[Author’s Note: I originally wrote this piece as the script for a Rumble and YouTube video, and have already recorded and uploaded that video to both locations. I added a few moments of improvisation in two or three spots, but what follows here is the actual text that I initially wrote out for it. Whether you watch/listen to the piece on Rumble or YouTube, or read it here, your feedback is always welcome.]
Back in December of 2025, I put out a paper entitled “Dreams and Nightmares in Carbon and Silicone”, a wide-angle lens look at the phenomenon of AI in terms of the primary ‘camps’ engaging in conversations on the topic broadly speaking, and looking at the historical parallels of modern-day AI and artificial beings in mythologies both old and new. That piece concluded with some thoughts I had regarding our duties and obligations toward ‘ensouled mechanoids’ in the future, if such a thing ever becomes real.
During the course of that lengthy essay, I also mentioned that at some point, I wanted to address some of the more specific sub-topics under the broader umbrella of AI. Here, I’d like to start that set of observations, beginning with generative visual AI Art. As an individual with very little comprehension regarding the specific computer science, programming, and technical elements that go into this practice, I will be focusing primarily upon the two farthest-reaching camps in the general public conversation, the hardcore Anti-Gen-AI and the hardcore Pro-Gen-AI. Henceforth, I will either shorthand these camps as Antis or Pros, though I will also occasionally use some insulting terminology for the sake of humor or emphasis.
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have taken rather a long time to finally getting around to this specific sub-topic, though I will give myself a little bit of breathing room by pointing out that for much of the year thus far, I’ve been working on a free novel for my Substack, “In the City, the Peaceful City”, and performing a couple of analytical readings. I sort of let this one go on the back burner, since I’m a fiction wonk first and foremost.
So without further preamble, let us get started!
There’s Always an English Lesson With Me
When it comes to the usage of AI in the production of any creative endeavor, any Art, it is referred to as ‘Generative AI’. What precisely is ‘Generative’? Like many words or phrases in English, the term is derived from Latin, the word ‘generare’, which means to beget or produce. And yes, by beget, I mean in the sense of the Biblical usage; why do you think each age block is referred to as a ‘generation’? Each successive generation is the product of their parents, well, begetting them (cue 70’s wa-wa pedal porno track). If one really wanted to engage in wordplay here, you can easily hear examples of folks saying that they have been ‘fucking around with ChatGPT/Grok/Claude/Gemini/Insert App or Service Name Here’ in order to produce some creative result. Of course, per the Antis, one can also easily recall members of that camp saying that AI is ‘going to fuck us all’.
Either way, somebody’s getting screwed….
Okay, linguistic tomfoolery aside, allow me to confess to what finally provoked me to come back around to this examination. I try not to allow myself to be what is referred to as ‘terminally online’, but I will confess that I, like many folks in America around my age (44 as of this writing), find myself diving into the Internet quite a bit. There are so many subcultures and arenas of interest to interact with online that it can be pretty daunting to try and figure even the tiniest fraction of it out, and I have only so much human bandwidth to work with. For the most part, I delve into genre fiction, mythology, American football, MMA, animation, video games, comic books and psychology/psychiatry (I’m aware there’s a distinction, but I approach them as two parts of a whole area of interest). Stepping into any of these spheres of interest or appreciation since around 2014 leaves one invariably bombarded with demands from the loudest sociopolitical ideologues online that the sphere in question must be aligned with or maneuvered into alignment with their specific set of ideologies and shibboleths. For folks who just want to enjoy the sphere, whether it be running through the Mushroom Kingdom or catching highlights of the wildest receptions from the past weekend in the NFL/UFL/IFL (I watch a LOT of football, okay?), or seeing if the new illustrators doing the principle work on a comic book series are bringing a new aesthetic to the title, this started off as just mildly annoying. However, the escalation of just how thoroughly these ideologues have infiltrated these spheres of activity has reached a level that now makes it almost impossible for the average participant to approach their chosen field of interest without reflexively flinching or checking for traps like some kind of survivalist with OCD who has to unlock and relock his cabinet of MREs EXACTLY 9 times every time he checks his stash, because if he doesn’t, the alien mothership will come back to take him off to the planet Fripton….
You get my point, right? In all of these spheres, there tends to be a period of initial interest and support, then expansion beyond niche to semi-common, and just before it can go mainstream, in come the ideologues. Well, one of these spheres of interest is Vtubing, itself a subcategory of the subculture of online streaming and/or video sharing which sees creators replace themselves on screen in the flesh with, instead, an animated avatar, colloquially referred to within the sphere as their ‘model’. The model is programmed by someone known as a ‘rigger’, who utilizes a kind of digital puppeteering to allow the Vtuber to control the movements and appearance of the model on-screen that audiences watch, listen to, and interact with. The whole dynamic is based heavily on something referred to as ‘Idol Culture’ from Japan, but I’m going to stop right there in terms of trying to parse out all of the specifics, because I’m not knowledgeable enough to go further than that without being either insulting or exposing just how lacking in familiarity I am with the sphere.
I am aware of the phenomenon of Vtubing from the perspective of someone who listens to/watches a small handful of personalities in that sphere. I’m just a guy in the audience for a few of them, and trust me when I tell you, it is a tiny portion that I’m even familiar with. Thanks to the fact that I follow several of them on YouTube and on X/Twitter, and the fact that the algorithms on every social media service (including video sharing platforms) fill the never-ending scroll of users’ Feeds with suggested channels/users/videos/posts, all in a quest to keep their userbase captive, I catch wind of ongoing events within the Vtubing space.
Recently, there’s been a bit of a hurley burley in this arena, thanks in no small part to it (the Vtubing sphere) suffering a cross-traffic collision with the larger conversation of Gen-AI Art. One of the folks who has driven a veritable tanker truck filled with nitroglycerin headlong into the pileup is one Leaflit, and if I’m not mistaken, she seems to have put her foot to the floor on the accelerator and aimed for the wreckage, laughing like a gleeful little retard the whole way!
The Basics of the Conversation
The Antis in the broader Gen-AI art conversation have, as their core concern regarding its use, the following perspective: Gen-AI steals the work of living human artists, as well as all available visual data and references elsewise, and uses mathematically processed algorithms that can spit out results which can approximate that human-made material without giving any credit in any way to its sources. In short: “The machines are stealing Artists’ stuff.”
The Pro Bros and Hoes typical response to this is some form of, “All Artists borrow/learn/source from other Artists all the time, that’s how they learn. This just saves time and effort, and gets the desired result without the wasteful in-between steps.” Folks like Leaflit and her American-born Canadian attack dog, Ember Paradox, have taken lately to adding in some flavor insults or ad hominem to twist the knife of this counter, usually in the form of paraphrasing the “it’s intellectual theft” line in their most obnoxious ‘retard voice’ to dismiss/denigrate the Anti in question.
Now, to be fair to the Pro Bros, they make a perfectly cogent and logical point with their counter in the comparison of how a human Artist learns and references prior works with how a machine or program does the same thing. Where they are being utterly disingenuous, however, is in the methodology of that learning process. If you ask a human Artist where they draw their inspiration from, they can actually give you a thoughtful answer, a response that has some depth of meaning and intent. The machine or app, however, cannot give you this, because as of this moment, it has no intent or meaning beyond ‘Respond to input/prompt’. There is no reverence for what came before, no pursuit of intent or message or technique, because it is just a program sans qualia.
The next contention that the Antis tend to turn to, usually the Artists and creatives themselves in that camp, is one that I almost wish they wouldn’t, given the response they get. This contention is that the use of Gen AI strips away or renders meaningless the human creatives’ efforts. The reason I wish they wouldn’t is because it is, as they usually present it, an appeal to emotion, to sympathy, the humane and benevolent decency, and frankly, a lot of the Pro Bros and Hoes do not give a tin shite about such appeals, because they aren’t couched in logic. Moreover, those similar in perspective to Leaflit have said, and I am paraphrasing her here, “Nobody cares about that, they only care about the results.”
From a raw marketplace/economic perspective, she’s about 98% correct. There is no clean counter from a raw, materialist worldview. I do not grant her 100% on this, though, because not every client looking for creative products is as much of a heartless, mercenary cunt as she is. Some few clients/customers actually do care, but most of even those folks are going to go with their financial bottom line, because that’s just sound business.
On the flip side of the coin, many in the Pro camp on Gen-AI have pointed out that often, human Artists will take excessive time on their projects, or charge an inordinate amount for their works. Moreover, not a small number of them will flatly decline a client outright over differences of sociopolitical worldview, and in quite literally EVERY instance where this has been the case that I have seen, the Artist in question has a Leftist/progressive/liberal/Democrat worldview, and they are declining clients who they perceive, accurately or no, as anywhere to the right of Mao.
Seriously, if anyone out there can show me proof positive of a conservative or Right-leaning Artist rejecting a commission or contract offer from a Left-aligned client, do so, and do so publicly. As a fellow with a hyperactive imagination, I have no problem conceptualizing the idea, but for the moment, I have to accept the notion as merely potential, because I have seen no evidence of it.
While this sort of thing is foolish, I acknowledge these Artists’ right of free association. The response of the rejected client, if they are barred from commissioning you based on ideology, and you make them aware of that, is also covered by that prospective client’s right of free association, and free expression. If you tell them, “I will not work with you, Chud, because you’re a fascist Trumplertardican”, or whatever other term you opt for, the rejected client has every right to put you on public blast for it and expose that communication to the world.
To such clients, bear this in mind: if a shitlib refuses you as a client, you are not inherently dutybound to hop onto social media to performatively ‘own’ them by turning to Gen-AI. Not every interaction we have on a daily basis needs to be broadcast. It’s your absolute right to do it, yes; I’m just observing that it isn’t always necessary.
Patience Is a Virtue, But My Supply Is Limited
There’s a line that the fiercest Pro Gen-AI advocates have stepped right up to, and which some, namely Leaflit, have stepped right past with the kind of hubris that is normally reserved for politicians and preachers. That line is labelled ‘Stability’, and most of the Pros stumble back and forth along it, usually crossing over just long enough to run into trouble, and invariably come back to sanity.
‘Productivity’ is a huge buzzword for the tech-enamoured, who often also seem to start taking on a vaguely inhuman affect when the term seems to replace ‘purpose’ in their lexicon. As a group, they have become just as nauseating to read or hear from as the most belligerent Antis. The argumentation on both extremes has reached levels of hostility that normally would require at least a decade to fully develop, but thanks in no small part, I suspect, to the nature of Gen-AI’s rapid evolution of capabilities, it has ramped up to peak intensity in no time at all.
The Antis’ primary concerns revolve around the notions of creative integrity, ownership of work, and having efforts acknowledged. These concerns are, broadly speaking, met with dismissals, insults, and an attitude that borders on the same kind of corporate psychopathy that the folks at Enron would have blushed at the sight of.
The Pros’ primary promotion points tackle the inevitability of advancing technology, ease of access, and endeavors to make Gen-AI palatable as a set of tools, rather than a wholesale surrender of the pursuit of Arts to soulless machines. Much as I have bagged on them, the Pro Bros and Hoes have maintained throughout all of these conversations and arguments that there is still a human being involved in the process, that the Gen-AI programs and apps do not spontaneously churn out results; someone has to sit at a keyboard and type in the commands to start the whole process. Each step requires human input. They aren’t wrong about that.
A point of advice I would like to offer to the Anti Gen-AI Artists is as follows: if you decide to not work with a potential client, stop saying WHY. Don’t explain the decision, period, just say ‘No’ and move along. If said client sees that your commissions are still open, and they prod you with an inquiry regarding why you declined them, you are under no obligation to explain your decision. There are genuinely situations where the less you say, the better off you’ll be. Sure, they may make inferences, accusations and implications about the motivation for your rejection, but if you don’t provide them with proof by flapping your self-righteous yapper at them, you’ll be fine.
And a point of advice to the Pro Bros: recognize that when you persistently devalue and dehumanize the creative process, you are engaging in demoralization, just as surely as any good little commie scumfuck. Ease up on the folks who aren’t ready to take that leap with you; the harder you push, the more you’re bound to make them resent you.
My Bias IS Showing
To the Antis, another word of caution, if you haven’t already gotten sick of reading/hearing me: the Pro Bros aren’t entirely wrong, you are going to potentially get ‘left behind’. Most modern folks have little or no patience these days, no understanding of delayed gratification, no appreciation for anything that they can’t get or use immediately. That isn’t even entirely their fault, either. The Pro Bros are so hustle-minded, they likely couldn’t tell you the last time they did something just for the sake of doing it. I can’t imagine they could express when last they just took a walk, or sat by a fire, or quietly watched the traffic go by without filming it or commenting on it later on for the production of content. These are folks who are culturally programmed to try and commodify and monetize every waking moment of their lives. In a way, I pity them. Nothing is profoundly sacred or awe-inspiring to such dopamine and “Line Go Up” junkies.
And yeah, I’m giving them shit here, a lot more than I am the Antis, but like I implied, I don’t think it’s entirely their fault. Over the last 10-15 years at least, the state of our economies in the West have not been conducive to the ‘slow and steady and doing the right thing’ approach.
To the Pro Bros and Hoes, a direct question: have you heard of ‘Model collapse’? If human Artists get to the point where they believe their sum total works are just going to be fed into these programs and algorithms, used merely as fodder to inform the Great Machines, what motivation will they have to bother creating anything anymore? The Profit Motive is not the only one that there is, despite it being the primary one that most folks these days, Artists included, tend to be driven by. There’s also recognition (which sometimes congeals into fame/clout-seeking), duty, respect for the pursuit itself, and one motivation which I’m going to go into now that, I don’t doubt, is going to lose some of you.
This Is the Hippie Dippy Woo-Woo Part, Folks
The draw of Art, in all of its forms, be it music, narrative, illustrative, poetic, constructive (sculpture/pottery), comes from the Divine. The pull Artists feel, to craft, to create, to strive ever to learn and improve in our techniques, methods, and offerings, it is an innate attempt to express beauty, to find Truth, to use our imaginations as only we as human beings, given these gifts by God, can. THAT is the mission of Art, the core of its drive. It is purpose given a form for the creative soul.
Most folks have a tendency to cling to the academic framing of the purpose of Art, that its aim is to evoke an emotional, intellectual, or primal reaction, and/or to at least entertain the audience at a base level. The miss the forest for the trees when citing this understanding, however, because they go only that far and no further. They purposely avoid or deny the sacred duty of Art, to bring mankind closer to the ultimate in Truth and beauty, to help them at least momentarily be in the near presence of the Divine.
Folks like Leaflit are increasingly seeing the Arts primarily as vulgar tools of profitability and self-serving delivery systems of ideology, divorced entirely from purpose, from Divinity. In her understandable frustration and opposition to the creative wokescolds and commie scumbags trying to assert control over who can or can’t be involved in Art as a creator or a patron, she has decided to just debase and devalue entirely the human effort and striving component of Art that goes into the creative process. Because “Line Go Up”. Because “Only results matter.”
Handing over Artistic creation to machines might seem like a great idea for the sake of efficiency, for productivity, sure, but it also tells me that Leaflit and those of a similar approach to hers have failed to comprehend one of the key lessons taught by economics as they’ve operated since the Industrial Revolution’s beginning, and it is this: whenever a machine is introduced into the production process, a standard gets pretty quickly established, a uniformity. That uniformity becomes the expected norm, what the customer becomes accustomed to. Deviations or ‘errors’ get sanded off.
This is reasonable and logical for the production of tangible products and goods, like cars, or tools, or furniture. But the finished products in such cases can be individually modified or specialized later on, or singular special orders can be set up in advance. But for Art? Uniformity in artistic expression results in meaningless, lifeless gray sludge, devoid of purpose or meaning. As for bringing down the average cost of commissioned Art, I won’t argue that this is broadly beneficial, especially for folks like myself who, frankly, aren’t exactly swimming in funds. Yet I would also caution against devaluing the resulting creative production too much, because we have proven time and time again throughout history that when most people see the cost of attaining something driven near to zero, they collectively begin to assume that they can value it less, both financially and emotionally/intellectually. If the Art becomes as easy to get as ‘Click Here’, folks are invariably going to start assuming that the result doesn’t hold any value at all, and that damages the entire endeavor.
Leaning In
If you’ve been reading/listening purely for my perspective on the Anti vs Pro Gen-AI conversation, and have no interest or appreciation for the more personal digs I’ve taken at Leaflit, I more than understand if you feel the need or desire to check out at this point, because what comes after this point is almost entirely aimed at her and her clutch of fans/sycophants in this topic.
Still here? You have been warned.
I’ve taken a few shots at the Vtuber known as Leaflit here, and some may feel that I’ve been too harsh with her, that her intentions with this program/tool set that she’s been tinkering with and putting together as a sort of ‘Ease of Accessibility’ are overall benevolent, aimed at democratizing the whole Vtubing thing and making it smoother to get into. She and Ember have both pointed out that by making those first steps into the sphere less daunting, they may see it flourish, and become more broadly accepted and normalized. That’s not a bad thing on its own, and she genuinely should be lauded for her efforts, especially when one considers that she hasn’t, to my understanding, asked for this thing to be crowdfunded or turned into a subscription service or paid-for product.
People don’t generally do something like that without an expectation of getting something in return, immediately. Kudos to her for breaking that usual pattern. Moreover, it’s my understanding that she’s been working on this endeavor entirely solo, or at least with the barest minimal assistance from any other person or persons. That’s commendable, because that demonstrates a clear work ethic of high caliber.
Add on top of the observation that the vast majority of folks who are giving her the greatest volume of grief for these efforts are some of the most obnoxious, entitled, self-righteous and maladapted cretins the Internet has ever churned out, and you might find yourself willing to give her a great deal of leeway when it comes to her responses to the entire conversational gambit. But granting leeway is not the same thing as offering her carte blanche to treat the entire classification of Artists or opposition to her perspective like subhuman trash, which is bare hair lengths away from where she’s gotten to, and nobody is above reproach.
Miss Leaflit, though I believe the odds of this piece being read or listened to in its entirety from start to finish by you personally are about as good as a Special Olympics relay race runner returning a kickoff for a touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles Special Teams unit without their own blockers, I’d like to address you directly. The smug and dismissive response style you’ve opted to lean into in all of this is not going to benefit you or your endeavors much further than it already has. Yes, it may well further entrench the support you already have, and possibly could capture a few folks who largely agree with your positions but haven’t yet been made actively aware of your channel and projects. It draws wider attention, and as the old adage goes, ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’.
But the other side of that particular coin is that you are almost guaranteed to win over nobody who started from a neutral or even slightly oppositional position by being an inhuman, spiteful and dismissive cunt. Your personality affect of “Only results matter” is so removed from the human experience, which Art is primarily birthed from, that it leaves one wondering if you actually give a shit about Art to begin with, or if Productivity alone is the god to which you kneel.
To Ember: yes, one of ‘your strays’ as you cringe-inducingly refer to your audience has unpleasant things to say to your beloved Slime Girl. This is about the time you reach for the tried-and-true chestnut of Dismissal By Obscurity, the Debate Bro tactic of ‘Who are you’ which your audience has heard you deploy against VTweeters who frequently attempt to attain relevance by hitching onto the coattails of more prominent personalities and getting embroiled in heated public exchanges. Trouble for you on this account is that I’m not interested in any such rise to notoriety within the VTubing sphere. As Kirsche said when going over her situation with Anal Violence (Ana Valens) and her attempted cancellation campaign, “I’m not punching down, I’m not punching up, I’m punching back.” The distinct difference here, and you would be correct to point it out, is that Leaflit’s hostility has not been aimed at me personally, but rather, at the entirety of Anti-Gen-AI folks as a whole, with a focus on the Artists in their midst.
Before the Antis give me too many kudos, bear in mind the following: none of this Leaflit-specific material would be necessary if you could have gotten a tighter grip on the ideologue Artists on your side of this conversation! Additionally, when the Pro Bros put forth the observation that the genie is out of the bottle with Gen-AI Art, I can’t push back on it too hard, because it echoes my sentiment when it comes to firearms.
I’m not entirely on either side of this conversation, because there are solid points to be made from both directions. Yes, I tend to lean more in the direction of the Antis on this particular subject, and it is largely because of my personal biases, which stem from my ecclesiastical view of Arts in tota sum, and my own endeavors as an Artist of the written word, of narrative. I have a personal stake in all of this.
So too does Leaflit, if you’ve been paying attention. There was the recent X post put out on the account associated with her Tabletop RPG that was effectively an open call for people to “Become a Leaftuber”, I believe the promo copy read, yes? This, in association with or reference to her Adventurer program (I may have the name of it wrong here, but it’s late, and I have only so much patience at the moment). She has skin in the game regarding Gen-AI Art, so I respect that she wants to promote her position.
Do I suspect that she has ulterior motives with this program? Yes, but I don’t think they’re conscious motives. I believe that her recent appreciation for/desire to become a participant in motherhood, itself a Divine duty and recently discussed by Leaflit herself on Malcolm and Simone’s podcast on YouTube, could well be playing a subconscious role in her devotion to this program she’s put together. Having no spouse or romantic partner that I’m aware of, the practical challenge of becoming a mother biologically poses a bit of a roadblock, which in and of itself could well cause her to sublimate the maternal/parental instinct into another form of care and nurturing, of providing that motherly devotion. The redirection of this devotion sees her pouring all manner of time, effort and attention into this ‘VTubing Made Accessible’ program of hers, that its participants might take on a kind of pseudo-proxy ‘child’ role for her to dote on and fawn over. Now, none of this would be acted upon or directed consciously for Ms. Leaflit, but rather, it would all be operating under the surface, in the subconscious, where instinct and the primal, emotional levers of human behavior dictate our course in quieter, subtle ways just below our conscious awareness.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m a complete whackado, and am completely off base making such presumptions as if I had any kind of insight into the human condition and behavior. I’m just a Midwestern father and husband with four kids at home. Just a janitor. Just a storyteller.
Just one guy. One ‘Who’ in the seas of untold millions watching and participating lightly in some of these discussions, one of thousands watching these VTubers and Artists go back and forth past each other.
Just one more voice for most of these folks to ignore.
Or maybe, for once, to listen to, before it all turns gray.