A couple of days ago, the world watched as GPT released "Astra," an OpenAI application that can create almost anything using artistic programs, with Blender as a prime example. This 3D modeling program is widely used, mostly because it's free but comprehensive.
You can create some incredible things with this program. One of the more amazing movies I've seen recently was a film entirely created in Blender that simply started from the director's laptop. It's called Flow, and if you haven't watched it yet, gather the family and look it up on Amazon. It's visually captivating and gripping, and not a single word of dialogue is uttered throughout the movie.
I use Blender and have been for about a month now. I'm nowhere near the talent level of the creators who made Flow. I have gotten dangerous enough with it to create this, at least.
I've gotten the scene a lot more advanced now than even this, and the full result will hopefully be out next month for my deep dive into the Flood story, but the point is that this scene took me some time to learn how to do. None of this is AI-generated. I created the water, the waves, even the foaming textures on the waves. The only thing I didn't create in this scene was the ark itself. That was created by someone who decided to make a Biblically accurate ark and handed it out for free online, though I did add the color and texturing.
This took a very long time for me to learn.
It took me a few weeks to learn to do this. Yet, as seen in various examples, Astra could do this in mere minutes. Not only that, Astra could code an entire world with generative characters who act on their own, animals, and day/night cycles. It can take one of the most famous Blender creations, the "Backrooms," and make a scene you can move around in with a simple prompt.
GPT 6 Astra is INSANE. It built the backrooms in blender and then added VHS effects etc. Took 30 minutes to make it and another 20 to export. This isn't AI generated video it's all in blender. It did the sound effects too. aprox 5 prompts. pic.twitter.com/72W6XcLaBa
— Duncan Trussell (@duncantrussell) September 4, 2026
Watching this for the first time, I was devastated. All that time and effort learning Blender, wasted. Even if a master artist can still do better, it won't be long before he's rendered obsolete, too.
It's a depressing feeling, but as usual, I tried to find the silver lining in the cloud, because my unrelenting optimism won't allow me to commiserate forever.
For some reason, I started thinking about modern art.
Like most people, I think that the vast majority of modern art is ridiculous. It's usually low-effort nonsense meant to seem deep by someone who doesn't have any real skill and never plans on acquiring any.
Exhibit A:
This is ‘award winning artist’ Jessica Cook showing off her latest art exhibit. pic.twitter.com/Y2urFEMlmv
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 21, 2026
Why did I think of modern art? Because modern art is only a thing because the establishment in the art world says it is. The same people who think that a man swinging from a rope tied around his knees as he squirts paint from two baby bottles is the height of creativity wouldn't be able to tell you anything about chiaroscuro or even what the opposite of blue is on the color wheel.
The establishment, or the people who push awards, funding, and promotion, believes that "modern art" is as creative as one can get. Yet, the world consistently tells them this is wrong. It's become a joke across the Western world.
Even where there is still skill to be seen, the talent is so abused and misused that whatever is produced is borderline unwatchable. Hollywood's influence has been reduced significantly because it can't get out of its own ideological way.
But the establishment was only the establishment because it was the hub for officiality. AI is stripping them of that officiality, and as it continues to get better and better, the establishment systems have become worth ignoring more and more. Blender, for instance, gave birth to Kane Parsons's "Backrooms," and Hollywood had to run to him to make a movie worth seeing.
Now, AI can help you create your own Backrooms. Not that a creative person would want to do that, and this is where, I think, AI will truly begin to shine as the new art form.
For all its faults, AI art has been able to place high-level creation in the hands of people who never developed the talent, and while I think it's safe to say many haven't because they're lazy, many haven't because they can't. They don't have the time, the money, or the energy to develop these skills. A father of three who works a full-time job may find it hard to find the time to sit down and learn uninterrupted. A farmer in rural Alabama may not have the money and time to travel to a school to learn how to utilize artistic programs.
And these people may have some very good ideas that, once we experience them, would blow our minds.
The new brush won't be a brush; it'll be an AI prompt, refined and focused, until something comes of it that is truly great. To be sure, it's not going to wow like St. Paul's Cathedral or give the awe of a Michelangelo sculpture. To be clear, that is a different kind of incredible, but creativity comes in many forms.
Most AI creations will be slop. If you hand the power of creation to everyone, most people aren't going to be able to create anything original or thought-provoking. It'll be common garbage. But without an establishment to gatekeep, AI creations that are truly incredible will rise to the top.
I've been saying that a blockbuster movie is coming soon that was made by little Timmy and his chosen AI application that he worked on for a while between homework and dinner, and while it won't have the same charm as the "movie magic" that existed when real creativity still ruled the day in Hollywood studios, it may trigger an entirely different kind of admiration.
The new brush will be dedication and imagination. I'm not sure what will come, but I do know that the times are changing and we're not going back. The best one can do is try to find the diamond in the rough, and now, with this new technology, that diamond might be you.
