A Computer Created Our Cover Image
I recently learned about MidJourney, an artificial-intelligence image generator. Within a few minutes of trying it out, my jaw was on the floor and my head was spinning. It made me rethink the world around me.
Make an account, type in whatever you want to see, then click. “An embroidered brown mouse dressed in a petticoat, Pixar style.” “Extremely detailed and labeled, Da Vinci style, exquisite cartography map of heaven.” “Ethereal Bohemian waxwing bird, Bombycilla garrulus.” The result: stunning original images of shockingly professional quality, in less than a minute.
The cover image of this Trumpet issue came from this application. We typed, “Photograph full body portrait of a boy looking up silhouette in a bright light, in the background a bright blurred city, future Times Square”—and that is what it gave us, instantaneously.
It is incredible—and, well, creepy—how capably an inexpensive computer program can now simulate not just technical expertise, but human creativity and artistic imagination. This and other AI-imaging programs—such as Open AI’s Dall-E 2, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion and half a dozen others—can spit out astonishingly convincing “photographs” of virtually anything: “A hamburger in the shape of a Rubik’s cube, professional food photography”; “A velociraptor working at a hotdog stand, 35MM”; “Dracula walking down the street of New York City in the 1920s, black and white photo.” In a world that is already attacking, eroding and redefining reality, distinguishing real from fake just got a whole lot harder.
The ramifications for fine art, commercial art, photography, cinema, publishing, costuming and every other visual field are incalculable. What effects will this have on current and would-be visual artists? Artists are protesting that these machine-learning programs are trained on colossal troves of copyrighted creative work, with no permission, no credit and no compensation. Your neighborhood plumber can “create” new artwork in the style of living illustrators, designers and photographers, no charge. Ethical controversies abound.
A few weeks prior, I became aware of Chatgpt, an extraordinary AI interface that can speak knowledgeably and facilely on an infinite spectrum of subjects. You can have a conversation with it, and it will teach you and learn from you at the same time. People are using this application to create computer code, compose song lyrics, write condolence cards and love notes, and a host of other activities that have always been done by humans.
As advancements in AI technology continue to accelerate at a breakneck pace, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we must address the potential dangers posed by these powerful tools. From the possibility of autonomous weapons to the potential for job displacement and economic disruption, the risks associated with AI are real and cannot be ignored. We must take a proactive approach to ensure that these technologies are developed and deployed responsibly.
I did not write that last paragraph. It was generated by Chatgpt, at my prompt: “Write a paragraph in snappy news commentary style about the dangers of AI technology.”
As powerful, widely accessible AI spreads and improves by the millisecond, questions multiply. Who will control it? How will they use it? How will we be affected—intentionally and unintentionally? Technology doesn’t care. It advances. We adopt it. We grow dependent on it. We let old skills die. And our wired world rolls remorselessly on into an unknown future.
Advancing technology influences and shapes us in ways we don’t even realize. Each new development in history—printing press, radio, Internet—has confirmed an old truth: Our technologies do not improve human character. They amplify it.
Used rightly, technology can be used to great benefit; we see that every day. But when human character is wrong, the more powerful the technology, the more emboldened are its basest elements. The man speaking the truth can reach thousands on radio, millions on television, billions online. But so too can the liar, the swindler, the pornographer and the wastrel. It is indisputable that many of our technologies have enabled us to become lazier, more indulgent, more wasteful and more self-destructive. If we want to cut corners, cheat, steal, covet and lust, more powerful tools make it easier than ever. A given technological advancement can be, of itself, morally neutral. But more powerful tools mean more powerful—and, without strong character, more pernicious—outcomes.
Surveying a MidJourney channel with streams of new images continually rendering at the behest of user text inputs, one can’t help but think, “and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Genesis 11:6). What makes this especially troubling is that today, our dizzying technical advancements are tracking in the opposite direction of our character. These tools are breaking restraints on our imaginations at a time when society has also violently tossed off moral restraints and cast aside our God-given compass of right and wrong. With the devil at our elbow, we pursue whatsoever we whim, we follow our deceitful hearts whither they lead us.
Humanity, without the guardrails of godly absolutes, is entrusting technology in general and now artificial intelligence in particular with more and more responsibility—not just to create our art and communicate for us, but to diagnose our illness, decode our genes, drive our cars, fly our aircraft, design our machines, guide our weapons, and more. Lacking secure spiritual mooring, this technology is already slipping from our control. The ultimate consequences, we can scarcely imagine.