> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://mereorthodoxy.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 'Art' Without Friction: The Cost of Generative AI to Artists - URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/art-without-friction-the-cost-of-generative-ai-to-artists/ - Published: 2026-10-27T11:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-27T10:59:59.000Z - Description: What if the value of creating something is not ultimately found in the thing that is created? - Author: Mere Orthodoxy - Tags: Art, Music, Technology, Kenny Klinglesmith I have lived in and around Austin, Texas, for almost 15 years. I’m not sure there is a city in the United States that has changed more in that time. As a former full-time musician and pastor, I’ve watched as the city skyline has tripled, as tech giants have moved into the neighborhood, and fields that used to surround the city have turned into strip centers and master-planned communities. One of the major changes that has happened is watching as the “Live Music Capital of the World” has become one of the country’s emerging AI capitals. Over the past 15 years, it has become more desirable to work in tech and more difficult to be a musician. Austin is a great case study of what happens when technology reshapes the economics of a creative community. As the cost of living has grown more expensive, the musicians who built its desirable culture have increasingly struggled to afford to live in the city. The irony is palpable—a city can become more valuable because of its artists while simultaneously pricing them out. But what happens when technology doesn’t just change the economics of making art, but changes the process of making art? There has been much digital ink spilled over the dynamics of generative AI, particularly its ability to create products like music. What I want to examine is a bit different: what happens to the soul and character of an artist when they outsource the creative process to generative AI? I recently talked with my friend Kyle Lent, a music producer in Austin, about what generative AI means for musicians. Kyle used to produce Christian music for a church in town, but he now produces for a variety of genres. While I was expecting him to share thoughts about why Christians shouldn’t use generative AI or articulate frustrations about the effects that generative AI would have on an audience, he did not. He wasn’t most concerned about what generative AI does to the listener—he was concerned about what it would do to the artist. He said, “The one who suffers from AI-generated art isn’t the congregant. It’s the creator.” He talked about how the process of forming art forms the artist. When an artist writes songs, for example, sometimes they take hours, days, even years. Leonard Cohen said it took him around five years to finish his hit song, “Hallelujah.” Whenever an artist labors over art, the process of creating builds their character. It creates resilience and confidence. On the other hand, sometimes a song takes fifteen minutes to finish. When an artist experiences this, especially with other artists, it’s simply fun. The process of writing that song brings joy, camaraderie, and a sense of “striking gold.” While the character that the process of creating art builds is important, we also discussed what happens when an artist can receive the reward of a creation without doing the hard work that creates it. AI can produce something that sounds good without the blood, sweat, and tears of the songwriting and producing process. A good example is the viral hit “The Puerto Rico Song” by Saxboy Billy. While the artist wrote the lyrics, he used the generative AI platform Suno to create the music. While it was incredibly efficient to use Suno, and it worked (my family loved it), the artist gained a large amount of attention and money while abdicating the process. We were not asking where the song came from, or if musicians had been compensated, nor did we know that the music was completely AI-generated—we simply liked the output. I can assure you that I was not thinking about Saxboy Billy’s soul or character as I listened along. Despite our critical conversation, Kyle is not anti-AI. He shared with me how, recently, he recorded drums and vocals for an upcoming song in the same room at the same time, on the same stem. In the past, he would have had to set up for vocals, then set up for drums, or spend hours trying to separate the bleed between the stems. Instead, he found an AI tool that automatically separates the vocals from the drum mic, saving him time and his client money. The difference for Kyle is not that AI is involved in the creative process, but is AI serving the artist or replacing the artist? Making generative music via AI can absorb the entire process of creating music. Suno allows a person with no musical training to enter a description of the song they want it to make, and within minutes, it is able to create a finished recording. A process that typically requires multiple trained musicians, producers, and other specialists can now be completed with a text prompt. In some ways, this is genuinely incredible. But what does this do to the artist? Why would the same artists struggling to pay rent turn around and may another musician when they could have AI lay down a bass track? This is where the economic, personal, and spiritual questions begin to collide. The same technology that is contributing to raising housing prices also makes music cheaper and more accessible for artists. Yet, it can also remove the opportunities through which musicians make their living, as well as develop and hone their skills. If less experienced musicians never get hired to play the gig or record the track because Suno can generate this for cheap in seconds, how do musicians develop? How do they build relationships? How do they grow their skills? How do they build their character? It’s complicated. One question that requires an answer is, where did Suno gain its ability to generate songs? [An article](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/ai-music-generators-suno-google-udio/687485/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) entitled, “The Millions of Songs Mashed Into AI-Generated Music” helps provide the answer. Suno was trained on massive quantities of music made by human musicians. But what music and how did Suno access it? According to a court filing by Suno in 2024, that included “essentially all music files of reasonable quality” that could be downloaded from the internet. In other words, Suno was trained on songs created by humans. The lawsuit that I referenced is trying to determine whether companies like Suno had the right to use copyrighted music to train their AI models without the explicit permission or compensation of the artists who created it. If the plaintiffs are correct, anytime someone uses Suno for generative AI to create a song, they are plagiarizing other artist’s work. But there is a deeper problem than plagiarism here. What if the value of creating something is not ultimately found in the thing that is created? The Christian faith provides a powerful worldview for why it matters that humans create. The Imago Dei is a theological perspective that, in simplest form, says that humans are made in the image of God. This is foundational to our creative ethics because it argues that God, in part, made humans to be makers. So, if creating is an aspect of what it means to bear the image of God, then creating is not simply about making something that profits, but creating in itself has value because it reflects the character of God. If we as humans are to reflect our Creator, our creative process cannot primarily value efficiency as the highest good. Whether God created all things in seven days or longer, He certainly could have chosen to be more efficient. His example of creation proves that the labor of the creative process must be meaningful and good. Efficiency is not inherently evil, but it is an economic virtue, not a spiritual one. In our cultural moment, we have become so used to measuring progress by efficiency, but we have neglected to consider what efficiency may be costing. If something can be accomplished quicker, cheaper, and with less time, we tend to assume that path should be taken. But Christians, of all people, should be suspicious of the assumption to be true. Our spiritual formation and our character take a lifetime of slow, painful, worthwhile processes. Generative AI removes *all* of the friction of the creative process. While some friction should be moved, if we eliminate friction altogether we lose all of the fire of the formational furnace. If artists outsource the entire creation of their art to AI, they will not be liberated. They will be malformed and malnourished. They will starve because of the loss of character, skill and emotion that can only be gained from the struggle. The point here is not that any and every use of generative AI is wrong. Returning to Kyle as an example, there is a difference in using AI in art to assist the creative process versus completely outsourcing the creative process. It is not wrong for technology to make aspects of the process easier, but when the process is completely replaced, this is what is dangerous to the artist. Christians should continue to create; we should also support the artists who are creating, even when AI could produce something similar for less money. Not because AI is inherently evil, but because human creation is important to our flourishing as individuals and as a society. We should continue to use AI with wisdom—there are certainly great benefits to it. But a guiding principle, particularly in the arts, is that we can allow it to remove tedious aspects of work that keep us from doing the work that only humans can accomplish. The question that Christians should be asking as generative AI continues to infiltrate the arts is, “What happens to us when we stop making art?” The art matters, but so does the person who spent years learning how to make the art. The art is not the only thing being made—the creator is being made, too.