Samuel Reyes

Author: Samuel Reyes

Samuel Reyes is an artist with OCD, High Functioning Autism, and a misfiring thalamus. On this podcast he discusses navigating being a neurodivergent artist with his faith in Jesus Christ, and presents how adjusting how he thinks about art has helped me create more frequently and consistently.
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Language: en

Genres: Arts, Visual Arts

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Where Do Artists Stand With AI? And How Do We Do It?
Wednesday, 27 May, 2026

DOES AI HAVE A PLACE IN OUR LIVES AS ARTISTS? The topic of AI comes up a lot for me because I work as a software developer. It's something I see kind of all day, every day. And so I am constantly reflecting on what potential does AI have in the life of an artist and as a creative individual. Now, most of you hearing that are probably going to immediately—those who are hearing that as creatives—are going to be like, "well, it has no place." But does it? Now, I will say this: using it to replace a thing that you love to do does not have a place in your life. And that's one of the things that I've been reflecting on. The Core Issue I've mentioned it before on this podcast, but there is the meme: "I want an AI that does my dishes so that I have more time for my art, not an AI that does my art so that I have more time for my dishes." It's one of my favorite quotes when it comes to AI because I feel like it represents the core issue really well. Now, I want to look at the people who created AI briefly—and I don't mean like Elon Musk or any specific people by name, I'm talking about the mindset and the problem. The problem for the people who came up with image generators... let's look at that first. These are not individuals who love to draw or paint. They might enjoy it, but they don't love it in the same way. I know that's a bit of a blanket statement—there might be some exceptions—but for the most part, they had a problem they wanted to solve. They wanted to automate the thing that they didn't love to do so that they could focus their energies on the things that they do. For these individuals, it is coding, it is programming, it is creating software and generating output through that software. For them, having to stop the development process to produce a piece of art was a problem that they were trying to solve and automate away. And they did it. In doing so, they solved the problem for every like-minded individual. And I think that is an important thing to consider as well. AI image generators were never meant, in my opinion, to be really used by artists. They're meant to solve the problem of creating art for those who don't want to create art. A Thinning of the Clientele Now you might be thinking—and it's a valid question—"well, why not pay someone else to do so?" That was another problem that they were solving. The problem was, how do I get art that I'm content with without having to pay someone else? You see, these people are not the ones who would have been your clients who would have paid you anyways. It is true that some artists have lost their jobs to AI, but the people who fired them or let them go or stopped hiring them are not people who wanted to be paying you in the first place. Now, in some ways, yes, this could be perceived as a problem because it means an artist has lost a job. But it could also be viewed as a thinning of the clientele. There will be fewer less-than-ideal clients to work with; less, hopefully, people trying to take advantage of you because they didn't want to hire you to do the art in the first place. Anyways, I don't want to make this about—this isn't to be a discussion about the business of running an art business in an AI world. Rather, it's meant to point out the detail that the people who created AI image generators were trying to solve a problem, and that problem was they didn't want to have to stop to create art and they didn't want to have to pay someone else to do it. And in solving that problem for themselves, they solved it for everyone who was like-minded. Walking in Both Worlds Now, this is where I struggle. Do I, as an artist, perceive their efforts as an attack or not? I have the luxury—I say luxury, it doesn't always feel like a luxury—of not having art be my source of income. I pursued a career in software development and that brings its own headaches and miseries with it. Other times it can be absolutely fun, but a lot of the time I'm like, "this isn't what I wanted. I wanted to be an artist." I am grateful that God has blessed me with a means to provide for my family, but I wanted—I've always wanted to be an artist in some capacity. So, going from there, I think we need to go back to the same question that the people who created AI image generators started with: What is the problem I'm trying to solve and how do I automate it away? One of the big challenges, and I think one of the reasons so many artists feel attacked right now, is artists are not inherently technical—a lot of them anyways. There's some like myself who walk in both worlds, some who are programmers and artists as well. There's others who are not; they're just into the art side of things. I think that in and of itself, though, is the core problem. And let me explain what I mean by that. When we only have one side producing results, it's going to feel like an attack on the other. Without more artists also becoming programmers, the automation of creativity is going to feel very one-sided. It will always feel like an attack on the arts as long as there aren't more artists who are also programmers. You see, in the mind of a software developer who's trying to automate away having to create art, it's not a concern to him "how do I automate away my programming so I have more time to create art?" Does that make sense? He has automated away doing the thing he doesn't love so that he can focus on the thing he does: programming. A Challenge to Creative Individuals We need artists to take on learning how to develop so they can go the other way and start automating away the things that take time away from creating art. In my mind, the purpose of AI is to automate away the things that I don't love to do so I have more time for the things I do love to do. And that is the direction that our world is going. If we only have people automating away art because they don't love to create art and they want to focus on the things they do love to create, where does that leave artists? I'm going to invite and challenge those artists listening to this to start learning something about development. Start learning how to use AI tools, not to create art, but to figure out how to automate away the things that keep you from making art. Learn how to automate the spreadsheets. Learn how to automate the programming. If you're like me, I work a software development job. I'm trying to learn how to use AI to automate as much of my development process as possible so I have more time for drawing. That is the thing that brings me joy. That is the thing I'm not going to give up. I love putting my pencil to the paper and producing an outcome that way. I don't want to automate my art away. But I'm going to look at my life and see which parts of my life can I automate away so that I have more time to dedicate myself to the craft that I actually want to be manual. Finding Joy in the Manual Craft I do think it would also likewise be a problem if we automated every part of our life. I believe God gives us talents and interests because he knows they'll bring us joy. Creating art brings me joy. It just does; it always has. It makes me smile, it makes me happy. Not that it doesn't have moments of frustration, but I have found as I have gotten better at art, I experience more of these feelings of joy. I think that as we get better at a skill, whatever that skill might be, more joy comes. And I think that's by design. It's to see how much we want it, how much work we're willing to put in, and the joy is a direct reflection of the work that we've put into it. As I've gotten better as an artist, I can draw more of what I want from my mind, and the more I can draw of what I want, the more joy there is because I'm not fighting with myself as much about: "can I create this?" "oh, there's so much detail" "oh, I don't know if I'm going to get this composition right" "this isn't turning out the way that I want." I put in enough time that those become less and less and less of an issue. They don't ever go away, but they're far less of an issue than they used to be, and so in their place, the joy steps in. You also have to allow yourself to be okay with the imperfections of the work you're creating so that you can experience the joy that comes from the good of those things. Moving Forward Anyways, what in our lives as artists are things that we would want to automate away? And are we as artists going to step up and figure out how to use these same tools to automate those things so that we have more time for the things that we love to do? If you look at it that way, it's never been a more exciting time. In the past, there was no way to really automate away the things that you don't like to do, but now there are. We can automate the parts of our lives—maybe not all of them, but a lot of them—so that we have time to do the things we love. But we need more minds. We need more people out there figuring these things out because you might be the person to figure out how to automate something that other people are struggling to or unable to. You might be the one who can recognize the need that needs to be automated and figure out how to automate it. You might be the one who brings it to attention so that someone else can automate it. But to simply be fully at odds with AI is going to keep us in a place where we can't automate away the things that keep us from creating art. 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