On AI

How I use AI in the background of a very human gallery, where it is useful and where I draw the line.

I run a gallery full of work made by people, but I also use AI in my working day. Both of those things are true.

At Pink Seaweed, every piece has a person behind it. Someone has learned their craft, followed an idea, changed their mind halfway through and made all the final decisions. When you take a piece home, you take some of that story with you.

That human connection is a big part of why the gallery exists, so I don’t use AI-generated artwork in the gallery or in my own art and design work.

I do use it for the less glamorous bits of running a small business. It can untangle a complicated document, organise a project, check a detail or turn the jumble in my head into a sensible list. It has also let me build digital tools and websites I would probably have left sitting on the ideas pile forever.

I still make the decisions. I still check the work. The point is to spend less time wrestling with admin and more time on the gallery, the artists and the ideas.

It isn’t all or nothing

The AI conversation often gets flattened into two camps: completely for it or completely against it. I’m somewhere in the middle.

I can see how useful it can be for creative people who don’t have a team, a massive budget or endless hours in the day. I can also see the problems.

Artists should know if their work has been used to train a system. Credit, consent and fair payment matter in the gallery, so of course they matter online too.

The environmental cost matters as well. These tools use energy and resources. I don’t have a perfect answer, but I do stop and ask whether the thing I’m doing is worth doing. The companies building the technology need to be much clearer about its impact too.

Where do beginners learn?

This is the bit I keep coming back to.

When I worked in communications and design, I learned through the smaller jobs. Researching, trying a first draft, laying something out, getting it wrong and watching somebody more experienced make it better. None of it seemed very grand, but that was how I built judgement and confidence.

AI can now do some of those jobs very quickly. Handy for a busy business, yes. But if every beginner’s task disappears, where do beginners practise?

We will still need good writers, designers and artists. They need somewhere to start.

People first

Pink Seaweed has worked with more than 140 Manx artists and makers. Some have been making for years. Others showed their work for the first time here. I love seeing how differently people respond to the same island, the same materials or even the same daft idea.

I’m not frightened of every new tool. I’m nosy about what creative people might do with AI. I just want us to keep asking who benefits, who gets the chance to learn and what disappears if speed becomes the only thing that matters.

I’ll keep using AI for the useful background stuff. I’ll also keep filling the gallery with art made by people.

Creativity first. AI second.