Mirage of Artificial Intelligence

The world was louder than ever, filled with the sounds of likes, shares, comments, and endless notifications. But there was one sound that stood out above the rest—the quiet, subtle hum of creation. It wasn’t the sound of human hands sketching on paper, or the soft clack of a computer's keys. No, it was the buzz of algorithms, the quiet hum of computers running scripts and generating content, shaping the digital world one calculated line at a time.

I’d always considered myself an artist. I wasn’t particularly skilled at drawing or painting, but I liked to think I had a decent eye for photography. There was something magical about capturing a moment in time, something only I could see, and framing it in a way that spoke to people. It was personal, intimate, and raw. But lately, I’d started to feel like my work didn’t matter. How could it, when a machine could create something better, faster, and without the mess of human emotion?

It started with a friend sending me a link to an Instagram account. “You have to check this out,” she’d said. “This artist is incredible!” I clicked the link, and sure enough, the account was filled with breathtaking digital paintings—scenes of towering mountains, swirling skies of color, and dreamlike landscapes that felt like they belonged in a fantasy world. Every piece was more stunning than the last. The attention to detail was impeccable, the use of light and shadow masterful.

But as I scrolled through the feed, I felt that now-familiar knot tighten in my stomach. Something wasn’t right. The paintings were too perfect. Every line, every brushstroke, was precise and clean. There were no smudges, no rough edges, no sign of the artist’s hand or struggle. It was as if these paintings had been made by someone who had never experienced the frustrations of art—the messy trial and error, the countless hours spent tweaking and refining a piece until it finally felt right.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to look deeper into the account. The bio was vague: “I make things come to life,” it said, followed by a single hashtag—#AIart.

My breath caught in my throat. AI art? The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. The paintings weren’t made by a person. They were generated by artificial intelligence.

I stared at the screen, trying to process what I was seeing. I scrolled through the comments, expecting outrage or at least some acknowledgment of the AI-generated nature of the art. But instead, all I saw were words of admiration.

“This is so beautiful.”

“Wow, I wish I could paint like this!”

“I’m so inspired by your work!”

No one seemed to care that it wasn’t real. Or maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they had no idea that what they were praising wasn’t the result of human creativity, but the product of an algorithm.

I felt sick.

I closed the app and tossed my phone onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It didn’t make sense. Why was this bothering me so much? After all, it was just art, right? Just pixels on a screen. Whether it was made by a human or an AI, the end result was the same: beautiful images that people enjoyed looking at.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that art—real art—was supposed to be a reflection of the human experience. It was supposed to come from a place of emotion, of struggle and passion. It wasn’t just about the final product; it was about the process, the journey, the hours spent pouring yourself into a piece until it became an extension of who you were. And AI... well, AI didn’t have that. It didn’t have emotions or struggles. It didn’t care about beauty or meaning. It only cared about results.

The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I started researching AI art, trying to understand how it worked, how it was able to create such lifelike images without any input from a human artist. What I found was both fascinating and terrifying.

There were entire platforms dedicated to AI-generated art, with millions of users sharing and trading pieces like digital currency. The algorithms behind the art had been trained on thousands of real-life paintings, learning patterns, techniques, and styles from some of the greatest artists in history. The AI could then mimic those styles, creating pieces that looked indistinguishable from human-made art—sometimes even better.

But that wasn’t all. AI wasn’t just generating art. It was writing poems, composing music, even creating short films. And people were consuming it without question, without realizing—or caring—that what they were enjoying wasn’t real.

I couldn’t help but wonder: was this the future of creativity? A world where machines took over the role of artists, writers, and musicians, leaving us to consume the content without ever questioning its origin?

Later that week, I met up with some friends for lunch. I didn’t plan on bringing up the AI art thing, but it had been on my mind constantly, and before I knew it, I was venting about it.

“It’s just... I don’t know, it feels wrong, you know? Like, where’s the soul in it? Where’s the passion?” I said, pushing my salad around on my plate.

My friend, Jess, shrugged. “I mean, does it really matter if it’s AI or not? If it looks good, it looks good, right?”

I stared at her, feeling a mix of frustration and disbelief. “But that’s the point! It’s not just about how it looks. Art is supposed to make you feel something. It’s supposed to come from a place of emotion.”

Jess waved her hand dismissively. “Yeah, but if the end result is the same, does it really matter how it was made? People like it. That’s all that counts.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re okay with the idea that machines are creating art instead of people?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just where we’re headed. Technology is advancing, and AI is a part of that. Maybe we need to stop holding onto these old ideas of what art should be.”

Her words hit me like a slap in the face. Was I being old-fashioned? Was I clinging to an outdated notion of creativity, refusing to accept that the world was changing, and AI was just a natural part of that evolution?

But no matter how much I tried to convince myself that Jess was right, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something fundamental was being lost. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn’t just art that was being affected. It was everything—our sense of reality, our connection to each other, our understanding of what it meant to be human.

As I walked home that evening, I passed by a mural on the side of a building. It was a simple painting, nothing fancy—a woman’s face, her expression serene and thoughtful, her eyes gazing into the distance as if she were lost in her own world. The paint was chipped in places, and the colors had faded over time, but there was something beautiful about it. Something real.

I stopped to look at it for a while, taking in the imperfections, the rough edges, the human touch that had gone into creating it. And in that moment, I realized that this was what I was afraid of losing. Not just the art itself, but the process, the imperfections, the struggle. The humanity.

As I continued walking, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before murals like that were replaced by AI-generated images, perfectly polished and free of flaws, but devoid of the soul that made them worth looking at in the first place.

The echoes of creation were everywhere, but they were starting to sound less like human voices and more like the cold, mechanical hum of machines. And I wasn’t sure if anyone else could hear it.