We Are The Art | Brandon Sanderson’s Keynote Speech

[applause]

What has been on my mind lately? Some of

you are going to be able to guess. In

April 2010, film critic Roger Gert he

made an infamous claim. He said, "Video

games can never be art." Yeah, I know. I

know. His uh blog post set off this

firestorm of discussion. I was there

back then on the internet. I'm old. And

uh yeah, everyone was talking about it,

talking about kind of how he's an

outofouch old man yelling at clouds,

maybe yelling at clouds that were

actually shrubs. Mario joke. Um,

some of you old-timers know that I

disagree profoundly with Mr. Eert, but

he was an intelligent, articulate

scholar, and he had a better point than

this clickbaity quote might imply. His

army argument was this. games are about

mechanics and winning, not about

aesthetic enjoyment. So, if I'm going to

summarize him too briefly, and he wrote

a long blog post on this two years

later, you can still look up on his

website. I essentially said that while

video games can contain art, such as an

amazing digital painting, they are not

at their core art because their focus is

on obstacles to overcome in order to

win. by being victory focused. He argued

they were an innately commercial product

like a toaster and not able to be

considered arts. Now, I'm not going to

spend this speech taking down an old

essay by a man who's been dead for over

a decade now. Anyone who deeply loves

video games will know his argument just

fails to understand what gaming is on a

fundamental level. Those of us who are

gamers know that the mechanics

themselves can be part of the art. And

in fact, video games let us tell stories

that you couldn't tell in any other

medium because the mechanics are part of

that artistic experience. Winning isn't

the art, but the emotions of winning can

be part of it. Why do I bring this up?

Well, my goal today is to tackle a few

questions that Mr. Eert raised, which I

think are more important today than

they've ever been. Right? Because my

goal is to talk about what is art and

why we make it. Now, I know some of you

are flinching right now and you're

thinking Brandon's going to winge about

AI art again,

[cheering]

but no, I'm going to winge about AI art

again with slides. So, it's different

[cheering]

[applause]

in a more relevant way. I want to dig

into my own feelings on this topic from

a philosophical standpoint. Right? The

surge of large language models and

generative AI raises questions that are

fascinating. And even if I dislike how

the movement is going and relating to

writing and art, I want to learn from

the experience of what's happening.

We're being forced to ask ourselves

about art in a way we never have before.

Now, some do say we're in an AI bubble.

Perhaps a collapse is coming. But even

if it does come, I think what has

happened so far is enough to force us to

confront these questions of what is art?

Why do we make it? Now I explore my

ideas through writing. And so I ask you

to join me for, you know, these next 20

minutes or so as I explore this idea and

in so doing help me figure out why I,

Brandon Sanderson, rebel so strongly

against the idea of AI art. And it was

in writing this essay that I kind of

figured it out. Anyone heard this song?

This was pretty big a few weeks back.

This is uh Walk My Walk. It's an AI

generated song. It was number one song

on Billboard's digital country songs

list a couple of weeks ago. Uh when it

happened, everyone was like, "Wait, an

AI song is number one." Billboard

admitted that there had been six in the

last few months that had topped their

charts that have been generated by AI.

In addition, earlier this year, author

Mark Lawrence, uh, one of my colleagues

is a fantasy novelist. He did a series

of tests where he had AI write a passage

and then had novelists do the same

thing. Pretty short passages, but the

test included our friend Robin Hob,

friend of the convention and fantastic

writer, among others, including uh, Mark

Lawrence himself. He posted all of these

passages without attributions and had

people see if they could figure out

which were written by authors and which

he had had the generative AI create and

the results which you can find on his

blog indicate that the audience couldn't

tell the difference. Now this he quickly

explains this isn't a very scientific

test and AI is pretty bad at long form

storytelling right now. If you ask it to

write a book, it does very poorly. But

if it writes a passage, it can in some

situations write pros that we can't

tell. So this is why I say we are there.

Even if the bubble happens and this all

collapsed, we are there. We have to be

asking these questions right now because

it can already imitate some of your

favorite authors. When I hear of these

two examples, walk my walk and the Mark

Lawrence thing, my stomach turns. And I

am worried genuinely that I'm against

AIRIR just because it's new and

unfamiliar, that I am the Roger Eert in

this case. And he was just in the the

last in a long line of artistic

disbelievers when pros began to you be

used for storytelling a lot instead of

poetry. Some considered its

practitioners, many of whom were women,

I'm sure that was just a coincidence, uh

to be creating lesser art than those who

wrote poetry. In the 1800s, critics

explained that photography shouldn't

count as art because it merely captured

what already existed in the world. And

in the early 1900s, some highprofile

critics argued that film shouldn't be

considered art because of how base a

form of entertainment it was. And that's

an argument I'm pretty sure that Mr.

Eert would have disagreed with

vehemently. It stands to reason if all

these critics were wrong just as Mr.

Eert was wrong about video games, then

maybe I'm wrong about AI. Isn't it just

another form of expression? Some people

certainly think so.

What is art? Why do we make it? And why

do I rebel against the use of it? Let me

examine a few common objections. I I

want to start there, right? Do I dislike

AI because of the economic and

environmental impacts? Well, they do

concern me, but if I'm answering

honestly, I would still have a problem

with with it even if AI were not so

resource hungry, right? Do I dislike it

because the model's been trained uh on

the works of artists in ways I consider

unethical? Well, I don't like that. But

even if it were trained using no

copyrighted work, I'd still be

concerned, right? I think we all would

be. They're valid objections, but they

don't get to the soul of it for me.

Maybe I just hate the idea of a machine

replacing a person. For a while, I've

imagined that if we needed a heroic

symbol of resistance against AI art, we

actually have the perfect choice in

American folklore. It's John Henry. Do

you guys know the story of John Henry?

John Henry is an American folk hero.

He's a steel driver. Steel driver was

this job where they would have to cut

holes through thick rock and make a

tunnel for a railroad. And they do that

by pounding a spike drill into a stone

with a hammer and making a spot and then

people could put dynamite in that.

Right? So John Henry, the myth of John

Henry is of this man who was the best

steel driver ever. And then a steam

powered drill came along. And he

challenged that drill to a contest to

drill a tunnel through stone and see who

could do it faster. You might have seen

the Disney interpretation of this. I

watched it when I was a little kid. So

he did it right. John Henry was able to

steel drive better than the drill and

then he died from exertion.

This is a result I circle around because

it seems the story illustrates what I

have to acknowledge. John Henry beat the

steam powered drill, but it cost him his

life. And while he proved he could beat

a steam powered drill personally, he

didn't change the world. We respect him,

but as a society, we chose the steam

drill, right? And I would too. I mean,

let's be honest. I'm not sure that I

fully dislike AI just because it's

replacing a human. It's getting closer

to the reason, but there's more. Truth

is, I'm more than happy to have steam

engines drilling tunnels for me to drive

through. I don't even dislike AI because

it's poorly done. Because, as we've

shown, not all AI can I even tell what

is good and what isn't. What is machine

and what isn't. I hope I can tell what

is good. I've listened to Walk My Walk

and it's catchy. I wouldn't have been

able to tell the difference between it

and a humanmade song. I read the Mark

Lawrence test and I couldn't tell which

one was Robin Hob and which one was AI.

So why

Why does it bother me so much? Like a

lot of things, we can look to Star Trek

for help. [cheering]

I am a nerd after all. So, my Star Trek

was Next Generation. I'd stay up late at

night and I'd watch it because it was at

11:00 and my mom would want me to turn

off my TV because it was 11 o'clock

Sunday. So, there was school the next

day and I would not cuz I was watching

Star Trek. Got to watch my Star Trek. In

Star Trek Next Generation, we got Data,

right? He's an android and a lot of his

character arcs were about exploring what

it means to be human. One of the

recurring themes in the show was his

attempts to create art. Painting,

poetry, music, become a comedian. Take

my warf, please. Classic line. I rooted

for data, a synthetic being without

emotions, trying so hard to understand

the human experience. And I still do. I

have no problem with data creating art.

If he were real, I'd applaud him. Why do

I empathize with data yet not the AI

large language models? This question,

this starts to get to the core of the

issue for me. One of my favorite essays

comes from the preface to the picture of

Dorian Gray. In it, Oscar Wild with

characteristic wit argues about a great

number of things. I recommend it. It's

only a page long. The book is fantastic,

too, but I've always preferred the

prologue to almost anything else he's

written. It ends with these lines. We

can forgive a man for making a useful

thing as long as he does not admire it.

The only excuse for making a useless

thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless. Now, of

course, this is Oscar Wild being a

little bit silly. He tended to do that.

He took lobsters on walks. But if you

look at this idea, there is a point to

making art that doesn't have to do with

its usefulness. It doesn't have to do

with what you can sell it for. It has to

do with the intrinsic need to make art.

I do think that part of the reason I

dislike AI is because it is too focused

on the product and not the process. Yes,

the message is journey before

destination. It is always journey before

destination, but there's a specific take

on it this time. This is a page in my

first book. We we had these on display

at the World Hopper Ball. I don't know

if they're out this year, but they might

be. I wrote them longhand uh in these

giant notebooks in Korea. We call this

White Sand Prime. I started on it when I

was 19 and it's not very good. It's one

part ripoff of Dune, one part ripoff of

Lay Miz Rob, and one part ripoff of The

Wheel of Time.

But I wrote it. I did it myself. First

word to last word. And there's a seed of

something there that is all me. Part of

this tale is the story of a young man or

a man who is weaker at magic than

everyone else and has to learn to win by

finesse and understanding how said magic

works instead of by raw power. And

that's a very Brandon sort of thing,

isn't it? I would much later write a

better version of this story which we

turned into the white sand graphic

novel. That said, I have no question

that using the language models currently

released, everyone in this audience

could prompt AI to create a book that is

better than white sand prime. It is

truly awful.

But here, this is a picture of my second

book, Stars End. Isaac actually made me

a print edition of it at one point just

as kind of a gift to me. This book also

leans along on authors I'd read before,

but the me is more apparent. In my third

book, I return to the world of wet white

sand and suddenly it starts to feel

original. The plots are tighter and the

characterization is more solid. The

world building goes beyond its

influences. In my fourth book,

Nightlife, I experimented with twists

and started to develop my style of The

Sander Lanch. And in my fifth book, The

Sixth Incarnation of Pandora, I started

experimenting with theme, specifically

in relation to the books I'd read

before, laying the foundation for me

telling stories that are in conversation

with the legacy of science fiction

fantasy I'd read, rather than just

copying that legacy.

Finally, we reach Alantress, where I

brought all this together. This is when

I emerged for the first time as the

author I would become, a fully realized

fantasy epic, applying all the lessons

I'd learned so far. After Elantress, I

started to create the Cosmir, eventually

landing at Misborn and the Stormlight

Archive. Maybe someday the language

modules will be able to write books

better than I can. But here's the thing,

using those models in such a way

absolutely misses the point because it

looks at art only as a product. Why did

I write White Sand Prime? It wasn't to

produce a book to sell. I knew at the

time that I wasn't going to write a book

that was going to sell. It was for the

satisfaction of having written a novel

and feeling the accomplishment in

learning how to do it. I tell you right

now, if you've never finished a project

on this level, it's one of the most

sweet and beautiful and transcendent

moments in my life was holding that

manuscript,

thinking to myself, I did it.

I did it.

[applause]

This is the difference between data and

a large language model. At least the

ones operating right now. Data created

art because he wanted to grow. He wanted

to become something. He wanted to

understand

art is the means by which we become what

we want to be. The purpose of writing

all those books in my earlier years

wasn't to produce something I could

sell. It was to turn me into someone who

could create great art. It took an

amateur and it made him a professional.

I think this is why I rebel against the

AI art product so much because they

steal the opportunity for for growth

from us. When pros came along, people

didn't stop writing poetry. Photography

didn't kill painting and film didn't

kill the stage play. Video might have

killed the radio star.

Video games didn't kill film, but how

many steel driving men do you see these

days? John Henry died and was replaced

by a machine that could do his job, but

he proves something important about the

human spirit. Where will we go when

there is no room for humans in art? You

might say, well, if the egg gets good

enough and the product is the same,

what's the difference? The difference is

that the books aren't the product. They

aren't the art. Not completely. And this

is the point. The most important thing

to understand is that the process of

creating art makes art of you.

My friends, let me repeat that. The

book, the painting, the film script is

not the only art. It's important, but in

a way, it's a receipt. It's a diploma.

The book you write, the painting you

create, the music you compose is

important and artistic, but it's also a

mark of proof that you have done the

work to learn because in the end of it

all, you are the art.

>> [cheering]

[applause]

>> The most important change [snorts] made

by an artistic endeavor is the change it

makes in you. The most important

emotions are the ones you feel when

writing that story and holding the

completed work. I don't care if the AI

can create something that is better than

what we can create because it cannot be

changed by that creation. Writing a

prompt for an LLM, even refining what it

spits out, will not make an artist of

you. Because if you haven't done the

hard part, if you haven't watched a book

spiral completely out of control, if you

haven't written something you thought

was wonderful and then had readers get

completely lost because your narrative

chops aren't strong enough, if you

haven't beat your head against the wall

of dead ends on a story day after day

until you break it down and find the

unexpected path, you're not going to

have the skill to refine that prompt.

The machine will have done the hard part

for you and it doesn't care. It could be

writing a shopping list or a story about

the death of a family member. It cannot

be changed. It can be changed by feeding

it more copyrighted material. But

creating the new new work will not

change it. It will not learn. It will

not grow. It will not care. Art is

useless as Oscar Wild said. Therefore,

we have the power here and not the

machine. For it was created to try to

make something useful, but it cannot

admire what it made. For a long while, I

thought our position was the same as

John Henry, that we were inevitably

going to lose. But I'm starting to think

that we don't have to. 15 years ago,

Roger Eert made a well-reasoned but

ultimately uninformed statement. How

many of you here think he was wrong that

video games can be art?

[cheering]

[applause]

You're right. Not because I say it, but

because we as a society say it. That's

the great thing about art. We define it

and we give it meaning. The machines can

spit out manuscript after manuscript

after manuscript. They compile them to

the pillars of heaven itself. But all we

have to do is say no. If we do, they

lose. John Henry couldn't ultimately

stop the steam powered machine. But we

can fight the battle and we can win

because we get to choose what victory

looks like. What is art? Art is what we

define it to be. Why do we make art?

Well, remember art is not just the

story. It is not just the painting or

the sculpture or whatever else you love

to create. It's also the process of

creation and what that process did to

you. We make art because we can't help

it. It's part of us. We understand what

it is. We are drawn to it because we are

of the same substance. We are the arts.

Thank you. [cheering and applause]