Art over automation: how North Shore creatives can respond to AI
AI is moving fast. It pulls in water, power, and land to feed data centers, and it pulls in past work to train models. That mix creates real pressure on working creatives: your income, your voice, and your reputation are all in play.
Here on the North Shore, that tension is loud and clear.
A candid night at the library
At a recent North Vancouver City Library event hosted by the North Shore Writers' Association, local author Erin MacNair interviewed journalist and author J.B. MacKinnon about how AI models like ChatGPT and Claude are trained on copyrighted work. The core point landed: the most valuable commodity in AI is data.
MacKinnon is engaged in legal action advocating for Canadian writers in disputes with large tech companies, echoing similar author-led cases in the United States. If you want a primer on why authors are pushing back, the Authors Guild maintains an overview of the issues and cases here.
MacNair summed up the mood. "As writers, we think of copyright as being sacrosanct, but this is no longer the case… Surely as creators we should be able to put work into the world for others to enjoy, but now we have to fight against copyright issues and protect our words."
Artisanal vs. mass market
MacNair's take was simple: keep going. "If AI will be mass market, we will be artisanal. It's not a reason to give up."
She's backing that up in practice. Her first short story collection, due Spring 2028, includes a contract clause that bans AI use in editing, cover design, audiobook voice, and any other part of production. The publisher agreed.
What creatives can do right now
- Set your AI policy in writing. If you work with publishers, agencies, or clients, add a clause that says: "No generative AI tools may be used to create, edit, or adapt this work or its related assets (cover, images, audio, marketing) without my written consent."
- Decide your boundaries. List what you'll use AI for (e.g., idea prompts, outlines) and what you won't (final prose, voice, visual style). Share this with clients.
- Protect provenance. Keep dated drafts, export with metadata, and use content credentials or watermarks when possible. This won't stop scraping, but it strengthens your claims.
- Register key works. For marquee pieces, register copyright where available in your country. It's boring. It's useful.
- Price your craft, not just deliverables. Quote for discovery, concept, and iteration-the human parts clients actually want and can't get from a prompt.
- Build community leverage. Join your local guilds, unions, and meetups. Collective standards beat individual emails.
- Stay informed on environmental costs. Large models tap significant water and energy; see the research on AI's water footprint here.
Craft is the point
Walk any local holiday market and you'll see it: potters, jewellers, candle makers, painters, chefs. Real materials. Real conversation. Real feedback. That's defensible value.
Mixed-media projects like The Sketchbook Project with the Brooklyn Art Library remind us why this matters-texture, story, and the weird little details a machine can't feel. Same with a simple walkers-and-artists meetup along the Spirit Trail: one hour of movement, one hour of sketching, and your brain lights up.
No tidy ending-just a clear direction
AI is a bigger leap than smartphones or the early web, and it's going to influence how we work. A happy ending isn't guaranteed. But we get to choose our lane.
Keep making. Write the clause. Set your policy. Sell the craft. And carry on.
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