The last mile approach - AI + Artist
Much like all creatives recently, the debate on when and how to ethically use AI has been a potent one in my head. For the most part, I do agree that it has a tremendous negative impact on artists and designers alike. However, throughout the past 300,000 years of human existence there have been countless products and inventions that completely disrupted entire industries and changed, improved, or even ruined people's careers and lives.
Take the steam engine, for example. Probably one of the most potent disruptive inventions in recent history. Starting as a niche invention to help miners pump water out from underground it slowly spread into global ubiquity in just over 100 years. It completely revolutionized how work was accomplished. Suddenly the jobs in transportation, textile weaving, grain processing, and countless other skilled manual labor jobs were fading from relevance as the new technology required workers to be far less knowledgeable and skilled.
Similar to AI with modern day creatives, the industrial revolution replaced countless industries with less versatile but far more cost and time efficient machines. The core of the issue is not that artists and designers hate AI for existing, they hate it for giving the average individual with a wi-fi connection the ability to poorly imitate their work in a fraction of the time. Creating text and images that have no soul or complex thought behind them. This devalues their work and makes it seem trivial and easy to the majority of untrained eyes. Not only that but having their own work taken and used without permission to train the very algorithms that are being used to replace them.
The internet is now teaming with self proclaimed 'AI Artists' people who convert text into images using these complex algorithms trained on other people's intellectual property. They believe that because they tell AI what to make that they deserve the same recognition that traditional artists do. Though I personally feel that I disagree with this, I'm sure that if a handmade textile worker in the early 1800s saw someone with a steam powered weaving machine pull a lever, pump out a scarf, then claim that they 'made it by hand' they would feel the same anger. The part that hits hardest is the claiming of ownership without respecting the traditions and practices that made the new technology possible.
All this being said, there is an argument to be made that new and disruptive technology is unavoidable and the degree to which you are negatively affected depends on how you adapt to the changing landscape. If disruption is inevitable, maybe the more productive question is less about how to stop it and more about how to integrate it responsibly.
Though for the most part the ones with the power remain the companies with mass production and automation capabilities. One could also hope that incorporating a new technology into an existing 'traditional' practice would allow for the individual skilled craftsman to produce a higher quantity of products while still claiming ownership of the designs and manufacturing standards.
I made these renders in my second year of college as a summative SolidWorks assignment. Although nearly 6 years have passed since I made them I still love the star wars inspired design and I am moderately happy with the lighting and overall layout. With time however, comes improved taste and I know that the texturing and depth of the lighting are lacking compared to my current standards. this is where its possible to implement what I've been calling 'Last Mile Ai Enhancement', a way for designers and artists to capitalize on this technology while retaining the right to claim ownership for their creative works.
Think of it like using a tool to improve the finishing touches. If you compose the subject and the layout and the lighting and the materials and background of a piece you own that image and the right to claim it as your work. To then have AI enhance what is already an acceptable composition. Yes, all of this could have been updated manually, but for the hours it would take to improve the image by hand, I think a lot of people both in and out of the industry will find value in the time saving 'last mile' approach to AI in product design.
This is far different than having AI "design" your product or image or even your story completely from scratch. Combining millions of other artists works into an amalgamation of pixels. It treats AI image generation as a texture and lighting refining tool. no different than the rendering software's we are used to. Instead of claiming to be an 'AI Artist' think of the last mile approach as 'AI + Artist' collaboration. Similar to putting your finished novel through a spell and grammar checking software.
Whether to accept this as a respectable use of the technology or chalk it up as more AI slop is up to personal discretion. The world is never black and white and this topic is far more complex than this article covers. AI isn't nearly as disruptive as the industrial revolution, and it's definitely a lot less of an 'adapt or be left behind' situation. But its also clear that AI is here to stay, and just like every technology that came before it it will slowly become the norm until the next thing comes to change it up all over again.
Written on a computer keyboard by human hands.
Citations
Cartwright, M. (2023, February 08). The Steam Engine in the British Industrial Revolution. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2166/the-steam-engine-in-the-british-industrial-revolut/
Klein, C. (2025, January 31). The original Luddites raged against the machine of the Industrial Revolution. History. A&E Television Networks. https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution-luddites-workers