Nuts & Bolts
Let's get this out of the way first: Absolutely none — zero percent — of the art on this site has been, is, or ever will be made using generative AI.
I literally own the URL "AI can't make this (dot) com" ... and there's a very good reason for that. AI is trained, as far as my research is concerned, to make the exact opposite of what I make, and have been making for the past quarter-century.
AI is trained to make things that have been seen before. I am trained to take photographs and make them into things that have never been seen before.
Along with my ... let's say, "unusual" perspective, I am also blessed with a unique style of communication, one which AI is laughably incapable of replicating. As a result, every word that you read on this website — from the art descriptions, to the blog posts, to the cringey content is all painstakingly written by me, and me alone.
As I say in my Artist Statement, "Don’t let my use of em dashes fool you — AI can’t make art like this." LLMs only use em dashes because people like me have been using the hell out of them on the internet for the past two decades.
Before I was the "Compose + ---" Linux user that I am today, I was an "Alt + 0151" Windows boy.
So, do I use AI?
I absolutely do. Let me level with you: though I possess a hard-won Information Technology degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the country, I am a generalist by nature. At the time of writing this statement, the PHP alone on this site encompasses 77 files, comprising more than 17,000 lines of code. I could not have built this version of the site alone.
I simply don't know PHP that well and I never will.
I know this, because I have been trying, and failing, to build this website for over 20 years. Nothing I could produce was up to the standard of the vision that you see before you.
The numerous problems that AI helps me solve are what allow me, an artist, to have my own hand-rolled, database-driven, entirely custom art storefront. No WordPress, no Google Analytics, no Meta tracking ... just you, me, and the 17 tables that track my art, my site, and the data about it.
Do I hate what AI is doing to our world?
Yup. Fuck yeah.
I am fundamentally opposed to the billionaire class and how they are using AI to manipulate people, dilute truth online, and generally interfere in the course of humanity. Billionaires shouldn't exist.
It's the same reason I'm in the process of "de-googling" my life, I don't have an Amazon account, I won't subscribe to the Washington Post, or use Twitter, or do a number of other things that regular people like you and me still somehow consider "everyday behavior."
But also I think that saying I won't use AI to build this website is like saying I won't use a hammer to build myself a house because they used hammers to build courtrooms where people are wrongly convicted.
So this is my act of protest. I'm using AI to build something that I can use to make your life a little better, to make it possible for me to be an independent, self-employed artist, and that you can use to support the arts.
Disagree? Tell me why!
I would be more than willing to hear your argument. I've been wrong before. Feel free to email me: nick@novalsi.com