While AI has been celebrated as a productivity hack for many job functions, it’s largely been criticized by creatives for taking the humanity out of their work. But billionaire Mark Cuban thinks they should have a different attitude about the technology.
“Creators should LOVE AI. AI doesn’t make uncreative people creative,” the former Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner wrote in a recent post on X. “It allows creators to become exponentially more creative.”
He argued AI can be a massive time saver for creatives, helping them develop a product “in minutes” rather than spending hours, days, or weeks on their iterations.
But creatives shot back at Cuban, saying he didn’t have a mind like theirs to make such an argument—and was instead speaking with a business mindset only focused on money. The debate was sparked on the heels of OpenAI and Disney’s $1 billion deal allowing more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters to appear inside the Sora video generator.
“Mark, you’re assuming that creating art is like running a business,” one X user posted in response to Cuban. “You’re not looking for efficiency. Sometimes the best work happens during the process. No one has to paint with oils, or etch metal or stone, or sculpt from marble to get an image or a statue. But we do.”
Another X user, who is a film concept artist and illustrator, also questioned Cuban about why he would be telling artists and creators what to think, considering he doesn’t have close ties to the industry.
“If we’re telling you the opposite, maybe you should listen instead of just telling us we’re wrong,” the user wrote. “All you can see is dollar signs and ‘value’ instead of theft, exploitation, and job displacement.”
Cuban is a serial entrepreneur but made it big in the tech sector, and his net worth is now roughly $6 billion.
Why many creatives don’t like AI
While not all creatives have disdain for AI, many see it as an existential threat to their livelihoods. During the 2023 strikes by Hollywood writers, actors, and other creatives, they warned studios could use chatbots to draft or rewrite scripts and use digital doubles to replace background actors or reuse performances without fair pay.
Creatives’ concerns also lie in the fact AI could become so advanced it could replace the jobs of animators and other production artists. Meanwhile, musicians worry labels and tech firms could flood platforms with AI-generated tracks.
“There’s a risk that human creators will become mere feedstock for synthetic AI content spewed from large language models (LLMs) without the explicit consent of the original artists on which the models were trained,” David Pakman—managing partner and head of venture investments at CoinFund, former CEO of eMusic, and the cofounder of Apple Music Group—wrote in a commentary published by Fortune.
These, among other threats, have caused major concern for creatives and the longevity of their careers. A recent study by Queen Mary University of London shows more than two-thirds of workers in creative industries believe AI has undermined their job security.
And it’s not just creatives who see how AI has drawn a line in the sand for the industry. Nicholas Grous, director of research for consumer internet and fintech at Ark Invest, recently told Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg that tools like Sora will flood the market with AI‑generated clips and series, making it more difficult for any single new creator or franchise to be successful.
“I think you’re going to have basically a split between pre-AI content and post-AI content,” he said, adding viewers will consider pre-AI content “true art, that was made with just human ingenuity and creativity, not this AI slop, for lack of a better word.”
Still, Cuban predicted AI will open up new pathways to success for creatives.
“The different routes you wanted to take but didn’t have the money or skill to do. Now you can do,” he wrote. “99% of content fails. With AI the cost and time it takes to experience and learn from those failures drop like a rock.”
