I’ve been enjoying staring at this painting of Glacier National Park for a while. Something about the lighting and the composition is compelling. There’s a beckoning to the rays coming from behind the trees. The rocks in the bottom-left balance the shadows on the right. The soaring mountains in the background pull the eyes up with a sense of sweeping grandeur.
It makes me jealous of an artist who can envision such beauty and bring it to life on a canvas.
Except, in this case, the artist isn’t a famous neo-realism master. The artist, if that’s the right word, isn’t even a “someone.” It is a collection of math equations known as the Stable Diffusion AI. And this painting isn’t a famous masterpiece. It is the result of fifteen seconds of calculations on my laptop in response to a text prompt of fifteen words. There’s a big blue “Generate” button next to the image which, if I press it, will cause this image to vanish and be replaced in another 15 seconds with the next algorithmic result.
I am struck, though not so poignantly as members of the art community, at the implications of the advent of AI art. The accomplishments of a lifetime are being simulated in less time than it took to write this sentence. Is there still a point to a life dedicated to the mastery of brush strokes, color selection, composition, layering, perspective, and all the rest if a computer can replicate genius at the click of a button?
Why be a chef in the age of the microwave? A runner in the age of the automobile? A hiker in the age of virtual reality? A mathematician in the age of the calculator?
Why discipline our bodies for the long race of the Christian life when we could just sit back and let online services, radio broadcasts, books, and tracts do all the work for us, and faster?
Why indeed, unless the outward effect is not God’s only purpose. God delights not just in the scenic mountain vista, but in the thousands of years of life, death, erosion, and change that produced it. He sent His Son into this world for our atonement, but He sent Him as a baby and not a grown man. The elect of God were chosen from before the foundation of the world, but they have only trickled into existence across the long ages of the world. God doesn’t just love trees – he loves seeds and saplings too.
God isn’t just looking for Gospel results in our lives, but the entire process of Gospel faithfulness. He loves the whole movie of His work in and through us, not just a still frame from the ending. We discipline ourselves so that we will be ready for His service, but that very discipline itself is part of the “art” God is producing. The preparation and the process matter, and they make the resultant fruit just a little sweeter as a result. So long live the weary artists, whose work the computers are but imitating. And long live the faithful Christian whose daily discipline declares the goodness of God – stroke upon stroke, layer upon layer.