On AI and Searching for Artistic Values
- Amir Steklov
- Mar 24
- 3 min read
Written by: Amir Ovadia Steklov - all rights reserved
Disclaimer: I use an LLM to help with proofreading, not with ideas and reasoning.
In 2026, we are all waiting for the AI bubble to burst—a prediction that still feels far in the future. As LLMs reach their training plateau and each new version brings more disappointment, image, video, and music models continue to grow rapidly, producing better and better results.
In my field of work, everyone is asking me for AI “stuff,” and what they usually mean is “amazing-looking animation or VFX, but with a very small budget.” When I try to steer the conversation toward artistic vision rather than the machine learning algorithm behind it, they lose me—and sometimes I lose the project.
The discourse around AI in the creative fields has hijacked the conversation about creativity and vision. What used to be “toys” for automating valueless memes and social media spam is now being used as professional tools in production pipelines and propaganda. If film history teaches us anything about propaganda, it’s that we shouldn’t ignore it—it often becomes the next big thing in cinematic art once it starts being used for that purpose.
The film arts are always under threat of losing their value, much like what happened in music. I always keep a close eye on developments in the music industry, as it often serves as an extreme mirror of what could happen to film in the future. One of my biggest fears is that the film industry will become valueless and controlled by armies of lawyers, with money circulating not from consumers or advertisers, but from lawsuits and copyright claims.
Art is most valuable in times of crisis, and in 2026, we are already living through World War III. As artists, we face profound questions in the face of rapid technological development fueled by war, mainly: What makes us human? And what kind of art holds value when large AI models are trained on the entire history of art (ignoring copyright laws) and reproduce endless copies of it?
Recently, the Canadian band Angine de Poitrine broke the internet with a recorded live performance. Their surreal visuals are nothing “new” in terms of art, but what caught my interest was their music. They use microtonal instruments to create a unique sound and vibe as unconventional as their costumes. This music could not have been produced by current AI models, as it falls so far outside the data they were trained on. And if, in the near future, an AI model were able to create something similar, you could be certain it was trained on Angine de Poitrine’s original work—likely without paying royalties.
I see Angine de Poitrine and their global impact on the music scene as a direct reaction to manufactured AI music. In their own unique way, they answered the questions I raised above and safeguarded their music from being stolen by AI data centers—all by offering a distinct, human signature.
We are being forced to innovate, to think outside the box, and to draw deeply from our most human experiences.
At the end of a long workday, most people want to rest and connect with other people. I don’t see a future for AI content as a standalone product, only as an extension of cinematic tools—one that could potentially serve the human connection at the heart of the cinematic experience.
People hate discovering that what they’re watching was synthetically made by an algorithm. And that gives me hope to explore my own creativity with the new professional AI tools available today.
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