The arguments against AI in art are obvious. Most visual artists hate Midjourney, Stability AI, and similar image generators, decrying the scraping of training data without compensation and the onslaught of generic “slop.” But is it possible to deliberately misuse generative AI for creative work? 

Oakland, California-based painter Brett Amory uses image generators as tools constantly. Instead of passively churning out generic images in large volumes — what he himself has referred to as addictive and mind-numbing “fast art” — Amory focuses on worldbuilding and glitching the machine. He draws inspiration from his day job at a San Francisco Kinko’s in the late ’90s, long before he broke through as an award-winning painter, when he would place garbage and plants into the photocopiers to make collages. Now, he’s prompting an LLM to roleplay in an invented language, inciting a visual feedback loop between generative images and human intervention.  

“We’re in a very weird moment for artists right now when it’s just not clear what kind of moral goal posts there are around AI art,” says Brooklyn-based art criti …

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