I’ve been quiet lately. I haven’t had much to say and have decided to take a break for a while.

But I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on something that’s been going around lately.

Artificial Intelligence Art Generators. I’ve been hearing about this for a while and its been going around quite a bit in the last few weeks. Basically these art generators are programs that can literally create art based on the user’s suggestions.

This has created an obvious worry for some artists. Years of hard work, skill and talent, made obsolete by something soulless and corporate. I’ve been working with artists for years, so I share this concern, even if it doesn’t affect me directly.

Right now it isn’t that big a deal. Most of these AIAG’s are being used to create cheap avatars for social media. But as the programs become more sophisticated, there are obvious implications for every kind of art and story.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that traditional artists are going through a version of the problem photographers have been dealing with for several years. Photography has been diminished by cell phone photographers.

The appropriate response is to work harder. Become indispensable. No matter how sophisticated the machine, there is no replacing true creativity and the human spirit.

That’s how I want to respond.

But there is a problem. Its a problem that all the hard work and talent in the world can’t overcome.

I call it “the hamburger problem”.

Its pretty simple. Let’s say you’re a chef. You work hard. You train with chefs of a dozen disciplines and travel the world to become one of the best who ever lived. You go back to your hometown and start a high end restaurant with amazing food. You try your best to keep the cost of your food reasonable, but commensurate with the quality. The problem is that there is a hamburger restaurant serving cheap burgers next door. It doesn’t matter to the average person how hard you worked or how good your filet is. Most people are just as happy eating a cheap, greasy burger as they are eating an expensive meal. And they don’t really recognize the difference.

The average person is just as happy with a poorly shot iPhone photo as with a professional, beautiful portrait. They’re happy with AI designed paintings. They’ll take a DJ with a Spotify playlist over a band that’s paid their dues. And they’ll eat that drive-thru hamburger 80% of the time.

The reality is that I don’t know how to fix this problem.

Art is the physical manifestation of our souls. As it becomes artificial and disposable, it lessens us all.

But if you choose to pay 12 bucks to a company app so that you can have a picture of you as a space cowboy, I don’t really blame you. Hell, I love burgers.