Robert Longo Says AI Is "The Death of the Individual"
Robert Longo has spent forty years doing something that AI image generators claim they can now do in seconds: rendering human beings. But Longo renders them one charcoal mark at a time, over months, at a scale that makes you confront the weight and presence of an actual person. Last October, in an interview with The Guardian, Longo looked at the current state of AI image generation and said: "I think AI is absolutely terrifying. It's the death of the individual."
Why "The Death of the Individual" Lands Differently Coming From Him
This is not a casual observer offering hot takes about technology. Robert Longo's entire body of work is an argument for the irreducible importance of the individual human being. His iconic "Men in the Cities" series from the early 1980s captured specific people in specific moments of physical expression. His massive charcoal drawings of faces, waves, and protests all share the same commitment: the painstaking act of rendering what is actually there, not what might statistically resemble it.
When Longo calls AI "the death of the individual," he is describing precisely what he has witnessed in his own domain. AI image generators do not generate individuals. They generate composites, approximations, statistical averages of what humans collectively looked like when the training data was scraped. There is no body behind the image. No hours. No one who was there.
What Has Changed Since October 2024
In the twenty months since Longo gave that interview, the situation has only intensified. AI image generators have become faster, more accessible, and more aggressive in their marketing claims. Adobe, Getty, and a dozen startups now offer tools that promise to replace the labor of image creation entirely. The word "creator" has been stretched to include anyone who types a prompt.
And yet. The backlash has intensified too. Artists have sued. Collectors have started asking questions. Galleries have begun to advertise "human made" as a selling point. The market is slowly waking up to the difference between an image and a work, between output and intention.
The Line That Matters
Longo's phrase sticks because it names something we feel but struggle to articulate. The value of human made art is not that it looks different from AI generated imagery. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. The value is that it comes from a specific person who made choices, took time, and left evidence of their presence in the work. That is what "the individual" means in Longo's formulation. Not a style. Not a skill. A person.
AI cannot kill what it cannot replicate. And it cannot replicate the individual.
Over to You
What is a quote from an artist, filmmaker, or writer that crystallized your own position on AI in art? Not a general opinion, but a specific line that made the stakes clear for you. Drop it in the comments.
Certainly AI doesn't create anything; it merely takes shapes, colors, concepts, and unites them into an image without a soul, without a creator (it's a miscellany of arts and identities) lacking the meaning that the human artist would intend to imprint on the work.
I agree. If you buy AI art all you have is AI art.
Yes. Real art is made by hand, by a human hand; with heart, with feeling and purpose
I find it interesting that there was a comment in Portuguese. My mother tongue but I've been in Canada for 50 years and don't know what my Nationality is anymore. I agree that art is done by hand and I garantee you that AI wont do anything like what I do. Not that it's the art that is going to change the world but I like to think that its different.