There’s a lot of backlash to AI. A lot of the time, people assert it simply means “people fear change.” I don’t think that; sure, people do often fear change, but I don’t think the average (non-partisan, socially-embedded) person really cares much about AI at all as more than a curiosity. Many even think it’s very cool.

Instead, I think this backlash exposes the broken way we’ve been trained to think about art. And it’s the same reason so much of it feels hollow—even when it’s technically well-made.

People don’t actually see art as communication anymore. They see it as product. And yeah, that sounds like the most tired critique ever. “People treat art like a commodity”—no kidding! But it’s the root of the problem, and it’s why the conversation around AI is so warped.

Most people view art as value-generating property. Finished. Packaged. Created for exchange. Something that exists so it can be sold. Artists have internalized this. They don’t think, “what do I feel the need to say?” They think, “what does the market want me to say?” They see themselves as suppliers in an imaginary demand machine. “If I want to make a living, my art needs to have X, Y, and Z. If I don’t hit those beats, nobody will want it. It won’t perform. I won’t survive.”

And on the other side of the equation, consumers are trained to think of art in terms of what it gives them. “Does this satisfy me? Does this scratch the itch I have right now?” It becomes a vending machine model—put in time or money, get out serotonin.

This mindset runs deep in modern media. Writers, directors, musicians, and other creatives are not trying to speak. They’re trying to satisfy.

Instead of expressing something rooted in their own experience or perspective, they reverse-engineer what they think the audience wants (and being in an audience is their primary life experience anyways). That’s how we end up with this endless cycle of pandering franchises and hollow reboots. When a director approaches Star Wars by asking, “What do people (including the director) need for it to feel like Star Wars?” they reduce it to a checklist: lightsabers, spaceships, quips. It stops being a vehicle for myth, politics, joy, or loss and becomes a vending machine.

This is not cynical! Most of these creatives and consumers believe this is what “good” art is. They don’t think of this as pandering—they think it’s serving a demand (which is what good market actors and subjects do). But creation that’s always a response to market signals feels hollow even when it’s polished.

This is the same mindset driving fear around AI. Pearls are constantly clutched about “AI slop,” which is simultaneously terrible but also somehow so good that it devalues human-made work—as if our creations can’t stand out without a label on them. That fear betrays a pretty bleak view of humanity: if what we make isn’t distinguishable from algorithmic filler, then what are we even doing? But the truth is, humans have always been capable of making slop. “Soulless bubblegum pop” didn’t come from AI; it came from aggregating what “works” (becomes prominent) over and over. That’s basically what AI makes when people think of it as a “content-making button.” So when art is only seen as property, finished works that exist as an objectification of value, AI threatens by significantly decreasing the amount of required effort.

Here’s what gets lost in all of this: art is just very extra communication.

And this is not to say “I’m doing it right and others are doing it wrong” (rather, I hope to express how I see things and maybe it makes this set of thoughts make more sense), but that’s what I try to do with everything I make. I’m not trying to meet a demand. I’m not checking boxes. I’m just talking.

For instance, a few weeks ago, I wrote a vulgar disco song live on stream, people kept saying I was “cooking” because the lyrics came out fast. But that’s not magic. That’s what happens when you’re actually saying something, whether that thing is silly or serious. It’s just talking—with rhythm, with music, but still, just talking.

I’ve used exactly the same approach with That Darn Racket, my more serious music project (which is not written with AI and the music is performed by myself and other people). I’ve written those songs because I had something to say. About myself. About relationships I’ve been in, good and bad. About people and patterns I’ve learned to avoid. Sometimes it's angry, sometimes it’s vulnerable, sometimes it’s joyful—but all of it is just really extra communication.

AI isn’t the death of art—market-brain is. The idea that you supply simply to meet a demand. The massive corporations are so far ahead of that, it’s not even funny! They know markets don’t work like that post-industrialization. They make a supply and market demand into existence. And that is products and services. Why the fuck are we looking at art as products and services?

Let go of that. You don’t need to fear AI. Just talk.