When I ruminate on a particular snafu or collide with calamity in my life, I always try to find a bit of good in the bad. I had a bad day at work, I focus on the praise my coworkers gave me for helping a customer. No views on my fifty-minute video essay, I made a piece of work I can be proud of. Got rejected from another job, they sent a rejection in two days instead of never. Now that AI has come into our reality from the pages of science fiction, but instead of murderous AI, we’re entering into slow decent mental atrophy as a society. I’ve been trying ever so hard to find the good in the bad of this situation I’ve been body-slammed into.

AI is terrible for the environment, eroding creativity, critical thinking, etc. etc. How can I find the good in this mess? I pondered this for sometime and it wasn’t until an art piece of mine was accepted by Cosmic Daffodil Journal that I came to the answer. AI has made me bolder. 

Originally, I was never going to submit my piece, but then a thought wormed itself into my brain. My art isn’t AI. The worst they could do is reject it, but they didn’t and it was accepted. I finally realise the power that I hold in my literal hands. Even if you fear your work is bad or inadequate, a person made this work. A person took the time and energy to create this piece, and while it may not be to your tastes or anyone’s tastes other than your own, it took your creativity to make it. Isn’t that novel to rediscover that fun? Not a prompt that puts your work together from other people’s creativity, but your own experiences, your own thoughts, your own feelings. I’m free from the chains of shame and fear because at least the work I create is my own, not AI. Anyone can write a prompt, not everyone can actually create. For when fear and shame leave you all that remains is the fun of creation.