AI for creatives: dream come true, or nightmare? My experience (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Apple's next-gen Siri)

See, generative AI has actually hyped me up for giving it another shot. My main problem is with all the graphics that need to be done, and some minor coding hurdles. But generative AI has the potential to create all the graphics I'll ever need for me, in the exact style I want them, and (most likely) at the cost of another subscription service. That's still far quicker and cheaper than any other option a lone developer on a zero dollar budget could hope for.

However, AI isn't quite there yet, in my opinion, but give it a year or two, and we'll have perfectly competent video and image-generating AI at our fingertips, like OpenAI's DALL-E. It's worth noting that DALL-E is already available as part of a subscription service; I'm just choosing to wait a bit longer, until it's ready to generate videos for me, not just images.

Because a lot of the video game graphics I need must be animated. But also, because generative AI has a few quirks, still, and needs a bit more time to mature and get polished.

Generating images and videos aside, AI is already perfectly capable of helping with the programming aspect of game development, or any kind of coding. Now that's been useful to me for a while – even something as simple as programming the physics and collision engine of a 2D platforming game is easier than ever, because I don't need to code it from scratch anymore, and trial and error-ing is reduced to a minimum.



ChatGPT can get me started with a solid engine off the bat, or can check my existing one for programming errors. It's awesome.

And while we're on the topic of image and video generation, we can get back to my music production thing – I want to create music videos for some of my songs. Traditionally, that's been either extremely expensive, if I choose to hire someone to do it for me, or extremely time-consuming, if I choose to do it myself.

Realistically, I just need some trippy graphics, synced to the beat. That last sentence alone is enough of a prompt for generative AI to make me the music video. Or at least theoretically it will be, in the near future.

Like any other tool, AI is what you make of it; it can be an amazing commodity, or a complete disaster, depending on how humans choose to use it

You're reading this, so you're likely a tech enthusiast, who's already well aware of all the concerns people have about AI, and rightfully so. Everything we covered at the start of this article – it can erase the humanity of most artistic work. It can take away jobs from creative people, especially artists. It can be used to manipulate millions, if not billions of people with fake, yet believable "photos" and videos, containing real celebrities and politicians, doing or saying things they've never actually done or said.

But again, I choose to see the positive side of it, and it's a big one. As a creative myself, it's really helped me chase my hobbies easier and cheaper than ever. It's making me believe that I could, in the near future, accomplish something I thought would be an impossible pipe dream – develop that ambitious video game I mentioned earlier.

AI will open a lot of doors for creative people, albeit it might close some too, but it'll hopefully balance itself out.

Recently I even argued AI might help us become more present in the moment, instead of staring down at our phones all the time.

So, there's my experience, and opinion on AI for now.

What are your thoughts on generative AI, and its potential effects on creatives, and creativity in general?