AI in Gaming: Why Your Article Can Thrive Without AI-Generated Art

The illustration accompanying the profile of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a real shocker. Altman, clad in a blue sweater, sports a blank expression while a swarm of disembodied faces hovers around him—creepy versions of himself, each displaying emotions from rage to despair. Some of these faces barely resemble him, and one final visage rests in his hands. At the bottom, a disclosure might unsettle many artists: “Visual by David Szauder; Generated using A.I.”

David Szauder is a mixed-media artist with over a decade of experience in collage, video, and generative art processes that predate commercial AI tools. He recently taught art and technology at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. In this piece, he leans into the unsettling duality of Altman’s persona. The pained expressions and a gloss of eerie motion convey a central message: Altman is not to be trusted. While the image has a painterly quality, the unmistakable influence of AI is still present.

What does it mean for a prestigious magazine to embrace generative AI? At its worst, this technology can strip away the artistic process, reducing the creator’s intent to mere output—it’s more suited for generating bizarre videos than for producing work that stands alongside traditional illustrators. However, in Szauder’s hands, it becomes part of a more complex creative process, involving programming his own AI tools and incorporating archival images like newspaper clippings and family photos.

Still, I see it as a missed opportunity. While human artists have crafted clever parodies of AI-generated work, AI lacks the self-awareness to critique itself, even with human guidance. The image relies on the unsettling nature of AI animation to convey its message without offering fresh insights into AI imagery or the industry behind it.

When we reached out to Szauder, he provided some details about his process, though he didn’t specify which AI tools he used. He typically starts with sketches before finalizing any imagery. The digital design director mentioned that Szauder submitted around 15 sketches to the senior art director, including the one that led to the final, Hydra-like creation. Szauder explained, “For the base structure of the final image, I had a clear idea of how I wanted to position the character and its heads. So AI functioned even more as a tool than usual, especially since much of the work focused on shaping the faces through a mix of traditional editing methods and AI-based editing. The results were often imperfect, requiring manual correction and refinement.”

According to a 2025 article, Szauder developed his own coding system to generate images based on specific prompts or archival materials. He also emphasizes the importance of using ethically sourced materials in AI image generation. As he stated, “I strongly believe that even in the age of AI, an image must first be formed in the human mind, not in the machine.”

This perspective adds a deeper human touch than much of the AI-generated work out there. The decline of traditional journalism due to AI has been well documented, with many talented journalists replaced or pressured to adapt to AI tools to keep their jobs.

The topic of AI in illustration often raises tensions among artists. This isn’t the first time a notable publication has experimented with AI, nor is it the first time Szauder has created an AI-generated illustration for this magazine.

In our own practice, we maintain a strict policy regarding AI-generated imagery, clearly labeling any such images and justifying their use. Generated images, especially those created solely from text prompts, often lack the artistic process that makes art human. The input from a text field has limited impact on the output, leading to AI-generated images that cannot be copyrighted. The U.S. Copyright Office has clarified that the final output reflects the AI system’s interpretation rather than the user’s authorship.

An artist’s eye is shaped by years of experience and personal taste, which tools like Midjourney or ChatGPT do not possess. AI-generated images can feel like someone recounting a dream—intriguing in the mind but often dull when shared with others. A dream becomes valuable when a human translates it into art; it’s the process that makes it compelling.

While we lack specific statistics for editorial illustrators, it’s clear that AI is impacting job opportunities in the field. Some artists have completely rejected these tools, while others find them useful for survival, experimenting with AI image generators or using AI features in software like Photoshop. Art budgets are often the first to be cut in struggling publications, and freelance work is so fragmented that organizing is nearly impossible. The illustration field is already fraught with exploitation, with rates continually declining. As a former freelance artist, I don’t judge Szauder for his approach, which appears more involved than that of many AI image creators.

However, the question remains: does the Altman piece, which employs the unsettling aesthetic of AI to illustrate a piece about the very nature of AI, succeed? Szauder is doing what many AI advocates have called for—using it as part of a broader artistic toolkit. But what are the results?

While I believe it effectively communicates the story, the final image feels like an attempt at metacommentary that ultimately falls flat. If you’re not familiar with the signs of AI imagery, you might miss the commentary entirely. Although the image was a clear indicator of AI origin to me and my team, it lacks the stylistic flair of some of Szauder’s other work, leaving the central visual metaphor to carry the weight of the idea and giving the piece a somewhat bland vibe.

The inconsistent likeness of the faces—something a skilled portrait artist could have controlled—also highlights AI’s limitations, and the synthetic backdrop makes it feel like a generic school photo. The murky intent and lackluster presentation raise more questions than they answer about Altman’s multifaceted persona.

In contrast, Szauder’s other work for the magazine draws from more compelling source material, with a cinematic quality and a vibrant texture that recalls the chaotic early days of AI.

I don’t want to dictate how freelance editorial illustrators should feel about AI. Personally, I’m not alarmed by the decision to hire Szauder for this project. It seems a more thoughtful choice than some other publications that fill their pages with bizarre AI creations. However, inviting AI imagery into a respected publication is a slippery slope that could normalize its use across the illustration industry. The magazine didn’t create this issue, nor did it single-handedly cause the uncertainty illustrators have faced long before generative AI emerged. Like many others, they are navigating this complex landscape.