Creatives on AI: a survey

Assessing the intangible tangibles of generative AI's impact on creatives

Illustration by Johan Cedmar-Brandstedt

To hear some people tell it, generative AI is the greatest thing since... the invention of the paintbrush?  

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Plenty of ink and ire have been spilled over the dubious practices of Big AI—the tech firms that have vacuumed up images, text, music, and video from all over the Internet to feed and train their generative AI applications. This has resulted in massive heated debates, worker strikes, open letters signed by thousands of creatives, and more than a few lawsuits. That’s what has been ruling the headlines for the past two years.

As a result, we now have lots of stats on the number of IP & copyright lawsuits, the sizes of the training data sets, and the numbers of creatives who’ve jumped ship to Cara and similar platforms.

What’s a little harder to gauge is the personal, individual impacts of generative AI on creatives—especially our ability to practice our craft and earn a living from it. Is it a revolutionary tool for creatives or is it a massively overhyped technology that’s best deployed in other ways? We’re also not hearing—on any meaningful level—the stories of creatives who are personally and financially impacted by the technology.

A group of us have decided to ask these more nuanced questions, and to tell these personal stories. The effort is two-part: a questionnaire and a series of 1:1 interviews, culminating in a narrative report.

How it’s set up:

Part I —  Basic information about you and the kind of creative work you do.

Part II — Your experience with generative AI, whether or not you've used it in your work.

Part III – Your take on generative AI's impact on your industry.

Part IV — Assessing the time you've spent addressing gen AI-related issues in your life and work.

Part V — Assessing the impact of gen AI on the value of your talent and work.

To fill out the survey, tap on the button below. If you’d like to be considered for an interview and your story to be included in the report, leave your contact details at the end of the survey.

What will you do with the results?

Once the results are gathered, crushed, fermented, and bottled, we will turn them into a fine report and publish it here on The Muse—as a start. The report will also be made available to mainstream and independent media, regulators, policymakers, trade and professional organizations, and other interested parties working to protect the creative classes from harmful impacts of generative AI, whether direct or indirect.

And yes, we’ll also send the report to everyone who takes part in the survey.

How long will this take me?

It looks long and daunting, but each part is fairly short and will take you less time than feeding your pet dragon. In more specific terms, about 10 minutes. We’ve also tried to make it non boring.

Who are you people?

The entity managing this study is LUCITÀ, a small hybrid media publishing and consultancy firm based in Northern California. The report will be written by Birgitte Rasine, founder of LUCITÀ, literary author, and journalist (she used to cover the world of Hollywood and digital camera technologies for The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, and the WGA strikes of 2000 for BusinessWeek); her work has also been published in HuffPost, Global Focus (Europe), Central America Today, and other publications.) Birgitte also writes "The Muse," (this newsletter!) about human ingenuity and creativity in the high-tech era (which has recently been bulldozed over by generative AI).

Special thanks goes to Johan Cedmar-Brandstedt (a fellow Substack author), animator Jodie Hudson, computer science professor Dr. Ben Zhao, entrepreneur Dima Durah, photographer Robert Kneschke, and others.

We are not a major research firm or consulting group. We’re not funded by deep pockets. We’re doing this on our own personal time and with the help of people like you helping to spread the word (gratitude!).

Do you have an agenda?

There is no agenda, political, financial, or otherwise. No one told us to do this survey, and no one is paying us to do it. The original idea sparked from a chat with some of my fellow creatives. I noted how much time we creatives seem to be spending on various aspects of the gen AI debate, and as a result how much time we’re not spending actually creating, honing our craft, or working on projects—and the fact that those kinds of impacts haven’t really been addressed. And because I like to get answers rather than just guess why something is or what things seem to be, we decided to do this survey.

By the way. As is typical in the generative AI debate, our project seems to have fomented the ire of a few people who seem bent on invalidating our efforts, insisting that the survey is “biased” and that it “wouldn’t pass academic certification.” One person has warned that if you take this survey, “you have to be very careful.” Indeed. The survey is one long obstacle course, littered with medieval torture devices, hollering witches, and ticking clocks. It makes you think. Reflect. Worse still, it lets you express your true unbridled sentiments about a technology that apparently all of us are just supposed to swallow hook, line and sinker with zero questions or nuanced discussion.

Re: the argument about “bias,” note that the survey includes positively worded statements about generative AI. Love genAI? Great. Hate it? Hear you. Not sure? Also valid. So, fill it out—truthfully, honestly, with no fear, and on your own recognizance!

Who else is participating?

We can’t share specifics (see the part below about privacy), but we can share that respondents hail from North America, Latin America, Europe, Oceania and Asia, are members of well-known guilds and professional organizations, and include lifelong professionals as well as new entrants to their fields.

Okay, fine. I’ll do it. When’s the deadline?

While at this point we have a robust number of respondents, we're going to keep the survey open while we conduct follow-on interviews. We would also love it if you shared the survey with your artist/creative friends. Because in this party, the more the much, much merrier.

Here’s the survey link you can share. Or hit this button:

Please note! This survey is designed for creative professionals only. It is not intended for executives, producers, marketing & PR people, agents, or others who interact with creatives as part of their jobs. Any PII you submit, such as your name and contact information, will be kept strictly confidential. (We have an army of rabid chihuahuas guarding our hard drives. We’d show you pictures of the damage they can cause to a hacker’s body but it’s simply too gruesome.)

If you'd like to be considered for an individual interview to be included as part of the final report, please be sure to include your name, affiliation, and email address at the end of the questionnaire.

Our warmest appreciation,

Birgitte and team