“Morris believed passionately in the importance of creating beautiful, well-made objects that could be used in everyday life, and that were produced in a way that allowed their makers to remain connected both with their product and with other people. Looking to the past, particularly the medieval period, for simpler and better models for both living and production, Morris argued for the return to a system of manufacture based on small-scale workshops.”
That is from a essay by the Victoria & Albert Museum describing Willam Morris and his contribution to the Arts & Crafts movement, which grew in the U.K. in the mid- to late 19th century. It was in large part a reaction to the industrialization of production of goods of all type. There was a belief among many that the manufactories that were becoming part of the landscape of commerce—which certainly provided a benefit for regular people in that objects being made in mass quantities were less expensive than those that were produced for the rich—were stifling the artistic aspects of people, replacing it with undifferentiated commodification. This was not a total reaction against making things such that they would be accessible. As John Ruskin, who was an important commentator on what was going on in his time, wrote: “Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.”
While it is somewhat inconceivable for us to imagine what things were like in the 19th century, when Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills” rose up and those who had been working in crafts jobs became cogs in the machinery.
As Marx wrote in 1848 in The Communist Manifesto:
“Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.”
The issue that Marx identified was the estrangement of the worker from the work (although let’s face it: there were and are plenty of jobs that lack any “charm”); the thing that Morris and his colleagues were trying to do was to reestablish, at least in the realm of artistic endeavors that would be a part of everyday experience, some semblance of that charm.
Throughout history—before the 19th century and to this day—the development of applied technologies have caused there to be a leveraging of human capabilities such that the machine can do the job more efficiently than a human. If you’ve ever seen an illuminated manuscript that was carefully created by monks back in the Middle Ages there is a wondrousness visible that is entirely lacking from the printed pages that Gutenberg started cranking out in 1454. Those artisans were displaced and went on to other activities that were probably less engaging, like mucking out the stables.
In the early 20th century when commercial movies were produced, because there were no soundtracks live musicians in the orchestra pit performed the soundtrack. In 1927 The Jazz Singer not only became the first movie with audible dialog, it also was the first to have embedded music. The musicians found themselves having to discover something else to do with their evenings. (Given that the Great Depression began in 1929, there were undoubtedly a lot of those displaced performers who found themselves in breadlines.)
On April 2, 2024, an organization called Artist Rights Alliance posted a manifesto of sorts on Medium headlined “Stop Devaluing Music.”
It reads, in whole, with annotation:
“We, the undersigned members of the artist and songwriting communities, call on AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.
“Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.”
[This seems to be a bit of a swerve: AI is good when it is good for them?]
“Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders.”
[Said more simply: some people are using AI to replace people, whether as writers or performers.]
“When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identifies, our music and our livelihoods. Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models. These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created “sounds” and “images” that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
[Presumably if those companies are using AI to create “sounds,” those sounds are music, which is the issue. For the musicians, artists and songwriters who are pretty much strapped right now—as opposed from those who are well known and raking it in—the verb tense shouldn’t be conditional tense (“would be”) but present (“is”).]
“Unchecked, AI will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it.”
[The value of the work in an artistic sense won’t necessarily be degraded but the compensation surely will be—but this is on the consumers who pay, directly (i.e., buying a download or physical media) or indirectly (by subscribing to a streaming service), for the music.]
“This assault on human creativity must be stopped. We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.”
[This is no more an assault on human creativity than the printing press or recorded music was. It is a change in how things are produced. Which brings us back to William Morris, who wanted, in effect, the “hand” of the artist to be seen in works that were produced in multiples but not in masses. It is an assault on a “music ecosystem” that is predicated purely on economic units.]
“We call on all AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content or tools that undermine or replace the artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
[Laudable. But naïve.]
The only thing that is going to protect the artists from being undercut by AI will be the market, as in individuals who choose to buy things only that are created primarily by people.
As economist E. F. Schumacher wrote in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973), a book that once had resonance among those who were more aligned with William Morris than those companies and corporations the Artist Rights Alliance are threatened by:
“And who is there to tackle such a task? I think every one of us, whether old or young, powerful or powerless rich or poor, influential or uninfluential. . . .[W]e must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence.”
If artists’ work matters, then AI isn’t the problem: it is the people who accept it rather than the work of genuine artists. If it is all about novelty, about the next thing, the next sound, the fleeting and the disposable, if that is what individual consumers invest their time and money in, then this is not a “life-style designed for permanence” but one predicated on ephemera.
It is Us, not It.