discussed Tilly Norwood, the digital actor, noting that we don’t know if audiences will connect with someone who doesn’t exist. He suspects the “draw of stardom is [our] participation and vested interest in seeing actors” and doubts AI can replicate the marketability of stardom.
Hall believes humans are created to be in connection with each other.
