A Response to Jazza's 'I Was Wrong About AI Art'

Jazza recently released a video sharing his evolving views on AI art. It's worth watching in full:

Jazza, I really respect you sharing this journey so openly. Changing your mind publicly takes guts, and I agree with you on more than you might expect. But I think you've swung from one extreme to the other, and the truth lives somewhere in the messy middle.

The thing that keeps nagging at me: AI lets people who couldn't create before finally express themselves.

I'm one of those people. Music has always been something I wanted to make. Back in high school, me and my friends messed around with Fruity Loops, Reason, eJay—none of us were real musicians, though I played acoustic guitar for a few years as a kid. Life happened, priorities shifted, and that dream sat on a shelf for almost two decades.

Then AI tools came along. And for the first time, I could actually make the music I'd been hearing in my head all those years.

I now have a music project called KAIYO//SHARD. Multiple albums on Spotify. Tracks ranging from K-pop to metalcore to drum & bass. 454 monthly listeners—not huge, but real people finding something they enjoy. I wrote about this journey on my blog because I knew people would judge me for it. But here's the thing: I put my heart and ideas into what I make. AI helps me shape it, but the soul is still mine.

Am I a "real" musician? Maybe not by traditional standards. But I'm finally expressing myself in a way that feels real to me—and that matters.

We've been here before. Multiple times.

Remember when digital artists were mocked for using Photoshop and tablets? "You're not a real artist!" people yelled. Remember when electronic musicians using computers were told they weren't real musicians? When Instagram made everyone a "photographer" and purists lost their minds?

Same arguments. Same gatekeeping. Same fears about craft being devalued.

We got a billion terrible brunch photos, yes. But we also got people discovering they actually loved photography. Some picked up real cameras. Some became professionals. The cream rose.

Your wife's painting proves the point you're arguing against

She didn't cry because the horse was technically accurate. She cried because you made it—the late nights, the sacrifice, the love in every brushstroke. No prompt will ever carry that weight.

But that's exactly why AI isn't competing with that kind of art. A handwritten letter hits different than an email, but we don't hate keyboards for existing. Context matters.

The corporate ad farm using AI to avoid paying artists and the teenager finally making album art for their SoundCloud aren't the same thing—even if both involve AI.

The real problems aren't the tool

The environmental costs, corporate exploitation, algorithms rewarding slop—these are real issues you're right to raise. But they're symptoms of capitalism and attention economies, not unique to AI.

Corporations exploited artists before AI existed. Algorithms rewarded garbage before Midjourney. Platforms eroded trust long before deepfakes. Blaming AI for these systemic problems is like blaming the printing press for propaganda.

You actually nail the real solutions in your video: regulation, renewable energy requirements, mandatory disclosure, UBI as a safety net. That's the fight worth having—not "AI bad," but "how do we make sure this doesn't leave everyone behind?"

On the theft question

This is genuinely complicated. Models trained on artists' work without consent—that's a real ethical issue worth sorting out.

But humans learn by studying other art too. You learned to paint by looking at other painters. The difference is scale and speed, not the fundamental process. I'm not saying that makes it okay—I'm saying the answer might be better compensation and consent systems rather than rejection of the whole technology.

On your proposals at the end—I'm with you

Honestly, your wishlist at the end of the video? I agree with almost all of it. Regulate the data centers. Require clean energy. Build proper disclosure systems. Create safety nets like UBI for a world where human labor becomes optional. Tax or license AI outputs to fund human creators. These are real, thoughtful solutions that address the actual problems instead of just being angry at the technology.

I want those guardrails. I want accountability. I want the corporations who can absolutely afford to pay artists to be forced to do so.

But here's my hope: that in this future we're building, there's also room for people like me.

Not the slop factories. Not the grifters churning out garbage for quick views. But the people who are thoughtful about this. Who put genuine passion and intention into what they create. Who aren't trying to replace artists but are just... finally able to participate in something they've dreamed about their whole lives.

Yeah, my music is on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube—everywhere I can put it. But not because I'm chasing streams or trying to get rich. I just want to share what I make with as many people as possible. That's what artists have always wanted, right? To be heard.

I iterate on tracks. I think about themes and emotions. I care about what I'm putting out there—probably too much, honestly.

I'd like to think I'm not a slop machine. Maybe I'm fooling myself. But I hope not.

Where I land

I don't love the slop either. The gorilla videos and uncanny valley nightmares are exhausting. But I've also experienced firsthand what these tools can unlock for people who were previously locked out of creative expression entirely.

I'm a programmer and DevOps professional with 18+ years of experience. I use AI tools daily in my work—not blindly, but as a boost for prototyping, documentation, debugging. It doesn't replace my expertise; it amplifies it. And in my creative life, it finally gave me a door into music that I'd been knocking on since high school.

Maybe instead of "against" or "for," we could be thoughtful. Push for the regulations you mentioned. Demand transparency. Support human artists directly. But also leave room for the possibility that some people are finding something real here—even if the landscape is messy. Even if they needed a little help to get there.

We're all Team Humanity. I just think the team's big enough for some nuance—and maybe, hopefully, for people like me too.