Many of the discussions today sound similar to the ones I read about during the advent of earlier creative leaps – which I think merely serves to highlight the

Many of the discussions today sound similar to the ones I read about during the advent of earlier creative leaps – which I think merely serves to highlight the importance of this advancement. However, I do still remember plenty of the discussions around DTP and the computerisation of various creative industries. The themes are similar, while some benefits are lost and many are gained - some people are fixated on what is lost, while forgetting that we're growing the field rather than forcing others to abandon the craft. It is, after all, just another tool. Which brings me to a topic which seems to never go out of fashion: Purism/Conservatism. Like most discussions that are centred in conservatism/purism, there's always a thread of hypocrisy, because this type of person will use themselves as the golden benchmark to what is acceptable. To use an example: a purist painter of earlier times might shun the modern purist painter for the simple act of purchasing pre-made paints. They might bemoan that they didn't make their own pigments and mix up their own paints. So while this online art community might ban AI work, it merely an action that excludes themselves. AI opens the door to many who otherwise wouldn't have the capability of producing beautiful pieces, just as digital painting did, and the number of those people will be larger than current # of digital painters. They should have just made a subcategory on their website for AI and used it to bring new relevance to their platform.