About me

My name is Steph Renshaw. I am a print maker and print teacher based in Bristol. I have been an art teacher since 2016 - way before Ai became as ubiquitous as it is now.

I understand the power of Ai to do some of the work we humans can't do - number crunching vast reams of data. Understanding complex scientific models that might lead to advances in medicine or other advances that help improve society.

Sadly the technology is not in the right hands and I don't believe it has been made with these noble causes in mind. It is not just doing the jobs we hate or can't do on our own, it is taking over the jobs we love by plagiarising our data.

I believe it is being developed by people with largely fascist sympathies (check Elon Musk's Wikipedia page for a start) which means that Ai's answers have often been found to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic and generally biased to a right wing agenda. Yet people are already chatting to chat gpt like it's a friend. Building trust in a machine without checking where the data it feeds on comes from or the veracity of the answers it spews out. This gives Ai the power to brainwash huge swathes of the population.

Building trust in a machine without checking where the data comes from, gives Ai the power to brainwash huge swathes of the population.

The presence of Ai in the creative industry seems to suggest humans are, or will be, obsolete, dispensable, replaceable, costly & ultimately unnecessary parts of industry. It's a clear devaluing of human life and experience.

Meanwhile the vast data centres that Ai depends on, consume huge amounts of energy and water to sustain, at great cost to the natural environment.

It's use in the arts causes me great concern as I can see first hand the negative consequences it is already having and the greater harm it could do.

Working as both a practicing artist and a teacher I can see how the unregulated rise of Ai threatens both strands of my livelihood. But this isn't just about me, its about all artists under threat from Ai plagiarism. It's about artists' ability and motivation to learn. It's about galleries loosing sales to Ai reproductions, it's about humans knowing if the art they are buying is human made or robotically stolen, reconfigured and ultimately, soulless.

I think this is going to be a long journey and a long fight, and perhaps it will achieve nothing. But I know a lot of people have concerns and I want to try and bring as many of us together as possible to make our voices louder.

If the creative people of society are no longer given a place where they can make a living, where is creative thought going to come from? Who will be the critical thinkers of the future?

I have never started a campaign before and I need all the help I can get!
Please get in touch if you would like to help!