Canvas Trails Blog | The AI Controversy in Modern Times

Hey everyone,

the sun is shining and it feels like a great day to talk a little bit about AI and the impact it has on our lives.

If you are a millennial such as myself and you remember watching movies like ‘I, Robot’ back in the day, you probably thought ‘yeah, right! Like that is ever going to happen in my lifetime…’. Well, fast forward to today, it seems humanity has given it its best to achieve results we could only see in sci-fi movies or read in Asimov’s books.

Artificial Intelligence has been in development for many years now, but the most notable is the conversational AI assistant, ChatGPT - Created by OpenAI and delivered to the public in November 2022, making it the most popular consumer application, reaching 100 million users in ONLY two months (read that again). That was the moment AI really entered our consciousness and started making a huge cultural impact around the world.

People grew curious and made it do all sorts of things, testing its limits. It is only natural for us to want to discover. And so, we did. And since there’s nothing new on the self-sabotage front, we allowed AI to take over jobs. Programming, customer service, creative roles - the whole world is facing a decline in entry-level positions. To put it into a wider perspective, estimates show that 7% of U.S. jobs could be lost as a consequence of AI implementation by the year 2030. This is just an example, and it is just the beginning. AI is spreading like a plague, at a very fast pace and the most disturbing part is that it makes us question reality. If you’re browsing social media during your work break or late at night before you sleep, you might be familiarized with a fair number of videos or images that are AI generated. Everything looks natural, until you reach the comment section, where people are debating whether it is real or not. That is on our hands right now, and somehow we normalize it.

But while it does ease one’s work, when one no longer has to sit in front of devices for hours trying to figure out the best way to express opinions on all manner of topics, no matter how compelling an article one would put together with the AI’s help, it will feel and sound just the same as everybody else’s who is doing the exact same thing. Even a popular English newspaper in Pakistan used it and forgot to remove the AI’s suggestions from the article. Or something more dystopian - Albania’s experiment to appoint AI to the position of Minister, where the AI is in charge of managing public procurement. And here’s something even more mind boggling - the same AI Minister is ‘pregnant’ with 83 ‘children’, or assistants, for each and every Socialist Party member of parliament.

Sadly, more and more, AI is used to produce content which is mindlessly consumed, compiling articles, writing product descriptions, ‘about me’, job applications, congratulations, social media posts, speeches, etc., that bring no real value to this world.

AI has caused a good amount of frustration in the art world as well. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve read about artists having their work used without permission or compensation to feed the machine. How many artists have lost and continue to lose income - illustrators, concept artists, commercial artists. Stock photo markets are particularly being crushed, with photographers left to feel the brunt of it.

The traditional art world is also suffering changes, as many galleries are now showing AI art. It is used in competitions where it wins prizes. Who’s the winner? How does one authenticate it? How does one value it?

Anyone could be an artist now. Never mind the education, the years of practice, the sweat and tears, the passion, the commitment to the journey… Everything can be done in seconds now. AI is being used as a primary medium and the trend is here to stay and grow.

Personally, the part that weighs most is that many artists are waving the white flag or hopping on the AI train - if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The year 2025 has been tough and has left many of us artists bruised, but we should use that as a foundation for our resilience. I noticed something about myself and I wonder if you find it sounding familiar. I figured the more time I spend consuming content, mindlessly scrolling, the more disconnected I become with myself as an artist. Not to mention that posting art on social media is a particularly challenging and exhausting thing to do, especially when the algorithm isn’t there to promote or motivate hard working artists. It is there to help all the corporations make more money and individuals who want to shortcut their way to profit, validation and attention. It is ironic how the same platforms that promised connection and exposure, now seem to drag us further away from both. Sharing art on social media has lost most expression form, and became rather a performance - measured in how many people reached and post engagement with no genuine resonance or interaction whatsoever.

That’s where 2026 comes in, like a beacon of hope, allowing us to transform all that negativity into an opportunity to get to know ourselves better artistically, to give ourselves a break from all the noise and rediscover the first moments that made us create.

Connect with nature, with our surroundings, step away from the reference pictures on our screens and study the colors that we see outside, notice the changes of light, create sketches, keep a creative journal, engage in the study of color and ground ourselves into the moments that truly matter.

I am looking forward to tackling all the challenges this year is coming up with and with fresh forces, I hope that you are too. Our art journey is something deeply personal, but at the same time, it brings us together and I am incredibly grateful for that. Thank you for reading and I wish this new year will bring you calm and unravel new horizons in your own journey.