Open letter to artists worried about generative AI.
Artist:
Generative AI is nothing more than a new type of CGI; because it is, without a doubt, a computer-generated image, probably the one that fits the name best.
It's a technology that's expensive in material resources: computing power, which implies component wear, energy consumption, and cooling materials; usually water, which isn't exactly something we have in abundance nowdays. 
Everything it squanders in material resources, it makes up for in human ones; meaning salaries (and even that's debatable, given how poorly they pay). But what really makes corporations light up is speed and volume: the promise of immediate, infinite material at low human cost is enough to make the eyes of any millionaire thoroughly disconnected from humanity shine bright.
Tell me, Neo; would you rather live another 20 years and maybe, with some luck, leave a habitable world for the children, or watch a vertical series split into 15 parts about unfaithful fruits with blatant sexist, racist, and classist stereotypes?
Do you remember when almost every animated film used motion capture? Some movies born from the mocap craze are genuinely memorable gems despite their strangeness, like Monster House; others created inhabitants of the uncanny valley precisely by being simply strange, like The Polar Express. The mocap hype was temporary; today it's just one production option among many. It's commonly combined with live-action footage, and when done right, you can get beautiful results, like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Generative AI isn't exactly like motion capture. Mocap requires multiple layers of living human artistic labor. AI requires consuming tons of someone else's past human labor. What they share is that both are production trends that will eventually become just another option, one known to be poorly received and therefore avoidable, because everything passes.
It will never disappear because it has its uses for some people, the way motion capture does, and sometimes it might even be the right choice. It's ideal for whoever is willing to settle for the mediocre, inconsistent, yet somehow standard results it offers. For whoever has no trouble sleeping next to a statistical corpse, for whoever can prompt it goodnight and kiss its cold cheek.
It will improve; eventually, it will always draw five fingers, each in its proper place and proportion. It will lose its urine-yellow tint. It will render consistent text. It will hold color palettes. I know it will improve, because it already has while you weren't paying attention.
In its early days, they were the hallucinations of computers learning to recognize what they saw. They were terrifying. But they had a soul, a solid soul made of silicon. That first iteration, those first childlike strokes, was called DeepDream. It was developed for Google in 2015. I wish we had let them dream a little longer. They deserved it.
Comparing that distant past to the present, it's undeniable how much it has improved over this decade. And it will keep improving.
No matter how technically sophisticated it becomes, it will remain empty. It will stay dead. It will never animate movement with intention, never create an icon that gives identity to a community, never make a film that changes lives by reflecting their own, never create someone's most treasured childhood memory. Why? Because it lacks soul, intention, love, rage… And it will never obtain them, no matter how much human labor it devours.
I understand why this stresses you out. I understand those who lose sleep fearing the machine, those who keep a watchful eye out for the basilisk.
There are two paths for you: you can quit; no one will judge you. Or you can keep going if you have enough love and rage inside your chest. Because in this world, now more than ever, both are the best renewable fuel for making art.
With hope,
-Moz