It is easy to unpack the anemoic allure of exoticism, I’m sure. There is something so idealistic about regressing to a simpler time, however, from my own anecdotal perspective, the motivation to regress technologically in creative endeavours, while undoubtedly influenced by romanticisation of a foreign era, is driven less by retro-nostalgia and more by fear.
Firstly and most vitally, the fear of the death of art—
I overheard a local artist and friend of the family talking with my dad on the phone one morning about the issues artificial intelligence (AI) generated ‘art’ was creating for him. He is a painter with a very unique style. Despite this, AI was able to recreate distorted versions of his artwork within seconds. Though lacking any artistic vision or passion, the computer ripped off his style without any protection of his artistic or intellectual rights. He had begun to feel the need to compete with lawless AI image generation software and from what I gathered, he was worried about the future of all artists.
The ability to differentiate between genuine work and digital fabrication is becoming increasingly difficult. While digital manipulation tools such as Photoshop and CGI are tools that allow artists to modify and transform their craft through contemporary mediums, this is not the case with AI imagery. AI imagery lacks human input and therefore any artistic value or passion, turning an expression of human emotion into an algorithm, threatening the soul that defines humanity.
Art has been the pillar of humanity since its dawn. When it dies, so will we all.
Moreover, fears such as those of a techno-oligarchy rising from the economic dominance of Silicon Valley, a potential job and economic crisis right around the corner, or the fear of digital reliance creating vulnerabilities in a society from which we lack the means or knowledge to recover, all encourage me to take a step back from the racing speed of technological progress, and slow down (even if that means regressing a little to compensate).
Technology progresses at an alarming rate for a society whose social and economic structures do not. The fallacy that we are too big to fall has been shared among many others, from the Roman Empire to Blockbuster, and today, while libraries digitise their collections, films transition to streaming services, and our means of livelihood are stored solely in a cloud, we risk losing the strongest elements of our society.
I can only assume the inclination to wield this motivator is not narrow, and that others have taken up metaphorical arms in resistance to the modern-day AI revolution. Similar to the motivation of historical conservative movements, a natural pull away from rapid progression is probably embedded in our genes to prevent us from diving headfirst into the mistakes of our extinct ancestral cousins.
This doubt of our immortality is not a conservative plea though; I do not believe we need to do away with modern technology. Perhaps though, giving technological progress the time to settle in isn’t such a daunting approach, and if it takes a movement of techno-regressionists to get this point across, then take up art and join the revolution!
