Adobe Firefly is one of Adobe’s latest developments. Its purpose is to “create” or “add on” to existing images by using “AI”. I put these in quotes because none of these things are true. AI stands for “artificial intelligence” and, while this is a different issue for me, every program being called “AI” is not at all intelligent. It’s an algorithm that’s been trained to piece together images from a database, usually not even the creator’s own images, to “create” a new image. My biggest issue with AI is that it harvests from other people’s work. My second biggest problem is that people try to pass it off as their own original work, or the people that argue that they created it because they had to type in a prompt.
A complaint that many people have with AI is that companies are using it instead of actually paying artists. Recently, Wacom, a company that creates products for artists, was under fire because they used AI to create marketing materials for their Year of the Dragon Twitter post. Wizards of the Coast, a company that makes things like trading cards and digital games, admitted to using AI art after they insisted that their work was entirely human-made. Companies already do what they can to spend as little as possible on people, and if they feel they can get away with using free software to “create” images, they will.
In modern times, art is undervalued, and the widespread use of AI “art” will continue that trend. I think everyone has gone to a modern art museum, either with a friend or alone, and thought or discussed how they “could do that themselves.” This idea was reinforced by the NFT trend when people were creating, selling, and trading digital images of what seemed to be the same ugly monkey in different outfits. But that isn’t what art is about.
I believe art is about showing emotion and expressing ideas and capturing beauty. All of that is lost when it’s “created” by an algorithm designed to steal and splice. In 1989, Keith Haring, a gay American artist, created “Unfinished Painting.” It was purposefully left unfinished to serve as a commentary on AIDS and as a reminder of how the AIDS epidemic affected everyone, but especially the queer community. Recently, a Twitter user used AI to “finish” this piece. Allegedly, it’s supposed to have been satire, but the act was incredibly disrespectful and it’s an insult to the artist and every queer induvial who suffered from the AIDs epidemic.
AI is incapable of feeling and thinking, and therefore cannot create art.
as a “like” button, and know to click it to like the post. 
