Hey, something just struck me as I was reading about Dante’s idea about the sinfulness of usury and medieval ideas about work as cooperation with and participation in the creative work of God in the universe.

What if the reason we art-people object so strongly to the people using the AI to generate images (instead of paying artists) isn’t about the AI scraping images or stealing their work without crediting. What if it’s a lot more like the medieval objection to usury? Making money without producing anything real of value?

Dante identified the usurers as those who are “violent against art” (that is, art in the medieval sense of human industry and craftsmanship, which includes all forms of productive work and human ingenuity). Because human work is connected to the work of creation by God, this classifies usury as violence against God.

What if the AI is doing essentially the same thing? Imitating human work, endeavour and ingenuity to create wealth for people who have in reality produced nothing at all?