'Heterochromia' We keep having the wrong conversation about AI and art. We’re obsessed with whether these tools are “real,” “authentic,” “cheating.” As if authenticity lives in the tool, not in the hand that wields it. As if technology hasn’t always been a disruptor, a scapegoat, and then inevitably a foundation. AI isn’t stealing art. What it’s really stealing is our excuses. For centuries, artists have built their craft on the work of others. Every movement in art history is an act of emulation transformed -borrowing turned into something unrecognizably new. If you believe that makes AI “theft,” then so is every masterpiece you’ve ever loved. The truth is, the most controversial thing about AI isn’t its ability to generate images. It’s that it forces us to confront how creativity actually works: through study, remix, failure, and evolution. It shows, in stark daylight, what we’ve pretended not to see-that originality has never meant isolation. When I train a diffusion model or...