People debate if AI art is real. Here’s how it’s changed my life [Video]

This First Person column is the experience of Lucas Orfanides, who lives in Sackville, N.B. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

In Grade 7, the week before Family Day, we were assigned an art project in class to make a painting on a dinner plate as a gift for our family. For most of my classmates, this was no problem. Some painted portraits of their families. Others did decorative designs with the word “family” written across the top in vibrant colours. I remember one girl in the class painted her family crest on the plate. 

Then there was me — unable to paint even a basic family picture. Every attempt to make a brush stroke ended up missing. I remember vividly picking up the brush and trying to paint a straight line and it went all over the place in a zig-zag. 

It wasn’t because I wasn’t …