Make Art Not Algorithms

Roy Sharples
Apr 19
3 min read

Updated: May 4

A Human Manifesto Against Machine-Made Creativity

I’m not here to write an essay.

I’m here to tap the glass.

To rattle the cage.

To throw open the windows and shout into the data storm:

Wake up.

We are trading wonder for widgets.

We are losing the sacred.

In a world duct-taped together by code,

Where algorithms finish our thoughts before we know we’ve had them,

Where apps remind us to breathe,

And beauty is boiled down to pixels and performance—

I want to speak up for the brave, the flawed, the handmade.

For the song that shakes.

The brushstroke that disobeys.

The idea that arrives at midnight and makes no sense until it does.

I want to speak for the irreplaceable fingerprint

of being alive.

Make art. Not algorithms.

We Were Never Meant to Be Efficient

Art isn’t here to improve productivity.

It’s here to interrupt it.

To throw your schedule out the window,

Crack your armor,

And leave your heart barefoot in the rain.

Real art is carved not from code,

But from memory,

Contradiction,

Longing,

Grief,

Laughter that leaves you breathless.

It’s the wrong turn. The long way home.

It’s not “on brand.”

It’s off-script.

It’s alive.

Yes, we’ve built machines that can mimic.

They can learn patterns.

But they cannot imagine.

They cannot risk.

They cannot love.

They don’t ache for beauty.

They don’t scream for meaning.

They don’t bleed truth into canvas or chord.

So why are we handing them the brush?

You Were Born to Make Things That Matter

You—yes, you—

are not a user profile.

You’re a bonfire of memory and myth.

A messy marvel of flesh, failure, joy, and contradiction.

No prompt will ever recreate the way your mother’s voice sounded when she said your name.

No dataset contains the rhythm of your dreams.

No neural network knows what it means to hold someone who’s grieving.

So make things.

Not because they’re profitable.

Not because they’re polished.

But because they’re yours.

Because time is short.

And your soul wants out.

Make the thing that scares you.

That might fail.

That leaves a mark, not an impression.

Make art like you’re the last human left,

And someone out there still needs a sign.

The Algorithm Doesn’t Know Your Story

It knows your spending habits.

Your sleep cycles.

Your playlists.

But it doesn’t know why you kept the jacket with the torn lining.

Why you stopped watching that show after the funeral.

Why that one song breaks you every time—

Even though you’ve never told anyone why.

And it shouldn’t.

Some things aren’t meant to be calculated.

They’re meant to be felt.

That’s where the mystery lives.

Where the magic is.

And when we erase that mystery—

When we let the machine tell our stories—

We don’t just lose the art.

We lose the artist.

This Is Not a Rejection of Technology—It’s a Reclamation of Spirit

This isn’t about fear.

It’s about remembrance.

Of what it feels like to hold a pen and not know what comes next.

To follow an idea into the woods,

To get lost on purpose.

To make without measuring.

Yes, AI can assist.

It can inspire.

But it cannot be the origin.

The question is not can we create with machines.

The question is:

Will we still dare to create without them?

Make Art That Breathes

Make the poem no one will publish.

Make the painting that’s too weird.

Make the film that doesn’t fit.

Make the story that only you can tell.

Stop asking what will go viral.

Start asking what will still matter

when the servers are silent

and the platforms are dust.

Because one day, long after the feed forgets us,

Your art might still whisper.

To someone.

Somewhere.

Who needs it.

Who reads it.

Who finally says,

"That’s me. I thought I was alone."

And isn’t that what we’ve always been searching for?