And yet, and yet…

Ever get creeped out by AI photos? As these dumb image generators and LLMs are pumping out content that spews onto my social media feeds, I find myself with that uneasy feeling of distaste when I see the photos. As you can tell by the picture above (generated by AI), there are just a few things that are off there. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the monotone expression in the people’s faces, or maybe it’s the random decapitated kid in the middle of the photo. So much for the “perfect portrait” prompt.

But thinking people now have to deal with the ethics of growing AI influence. Even though these kinds of generators are not real Artificial Intelligence, there is something uncanny about a machine especially producing art. And that’s the question: are things produced by AI actually art? Is it beauty molded in the form of Andy Warhol, or is it something else?

My last post spoke about humanity as the imago dei, created in the image of God and my note that my primary interpretation of that image is as creators. We are masterpieces creating masterpieces to the glory of our Lord.

So what about for AI? Does it create? Does it practice in it’s own circuit-bound way the image of the divine?

Well…no. It’s clearly not.

AI cannot approach the imago dei because it does not actually create. It morphs, molds, manipulates, corrupts previously existing information (things that are) to make something that looks unique. There is nothing in the production of an LLM or an AI generated image that didn’t already exist somewhere else.

This is why AI art creeps me out so much. It’s not really art; it’s corruption. In a way, AI art gives us an illustration of how sin comes to be. It takes something good and manipulates and corrupts it to please the self over and above the Creator. While all of the elements put into it should be right, the product is illegitimate; it’s wrong.

When I think about created beauty, I think back to my daughter’s self-portrait. I think about the beauty of mountain vistas. I think of the cleverness of comedic dialogue. I think of the stars of the heavens. But what is beauty if it does not contain flaws and levels of degrade, human weakness, and risk? I don’t say that true creation only embraces and highlights the ugly things of the world, but it certainly doesn’t ignore them.

Creation redeems. It takes the broken pieces that we’ve made of created reality and forms them into new beauty in the mosaics of life. The imago flows through our minds as we taken the broken and unformed and make beautiful things out of them. When our Creator takes us as broken people and makes them whole again in Jesus, we’re not made perfect. But we are redeemed, spoken for, loved. We are given grace through Jesus to bloom as we were created to be.

So when you’re confronted by the creepiness of AI generated content, just remember that in your own brokenness, there is redemption and beauty in Jesus. And rather than being an ImAIgo, we’re recreated in His image.

And Beauty is found in the eyes of our Beholder.