The 'Tarantino Moment': Why AI Is the New 90s Indie Cinema | Olivio Sarikas on Rendered by Robots
Art is only lazy if the artist is lazy. The medium itself has nothing to do with it.
Olivio Sarikas, conceptual artist and one of the premier YouTube educators on AI tools for design, joins Spencer Striker and Alessandra El Chanti to discuss what it really means to create in an age when any style is possible and skill limits have dissolved.
In this conversation, we explore how AI represents a new kind of creative liberation. Olivio walks us through the history of how technology has always transformed art, from industrial paint tubes freeing artists from their ateliers to photography killing realistic representation and forcing painters to look inward. But AI does something no previous technology could: it sets you free from style itself.
We discuss what it's like to paint on a canvas that's always moving, where the hallucinations and errors become sources of inspiration rather than obstacles. Olivio addresses the anti-AI backlash head on, acknowledging the legitimate anger of artists whose work trained these models while also pointing out that complaints about "lazy art" have followed every artistic movement in history.
We get into the strange reality that this is a top-down revolution funded by billionaires rather than emerging from the edges of culture like punk or impressionism. He introduces the cookbook metaphor: having the ingredients doesn't mean it tastes good, you still need to try it a hundred times before you become a good cook. We discuss content inflation and why social media skills are now non-negotiable for artists who want to be seen.
Olivio makes a compelling case that jobs won't disappear because complexity always increases with new technology, and humans remain cheaper and more versatile than machines for most tasks. He closes with a fascinating observation about the AI bubble: the real lifestyle of a new technology begins only after the hype collapses and people have to figure out what it can actually do. Nobody predicted that the big use of the internet would be posting cat photos. Nobody knows what AI will actually become.
Referenced: The history of Impressionism and how industrial paint tubes changed art. Andy Warhol and the industrialization of reproduction. Maurizio Cattelan's banana artwork. The dot-com bubble as precedent for AI hype cycles.
Links:
Olivio Sarikas: youtube.com/@OlivioSarikas
Host: spencerstriker.com
About the Series
Rendered by Robots: AI & the Future of Design Edu explores how AI is transforming the way we teach, create, and imagine media production education. It’s a podcast for educators, creators, and students navigating the AI revolution with clear eyes and curious minds.
CREDITS: Creator & Host — Spencer Striker, PhD | Co-Host & Director — Alessandra El Chanti, MFA | Featured Guest — Clay Shirky, Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education at NYU | Editor, Sound Design & Motion Graphics — Kyle Trueblood | Producer — Adam Sullivan | Camera & Sound — Yunting "Unity" Zhan, Qinbei "Bissy" Li | Project Manager — Aimelyn Geronimo | Special Thanks — Miriam Sherin (Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education); Alumnae Award for Curriculum Innovation (Northwestern University Office of the Provost); Marwan M. Kraidy, PhD (NU-Q Office of the Dean); S. Venus Jin, PhD (Artificial Intelligence and Media Lab | AIM-LAB); Nisar Keshvani (NU-Q Communications and Public Affairs); Rami Al-Badry, Floyd Yarmuth, Ihsan Yahya (NU-Q Production & Digital Media Services) 🔖 #ClayShirky #AIEducation #HigherEd #FutureOfLearning #IdentityFormation #EdTech #GenerativeAI #NYU
