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CHI’ve been seeing some heated comments around the visuals in my Sci-Fi Standards project, particularly this trailer I released yesterday, and I want to address it directly. I believe all artists deserve respect, credit, and protection. That absolutely matters to me. I don’t condone generative AI as a replacement for real art.
At the same time, I want to be clear about what I’ve done. This album is built from music from ’80s sci-fi films…stories that imagined a future shaped by technology, artificial intelligence, and questions about what it means to be human.
As artists, none of us create in a vacuum. Everything we make is shaped by what we’ve heard, seen, and experienced…music, films, art, culture. That process of influence and transformation is fundamental to how art evolves, especially in jazz.
And now, we’re living in a moment where even our tools reflect that same idea…systems that learn from existing material and generate something new. Which is exactly the kind of future those sci-fi films imagined.
So for me, using AI to create the visual side of this project wasn’t random. It was à propos. It was a way of engaging directly with the ideas those films were exploring. It also allowed me to create a visual world I couldn’t have made otherwise…placing myself inside that future, in a cinematic, sci-fi context.
But the video isn’t devoid of human artistry. Every frame was directed—the composition, the color, the style, the costumes, the narrative. I’m not knowingly copying or recreating any specific artist’s work. I’m shaping something new through direction and intent to capture what’s in my imagination.
And more importantly, there’s a contrast here that matters. The visuals ARE AI-assisted. The music IS 100% human. Improvised. Unrepeatable. Alive!
So the project becomes a dialogue…between the artificial and the human…between the future we imagined…and the one we’re actually living in.
And if anything, I think this moment is reminding us how much we value what’s real. The more artificial things become, the more people crave what they know is real…live music, shared experiences, moments that aren’t edited or repeatable.
#ai #real #art #jazz
@charlieportermusic
