I've seen a lot of talk lately about AI-generated art models and what they mean for professional artists. Many people are concerned that they will be replaced by machines (a new concept that has never been an obstacle for any other profession in history)

As a former professional artist, I understand how much this profession sucks. Clients have long treated artists as magic machines that can spit out whatever you tell them to with a 5-minute turnaround time, so it only makes sense to be anxious now that such a machine actually exists.

I also feel like in a world where the majority of professional artists are using pirated digital software suites, simulated brush strokes, auto-correcting lines, motion tweening, content-aware filling, and countless other pre-programmed conveniences, there doesn't really seem to be a definite line where the digital augmentation of human artistry is supposed to go from "totally fine" to "morally outrageous". Why are helpful tools only okay if they don't help too much?

If there had been any previous occupation in history that had been partially superseded by technology (which there hasn't ever been), we might have a point of reference to tell us that technology is ultimately a good thing, and that a high skill ceiling for creating enjoyable goods/services doesn't really do anybody any favors, save for the people who wish to keep those skills inaccessible lest they impact their profits. Unfortunately nobody in history has ever had their job taken away by a machine before, so we're totally in the dark here.

Keeping all these things in mind, the conclusion one might come to is that humanity can greatly benefit from sharing knowledge and tools, and that training an AI model with existing works of art is not really any different from googling reference pics to draw something yourself. Could it be the thing that people are actually upset about is..........Capitalism? Find out next month on "Stupid Shit People Decide to be Boomers About". Until then let's have an argument

i can't form an opinion until someone gives me the one that makes infinite porn for free

i don't care if AI art exists but dumbasses thinking they're artists for typing in "big boob red hair" or whatever and flooding any given site with that shit are an absolute downside and insufferable. especially since all of it looks the same and is completely underwhelming. (bro no i spent a whole hour typing in different combinations to get the PERFECT big boob red hair!) if you can ascertain some enjoyment from purely AI generated art, uh, good for you i guess, world's your oyster now. somehow commissions and artist services didn't crumple overnight from this and i don't think they're in any position to soon.

doesn't help that a whole lot of what generates said art is outright stealing from actual artists, just mashed together. now that that's the norm tons of models are trying to crop up and feed off even more artist data for training.

i do think tools like that deal that tries to finish a picture you feed into it with rendering/lighting etc are really cool and interesting, largely from the "oh hey, i SHOULD do that" standpoint. getting an idea for how the ideal lighting on it would look and such. it can meaningfully teach an artist something

the downside is, again, of course, assholes that take caps of an artist streaming, punch it in, and then upload the "finished" work before the real artist could have ever done so.

how comes we're automating the things humans used to just do out of joy for being alive, instead of automating the things we wish we didn't have to do

how comes we're automating the things humans used to just do out of joy for being alive, instead of automating the things we wish we didn't have to do

look. if i dont get my big boob red hair in the next 60 FUCKING seconds im going to scream

FIFTY

google

Yeah the generated art itself is pretty unremarkable and it's usually obvious a person didn't draw it. I guess that will improve in the future.

I disagree with the stealing point; artists don't own any copyright over the individual pixels that make up their art. It sort of reminds me of rap artists sampling other songs to create something new, or (closer to home) edits of game sprites

I personally don't think AI will ever truly replace artists. It might replace fanart commissions or something, but at the end of the day an AI isn't going to be able to make something truly original and consistent.

I could ask an AI to draw me a guy with a green hat smoking weed on top of the empire state building and I would probably get it, but if I was to ask that AI to draw me the same character doing something else, the man in the green hat would almost always look different. There is a lot of gloom and doom over artists getting replaced but that's just not going to happen because of the nature of AI. There's always going to be someone who wants something too original or specific for AI. That being said though, despite being close with at least one artist now and able to get relatively cheap art, I can't bring myself to actually hate the idea because I remember times where I was broke as shit and unable to act on creative projects I wanted to do because art was just too expensive and I am the worst artist on this website.

At the end of the day, the technology might be scummy, but even with a monumental level of improvements it will fundamentally always be unoriginal and real artists will have a place always due to original art styles and hell, even the ability to send you a PSD file with layers and things you can tweak. If AI is going to do anything, it'll be allowing people who are too poor to hire an artist to make simple assets. Not gonna fault some guy who uses AI to render something small for his personal project, and if capitalism ultimately prices that audience out of the technology then it is truly dead on arrival.

how comes we're automating the things humans used to just do out of joy for being alive, instead of automating the things we wish we didn't have to do

I think the appeal is that someone can share an image that appears in their head without having actual artistic talent, and there's definitely some merit to that. It takes some amount of creativity just to come up with an imaginative prompt. This person would have more satisfaction and a greater impact if they honed those skills themselves, but the same applies to a world class chef vs. someone who just makes lunch real quick

I personally don't think AI will ever truly replace artists. It might replace fanart commissions or something, but at the end of the day an AI isn't going to be able to make something truly original and consistent.

I could ask an AI to draw me a guy with a green hat smoking weed on top of the empire state building and I would probably get it, but if I was to ask that AI to draw me the same character doing something else, the man in the green hat would almost always look different. There is a lot of gloom and doom over artists getting replaced but that's just not going to happen because of the nature of AI. There's always going to be someone who wants something too original or specific for AI. That being said though, despite being close with at least one artist now and able to get relatively cheap art, I can't bring myself to actually hate the idea because I remember times where I was broke as shit and unable to act on creative projects I wanted to do because art was just too expensive and I am the worst artist on this website.

At the end of the day, the technology might be scummy, but even with a monumental level of improvements it will fundamentally always be unoriginal and real artists will have a place always due to original art styles and hell, even the ability to send you a PSD file with layers and things you can tweak. If AI is going to do anything, it'll be allowing people who are too poor to hire an artist to make simple assets. Not gonna fault some guy who uses AI to render something small for his personal project, and if capitalism ultimately prices that audience out of the technology then it is truly dead on arrival.

I think the algorithms will become exponentially more advanced to the point where you can eventually tell an AI to produce an entire animated film. We're just seeing the very beginnings of technology that is designed to learn and improve with practice (much the same way a human does)

But I also agree with you that there will always be a market for something a real person made. It's also an interesting challenge for artists to find new ways to break the mold and beat the AI; this could even result in a whole new era of art that we would find unrecognizable today

I disagree with the stealing point; artists don't own any copyright over the individual pixels that make up their art. It sort of reminds me of rap artists sampling other songs to create something new, or (closer to home) edits of game sprites

difference being samples are obvious + require finesse to use as their own form of instrument and no one pretends edited game sprites are entirely original works.

there are several examples out there of novelAI taking an existing pose and slapping a different head and light coat of paint over it. like, unmistakably so. there are people out there who trace and heavily reference stuff as it is, sure, but it doesn't help that a murky AI is doing the same sort of shit where you don't know how stolen a particular generation is, while also being behind a paywall.

I've had people sell a bunch of my art on Etsy, theft of things that can be copied infinitely is always a challenge and that should encourage artists to find additional ways to express that information. All this to say, would you like to buy some NFTs today?

I've had people sell a bunch of my art on Etsy, theft of things that can be copied infinitely is always a challenge and that should encourage artists to find additional ways to express that information. All this to say, would you like to buy some NFTs today?

"its ok to have an AI steal art because other people also steal art more blatantly"

i'm not gonna change my moral stance because it's too easy to be a douchebag

the copyright angle is one thing but the angle that gets to me is artists feeling violated by being used in that way without consent, like creating a copy of someones creativity and soul to make stuff for you

This post was last modified: Dec 11, 2022 at 8:26 PM by Spritanium.

I think when someone draws something and posts it in public it belongs to the zeitgeist, and the fact that another person could exploit that to divert income from the artist is an economic issue rather than a creative one

I feel like there isn't one answer for AI being good or bad- like a lot of things it's a mix of both. Like you mentioned it can be a unique tool for different creative processes and projects for artists or non-artists.

I think the biggest issue I've seen is mostly the amount of stolen art that gets put into these AI datasets. In a lot of cases its hard for artist to want to create when AI just takes images they already created and mashes them up with fellow artists without knowledge or permission.

As mentioned above, I've heard a few stories of people taking art (finished or WIPs) from artists and letting an AI 'finish' the drawing, or add the AI touch on top. So the artist will do all the ground work, only for someone to swoop in and take credit for the last bit before the artist can even post the drawing.

Human touch in the creative process is still a powerful thing, but I think the amount of discouragement artists get is a sad side effect of AI. I think a lot of artist spend a long time trying to improve and get better, but I could see it being hard for artist to want to master skills when things like AI can be done faster, use your art without consent, or even just come in and finish your drawing better then your current skill set.

I think when someone draws something and posts it in public it belongs to the zeitgeist, and the fact that another person could exploit that to divert income from the artist is an economic issue rather than a creative one

this goes beyond an individual's revenue. i did mention the fact that many are paying for access to an AI that directly benefits from the more people it can steal from, but my issue there is less of "an individual artist is making less money off their work because an AI is able to copy their bodies and poses" and more of "it is financially incentivized to do as much under the table shit with your AI's learning as possible, and you will (probably) get away with it".

at the end of the day i simply find it morally reprehensible to directly copy someone else's work past a certain level. it doesn't really matter to me if someone is making money off of it or not. i get incredibly annoyed when i see people passing off obvious traces of official artwork anyone could recognize as their own, just as i do when i see people trying to be sneaker with more obscure art sources (while still being insanely obvious in the end anyways.)

Pretty much agree with everything draku and fwd said; I don't see AI replacing human artists soon nor do I want it to, but I'm cool with someone who lacks artistic talent and/or money being able to generate a basic idea of their DnD character or whatever. As long as websites give me a way to filter out AI artists, they can play in their own sandbox

Pretty much agree with everything draku and fwd said; I don't see AI replacing human artists soon nor do I want it to, but I'm cool with someone who lacks artistic talent and/or money being able to generate a basic idea of their DnD character or whatever. As long as websites give me a way to filter out AI artists, they can play in their own sandbox

yeah i will say my posts largely focused on the annoying end of people using it, as noted in my initial post i have nothing against the idea of it as a tool used by people who just want to generate a character or something and whip stuff up with ideas real quick. there are plenty of legitimate uses for this kind of tech and it really is too bad it comes with so many caveats

My problem with this whole thing is that there are some coherent and reasonable arguments here in the thread, but when I talk to random artists on twitter about it, their argument begins and ends at "I should have the infinite money glitch but in real life". They want perpetual ownership over every brush stroke no matter how transformed it is. When I bake a cake I don't need to write a royalty check to the guy who invented baking soda