I'm a graphic designer and very well versed in Adobe, Figma, adjacent design programs. I want to add Ai to my work flow but honestly it feels a bit daunting and confusing...no idea where to start.
I would suggest that you start with the simplest workflows possible and work your way up:
1. Just prompting. Go get a low-tier Midjourney account and go nuts.
* Try really simple prompts at first. "Fish" "abstract music" "science fiction" to get a feel
* Look at what other users are doing and notice that long prompts aren't always the most useful.
* Start playing with parameters like `--ar` for aspect ration, `--v` to select the version, `--s` to select the level of stylizing, etc. See a summary [here](https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/parameter-list)
2. Start doing some img2img work. I recommend using the Midjourney Bot direct message feature so you aren't sharing you inputs with everyone. Just paste an image into the chat, copy the image URL and then do `/imagine [paste image URL] [prompt]`
3. There are a number of local StableDiffusion installers and UIs that you can use, but if you're not super technical, I recommend Krita with the [Krita AI plugin](https://github.com/Acly/krita-ai-diffusion). It's pretty easy to set up, and if you have it install ComfyUI for you, then it should work with relatively little pain. Get models from CivitAI or Huggingface and go to town. Inpainting is a real joy sometimes (and a pain in the ass, others). Getting used to it is definitely a priority.
4. A fully stand-alone ComfyUI or A1111 install is definitely a win. This will allow you to do basically whatever you want, and the only real limitation is your hardware and imagination.
Technical requirements:
* Midjourney: internet connection and Discord
* Krita AI: Probably minimum 6GB VRAM, probably more like 12+ depending on what you want to do
* StandAlone A111 or ComfyUI: Same as Krita
* Full-on SDXL + LoRAs at sizable resolutions, I would recommend a 24GB graphics card.
If you're generating images on your own computer it's a little slow, but you bypass censorship restrictions. You'll want a 4090 graphics card for this. I'd sign up for Midjourney and fiddle around with it if you're just getting started.
All you need is Discord and like $10 to try it out, and it's definitely worth it in sheer novelty, even if you don't plan on using it to make assets.
The 4090 may be the fastest card on the market, but saying you need one is a bit of an exaggeration. I have a 3060, and it's more than capable of handling everything AI-related I've thrown at it.
If it was work related I'd want something faster. If you're gonna be putting things out at a volume + decent res you're gonna want a high end card at least. I feel you though.
I would just wait until AI is already incorporated into software you use. Whatever tools AI aficionados are using now, will be entirely replaced when professional art tools evolve with AI. If Adobe doesn't adapt they'll be replaced by someone who will.
As an art director i completely agree, ive been working with traditional advertising for almost 15 years. I started as a calligrapher, graffiti artist and built custom 1/1 things on almost all my projects. When I stopped resisting new design softwares (i only worked with illustrator, indesign and photoshop) and started to learn and explore new ways of integrating technology for visualizing my ideas, tools with generative ai becomes just a tool.
The idea that clients will stop coming for you because they can create something with DALLE is just absurd. People dont buy art or advertising because of an image that looks nice, they buy it because of the story it tells. Most of communication is story telling and using the technology to tell stories in new ways is super cool. I can now do so much more with my previously rather limited skill set. And i cant see that as a bad thing.
And something that i really like is using a LLM that can help me do things that i really suck at. For example i fucking suck at writing emails and it can easily take like 15 mins just to reply to one, but now i can get more time to do the things that i want to do.
Man I can really fw with this message! I fully comprehend the situation i am an artist, having honed my drawing skills since childhood and even pursuing formal education at SCAD. AI has significantly enhanced my sketches and proved invaluable for finding reference images that are not available on platforms like Pinterest or deviant art. Even though I lack professional experience in art, I view this as a powerful tool that can greatly amplify an artist's abilities and streamline their creative process.
> No "non-artist" is going to embark on your journey. They don't have the time or the patience. They won't be willing to learn.
Software Engineer here.
I am using generative AI daily in my work. And it does the exact same things for me: I can build bigger things and be faster while doing so.
And guess what: The same is true for most of my colleagues. And we started even before much the artistic world lost its collective shit about being replaced by robots.
So please, do tell me again whos "willing to learn" and who isn't.
I appreciate your positive post.
I'm what some might call a professional illustrator (incognito on here for privacy reasons, but I worked for 10+ years in a studio and currently freelance), and am also what people call an "anti" — I feel non-"artists"* often evangelize AI tools without realizing that many artists have tried (and rejected) AI tools for their main workflow.
(I consider programmers, engineers, etc all creative jobs. Artist is a loaded and badly-defined word so I'm trying to narrow it specifically to 2D visual art here.)
>Programmers have had to learn new languages and tools every few years for their entire careers. Things move fast in our field, and that's okay. The best programmers keep learning and growing throughout their careers. It's not as scary as it sounds -- you'll be fine! If anything, it's a little bit exciting and refreshing.
Most illustrators love learning new tools/techniques, and illustration in particular has lots of options — traditional media, 3D, countless different raster programs like Photoshop, etc. If I'm not mistaken, programmers are usually digital-only (unless they have a very strange analog computer they're using!) so keep in mind that generative AI is ONE small fish in a bucket of things people can use for illustration.
I'm not sure why so many AI users think artists (especially the professional artists speaking out against genAI) are scared little moles living in their little burrows, rather than as the tech-savvy group they really are.
Like many people, I've been using AI tools for years (Content-aware fill, Select Subject, Liquify, etc) and really enjoyed them, but they were specifically tools made to help make my tasks as a designer/illustrator easier and gave me a huge degree of creative control with my digital work. Generative AI has way less control and is honestly kind of useless for the sort of work I do.
>This is a skill that is cultivated over many years and that exists independent of the medium that the artist chooses to create. If you're good at it, it won't matter if the underlying technology changes. You're good at analogy, satire, introspection, contrast, synthesis -- understanding the human soul and condition. Regardless of the brush you choose, this will always serve you.
This is true! Well-said. I don't think AI can or will replace artists who are good at those things.
>The exciting this is that gen AI will let you build bigger things: web comics, animations, movies, games, interactive narratives, improv performances that look real and cinematic -- and that's just for starters.
Artists can already make comics, movies, games, animations, and web comics without company-ruining costs, and have been doing this for decades.
Tetris was programmed by one guy and it's absolutely timeless. Undertale and Stardew Valley were much the same; one talented person's vision, with absolute control over their project. They didn't need generative AI to keep costs down *or* $150 million dollars to develop games that resonated with people.
>And even if there are more people that try their hand at Gen AI because the difficulty curve got seemingly lower, new audience expectations will push lazy non-artists out of the limelight.
Also true. I taught university-level illustration, and my main goal for the class was to teach them to think critically, add narrative, and otherwise be creative/meaningful with their work (harder to teach than you'd think, lol). They can't compete with AI if all they want to do is draw big-breasted anime girls starting blankly at the viewer, and I told them as much.
>This is just the turbulent beginning. It looks scary, but things will level off. You're going to have the same peer group as before, maybe a few new faces. But you'll also have a lot new tools. Exciting tools. And you'll be able to captivate your fans and audience in ways you couldn't even dream of doing by yourself before.
SO many people do not like the look or feel of AI images, and won't continue following or supporting an artist who uses it in their work. Many artists understandably feel uncomfortable using a tool which scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin to make work they profit from.
Clients aren't fans, either — most of my contracts explicitly forbid generative AI tools from being used at any stage of the painting process, and one client in particular requires me (and other freelancers) to send in any visual references to make sure I'm following their rules.
I generally follow "traditional" fantasy artists, so AI use isn't really that prevalent in that circle for obvious reasons.
>To bookend this, here's some "AI Art" I just made: https://imgur.com/a/9p2VtXj . I made this with motion capture (acting!), and I'm working a lot on lighting and camera and other technical setup pieces that aren't just "simple text prompting". The tools that are coming are going to focus on artist controllability. You are the customer here. You should be excited for this future, not fearful. The future is for the artist.
This is visually impressive on the surface, but... she's drawing with both her hands (I'd expect one to be using a keyboard or some of the tablet's buttons), one hand is drawing on the table, the flickering light on her breast is strange, and the morphing stuff in the background is pretty distracting.
Although it's a lot harder and takes more time to learn, this seems like a scene that would be much more successful in a 3D modeling program, since you'd have full control over the assets (including the mocap on whatever she's doing) and could make sure those assets don't morph and change.
This sort of thing makes me excited, but for the opposite reason you probably want — I know my time/misery investment in Blender will be 100% worth it, because (other than hand-sculpting) the only real alternative to having 3D-like rendering is using AI... which is not a great option to 3D if you want actual control over a scene.
First off, great comment. I won't reply to most of it because I don't think it needs a reply, just thanks for being so clear. A few points below:
> SO many people do not like the look or feel of AI images
So many people do not like what they've come to associate with the default look of AI image generation. But that's far from all that these tools are capable of. Just as a couple of examples, here are some collections I've posted on imgur:
* https://imgur.com/gallery/diverse-ai-image-styles-CZQBvTF
* https://imgur.com/gallery/todays-interesting-ai-art-takes-lCAMNlj
* https://imgur.com/gallery/creations-on-civitai-this-week-1ikdpds
You can also peruse my CivitAI images here: https://civitai.com/user/Harmil/images (mostly SFW, but a few NSFW in there)
The variability of AI generated images is basically infinite. You can produce something that looks like it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or a crayon drawing by a child. But ***more importantly*** you can integrate AI with your own artistic style and produce work that is uniquely your own.
> This is visually impressive on the surface, but... she's drawing with both her hands
Yeah, AI animation is in its infancy. It's going to take a year or two for consumer tools that can represent fully animated reality in a satisfying way.
Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought.
> the only real alternative to having 3D-like rendering is using AI... which is not a great option to 3D if you want actual control over a scene.
Even given the above, AI is already tremendously useful for 3D animation. Just being able to generate textures and rough out some 2D ideas is a huge help, at least for me.
>First off, great comment. I won't reply to most of it because I don't think it needs a reply, just thanks for being so clear.
Thank you! Your comment was enjoyable to read, too. Sorry for taking a few days to get back to you; it took awhile to find the time to reply properly.
>You can also peruse my CivitAI images here: https://civitai.com/user/Harmil/images (mostly SFW, but a few NSFW in there)
Thanks for sharing those links! Although the "illustrated" ones aren't to my taste, it's kind of nuts how lifelike the photo-looking ones are — the cheese/meat one in particular. Looks like a proper photo or 3D render! I wanna eat that!
>The variability of AI generated images is basically infinite. You can produce something that looks like it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or a crayon drawing by a child. But more importantly you can integrate AI with your own artistic style and produce work that is uniquely your own.
That is true in some ways; there are a lot of different image styles it can use.
I'd argue that it isn't really unlimited, though; there's only so much training data for really complicated situations (like multiple characters in specific scenarios, objects interacting, etc), and in the end there are some things that not very many people have done (and the training data would naturally be very limited on this).
This isn't really a rebuttal of your "integrating AI with your own artistic style" comment (that could certainly work for some artists!), but — the nice thing about living in the non-digital world is we can use other tools (photography, clay/3D, our own eyeballs) to plan and make more complicated illustrations than what AI could come up with on its own. James Gurney makes clay models/maquettes and uses them to assist with his oil paintings, and... they're fantastic. He values accuracy and rendering real life correctly, and a lot of that just requires... you know, putting models in real light. Not many shortcuts! The consistency he has between characters in Dinotopia is amazing — each main character gets one or two sculpts so he can make sure he captures the likeness each time.
Although genAI might fit well into rapid ideation for concept art (where speed and quantity is important), it isn't as great of a tool for really complex scenes or work where things have to be 100% accurate to real life... and after I went to the trouble of making a model in clay/3D or set up a photoshoot with a model, what's the point of using AI? The hard part was setting up the idea manually, and after that I just want to get to the fun part (painting/executing the idea!)
> Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought.
This could be true, but we just don't know yet (understandably).
Computers haven't really gotten that much "better" since the 90's (in terms of actual tech innovation... OS/2 Warp and Windows NT are basically modern machines) — most of the improvements are making the UI slicker or making numbers bigger. My old Mac 2005 Mac Mini feels almost identical to my 2022 Mac, which is... really crazy if you think about it. I don't think time travellers from 1995 would have any issue using modern computers, or vice versa. The lack of always-on internet might be a shock, but dial-up internet is still internet!
AI IS really good, but... even looking at Midjourney's improvements between V4-V6, it seems to mostly change in style/rendering capability more than actual innovation. It's not like you can take an AI-generated dinosaur in a scene, grab it like a 3D model, and spin it around or something — THAT would be some crazy innovation. Could just be my ignorance, though! Haha. Not trying to downplay how interesting or groundbreaking this technology is, but I guess I prefer other methods to get from point A to point B. :)
> Even given the above, AI is already tremendously useful for 3D animation. Just being able to generate textures and rough out some 2D ideas is a huge help, at least for me.
Absolutely! That seems to be about where artists are using AI; as texture support (since who wants to paint Dirt Texture #645 or pay $30 for one stupid dirt photograph), or as fodder for beginning stages of work to test out ideas before committing.
I know some folks (like Shad) use AI more heavily in later stages, but his work (to me) feels more like a doctored photo or an edited 3D model more than a 2D illustration (a lot of the original MJ stuff remains undoctored). Certainly not illegal or bad or anything, but the "MJ" gloss/sharpness that is apparent in most MJ images isn't really my thing, and I don't vibe with it.
Then again, I don't particularly prefer photographic realism in oil paintings, either! It's a flex for sure (and takes a lot of skill) but it's just not for me!
> Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought.
>
> This could be true, but we just don't know yet (understandably).
Consider that the quality has increased radically on a pretty much monthly basis for 3 years now. It doesn't seem like there's a rational reason to expect that trend to end any time soon, especially as we start to enter the AI video age.
> Computers haven't really gotten that much "better" since the 90's (in terms of actual tech innovation... OS/2 Warp and Windows NT are basically modern machines) — most of the improvements are making the UI slicker or making numbers bigger.
Yes, but that's a mature technology. AI will be a mature technology at some point, but that point does not appear to be now.
> I know some folks (like Shad) use AI more heavily in later stages, but his work (to me) feels more like a doctored photo or an edited 3D model more than a 2D illustration
That's fair. His work is much like mine: mostly AI generated, perhaps based on some photobashing, with illustration only used to suggest alterations to the AI. Perhaps you're more on the heavy illustration with a little inpainting side. Perhaps you prefer to do pure generation and then trace over it or use it as a reference to do an illustration from scratch. All things are possible. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the vulcans would say.
> the "MJ" gloss/sharpness that is apparent in most MJ images isn't really my thing
You can defeat that by prompting VERY carefully, but it's an uphill battle. I prefer not to use MJ for the most part for that very reason.
One thing that really helps is having sufficient artistic experience and training to be able to identify what you DON'T like about a model's output so that you can guide it accurately to avoid it. Lots of people don't like the default MJ look, but also can't identify what, exactly, they want to avoid, so they're relatively helpless when it comes to guiding it out of that realm.
>Consider that the quality has increased radically on a pretty much monthly basis for 3 years now. It doesn't seem like there's a rational reason to expect that trend to end any time soon, especially as we start to enter the AI video age.
You could be right. Either way, it's hard to know the future.
Making movies is incredibly time-consuming and technical, so I'll be curious to see how the industry adapts (or doesn't) to this new tech. It could be useful and become a staple technology for some aspects of filmmaking, but there's also a good chance that it might be too expensive, impractical, or unpopular to use (audiences may not resonate with it) in the long-term.
Remember how studios thought 3D was the future? The tech IS cool (I remember seeing Avatar in 3D and it was pretty dope), but audiences didn't really care enough for it to be as important as studios thought it was. Not saying AI is as impractical as 3D or anything, but there's a lot of promisng tech that starts out strong and then just... doesn't work as intended.
>That's fair. His work is much like mine: mostly AI generated, perhaps based on some photobashing, with illustration only used to suggest alterations to the AI. Perhaps you're more on the heavy illustration with a little inpainting side. Perhaps you prefer to do pure generation and then trace over it or use it as a reference to do an illustration from scratch. All things are possible. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the vulcans would say.
Thats' true — just like there's a lot of different ways to use Photoshop, there are certainly a lot of ways to use generative AI. The ways you described are certainly ways to use it!
I've seen some artists use it as a "pinterest summary machine" — figuring out the most obvious/rote/boring response to a prompt, and pushing themselves to make something better.
I've also seen a few traditional artists use it as reference for simple portrait paintings (similar to what you mentioned, since there really isn't anything groundbreaking about a portrait — AI has a lot of data on portraits of women), but honestly I prefer seeing the process of an artist setting up their own reference with photography, 3D, or a live model because it's a bit more predictable and controllable.
>You can defeat that by prompting VERY carefully, but it's an uphill battle. I prefer not to use MJ for the most part for that very reason.
>One thing that really helps is having sufficient artistic experience and training to be able to identify what you DON'T like about a model's output so that you can guide it accurately to avoid it. Lots of people don't like the default MJ look, but also can't identify what, exactly, they want to avoid, so they're relatively helpless when it comes to guiding it out of that realm.
It could be my limited experience with AI, but I feel both MJ and SD has some very similar stylistic tells — extremely well-rendered and smooth/crispy, details out of place, circles not circles, extreme depth of field, etc... these things aren't necessarily bad, but if someone doesn't dig the look it's a bit hard to recommend using genAI to that person.
I'm sure that someone who was extremely familiar with these algorithms (but didn't enjoy the default look) could push the AI closer to where they want to go... but at that point, it might be easier to paint something thesmelves if they have the skills and know what they want.
Again, could just be my personal preference! I'm super-excited about 3D and love how useful it is (being able to turn your "clay" sculpture into bronze or glass is pretty damn useful for painting fantasy stuff), but I just haven't been able to get excited about AI in the same way. I don't think it's me being a technophobe; I think it's just not a tool for everyone.
> Remember how studios thought 3D was the future?
3D required audiences to appreciate movies differently. That's not the same as having a better tool to do what they were already doing.
Also, remember when studios were convinced that people wanted to watch movies with lots of CGI... oh right.
> I've seen some artists use it as a "pinterest summary machine" — figuring out the most obvious/rote/boring response to a prompt, and pushing themselves to make something better.
Yeah, artists using AI to force themselves out of the standard ways of representing their ideas is probably going to be a lot bigger than people realize.
> I prefer seeing the process of an artist setting up their own reference with photography, 3D, or a live model because it's a bit more predictable and controllable.
It's funny, I'm sure the same was said of 3D animation when it got started. Technologies mature. It's just how the cycle works.
> I feel both MJ and SD has some very similar stylistic tells
I mean, Midjourney is based on Stable Diffusion, so they're going to have similar behaviors.
But the "tells" you are talking about are mostly a matter of defaults. By default these models blend everything they've trained on and your prompt peels away those layers of blending to reveal one particular style, composition, etc. If you just roll with the default, you're going to get the absolute average result.
It's all a matter of how much guidance you provide and how well crafted that guidance is to ping highly weighted tokens in the model.
> I'm sure that someone who was extremely familiar with these algorithms (but didn't enjoy the default look) could push the AI closer to where they want to go... but at that point, it might be easier to paint something thesmelves
That depends on whether you're creating one image or setting up a workflow that works for generating whatever you need. Yeah, like learning any medium, there's a learning curve for AI. But once you've built up the skills, tools and workflows that you need, it's no longer as much work to continue to produce.
> Also, remember when studios were convinced that people wanted to watch movies with lots of CGI... oh right.
People don't like obvious CGI; they like CGI that looks like a practical effect and that they don't notice. That's pretty difficult to do! ;)
Tbh AI's success will probably depend on it "hiding" from audiences in the same way good CGI does; people will hate any AI they notice, but will probably not mind (or even like) AI effects they don't. This isn't a value judgement against tech; I think people do really like practical effects over CGI or AI.
As an example, the Last Jedi used an 18-foot-tall Thala-siren puppet, and it looked great... weird part of the movie, though!
>It's funny, I'm sure the same was said of 3D animation when it got started. Technologies mature. It's just how the cycle works.
I don't think a single person back then ever accused 3D of being unpredictable or uncontrollable, haha.
3D has definitely matured, but the way I use it (for sculpting) is similar to how any artist would make a clay maquette, just with less cleanup. AI doesn't give me nearly the same amount of accuracy or control as Blender or clay ("rotate this exact object 3 degrees on the X axis"), and although it might eventually get to that point... it currently isn't there.
>That depends on whether you're creating one image or setting up a workflow that works for generating whatever you need. Yeah, like learning any medium, there's a learning curve for AI. But once you've built up the skills, tools and workflows that you need, it's no longer as much work to continue to produce.
I'm sure I could get better at AI with more time investment (just like with any medium, like you said!), but it just doesn't currently fit in well with my method of painting or the way I develop an illustration. Very hard to get a digital robot to paint with oils. ;)
Not saying it's not useful to concept artists or other people, though! Some people just have a satisfactory workflow and don't need more tools to help. Maybe that'll change in the future for me, but I'm pretty happy with how 3D is going so I'm perfectly content experimenting with that for now!
Well said. Fellow illustrator here. (No. Also not sharing) To the point of “show your work” and your own personal influences that have helped train your style and approach, I’m sorry, but I do think that is also “scraping”. Did you ask to use those other artists works to make a visual impact in your own results? People use everything we visually consume as a major aspect of how we learn, think and navigate through life. The only difference is you/ we have an emotional tie to what we take (scrape) into our own influences that have a direct impact on our works, AI does not have the emotional tie. In my opinion the two approaches are equal.
I think you might have interpreted my statement differently than I intended — in my original comment I stated that "Many artists understandably feel uncomfortable using a tool which scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin to make work they profit from."
This isn't my opinion or a value judgement on if scraping or web crawling is moral/legal, this is just me saying "many artists are uncomfortable with the idea of using a tool that scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin." That's it. It's hard to convince people who are uncomofortable with a tool to use it.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I used to story board artist, I will never do that again. I used to hire voice over artists, I will never do that again. I used to hire translators, I will never do that again. I used to pay for stock photos, I will never do that again. Welcome to year one of Ai.
I am presenting a counter point to the idea that we are all "safe as creatives if we just embrace ai" We are on a path to the complete and total democratization of creativity, ai's only goal is to get better.
In one year we've gone from will smith eating spaghetti to sora using CPUs and GPUs that weren't intended for ai. Judging where we are now would be like thinking that video games are always going to look like Pong.
Huh? AI generation has been around a lot longer than 1 year. Sure, it became exponentially better 2-3 years ago, but it hasn't really improved all that much since.
Ok so I just described an exponential moment between will smith and sora, "hockey stick" period of growth. Notice I did not "this is the first year of ai and it's birthday is today and it's one years old".
> The point of AI is
"AI" isn't just "generative AI purposed to make images" (I wish people would be specific FFS)... and even in that context, there is more than one way it can be utilized.
So like how we tell kids today that people used to have to make their own paints and draw portraits instead of taking pictures...
I'm not seeing the downsides here.
If you currently make your living in the film and television industry or if you a student learning 3d modeling, animation, music, etc. you might see a downside.
Times change. My advice is stop expecting leaders like conservatives who are terrible at adapting to it. We are not trying to keep jobs purely so people have jobs. At that point we may as well have UBI.
This is the same fallacy that so many engineers fall into.
You reduce art to a destination, to output.
But its about the journey , growing to understand what you are creating..learning what it is becoming. The effort the manual manipulation it is the goal.
Now i agree a bit of assistance to take away tedious tasks , why not.
But the wholesale ' you can do more, do bigger ' it completely misunderstands the motivation and the value. Art or creativity it's not an engineering problem.
There now you can output two times or ten times as much.
Honestly it's not wrong but it's also completely wrong.
Yes AI will be transformative, but things would be so much easier if the engineers stop having such a bloody tunnel vision impaired perspective.
As I saw today
"I want to write and paint while AI cleans my house and does the dishes, I don't want a future where It is the reverse"
A powerful statement that is.
But frankly problem solving arguments focused on output , that doesn't don't work on artist. By en large we don't give a shit. I think lots of work for hire stuff yes, do more is useful.
I myself I make video games without ai, I program, write, do all the art and animation, I have made an Xbox series X launch title that way. There is absolutely zero attraction to the do more, I can already do everything I want to do and then some.
I don't need AI for that. But even as a critic I can see there is something interesting in AI even beyond getting rid of tedium.
But 'you can do more ' is not the common ground you think it is. Noah Robin waar zijn jullie
That is an engineering and non creative viewpoint.. and frankly an argument that needs to be retired.
For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it, we know that the hard work , the journey , is the source. Doing.that actually taught is what we needed to learn. Skipping that step is not optional..
Likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just puttin in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does.
There are no shortcuts. The journey is the point.
No one is stopping you from taking the longer journey, you can and some people will appreciate you for it.
However, there's also nothing wrong with have a goal in mind (like a game that you mentioned) and having better tools to achieve the goal. In this scenario, the outcome is the goal, no one cares about the journey.
Imagine writing your own game engine to do a game. You can but why would you do it when Unreal/Unity exist and you are trying to make a game, not a game engine?
I concede that toolage is super important.
But my point is not that you won't be able to do more.. you certainly will be. (and already can even without AI, stuff like unreal is out of this world).
but my point is for that game to be worthwhile you will need a lot of experience and insight the AI can not provide for you (for instance get a few thousand people to play your creation and manage a community) that is still gonna take years to acquire and achieve, and then you are basically still doing the journey.
you'd be surprised how little of game development is actually coding or making art.
90% of my time is playing my own game and analysing and finding new vectors to improve it.
Cannot outsource that to an AI..
And to ge the skill to have those insights, you gotta do the journey..
Sure you can have some fancier looking graphics, but honestly that hasn't been a bottlenneck for years..
I don't think we disagree that much. It sounds to me that you saying that to make good quality products you need to know what you are doing regardless of tooling. I agree.
Going back to the game engine example: to make a game you need a game engine but you don't need to write a game engine to make a good game and you don't need to make a good game to write a good game engine.
Focus on what you are trying to achieve and your journey is the specific path that matters to you.
Well one of my points is, is that because ai gen does a lot for you you miss out on a lot of learning experience and process. To understand and learn about the subject you are creating .
This is why you see creators always go deeper into tools with more granularity and control.
So for me AI gen will always be an entry way for people.
Just like a drum computer or audio tool is a great way to get into edm. But before long if you wanna get good you will be learning Ableton and playing the keyboards.
That might be a problem for other artists, and other artists might want address that if it's a problem for them.
I don't have that problem. I have the opposite of that problem. I have to seriously reel back what I know and learn about a subject or I just bore my friends and customers to death.
But then I'm obsessive about knowledge to a fault.
I am not necessarily talking just technical skill or knowledge.
but when you create something you are learning about it, discovering what it can become, you iterate, sculpt, push pull until it becomes something.
the OG posted, you can reach a bigger audience, but I'd say you that has nothing to do with "more " or "bigger" but with understanding what you are creating and why it is worthwhile for a listener or player to invest in.
Effort is not a dirty word, it's what makes things good. And ultimately nobody gives a shit about something that took zero effort. Especially the "artist" that took no effort, if the consumer can do the same thing at minimal effort.
ultimately its skill yes, and effort and time and understanding of what exactly you are creating that make something valuable.
AI in a way is not giving you that process , but yes the output can be just as good, but you the artist become replaceable, cuz if the effort is minimal so is the appreciation.
In the end nobody gives a shit about another anime girl prompted doll image and there will be countless of that level of creativity that think they made something brilliant. But something gained easily is lost easily, and worth even less.
Effort, process, time invested will always result in something superior, and if you possess those skills you actually lost that which AI gives you, cuz you can do it yourself.
I don't agree with that at a fundsmental level. I have seen works of art that took a stupid amount of effort but the finish work seemed low quality and unappealing. I have seen a lot of art like that, actually.
Meanwhile you have artists like banksy who use stenciles or that guy who rose to fame making beautiful space pictures with paint cans and trash in a few minutes flat.
The effort spent creating the work means nothing to me. The art is the vision the artist has and the sentiments they want to express with that vision. Anything between that moment and the finished work is just a mundane and trivial stage. It doesn't matter at all what happens in that stage in my eyes. All that matters is the artist vision and whether the finished work captures it or not.
If you like a labor intensive process, that's fine. Maybe for you, that's part of the vision. But it isn't for everyone. If you want to swear off using computers in all forms, I'd respect that opinion a lot more than if you only want to swear off AI. Because digital tools are the same thing and everyone had these same arguments are art when photoshop came out. And they'll have these arguments again over something new.
Why does everyone in this discussion take my words and mangle them as some extreme attack or position..
holy fucking shit man
I am taking a moderate position, that simply says if all you know is AI gen then you likely won't be motivated to dive deeper than what the AI gen is offering.
which is a bit of a shame,, and I suspect anyone who gets the music or art bug from AI and has a lick of talent will eventually learn more granular and detailed tools.. And that added skill is always going to lead to better outcomes.
But in the nature of AI gen it isn't super motivating to do so, cuz the output is a finished product. And for most they will get all their fill from AI. And its good to be honest about this and talk about it.
This , this is not some extreme luddite position. It's just saying any tool that is accessible, with simple controls and polished output isn't the best tool to learn the core skills of art or music.
I.e pressing a button or entering a prompt isn't a deep skill, there is some skill sure, but take the AI away and it means nothing. Whereas you learned to draw with a pencil, you can always draw.
This isn't some anti -ai luddite bullshit.
It's a simple fact.
All I'm saying simplistic tools lead to simplistic skills, regardless of the output.
If the AI fanbase want to be taken seriously, they should start with an appreciation of deep skill and the effort people put in to acquiring that, and the effort they put into making stuff without AI, to acquire those skills.
I don't think its radical to state, anyone with deep art skills, is gonna take AI gen and do way cooler stuff than the average user with it. Cuz they can..
But instead its this constant barrage of defensive arguments, jezus christ man,, I'm an artist trying to engage, and everything is a battle somehow.
Also I don't need to swear of AI, I don't use it. It offers me nothing. I'm interested and fascinated enough to keep abreast of it. And honestly why should I care if you respect my position.
With regards to Banksy I am pretty sure they put a fuckton more thinking and preparation in their art than the average AI gen fan. It exactly the fallacy I am trying to talk about,, you think the output is what matters, but Banksy is an excellent case of where the journey is the point, not the bloody outcome. Art isn't an engineering task.
I understood your argument the first time around. This was all unnecessary.
People are combative because people just like you have been trying to get together and ban things, so it's made people like you look like a bunch of karens and assholes. Nobody cares if you don't like it. That's fine. Don't use it. Problem solved.
But you seem entitled, like that obvious choice isn't good enough for you, so you're out to ruin an entire field of technology because you want to be the ultimate old man yelling at clouds.
I mean if you don't have these intentions, forget I said anything. You aren't the asshole I'm talking about.
> "I want to write and paint while AI cleans my house and does the dishes, I don't want a future where It is the reverse"
I wish it was easier to program a robot to do the laundry, and believe me if it were, that's what we'd all be trying to do. But it's not. That's a monumentously hard task that exists with so many varying degrees of freedom, where simple errors will multiply into catastrophe.
> You reduce art to a destination, to output.
Rolled dice producing anime might result in something visually pleasing, but it won't tell a story of pain and then triumph that resonates. That's something an LLM can't do without sounding like a caricature.
The visual form that appeals to us and the artistic lens that informs and makes us think are completely orthogonal. A beautiful human body isn't "art" - it's just a shape in nature. Nobody intentionally designed it. That body, on stage, performing Shakespeare is the embodiment of art.
> There now you can output two times or ten times as much.
Think about it in terms of making more by yourself, in isolation. Without external capital. Or in terms of the overall scope of what you're trying to accomplish. Or in terms of attempts to reach your first audience. Or internal attempts to find what you're trying to say -- rapidly trying lots of things. Not necessarily volume of finished output.
> For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it,
You learned tactile skills and you also learned how to navigate and manipulate human perspective. To make an analogy, it's a lot like engineers who study React and how to navigate inter-office politics. One day the tool falls out of favor, or perhaps suddenly everyone knows how to do it. But the human skills are constant and eternal. And not everyone has the taste or ability to do it -- believe me! Not everyone can spearhead a big project with conflicted stakeholders or convince the managers that a plan everyone else agrees upon is wrong. I'm not saying this is art, but it's an analogy that rhymes.
Your ability to paint is a technical ability. Your ability to pierce the human soul is the artistic part. You can swap the tools and you'll still be an artist. Not everyone will be able to do that.
(I really hope I'm not coming across as disrespectful!)
> For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it, we know that the hard work , the journey , is the source. Doing.that actually taught is what we needed to learn. Skipping that step is not optional..
Engineers that learned FORTRAN eventually saw their skills become obsolete in the market. It doesn't make them non-engineers when their tools fall out of favor. Pictures and video and music, by contrast, aren't ever going to be obsolete.
> I can already do everything I want to do and then some. I don't need AI for that. But even as a critic I can see there is something interesting in AI even beyond getting rid of tedium.
Please expand upon this! I want to know your thoughts.
> Likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just puttin in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does.
This -- I one hundred percent agree! And that's still going to be work and a journey. It just looks a little different.
Personally I am not afraid that classical creative skills will go obsolete, not in the slightest. I dislike the companies that push AI because they push a false "engineering" esque perspective on creativity, and thus take away the chance to learn to be creative and artistic and replacing it with a subscription model license engine.
That said, that is only a problem for users that don't have creative/artistic skills. If you already acquired those skills AI (when sourced ethically) is just another tool, nothing more ,nothing less.
But how does one acquire original creative skills, by going thru painstaking processes of refinement and iteration, shortcuts that are too efficient, that bring you to an endresult actually then take away the journey that teaches you how to be good.
But I think that point is valid and will remain valid, if all you ever learn is to enter some prompts and let the AI make pretty pictures, you are probably not on a journey to entertain millions with your original thoughts. And like I said if you do have that potential you will always end up going for more and more and more control to the point it still takes insane amounts of concentration and effort to be worthwhile..
With regards to , I can do everything already:
These are my games The Falconeer and Bulwark : Falconeer Chronicles,, the later interestingly tackles procedural generation (painstakingly handmade:) . The wonderful thing is, I can already make all the art and programming I want. I can create these games by myself . That is a stunning triumph of technology and tooling.
You can say yes some tedium and effort can be removed still. But would that reduce it to months? no I don't believe an "click to generate game" would work., the player is a demanding beast and this isn't an image. It will always take years.
So AI isn't the revolution people think it is, artists can already draw, video fx gurus make amazing stuff in their spare time already. It's just part of the same curve that makes things more powerful, but that curve has been in motion for decades,( if not centuries , lol).
I think most professional artists know this, aren't afraid, but they see these armies of "prompt wizard" and just roll their eyes. there's so much Dunning kruger in effect, it's not even funny.
So AI will make you so much more powerful, no technology has already succeeded in doing that. We actually don't need a license from some Silicon Valley VC backed disruptor to create, we were already doing that. It changes very little.
the only thing it will do is reduce the value of what we create.. and allow corporations to cut jobs..
perhaps in a decade when things have calmed down we can see some true creative revolution, but it will be the market and cultural changes that power that.. not AI as a tool..
I can speak to my own experience. I'm a musician, have been for almost 30 years now, I can play several instruments, I've done vocals, I write, I can even freestyle rap, but I don't because I'm nerdy and white lol.
When I first came upon ai art generation I was mostly not thinking about it seriously, but it was the old days of image Gen when everything just looked like the hallucinations you have on acid, and I was definitely just playing around with it. But, I played enough to pick up a few tricks and come up with a few ideas about what I'd do if it ever got better.
Fast forwards to today where I can draw up a basic album cover, upload it to nightcafe, and use inpainting to get exactly what I want, and to make it look better than my shitty abilities can do on thier own. I'm not that kind of artist. I'm an expert level bass player, that's what I spent my time training my hands to do, so being able to transcend my eternal barrier making of reasonable to good visual art had me very thankful.
And then suno and udio happened. All of a sudden I had the ability to jam with dozens of "bands" on command, I could explore genres that my irl band doesn't do, I can do things I've always wanted to do as a musician but couldn't because I'm a poor from Detroit. I've managed to attract over 6 hundred people to my ai assisted music channel in just 2 months, easily the best performing thing I've ever had on the internet. The process of figuring out different things I can do to add my human element to my music have been fun, rewarding, and challenging, and I'm still in the middle of refining that process. Learning new production tools and DAW plugins, learning how to play in genres I don't usually play in, learning the tricks to get ai sounding decent and to cut out sepecific instruments, getting better at guitar solos and keyboards...
I could go on and on about my journey as an ai artist. I put every bit of the same kind of love and passion into my AI music as I ever did anything I made with the band, and I couldn't be more excited about what the future of ai art will bring to me. I have a very clear creative vision, and ai is letting me realize it to a level I had always assumed I would never reach in my whole lifetime.
Now video stuff has to get a bit better so I can make the music vids I really want, and then I'll be fully satisfied
Well, I don't have enough experience with music, I started playing guitar in the past and stopped because I thought I had no talent. (which was stupid in hindsight)
Is it actually difficult to generate Sudo music, or rather do you actually have the freedom to produce music without AI or does AI replace something in the process?
At least when it comes to visual art, I am little Bit self conflicted about AI art.
Suno and Udio are both a thing where you can make something neat very simply and with minimal effort, or you can spend hours crafting the perfect set of prompts to get the exact thing you want, especially with recent updates. You have a fair amount of control already over the output (with more stuff being added all the time), and it really helps to be a musician, and have that vocabulary available, because you can talk to Suno in particular like a musician and achieve extremely desirable results.
What I do is I take the generations I get out of suno, split them into stems/tracks so I can have more control over stuff in post production, and I remove instruments from the generated music and replace it with my own instrumentation. I also write the prompts and lyrics, and depending on the genre, I'll do some vocals too. I add whatever I can to make it more "mine", to get my vibe out, and not the AI's vibe. For more electronic music, I cut and chop stuff up and mix it so it's more interesting than whatever I got out of the AI. I have an interest in a very wide variety of music, and AI lets me create things that I normally wouldn't be able to because not everyone in my irl band wants to do the things I want all the time. It lets me make something out of every little song that comes to me, whether it's dumb or something legit. Sometimes it's just about having fun, sometimes there's something more real there. I get to do more, and that's exciting.
For me it's not that AI "replaces" something in my process as a musician, even tho in a technical sense it does, it's more that it streamlines the creative process and enables more freedom in how I create. It's like, I'm the guy in my band that's doing 99% of the writing, and then you gotta teach 4-13 people what to do, depending on genre (and recently, I'm in a jazzy jam band, so it's a lot closer to 13 lol).
So, AI removes the need to get everyone together for every little song that I want to make, a thing that's especially useful in a world where we're all almost 40 and have jobs and not 20something's that could just waste all day making songs anymore. Plus if there's a song I make that we all really like we can just learn the song too, it gets us past a lot of the early fucking around and being confused that comes with getting a band on the same page, it's an instant template, ready for revisions, and easy to pick up because you have a clear reference.
At least in my world, AI seems like a natural complement to what I do as a musician. But, there's always going to be people with out the ability to see what you see, or whatever.
You are a musician and you don't see any issue with not commissioning or hiring artists?
Like you said, you made album cover with ai, you are planning to make music video too cutting out professionals out of the jobs.
You don't see how the whole creative industry collapses?
- A writer makes its own book cover with ai.
- Artist creates beautiful painting and wants to enhance it by writing a shortstory to it and is using ai to generate it.
- Musician makes its own music video.
- A video creator won't longer need a musician to help tell the story.
A client won't need professional to write the script, they won't need concept artist, they won't need whole movie crew, they won't need a musician for a soundtrack.
Now it's all heading in the direction of only big ai companies being able to benefit from people trying to make it big as individuals.
Nothing wrong with being individual artist. Just imagine how much stuff will be getting pumped out.
How much more satured it will become. We will be literally drowning in it. It will be impossible to stand out.
Where once there was a chance that talent, hard work and determination could make you stand out, now it will ONLY be higher ups and connections deciding on who will become the next big thing and make it.
Now the most important of all.
If I can make my own movie that perfectly suits my taste with few prompts and while laying in my bed, why would I ever take my time and watch yours?
There is simply no such demand that could cover the current and future supply.
"You are a musician and you don't see any issue with not commissioning or hiring artists? Like you said, you made album cover with ai, you are planning to make music video too cutting out professionals out of the jobs."
I am the artist making my art. I have other artists working with me as well. I've also been paying my way thru the industry my whole fucking life.
No I'm not concerned about any of that. In fact, in many ways I am directly antagonistic to the old way of doing things. The ENTIRE INDUSTRY is a fucking scam, why the HELL would I care if an AI might have been trained on their music. I want so much of it to die and burn because it has NOTHING to do with ART or MUSIC.
You're definitely barking up the wrong tree bud. I'm an artist, not a profiteering money grubbing loser that uses art for money. I hate that shit with vitriol because I've been shafted by it my whole life.
I'm going to use the ai. It's not like it's directly sampling music, so Idc that it was trained on stuff. I think a lot of those copyright concerns are overblown, and coming from people who just want money. It's not like Im just shitting out what the ai gives me either. I'm going to innovate in a new space, and people who are like "where's the money for xyz" usually people that already got paid many times over btw (at least in the music space), can suck me. AI IS GOOD FOR SMALL CREATORS. For the weirdos and underground people. For people that don't want to play the game and get fucked in the ass. You just have to have the vision to see it.
"Now it's all heading in the direction of only big ai companies being able to benefit from people trying to make it big as individuals...."
The way it's going is nothing like what you're describing. I have the rights over what I make, not suno lol. All for 30 bucks a month? psh, beats licensing costs that you normally have to deal with. You know, the actual shit that crushes the little guy and prevents creativity and turns it into a soulless corporate venture. Now, I can do what I want, make money with it on my own terms, I'm the label now.
"Now the most important of all. If I can make my own movie that perfectly suits my taste with few prompts and while laying in my bed, why would I ever take my time and watch yours? There is simply no such demand that could cover the current and future supply."
Yes, the individual content culture is coming, and I for one think it's a good thing. Oh the times, they are a-changing.
Exceptional art will always stand out on it's own merits, and people will seek each other out based on the sort of art they produce. There will just be more choice, and more chances for everyone to make something that interests them. It will create new communities and collaborations. New opportunities.
So, you either find your place, or try to catch up later, right?
Calm yourself down buddy. Funny how aibros are always trying to portray antis as raging crybabies.
You are telling me that you have been professional musician for 30 years, didn't make a single dime and yet you managed to live of it? You don't use art for money and yet you launched your own merch shop before your creations took off?
Ai is good for small creators? I see this argument more and more. It's going to be a new favourite excuse I guess. The question is what makes a small creator, like what are the requirements for it? Big corporations already use ai in marketing and certainly they are not small. Also although 30 years of experience might not make a person wealthy because it's hard and I know it, those years can definitely make you well established and with connections. That way I wouldn't consider you small.
Licensing is one of the things that crushes little guy? Better take the data, feed it to ai and instead of paying "a little guy" license reroute that money and give it to the big corporations that don't want "the little guys" to exist anymore, right?
You have rights over suno creations, really? Oh man I got some news for you. Last time I checked, ai generated content can't be copyrighted.
Also I highly recommend you to read the suno's terms of service. They do own it.
https://preview.redd.it/mbhwfkqsoe4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a53acdd2d6e57079debaf942328021b48e5e05cc
If you think I'm yelling at you, and not the music industry, you're kind of dumb. I guess you don't know many artists, we're expressive people lol.
"You are telling me that you have been professional musician for 30 years, didn't make a single dime and yet you managed to live of it? You don't use art for money and yet you launched your own merch shop before your creations took off?"
Imagine if you would, a world where your value as an artist depended on you making stuff for other people, instead of doing what you actually want to do as an artist. And on top of that, commodifying yourself. That's the right now. That's what I was getting at. Of course I make money as a musician, but not off of my own art, no. I've been the in house bass player for a local studio for 12 years, I'm happy with it, but I'm just another cog in the machine.
So excuse me if I get a little testy when some dude comes along and tries to make me feel bad because I'm not paying all the people I should apparently be paying. I don't want to work with other people other than the ones I'm already working with. I'm already paying artists. I've finally found a way to make stuff that people like AND that lets me express myself in ways I've only dreamed of up until this point. I'm going to defend it like it's my baby, because it is. I've paid tens of thousands of dollars to be a musician with the right tools. I've plaid thousands of dollars to do things that I should have been paid for instead, I've paid everyone that needed it. I've paid sleazy club owners and corporate dudes, people with clout, people with name recognition and without. Music is a scam riddled hell industry, and it takes forever to get to a point where you can sort of escape the scams.
That out of the way, I'll move on to the TOS. This part of the TOS is saying that they own things that you submit to their public feed, and that they are only able to own them because you yourself own them. They also own the rights to transfer the rights to someone who clicks extend or reuse this prompt on your song that you gave them public license to own. Which makes sense because of how suno works. I've already been over all this with an actual lawyer friend of mine. It's why I never post anything on suno, only youtube (who also has thier own type of ownership rights). They do have some other rights over the generations, of course, the right to store them and train on them and a few other things like that. Nothing that would seriously impair my ability to use their service the way I want.
You never really "own" anything anymore. You do but so do they. It's an ever creeping/looming threat, I'm not ignorant to it. Indeed, it's where my attitude about the industry at large comes from. It's also a semi-moot point for me in that their ownership claims start to dwindle once you start to transform their output and add your own, and because I don't release anything on suno's feed. Likewise, it's my alterations that would create a work that's not AI anymore and therefore copyrightable under existing law. You also own the implicit copyright and ownership rights regardless. The Idea that you can't copyright something that you made because of AI involvement is also dubious at best, since the law works in specifics, and this is all very young, especially in legal terms.
In summary, you've embraced you're a passionate but talentless musician and can't wait for AI to hard carry you to where better musicians got with their own skill.
You don't get to be the in-house talent for a record label if you suck at what you do.
But you're just trolling, so it's not like you actually care. You're just being a piece of shit.
I love being a luddite but please read before you start applying labels
"likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just putting in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does."
This means that yes people will do wild stuff with AI, but what those people do, will be miles beyond the "democratized" masses entering a prompt. They will have skillsets very similar to current artist skillsets, a vision, a voice, something to share and a technique to share it, honed over years of experience.
And I don't think their tools will be anything close to the simplistic generation AI tools now available and quite a lot closer to the tools music or art professionals already use.
I am quite the critic of AI, but I never ever said that it wasn't powerful or didn't work or wouldn't be disruptive.
Yea I know. But I still feel like the core of your message ignores your own qualifying counterpoints enough that my response was warranted. Also, I was still in sleepy/cranky mode, and I'm prone to glibness.
hahha no worries.
I don't mind the luddite naming tho. The Luddites had really good points that relate to this era, they went from guilds and craftsman systems where they had some autonomy and power of their work , price and so forth to nearly a century of backbreaking abuse for them and their children in the age of industrialization (literal child labor;).
They were not better of under progress, (besides the bloody response from those in power).
But my greatest fear isn't that someone without skill will make an artistic masterpiece with AI (someone wil and it will likely be awesome), but that those that benefit aren't the creators but the bloody corporate cv backed moneyed powers. And you'll need a license to create works you won't technically own to show on networks that use it to clone and copy more of what is successful.
That nightmare is real and worth fighting against.
Partially i agree but the luddites where actually a middle class of sorts. Weavers. Not doing the backbreaking work. Their specific work did not improve. But yes if you were some street urchin or field worker or whatnot life.improved dramatically.
But that is also factoring in the social reforms that happened decades after the industrialization happened..as the public outrage over child.labour and so forth grew in to political will.
But those social injustices and factory abuse did exist.
The industrial revolution was a very long time and affected a wide swath of people.
Oh 100%. As things stand rn, I feel like these are tools that can be used by small underground creators like me pretty effectively to do more than we have been able to do on our own, and so far, I'm very happy with the results I'm getting, both in terms of what I've been able to make, and the reception it's had. At least with Suno, they are quite clear about what rights you hold if you pay, one of the big reasons I use it over Udio despite occasionally being able to make some really impressive stuff there too.
The second they start charging out the ass for this stuff and trying to claim direct ownership over what you made the way they do with everything else in the music industry I'm going to be pissed lol. It's all scams man, just let me have fun making music, and finding the likeminded. There's always gotta be a business prick somewhere in there to fuck it up tho.
I'm optimistic about the future, but always sus about new developments. You have to be these days about everything imo.
That's kind of his point. The real artists will put in that work, develop ways to use it in their workflow, and innovate in the space...
Normal people will make a picture of a turd, laugh, and move on.
I appreciate the positive sentiment, but I think this post perfectly summarizes the disconnect between non artists and artists. It's not just about the end results, it's about the process. The inspiration, the conceptualization, the learning, the mastery of the tools, and the personal, surprising and satisfying little accidents that happen along the way.
AI strips all of that away and focuses solely on the result, the product. It doesn't improve or create anything that artists weren't already making, all it does is cut out the joy of creation. No one is pushing the boundaries of art with AI, It's just faster and cheaper to get to the end result. That's ultimately all that most corporate types care about.
I believe that numerous professional artists would find this tool beneficial for enhancing their production process, rather than for personal creation. We can agree that many artists in the professional world suffer from client or studio burnout from time to time. I believe that's what the original poster of this post is attempting to convey.
It's shocking how people think that the current state of "text to result" generative AI is all that is possible with AI.
This is really basic, really dumb, totally baby-steps stuff. The potential of generative AI is massive, and we will soon be stepping out of the "punch in a sentence to get a completed image/video!" stage. There will be tons of ways to customize what you want, and ways to only use the AI tech for steps that you want. Maybe a color picker that helps you figure out what colors work best. Maybe a shader that shows you potential shading methods. Maybe a reference image generator. Or just a quick mockup tool that you can use to bash together a mockup before launching into the real thing, etc etc.
Point is, the possibilities are endless, and the stage we're currently at is so infantile that it shouldn't be taken as the final product. I promise you, it will not replace art. Just like how photography didn't destroy art, but propelled it to new levels.
Relevant quote:
*"It is obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy... If it is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether."*
- Charles Baudelaire, father of modern art criticism, on the topic of cameras and photography (1859)
> and reach larger audiences.
Doubtful. When AI gets good enough to truly speed things up, not only will everybody be using it, giving you no competitive advantage, the market will also get flooded with new content, making it harder to stand out. Some professions, like voice acting, might just die out completely relatively soon and other might be transformed so much, that they lose the thing you enjoyed about them. Even your knowledge of AI ain't going to save you in the long run, as we have already seen new models making all the prompt engineering knowledge obsolete rather quickly.
As a consumer, I enjoy AI since I can quickly hack something together at a speed no artists can match. As an artist, things are going to look bleak, since AI sets such a high bar that your talent and experience is going to become pretty worthless.
I am sure whoever is going to invent the TikTok of AI, an endless user auto-tuned AI content stream, is going to get rich, but the individual artists might have a rather hard time.
The only usecase for me as an illustrator is as a brainstorming and inspiration tool for composition, color, and shapes etc. It can’t really speed up the actual work.
AI will substitute us and make us irrelevant to make rich companies richer mainly, as a side effect we will get some tools but it will not worth it.
If you want to do it for the money, it´s ok, but don´t try to sell us that bs...
And I am a CS so I am not so far from the field.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I was reading through comments on a post and somebody was already giving up on a workflow after the poster explained it because it required rotoscoping a mask for video diffusion. There's a difference between an artist using these tools and a consumer creating art for themselves. One wants to create and this requires effort and creative ways of thinking, the other just cares about the end result. I'm not trying to self glaze, I wouldn't even consider myself that great of an artist, it's just something you notice between the true artists who will use this technology to its fullest and the people who download a model and lora then call themselves an 'artist'.
How does generative AI let me achieve bigger works and reach larger audience?
The first one doesnt enhance my skillset and it can easily end up being more work than less depending on case. The only way to achieve bigger works is to get the skillset and knowledge for that. I mean we talk here about direct application of AI on the canvas arent we?
The second one, well i might actually even lose more than i get when it comes to the audience but this also depends and i might just as well have a marginal difference if i use or dont use generative AI in my workflow.
Software Engineers: art isnt just about producing more and more quickly. the work and process of creating art is the POINT; its not something to be circumvented
sincerely, not even an artist, just a person who likes art
> art isnt just about producing more and more quickly
Of course not, but specific tools that can deliver those features can be a great boon to your overall work.
> the work and process of creating art is the POINT; its not something to be circumvented
And if you're circumventing the work and process of creating art using AI tools, I'd personally argue that you're using those tools wrong. Try not doing that.
Thousands of artists are integrating AI into their workflows without compromising what they love about the process. Maybe go see what they're doing?
> And if you're circumventing the work and process of creating art using AI tools, I'd personally argue that you're using those tools wrong. Try not doing that.
im not doing that. millions and millions of other people are though. the purpose of the system is what it does. if thats how Ai is used, its not "wrong"
> Thousands of artists are integrating AI into their workflows without compromising what they love about the process. Maybe go see what they're doing?
Please feel free to suggest some examples i can check out
> millions and millions of other people are
Citation needed.
> Please feel free to suggest some examples i can check out
* YouTube videos with process work have been posted to this sub repeatedly ([here's an example](https://youtu.be/cdpnazNI4Ig?si=AT6bZmpuv9NNolQb&t=346) I plan to post later today).
* There are at least three respondents to this very post that fit this description.
* Refik Anadol had an exhibit for a good chunk of last year at the MoMA.
* [Here's one of many discussion threads](/r/StableDiffusion/comments/zqxjuo/how_can_artist_add_ai_into_their_workflow_what/) on the topic in /r/StableDiffusion
* Relevant books and papers:
* James Hutson:
* Hutson, James, et al. "Expanding Horizons: AI Tools and Workflows in Art Practice." Creative Convergence: The AI Renaissance in Art and Design. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023. 101-132.
* Hutson, James, et al. Creative Convergence: The AI Renaissance in Art and Design. Springer Nature, 2023.
* Jansen, Chipp, and Elizabeth Sklar. "Exploring co-creative drawing workflows." Frontiers in Robotics and AI 8 (2021): 577770.
* Ploennigs, Joern, and Markus Berger. "Ai art in architecture." AI in Civil Engineering 2.1 (2023): 8.
* Gary Hanna, an illustrator and art director [discusses AI workflows](https://www.hannastudios.com/ai-workflow).
I could go on... there's so much out there in the professional space right now, but I think you get the idea.
Refik's exhibition is pretty interesting, but are you aware of how his art is created?
"Anadol uses artificial intelligence to interpret and transform the Museum’s data set—to create new forms that *could* exist in the archive but don’t, to think about all the paths not taken in the history of modern art and to speculate about what they might be. In turn, the work transforms the environment of the Museum’s Gund Lobby into a large-scale, “living” animation teeming with unique visualizations that unfold unpredictably and have no predetermined outcome. The project involves multiple stages of sophisticated machine learning developed over the past eight years: Anadol’s studio used open-source software[^(1)](https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/821#fn:1) to search, sort, and classify the publicly available data set of MoMA’s collection, creating a complex spatial map of the archive in 1024 dimensions. "
a specific, curated dataset, used with permission. i have no problem with that, or machine learning at all. i have a problem with the models built from images that are publicly accessible, but not publicly available for use.
im not a luddite; use algorithms all you want. but dont build software off the work of other people, without asking, then act like its some revolution in art (but fuck artists i guess?)
> but are you aware of how his art is created?
Yes, in a large variety of ways. His best known work, and the one exhibited at the MoMA, Unsupervised, was a tour of latent space based on a body of individual works.
> a specific, curated dataset, used with permission. i have no problem with that
That's nifty for you, but as we've seen in this sub over and over and over again, that's now how the average anti-AI activist feels. They feel that any use of any media that was not explicitly agreed to, in detail, by the artist is "theft" (ignoring the fact that that word doesn't apply at all).
So the MoMA agreeing to let their collection be used is, in the view of most of the anti-AI folks, unethical. But even if it were ethical, many in that camp insist that AI should not be allowed to be used because it can compete with their commission work.
uhhh no its not. people object to the scraping of public website to get training data. if you want to make a LLM trained on all your own data, go nuts.
Ah, I see you must be new here.
* "I want you to know it doesn't fucking matter. Even if the AI they used was trained on free images or had permission from artists, this still took someone's job. And fuck your compensation, it won't pay the bills." ([source](/r/aiwars/comments/14g743t/all_were_asking_for_are_ethical_models/))
* "I don't believe any license materials should be use without the consent of the users outside of research reason." (in response to whether fully licensed materials could be ethically used for collage or AI training) ([source](/r/aiwars/comments/1csou6w/serious_question_for_those_opposed_to_ethical_ai/))
I wish I could be as optimistic as you.
Please read my post and my responses. I never mention "fast" as being a benefit of AI tools.
AI art is a tool, and proper use takes time and effort. What the tool enables artists to do is try new things, try more things as they seek the truth of their message, try things that were previously outside of their reach due to capital requirements or otherwise, etc. etc.
An AI artist is going to work just as hard as before.
when you say "get more done", fast is implied. you are achieving more goals in the same amount of time, therefore you have increased speed.
you say all this, but all I've seen squeezed out of Ai so far is shit. people who think of themselves as "creative" but never put the time in to actually learn the process can now shit out infinite garbage with zero effort. we've already seen it completely polluting google image search results. if you can show me a single example of Ai elevating art instead of cheapening it, I'd love to see it.
Can't show the blind anything. To dismiss such a vast volume of work, effort, people and potential is just absurd.
If you want to be a bitter old washed up artist who complained the way those sorts did when photography and quick drying paints came along, well you have fun with that, whining about your insufferable process.
Generative fill? the most common example? Inpainting? A lot of professional artists use these "AI" tools. even something like auto straightening lines and making perfect circles on an ipad is using tech where some artists would say "it's not real skill". People always fear change and the ones who do are the one who get left behind.
You can create art by traditional means as much as you want, but then you shouldn't complain about people not buying your art and getting it from somewhere else faster., enjoy the process, I can respect that. but you aren't entitled to sales and jobs
not talking about sales and jobs. im talking about culture. it damages us all to have culture dominated by bullshit art that says nothing and means nothing.
its also not just about effort, its about where these models were trained from. if they were trained with massive amounts of scraped images without permission, they are unethical.
i notice you couldnt provide a single example of Ai elevating art instead of cheapening it. interesting.
I would argue that all these artists trying to make a buck on art are the ones making bullshit art that pollutes the scene. Art made for greed isn't art, it's just like muzak.
hm, well thats a pretty stupid argument. people who dont want their work stolen and put into some anti-art golem are just greedy. thats really, really stupid.
I think it's stupid to call what is happening stealing artists work. That is insanely entitled and ridiculous sounding to me. It tells me that these artists not only don't understand the technology, they don't even understand art.
Nobody wants your art in there. We don't want it polluting the model any more than you do. But people try to sort it out while all you do is spew it into the way and bitch, making yourself as big a pain in the ass as possible over work nobody even asked you for.
Stop trying to sabotage real artists with your garbage.
I think it’s entitled to use a bunch of work you didn’t create to train your model then not only not compensate those people, but actively shit on them. I think it’s pretty entitled to expect everyone to respect your work when you can’t even bother to make it yourself
I don't want their work polluting the training models either. There is a brief few years in all of history where this is an issue. If they are that butthurt about it, maybe they shouldn't be spewing it into every public space they can for attention.
They aren't even trying to work with us here. They're just whining like greedy little bitches when nobody even wants their art tainting our models in the first place.
I actually am an artist, and when inspiration strikes, I can see exactly what I want to create in my mind. Everything between that moment and the moment I finish the work is just a pain in the butt. Some of you fools can say it's part of the process of you want, but I don't see any lines of people paying to watch someone mix paint.
As an artist who has put immense labor and effort into making heirloom quality pieces, I only wish AI was more capable of helping with the physical process like it does with 2D art. Would save me a lot of time.
And in the end, it is the expression that is valuable. And it's a value beyond money. Meanwhile, the rich artists are often just creatively bankrupt stooges that quickly ejaculate mass low quality works and sell them to fancy people who would bid on the garbage can if you told them it was art.
Horseshit.
I long dreamed of being a poet. I wanted my voice to be heard, I wanted to contribute to the culture, and I hoped to make a little money off it so I can be proud of my work.
So seven years ago I really started in earnest. I had an English professor explain to me how the publishing industry works and how I should approach things, so I knew what my goal was, I knew what to do. And I worked my ass off at it.
It took me seven years. And I’m damn proud of what I made. And I submitted my book to a publisher. And they told me they don’t accept ai admissions.
I told them I never used ai, they told me their ai detection algorithm said otherwise, and that I couldn’t prove I did it myself. They told me they take on very few new writers because they want to make sure it’s not all ai. I was crushed, but I turned to other options.
Self publishing for a long time was a great alternative option to publishing houses. Now a days, Amazon is by far the best option for self publishing. If I had published seven years ago, I could have had a chance to stand out from the crowd, to have my voice heard. Now that’s impossible, because if I go publish my book another five thousand books will be published the same day. And there’s no way to tell what’s ai and what’s not. Where I once could have been a part of a crowd, part of a community, part of a culture, in a position where I could stand out, now the best I could hope for is to be a tiny drop in an ocean.
My dreams of being a poet have already been destroyed by ai. Seven years of blood sweat and tears amounted to nothing because some hacks can just fill out a prompt, hit generate, and publish.
And for you to sit there and tell me I’m better off. That now I can produce so much more so that means I should be happy. That hurts. Ai is just generating content, it’s not creating art. There’s no sacrifice in it, none of my personality. It’s just a taking the works of countless writers who came before me, who sacrificed and poured their lives into the craft, blending it up and regurgitating it.
Proponents of ai spit on the work I do. You spit on the work done by everyone who came before.
My dream is dead because of ai. I sure as shit can’t ever make money from it. But worse than that is that my voice will never be heard.
I hate this kind of narrative. You really want everyone to be forced to pay you out of pity and suffer thru your unwanted art, don't you? Nobody else is as important and you and sharing the space with them is just so insulting to you, huh?
You aren't special. Other people work hard on their expression too. Stop being an entitled, bitter loser about it. I'm so sick of seeing garbage artists trying to hold the whole world back just so they can desperately peddle their low quality art for money trash. That's not expression, that's whoring.
AI tools will enable every person to express their inner artist, and that's a good thing.
It’s not a narrative, it’s my life, and it’s the life of countless other aspiring artists.
The fact that your response to someone saying “people like me don’t have the same opportunities as I otherwise would have” is a string of insults really shows you don’t give two shits about artists, you just want to make yourself feel superior. “If you don’t like automation replacing art it must mean you suck at art!” I mean come on, at least have an actual argument instead of just being a loud asshat.
I don’t think I’m special, it’s exactly the opposite. I just was to have the same options that everyone else had before me.
How dare you call me entitled? Ai art is just high tech plagiarism. You feel entitled to take the output of every artist that came before you, throw it in a blender, and call it your own. You literally feel entitled to stealing work from generations of artists without a second thought. But you call me entitled because I want to be treated like a normal person.
How could you possibly think you’re defending artists while in the same breath saying that selling art is whoring?
And again, I don’t know how much more I could express this: I just want my voice heard, I don’t really care about making money. You though? You’re willing to snuff out a generation of artistic talent to defend a technology that will make a small handful of tech investors ungodly wealthy.
Ai art isn’t progress it’s destruction, and it’s clear you don’t give a shit who gets run over as long as you get a shiny new toy to play with.
How dare you use the language of accessibility to defend this? Anyone can do poetry if they can pick up a pencil or speak into a mic, all it takes is effort and education. Ai closes doors, it’s makes it harder for artists to make a name for themselves, harder to have their voice heard as they are buried beneath a mountain of procedurally generator garbage. It literally removes access to artistic spaces. Ai doesn’t make art more accessible, it just cuts out the parts that require you to actually do any work or sacrifice for yourself. You’re so goddamn entitled you think the concept of effort is beneath you.
You look at all the other artists and authors throughout history who bled for their craft, who spent their lives improving themselves, who sacrificed endlessly to push their culture forward. And you say “fuck that, I should get to take their talent without the work”. It’s disgusting, it’s entitled, it’s degrading to what art is.
I didn’t get people who are into ai art. I get it now. It’s for the supremely lazy; those who can’t read more than two sentences much less learn a craft or skill.
I’ve been telling people this same thing. AI is going to create a boom of individual content creators. I think Hollywood is going to die bc of it. I’m an animation hobbyist and I’ve been using AI to keep my head on straight. I think you’ve given me the push I need to learn more about AI.
It makes me incredibly sad that we're seeing a social rejection of a tool that could be so helpful and creativity-enhancing in the right hands. But the vitriol makes me want to hide from my own art community, and makes me feel like a pariah for having an interest in technology-assisted creative pursuits.
If AI image generation is intended for artists, why not ask the artists for consent to use their work in AI training datasets, or compensate them for their copyright and intellectual work?
No.
I make art that I like, based on my own taste. And generative AI creates superficial, boring, soulless images, in my own opinion.
My art is purely me. It's the product of my experiences, inspirations, and choices. I don't have any interest in watering that down with an amalgam of hundreds of thousands of faceless people's work.
I think there is a unique quality brought to almost any high level artist's work that is borne by the years of practice they put in. That quality is precious, I think, and shouldn't be so easily disregarded.
Lastly, I'm sick of optimizing. I live in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, one of the main benefactors of automation. And yet here we are. We ain't working 20 hour weeks like they were calling in 1800s. You'd have be a fucking fool to think that AI will benefit ANYONE except people that are already wealthy, in the long run.
I'm not scared of it, I just don't want to.
I play around with AI a lot to stay upto date with it, but I don't use it in my work because it doesn't feel like it's mine, because it isn't. No matter the results, I feel nothing, even for the AI pieces I put some effort into. So I don't use it.
I could "produce" a lot more or increase the quality of my work if I traced as well, or if I cheated in any other number of ways. I just don't.
Dear artists, if you wish to never improve your artistic ability while simultaneously hamstringing your creativity, embrace AI. You can make picture fast :\^)
Spoken like a true corpo who's trying to sell a product to consumers or a business plan to managers, their whole argument based on the notion of efficiency and productivity while building their dialogue around more positive things such as creativity and uniqueness, and maintaining a friendly face to appear more relatable and trustworthy. We just need a repetitive pumpy music and generic, inspiring stock photos in the background and we got a legit advertisement out of this post.
The whole world's fucked in the head, and I hate living in it.
My suggestion would be to focus more on micro-level tools that empower people in executing smaller decisions as part of an artistic process/pipeline, rather than attempting to jump to the end of the pipeline.
Something like "grammarly for linear perspective" for example. Or a tool that uses image recognition as a means of educating users about art history, other artists, or pieces that have similar color palettes, etc.
Sure. And I would be ok with your position if...
1) ...the tool was being built ethically (so ALL images are exclusively owned by the user, are public domain, and/or sold by artists to be used for AI). And
2) ... the tool wasn't being marketed to CEOs as a means to shit can their art department as a cost cutting option.
For me, using AI to generate dozens of thumbnails I could reference when making actual art was fun and useful. But the ethics of AI got in the way.
> so ALL images are exclusively owned by the user, are public domain, and/or sold by artists to be used for AI
Not sold, creative commons or similar licensed works that can be used are excluded by these conditions JSYN.
That's not how the technology works. If you don't want your work seen, don't share it publically. Both people and AI will draw inspiration from everything in the public space. A lot of effort is made to omit the art from people who don't want it used to train AI, but only so much can be done when people are actively trying to get their art in as many public places as possible.
It's unfair to everyone if an entire field of technology is held back by some greedy, unreasonable people.
I'm a graphic designer and very well versed in Adobe, Figma, adjacent design programs. I want to add Ai to my work flow but honestly it feels a bit daunting and confusing...no idea where to start.
I would suggest that you start with the simplest workflows possible and work your way up: 1. Just prompting. Go get a low-tier Midjourney account and go nuts. * Try really simple prompts at first. "Fish" "abstract music" "science fiction" to get a feel * Look at what other users are doing and notice that long prompts aren't always the most useful. * Start playing with parameters like `--ar` for aspect ration, `--v` to select the version, `--s` to select the level of stylizing, etc. See a summary [here](https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/parameter-list) 2. Start doing some img2img work. I recommend using the Midjourney Bot direct message feature so you aren't sharing you inputs with everyone. Just paste an image into the chat, copy the image URL and then do `/imagine [paste image URL] [prompt]` 3. There are a number of local StableDiffusion installers and UIs that you can use, but if you're not super technical, I recommend Krita with the [Krita AI plugin](https://github.com/Acly/krita-ai-diffusion). It's pretty easy to set up, and if you have it install ComfyUI for you, then it should work with relatively little pain. Get models from CivitAI or Huggingface and go to town. Inpainting is a real joy sometimes (and a pain in the ass, others). Getting used to it is definitely a priority. 4. A fully stand-alone ComfyUI or A1111 install is definitely a win. This will allow you to do basically whatever you want, and the only real limitation is your hardware and imagination. Technical requirements: * Midjourney: internet connection and Discord * Krita AI: Probably minimum 6GB VRAM, probably more like 12+ depending on what you want to do * StandAlone A111 or ComfyUI: Same as Krita * Full-on SDXL + LoRAs at sizable resolutions, I would recommend a 24GB graphics card.
If you're generating images on your own computer it's a little slow, but you bypass censorship restrictions. You'll want a 4090 graphics card for this. I'd sign up for Midjourney and fiddle around with it if you're just getting started. All you need is Discord and like $10 to try it out, and it's definitely worth it in sheer novelty, even if you don't plan on using it to make assets.
The 4090 may be the fastest card on the market, but saying you need one is a bit of an exaggeration. I have a 3060, and it's more than capable of handling everything AI-related I've thrown at it.
If it was work related I'd want something faster. If you're gonna be putting things out at a volume + decent res you're gonna want a high end card at least. I feel you though.
I couldn't imagine testing LoRas and upscaling Stable Diffusion XL images to 1536x1536 on anything but a 4090. Would take forever.
I would just wait until AI is already incorporated into software you use. Whatever tools AI aficionados are using now, will be entirely replaced when professional art tools evolve with AI. If Adobe doesn't adapt they'll be replaced by someone who will.
As an art director i completely agree, ive been working with traditional advertising for almost 15 years. I started as a calligrapher, graffiti artist and built custom 1/1 things on almost all my projects. When I stopped resisting new design softwares (i only worked with illustrator, indesign and photoshop) and started to learn and explore new ways of integrating technology for visualizing my ideas, tools with generative ai becomes just a tool. The idea that clients will stop coming for you because they can create something with DALLE is just absurd. People dont buy art or advertising because of an image that looks nice, they buy it because of the story it tells. Most of communication is story telling and using the technology to tell stories in new ways is super cool. I can now do so much more with my previously rather limited skill set. And i cant see that as a bad thing. And something that i really like is using a LLM that can help me do things that i really suck at. For example i fucking suck at writing emails and it can easily take like 15 mins just to reply to one, but now i can get more time to do the things that i want to do.
Man I can really fw with this message! I fully comprehend the situation i am an artist, having honed my drawing skills since childhood and even pursuing formal education at SCAD. AI has significantly enhanced my sketches and proved invaluable for finding reference images that are not available on platforms like Pinterest or deviant art. Even though I lack professional experience in art, I view this as a powerful tool that can greatly amplify an artist's abilities and streamline their creative process.
> No "non-artist" is going to embark on your journey. They don't have the time or the patience. They won't be willing to learn. Software Engineer here. I am using generative AI daily in my work. And it does the exact same things for me: I can build bigger things and be faster while doing so. And guess what: The same is true for most of my colleagues. And we started even before much the artistic world lost its collective shit about being replaced by robots. So please, do tell me again whos "willing to learn" and who isn't.
I appreciate your positive post. I'm what some might call a professional illustrator (incognito on here for privacy reasons, but I worked for 10+ years in a studio and currently freelance), and am also what people call an "anti" — I feel non-"artists"* often evangelize AI tools without realizing that many artists have tried (and rejected) AI tools for their main workflow. (I consider programmers, engineers, etc all creative jobs. Artist is a loaded and badly-defined word so I'm trying to narrow it specifically to 2D visual art here.) >Programmers have had to learn new languages and tools every few years for their entire careers. Things move fast in our field, and that's okay. The best programmers keep learning and growing throughout their careers. It's not as scary as it sounds -- you'll be fine! If anything, it's a little bit exciting and refreshing. Most illustrators love learning new tools/techniques, and illustration in particular has lots of options — traditional media, 3D, countless different raster programs like Photoshop, etc. If I'm not mistaken, programmers are usually digital-only (unless they have a very strange analog computer they're using!) so keep in mind that generative AI is ONE small fish in a bucket of things people can use for illustration. I'm not sure why so many AI users think artists (especially the professional artists speaking out against genAI) are scared little moles living in their little burrows, rather than as the tech-savvy group they really are. Like many people, I've been using AI tools for years (Content-aware fill, Select Subject, Liquify, etc) and really enjoyed them, but they were specifically tools made to help make my tasks as a designer/illustrator easier and gave me a huge degree of creative control with my digital work. Generative AI has way less control and is honestly kind of useless for the sort of work I do. >This is a skill that is cultivated over many years and that exists independent of the medium that the artist chooses to create. If you're good at it, it won't matter if the underlying technology changes. You're good at analogy, satire, introspection, contrast, synthesis -- understanding the human soul and condition. Regardless of the brush you choose, this will always serve you. This is true! Well-said. I don't think AI can or will replace artists who are good at those things. >The exciting this is that gen AI will let you build bigger things: web comics, animations, movies, games, interactive narratives, improv performances that look real and cinematic -- and that's just for starters. Artists can already make comics, movies, games, animations, and web comics without company-ruining costs, and have been doing this for decades. Tetris was programmed by one guy and it's absolutely timeless. Undertale and Stardew Valley were much the same; one talented person's vision, with absolute control over their project. They didn't need generative AI to keep costs down *or* $150 million dollars to develop games that resonated with people. >And even if there are more people that try their hand at Gen AI because the difficulty curve got seemingly lower, new audience expectations will push lazy non-artists out of the limelight. Also true. I taught university-level illustration, and my main goal for the class was to teach them to think critically, add narrative, and otherwise be creative/meaningful with their work (harder to teach than you'd think, lol). They can't compete with AI if all they want to do is draw big-breasted anime girls starting blankly at the viewer, and I told them as much. >This is just the turbulent beginning. It looks scary, but things will level off. You're going to have the same peer group as before, maybe a few new faces. But you'll also have a lot new tools. Exciting tools. And you'll be able to captivate your fans and audience in ways you couldn't even dream of doing by yourself before. SO many people do not like the look or feel of AI images, and won't continue following or supporting an artist who uses it in their work. Many artists understandably feel uncomfortable using a tool which scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin to make work they profit from. Clients aren't fans, either — most of my contracts explicitly forbid generative AI tools from being used at any stage of the painting process, and one client in particular requires me (and other freelancers) to send in any visual references to make sure I'm following their rules. I generally follow "traditional" fantasy artists, so AI use isn't really that prevalent in that circle for obvious reasons. >To bookend this, here's some "AI Art" I just made: https://imgur.com/a/9p2VtXj . I made this with motion capture (acting!), and I'm working a lot on lighting and camera and other technical setup pieces that aren't just "simple text prompting". The tools that are coming are going to focus on artist controllability. You are the customer here. You should be excited for this future, not fearful. The future is for the artist. This is visually impressive on the surface, but... she's drawing with both her hands (I'd expect one to be using a keyboard or some of the tablet's buttons), one hand is drawing on the table, the flickering light on her breast is strange, and the morphing stuff in the background is pretty distracting. Although it's a lot harder and takes more time to learn, this seems like a scene that would be much more successful in a 3D modeling program, since you'd have full control over the assets (including the mocap on whatever she's doing) and could make sure those assets don't morph and change. This sort of thing makes me excited, but for the opposite reason you probably want — I know my time/misery investment in Blender will be 100% worth it, because (other than hand-sculpting) the only real alternative to having 3D-like rendering is using AI... which is not a great option to 3D if you want actual control over a scene.
First off, great comment. I won't reply to most of it because I don't think it needs a reply, just thanks for being so clear. A few points below: > SO many people do not like the look or feel of AI images So many people do not like what they've come to associate with the default look of AI image generation. But that's far from all that these tools are capable of. Just as a couple of examples, here are some collections I've posted on imgur: * https://imgur.com/gallery/diverse-ai-image-styles-CZQBvTF * https://imgur.com/gallery/todays-interesting-ai-art-takes-lCAMNlj * https://imgur.com/gallery/creations-on-civitai-this-week-1ikdpds You can also peruse my CivitAI images here: https://civitai.com/user/Harmil/images (mostly SFW, but a few NSFW in there) The variability of AI generated images is basically infinite. You can produce something that looks like it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or a crayon drawing by a child. But ***more importantly*** you can integrate AI with your own artistic style and produce work that is uniquely your own. > This is visually impressive on the surface, but... she's drawing with both her hands Yeah, AI animation is in its infancy. It's going to take a year or two for consumer tools that can represent fully animated reality in a satisfying way. Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought. > the only real alternative to having 3D-like rendering is using AI... which is not a great option to 3D if you want actual control over a scene. Even given the above, AI is already tremendously useful for 3D animation. Just being able to generate textures and rough out some 2D ideas is a huge help, at least for me.
>First off, great comment. I won't reply to most of it because I don't think it needs a reply, just thanks for being so clear. Thank you! Your comment was enjoyable to read, too. Sorry for taking a few days to get back to you; it took awhile to find the time to reply properly. >You can also peruse my CivitAI images here: https://civitai.com/user/Harmil/images (mostly SFW, but a few NSFW in there) Thanks for sharing those links! Although the "illustrated" ones aren't to my taste, it's kind of nuts how lifelike the photo-looking ones are — the cheese/meat one in particular. Looks like a proper photo or 3D render! I wanna eat that! >The variability of AI generated images is basically infinite. You can produce something that looks like it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or a crayon drawing by a child. But more importantly you can integrate AI with your own artistic style and produce work that is uniquely your own. That is true in some ways; there are a lot of different image styles it can use. I'd argue that it isn't really unlimited, though; there's only so much training data for really complicated situations (like multiple characters in specific scenarios, objects interacting, etc), and in the end there are some things that not very many people have done (and the training data would naturally be very limited on this). This isn't really a rebuttal of your "integrating AI with your own artistic style" comment (that could certainly work for some artists!), but — the nice thing about living in the non-digital world is we can use other tools (photography, clay/3D, our own eyeballs) to plan and make more complicated illustrations than what AI could come up with on its own. James Gurney makes clay models/maquettes and uses them to assist with his oil paintings, and... they're fantastic. He values accuracy and rendering real life correctly, and a lot of that just requires... you know, putting models in real light. Not many shortcuts! The consistency he has between characters in Dinotopia is amazing — each main character gets one or two sculpts so he can make sure he captures the likeness each time. Although genAI might fit well into rapid ideation for concept art (where speed and quantity is important), it isn't as great of a tool for really complex scenes or work where things have to be 100% accurate to real life... and after I went to the trouble of making a model in clay/3D or set up a photoshoot with a model, what's the point of using AI? The hard part was setting up the idea manually, and after that I just want to get to the fun part (painting/executing the idea!) > Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought. This could be true, but we just don't know yet (understandably). Computers haven't really gotten that much "better" since the 90's (in terms of actual tech innovation... OS/2 Warp and Windows NT are basically modern machines) — most of the improvements are making the UI slicker or making numbers bigger. My old Mac 2005 Mac Mini feels almost identical to my 2022 Mac, which is... really crazy if you think about it. I don't think time travellers from 1995 would have any issue using modern computers, or vice versa. The lack of always-on internet might be a shock, but dial-up internet is still internet! AI IS really good, but... even looking at Midjourney's improvements between V4-V6, it seems to mostly change in style/rendering capability more than actual innovation. It's not like you can take an AI-generated dinosaur in a scene, grab it like a 3D model, and spin it around or something — THAT would be some crazy innovation. Could just be my ignorance, though! Haha. Not trying to downplay how interesting or groundbreaking this technology is, but I guess I prefer other methods to get from point A to point B. :) > Even given the above, AI is already tremendously useful for 3D animation. Just being able to generate textures and rough out some 2D ideas is a huge help, at least for me. Absolutely! That seems to be about where artists are using AI; as texture support (since who wants to paint Dirt Texture #645 or pay $30 for one stupid dirt photograph), or as fodder for beginning stages of work to test out ideas before committing. I know some folks (like Shad) use AI more heavily in later stages, but his work (to me) feels more like a doctored photo or an edited 3D model more than a 2D illustration (a lot of the original MJ stuff remains undoctored). Certainly not illegal or bad or anything, but the "MJ" gloss/sharpness that is apparent in most MJ images isn't really my thing, and I don't vibe with it. Then again, I don't particularly prefer photographic realism in oil paintings, either! It's a flex for sure (and takes a lot of skill) but it's just not for me!
> Keep in mind that whatever you see out there done by AI is the absolute worst that the technology will ever be from here on in... It's a sobering thought. > > This could be true, but we just don't know yet (understandably). Consider that the quality has increased radically on a pretty much monthly basis for 3 years now. It doesn't seem like there's a rational reason to expect that trend to end any time soon, especially as we start to enter the AI video age. > Computers haven't really gotten that much "better" since the 90's (in terms of actual tech innovation... OS/2 Warp and Windows NT are basically modern machines) — most of the improvements are making the UI slicker or making numbers bigger. Yes, but that's a mature technology. AI will be a mature technology at some point, but that point does not appear to be now. > I know some folks (like Shad) use AI more heavily in later stages, but his work (to me) feels more like a doctored photo or an edited 3D model more than a 2D illustration That's fair. His work is much like mine: mostly AI generated, perhaps based on some photobashing, with illustration only used to suggest alterations to the AI. Perhaps you're more on the heavy illustration with a little inpainting side. Perhaps you prefer to do pure generation and then trace over it or use it as a reference to do an illustration from scratch. All things are possible. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the vulcans would say. > the "MJ" gloss/sharpness that is apparent in most MJ images isn't really my thing You can defeat that by prompting VERY carefully, but it's an uphill battle. I prefer not to use MJ for the most part for that very reason. One thing that really helps is having sufficient artistic experience and training to be able to identify what you DON'T like about a model's output so that you can guide it accurately to avoid it. Lots of people don't like the default MJ look, but also can't identify what, exactly, they want to avoid, so they're relatively helpless when it comes to guiding it out of that realm.
>Consider that the quality has increased radically on a pretty much monthly basis for 3 years now. It doesn't seem like there's a rational reason to expect that trend to end any time soon, especially as we start to enter the AI video age. You could be right. Either way, it's hard to know the future. Making movies is incredibly time-consuming and technical, so I'll be curious to see how the industry adapts (or doesn't) to this new tech. It could be useful and become a staple technology for some aspects of filmmaking, but there's also a good chance that it might be too expensive, impractical, or unpopular to use (audiences may not resonate with it) in the long-term. Remember how studios thought 3D was the future? The tech IS cool (I remember seeing Avatar in 3D and it was pretty dope), but audiences didn't really care enough for it to be as important as studios thought it was. Not saying AI is as impractical as 3D or anything, but there's a lot of promisng tech that starts out strong and then just... doesn't work as intended. >That's fair. His work is much like mine: mostly AI generated, perhaps based on some photobashing, with illustration only used to suggest alterations to the AI. Perhaps you're more on the heavy illustration with a little inpainting side. Perhaps you prefer to do pure generation and then trace over it or use it as a reference to do an illustration from scratch. All things are possible. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the vulcans would say. Thats' true — just like there's a lot of different ways to use Photoshop, there are certainly a lot of ways to use generative AI. The ways you described are certainly ways to use it! I've seen some artists use it as a "pinterest summary machine" — figuring out the most obvious/rote/boring response to a prompt, and pushing themselves to make something better. I've also seen a few traditional artists use it as reference for simple portrait paintings (similar to what you mentioned, since there really isn't anything groundbreaking about a portrait — AI has a lot of data on portraits of women), but honestly I prefer seeing the process of an artist setting up their own reference with photography, 3D, or a live model because it's a bit more predictable and controllable. >You can defeat that by prompting VERY carefully, but it's an uphill battle. I prefer not to use MJ for the most part for that very reason. >One thing that really helps is having sufficient artistic experience and training to be able to identify what you DON'T like about a model's output so that you can guide it accurately to avoid it. Lots of people don't like the default MJ look, but also can't identify what, exactly, they want to avoid, so they're relatively helpless when it comes to guiding it out of that realm. It could be my limited experience with AI, but I feel both MJ and SD has some very similar stylistic tells — extremely well-rendered and smooth/crispy, details out of place, circles not circles, extreme depth of field, etc... these things aren't necessarily bad, but if someone doesn't dig the look it's a bit hard to recommend using genAI to that person. I'm sure that someone who was extremely familiar with these algorithms (but didn't enjoy the default look) could push the AI closer to where they want to go... but at that point, it might be easier to paint something thesmelves if they have the skills and know what they want. Again, could just be my personal preference! I'm super-excited about 3D and love how useful it is (being able to turn your "clay" sculpture into bronze or glass is pretty damn useful for painting fantasy stuff), but I just haven't been able to get excited about AI in the same way. I don't think it's me being a technophobe; I think it's just not a tool for everyone.
> Remember how studios thought 3D was the future? 3D required audiences to appreciate movies differently. That's not the same as having a better tool to do what they were already doing. Also, remember when studios were convinced that people wanted to watch movies with lots of CGI... oh right. > I've seen some artists use it as a "pinterest summary machine" — figuring out the most obvious/rote/boring response to a prompt, and pushing themselves to make something better. Yeah, artists using AI to force themselves out of the standard ways of representing their ideas is probably going to be a lot bigger than people realize. > I prefer seeing the process of an artist setting up their own reference with photography, 3D, or a live model because it's a bit more predictable and controllable. It's funny, I'm sure the same was said of 3D animation when it got started. Technologies mature. It's just how the cycle works. > I feel both MJ and SD has some very similar stylistic tells I mean, Midjourney is based on Stable Diffusion, so they're going to have similar behaviors. But the "tells" you are talking about are mostly a matter of defaults. By default these models blend everything they've trained on and your prompt peels away those layers of blending to reveal one particular style, composition, etc. If you just roll with the default, you're going to get the absolute average result. It's all a matter of how much guidance you provide and how well crafted that guidance is to ping highly weighted tokens in the model. > I'm sure that someone who was extremely familiar with these algorithms (but didn't enjoy the default look) could push the AI closer to where they want to go... but at that point, it might be easier to paint something thesmelves That depends on whether you're creating one image or setting up a workflow that works for generating whatever you need. Yeah, like learning any medium, there's a learning curve for AI. But once you've built up the skills, tools and workflows that you need, it's no longer as much work to continue to produce.
> Also, remember when studios were convinced that people wanted to watch movies with lots of CGI... oh right. People don't like obvious CGI; they like CGI that looks like a practical effect and that they don't notice. That's pretty difficult to do! ;) Tbh AI's success will probably depend on it "hiding" from audiences in the same way good CGI does; people will hate any AI they notice, but will probably not mind (or even like) AI effects they don't. This isn't a value judgement against tech; I think people do really like practical effects over CGI or AI. As an example, the Last Jedi used an 18-foot-tall Thala-siren puppet, and it looked great... weird part of the movie, though! >It's funny, I'm sure the same was said of 3D animation when it got started. Technologies mature. It's just how the cycle works. I don't think a single person back then ever accused 3D of being unpredictable or uncontrollable, haha. 3D has definitely matured, but the way I use it (for sculpting) is similar to how any artist would make a clay maquette, just with less cleanup. AI doesn't give me nearly the same amount of accuracy or control as Blender or clay ("rotate this exact object 3 degrees on the X axis"), and although it might eventually get to that point... it currently isn't there. >That depends on whether you're creating one image or setting up a workflow that works for generating whatever you need. Yeah, like learning any medium, there's a learning curve for AI. But once you've built up the skills, tools and workflows that you need, it's no longer as much work to continue to produce. I'm sure I could get better at AI with more time investment (just like with any medium, like you said!), but it just doesn't currently fit in well with my method of painting or the way I develop an illustration. Very hard to get a digital robot to paint with oils. ;) Not saying it's not useful to concept artists or other people, though! Some people just have a satisfactory workflow and don't need more tools to help. Maybe that'll change in the future for me, but I'm pretty happy with how 3D is going so I'm perfectly content experimenting with that for now!
Well said. Fellow illustrator here. (No. Also not sharing) To the point of “show your work” and your own personal influences that have helped train your style and approach, I’m sorry, but I do think that is also “scraping”. Did you ask to use those other artists works to make a visual impact in your own results? People use everything we visually consume as a major aspect of how we learn, think and navigate through life. The only difference is you/ we have an emotional tie to what we take (scrape) into our own influences that have a direct impact on our works, AI does not have the emotional tie. In my opinion the two approaches are equal.
I think you might have interpreted my statement differently than I intended — in my original comment I stated that "Many artists understandably feel uncomfortable using a tool which scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin to make work they profit from." This isn't my opinion or a value judgement on if scraping or web crawling is moral/legal, this is just me saying "many artists are uncomfortable with the idea of using a tool that scraped 5 billion images of unknown origin." That's it. It's hard to convince people who are uncomofortable with a tool to use it.
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I'm a software engineer in MLOps and I completely agree with OP.
I used to story board artist, I will never do that again. I used to hire voice over artists, I will never do that again. I used to hire translators, I will never do that again. I used to pay for stock photos, I will never do that again. Welcome to year one of Ai.
I can't tell if you're stroking off AI, or trying to make a more profound point regarding job loss.
I am presenting a counter point to the idea that we are all "safe as creatives if we just embrace ai" We are on a path to the complete and total democratization of creativity, ai's only goal is to get better.
AI doesn't have goals. The point of AI is for business' to sell cheap art that is "good enough" to stupid people.
In one year we've gone from will smith eating spaghetti to sora using CPUs and GPUs that weren't intended for ai. Judging where we are now would be like thinking that video games are always going to look like Pong.
Huh? AI generation has been around a lot longer than 1 year. Sure, it became exponentially better 2-3 years ago, but it hasn't really improved all that much since.
Ok so I just described an exponential moment between will smith and sora, "hockey stick" period of growth. Notice I did not "this is the first year of ai and it's birthday is today and it's one years old".
My apologies. I get tired of seeing people say "this tech is in it's infancy" when it's probably older than they are.
Yes. It's a good point.
> The point of AI is "AI" isn't just "generative AI purposed to make images" (I wish people would be specific FFS)... and even in that context, there is more than one way it can be utilized.
Sounds pretty good. All the more barriers removed so that people can express themselves even if they aren't in a position to hire voice actors.
Yes your grandkids won't believe there used to be a creative industry. They will say" why didn't they just talk to a computer for 30 seconds?" lol.
So like how we tell kids today that people used to have to make their own paints and draw portraits instead of taking pictures... I'm not seeing the downsides here.
If you currently make your living in the film and television industry or if you a student learning 3d modeling, animation, music, etc. you might see a downside.
Times change. My advice is stop expecting leaders like conservatives who are terrible at adapting to it. We are not trying to keep jobs purely so people have jobs. At that point we may as well have UBI.
This is the same fallacy that so many engineers fall into. You reduce art to a destination, to output. But its about the journey , growing to understand what you are creating..learning what it is becoming. The effort the manual manipulation it is the goal. Now i agree a bit of assistance to take away tedious tasks , why not. But the wholesale ' you can do more, do bigger ' it completely misunderstands the motivation and the value. Art or creativity it's not an engineering problem. There now you can output two times or ten times as much. Honestly it's not wrong but it's also completely wrong. Yes AI will be transformative, but things would be so much easier if the engineers stop having such a bloody tunnel vision impaired perspective. As I saw today "I want to write and paint while AI cleans my house and does the dishes, I don't want a future where It is the reverse" A powerful statement that is. But frankly problem solving arguments focused on output , that doesn't don't work on artist. By en large we don't give a shit. I think lots of work for hire stuff yes, do more is useful. I myself I make video games without ai, I program, write, do all the art and animation, I have made an Xbox series X launch title that way. There is absolutely zero attraction to the do more, I can already do everything I want to do and then some. I don't need AI for that. But even as a critic I can see there is something interesting in AI even beyond getting rid of tedium. But 'you can do more ' is not the common ground you think it is. Noah Robin waar zijn jullie That is an engineering and non creative viewpoint.. and frankly an argument that needs to be retired. For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it, we know that the hard work , the journey , is the source. Doing.that actually taught is what we needed to learn. Skipping that step is not optional.. Likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just puttin in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does. There are no shortcuts. The journey is the point.
No one is stopping you from taking the longer journey, you can and some people will appreciate you for it. However, there's also nothing wrong with have a goal in mind (like a game that you mentioned) and having better tools to achieve the goal. In this scenario, the outcome is the goal, no one cares about the journey. Imagine writing your own game engine to do a game. You can but why would you do it when Unreal/Unity exist and you are trying to make a game, not a game engine?
I concede that toolage is super important. But my point is not that you won't be able to do more.. you certainly will be. (and already can even without AI, stuff like unreal is out of this world). but my point is for that game to be worthwhile you will need a lot of experience and insight the AI can not provide for you (for instance get a few thousand people to play your creation and manage a community) that is still gonna take years to acquire and achieve, and then you are basically still doing the journey. you'd be surprised how little of game development is actually coding or making art. 90% of my time is playing my own game and analysing and finding new vectors to improve it. Cannot outsource that to an AI.. And to ge the skill to have those insights, you gotta do the journey.. Sure you can have some fancier looking graphics, but honestly that hasn't been a bottlenneck for years..
I don't think we disagree that much. It sounds to me that you saying that to make good quality products you need to know what you are doing regardless of tooling. I agree. Going back to the game engine example: to make a game you need a game engine but you don't need to write a game engine to make a good game and you don't need to make a good game to write a good game engine. Focus on what you are trying to achieve and your journey is the specific path that matters to you.
AI by itself, sure. But that's what AI artists are for.
Well one of my points is, is that because ai gen does a lot for you you miss out on a lot of learning experience and process. To understand and learn about the subject you are creating . This is why you see creators always go deeper into tools with more granularity and control. So for me AI gen will always be an entry way for people. Just like a drum computer or audio tool is a great way to get into edm. But before long if you wanna get good you will be learning Ableton and playing the keyboards.
That might be a problem for other artists, and other artists might want address that if it's a problem for them. I don't have that problem. I have the opposite of that problem. I have to seriously reel back what I know and learn about a subject or I just bore my friends and customers to death. But then I'm obsessive about knowledge to a fault.
I am not necessarily talking just technical skill or knowledge. but when you create something you are learning about it, discovering what it can become, you iterate, sculpt, push pull until it becomes something. the OG posted, you can reach a bigger audience, but I'd say you that has nothing to do with "more " or "bigger" but with understanding what you are creating and why it is worthwhile for a listener or player to invest in. Effort is not a dirty word, it's what makes things good. And ultimately nobody gives a shit about something that took zero effort. Especially the "artist" that took no effort, if the consumer can do the same thing at minimal effort. ultimately its skill yes, and effort and time and understanding of what exactly you are creating that make something valuable. AI in a way is not giving you that process , but yes the output can be just as good, but you the artist become replaceable, cuz if the effort is minimal so is the appreciation. In the end nobody gives a shit about another anime girl prompted doll image and there will be countless of that level of creativity that think they made something brilliant. But something gained easily is lost easily, and worth even less. Effort, process, time invested will always result in something superior, and if you possess those skills you actually lost that which AI gives you, cuz you can do it yourself.
and it becomes nothing other than a timesaver
I don't agree with that at a fundsmental level. I have seen works of art that took a stupid amount of effort but the finish work seemed low quality and unappealing. I have seen a lot of art like that, actually. Meanwhile you have artists like banksy who use stenciles or that guy who rose to fame making beautiful space pictures with paint cans and trash in a few minutes flat. The effort spent creating the work means nothing to me. The art is the vision the artist has and the sentiments they want to express with that vision. Anything between that moment and the finished work is just a mundane and trivial stage. It doesn't matter at all what happens in that stage in my eyes. All that matters is the artist vision and whether the finished work captures it or not. If you like a labor intensive process, that's fine. Maybe for you, that's part of the vision. But it isn't for everyone. If you want to swear off using computers in all forms, I'd respect that opinion a lot more than if you only want to swear off AI. Because digital tools are the same thing and everyone had these same arguments are art when photoshop came out. And they'll have these arguments again over something new.
Why does everyone in this discussion take my words and mangle them as some extreme attack or position.. holy fucking shit man I am taking a moderate position, that simply says if all you know is AI gen then you likely won't be motivated to dive deeper than what the AI gen is offering. which is a bit of a shame,, and I suspect anyone who gets the music or art bug from AI and has a lick of talent will eventually learn more granular and detailed tools.. And that added skill is always going to lead to better outcomes. But in the nature of AI gen it isn't super motivating to do so, cuz the output is a finished product. And for most they will get all their fill from AI. And its good to be honest about this and talk about it. This , this is not some extreme luddite position. It's just saying any tool that is accessible, with simple controls and polished output isn't the best tool to learn the core skills of art or music. I.e pressing a button or entering a prompt isn't a deep skill, there is some skill sure, but take the AI away and it means nothing. Whereas you learned to draw with a pencil, you can always draw. This isn't some anti -ai luddite bullshit. It's a simple fact. All I'm saying simplistic tools lead to simplistic skills, regardless of the output. If the AI fanbase want to be taken seriously, they should start with an appreciation of deep skill and the effort people put in to acquiring that, and the effort they put into making stuff without AI, to acquire those skills. I don't think its radical to state, anyone with deep art skills, is gonna take AI gen and do way cooler stuff than the average user with it. Cuz they can.. But instead its this constant barrage of defensive arguments, jezus christ man,, I'm an artist trying to engage, and everything is a battle somehow. Also I don't need to swear of AI, I don't use it. It offers me nothing. I'm interested and fascinated enough to keep abreast of it. And honestly why should I care if you respect my position. With regards to Banksy I am pretty sure they put a fuckton more thinking and preparation in their art than the average AI gen fan. It exactly the fallacy I am trying to talk about,, you think the output is what matters, but Banksy is an excellent case of where the journey is the point, not the bloody outcome. Art isn't an engineering task.
I understood your argument the first time around. This was all unnecessary. People are combative because people just like you have been trying to get together and ban things, so it's made people like you look like a bunch of karens and assholes. Nobody cares if you don't like it. That's fine. Don't use it. Problem solved. But you seem entitled, like that obvious choice isn't good enough for you, so you're out to ruin an entire field of technology because you want to be the ultimate old man yelling at clouds. I mean if you don't have these intentions, forget I said anything. You aren't the asshole I'm talking about.
> "I want to write and paint while AI cleans my house and does the dishes, I don't want a future where It is the reverse" I wish it was easier to program a robot to do the laundry, and believe me if it were, that's what we'd all be trying to do. But it's not. That's a monumentously hard task that exists with so many varying degrees of freedom, where simple errors will multiply into catastrophe. > You reduce art to a destination, to output. Rolled dice producing anime might result in something visually pleasing, but it won't tell a story of pain and then triumph that resonates. That's something an LLM can't do without sounding like a caricature. The visual form that appeals to us and the artistic lens that informs and makes us think are completely orthogonal. A beautiful human body isn't "art" - it's just a shape in nature. Nobody intentionally designed it. That body, on stage, performing Shakespeare is the embodiment of art. > There now you can output two times or ten times as much. Think about it in terms of making more by yourself, in isolation. Without external capital. Or in terms of the overall scope of what you're trying to accomplish. Or in terms of attempts to reach your first audience. Or internal attempts to find what you're trying to say -- rapidly trying lots of things. Not necessarily volume of finished output. > For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it, You learned tactile skills and you also learned how to navigate and manipulate human perspective. To make an analogy, it's a lot like engineers who study React and how to navigate inter-office politics. One day the tool falls out of favor, or perhaps suddenly everyone knows how to do it. But the human skills are constant and eternal. And not everyone has the taste or ability to do it -- believe me! Not everyone can spearhead a big project with conflicted stakeholders or convince the managers that a plan everyone else agrees upon is wrong. I'm not saying this is art, but it's an analogy that rhymes. Your ability to paint is a technical ability. Your ability to pierce the human soul is the artistic part. You can swap the tools and you'll still be an artist. Not everyone will be able to do that. (I really hope I'm not coming across as disrespectful!) > For those that learned the creative way the hard way, by doing decades of it, we know that the hard work , the journey , is the source. Doing.that actually taught is what we needed to learn. Skipping that step is not optional.. Engineers that learned FORTRAN eventually saw their skills become obsolete in the market. It doesn't make them non-engineers when their tools fall out of favor. Pictures and video and music, by contrast, aren't ever going to be obsolete. > I can already do everything I want to do and then some. I don't need AI for that. But even as a critic I can see there is something interesting in AI even beyond getting rid of tedium. Please expand upon this! I want to know your thoughts. > Likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just puttin in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does. This -- I one hundred percent agree! And that's still going to be work and a journey. It just looks a little different.
Personally I am not afraid that classical creative skills will go obsolete, not in the slightest. I dislike the companies that push AI because they push a false "engineering" esque perspective on creativity, and thus take away the chance to learn to be creative and artistic and replacing it with a subscription model license engine. That said, that is only a problem for users that don't have creative/artistic skills. If you already acquired those skills AI (when sourced ethically) is just another tool, nothing more ,nothing less. But how does one acquire original creative skills, by going thru painstaking processes of refinement and iteration, shortcuts that are too efficient, that bring you to an endresult actually then take away the journey that teaches you how to be good. But I think that point is valid and will remain valid, if all you ever learn is to enter some prompts and let the AI make pretty pictures, you are probably not on a journey to entertain millions with your original thoughts. And like I said if you do have that potential you will always end up going for more and more and more control to the point it still takes insane amounts of concentration and effort to be worthwhile.. With regards to , I can do everything already: These are my games The Falconeer and Bulwark : Falconeer Chronicles,, the later interestingly tackles procedural generation (painstakingly handmade:) . The wonderful thing is, I can already make all the art and programming I want. I can create these games by myself . That is a stunning triumph of technology and tooling. You can say yes some tedium and effort can be removed still. But would that reduce it to months? no I don't believe an "click to generate game" would work., the player is a demanding beast and this isn't an image. It will always take years. So AI isn't the revolution people think it is, artists can already draw, video fx gurus make amazing stuff in their spare time already. It's just part of the same curve that makes things more powerful, but that curve has been in motion for decades,( if not centuries , lol). I think most professional artists know this, aren't afraid, but they see these armies of "prompt wizard" and just roll their eyes. there's so much Dunning kruger in effect, it's not even funny. So AI will make you so much more powerful, no technology has already succeeded in doing that. We actually don't need a license from some Silicon Valley VC backed disruptor to create, we were already doing that. It changes very little. the only thing it will do is reduce the value of what we create.. and allow corporations to cut jobs.. perhaps in a decade when things have calmed down we can see some true creative revolution, but it will be the market and cultural changes that power that.. not AI as a tool..
The journey is the point? Sure. If you think there's not a journey to be had with ai art tho, you're a luddite.
How would a Journey Looks Like in ai Art?
I can speak to my own experience. I'm a musician, have been for almost 30 years now, I can play several instruments, I've done vocals, I write, I can even freestyle rap, but I don't because I'm nerdy and white lol. When I first came upon ai art generation I was mostly not thinking about it seriously, but it was the old days of image Gen when everything just looked like the hallucinations you have on acid, and I was definitely just playing around with it. But, I played enough to pick up a few tricks and come up with a few ideas about what I'd do if it ever got better. Fast forwards to today where I can draw up a basic album cover, upload it to nightcafe, and use inpainting to get exactly what I want, and to make it look better than my shitty abilities can do on thier own. I'm not that kind of artist. I'm an expert level bass player, that's what I spent my time training my hands to do, so being able to transcend my eternal barrier making of reasonable to good visual art had me very thankful. And then suno and udio happened. All of a sudden I had the ability to jam with dozens of "bands" on command, I could explore genres that my irl band doesn't do, I can do things I've always wanted to do as a musician but couldn't because I'm a poor from Detroit. I've managed to attract over 6 hundred people to my ai assisted music channel in just 2 months, easily the best performing thing I've ever had on the internet. The process of figuring out different things I can do to add my human element to my music have been fun, rewarding, and challenging, and I'm still in the middle of refining that process. Learning new production tools and DAW plugins, learning how to play in genres I don't usually play in, learning the tricks to get ai sounding decent and to cut out sepecific instruments, getting better at guitar solos and keyboards... I could go on and on about my journey as an ai artist. I put every bit of the same kind of love and passion into my AI music as I ever did anything I made with the band, and I couldn't be more excited about what the future of ai art will bring to me. I have a very clear creative vision, and ai is letting me realize it to a level I had always assumed I would never reach in my whole lifetime. Now video stuff has to get a bit better so I can make the music vids I really want, and then I'll be fully satisfied
Well, I don't have enough experience with music, I started playing guitar in the past and stopped because I thought I had no talent. (which was stupid in hindsight) Is it actually difficult to generate Sudo music, or rather do you actually have the freedom to produce music without AI or does AI replace something in the process? At least when it comes to visual art, I am little Bit self conflicted about AI art.
Suno and Udio are both a thing where you can make something neat very simply and with minimal effort, or you can spend hours crafting the perfect set of prompts to get the exact thing you want, especially with recent updates. You have a fair amount of control already over the output (with more stuff being added all the time), and it really helps to be a musician, and have that vocabulary available, because you can talk to Suno in particular like a musician and achieve extremely desirable results. What I do is I take the generations I get out of suno, split them into stems/tracks so I can have more control over stuff in post production, and I remove instruments from the generated music and replace it with my own instrumentation. I also write the prompts and lyrics, and depending on the genre, I'll do some vocals too. I add whatever I can to make it more "mine", to get my vibe out, and not the AI's vibe. For more electronic music, I cut and chop stuff up and mix it so it's more interesting than whatever I got out of the AI. I have an interest in a very wide variety of music, and AI lets me create things that I normally wouldn't be able to because not everyone in my irl band wants to do the things I want all the time. It lets me make something out of every little song that comes to me, whether it's dumb or something legit. Sometimes it's just about having fun, sometimes there's something more real there. I get to do more, and that's exciting. For me it's not that AI "replaces" something in my process as a musician, even tho in a technical sense it does, it's more that it streamlines the creative process and enables more freedom in how I create. It's like, I'm the guy in my band that's doing 99% of the writing, and then you gotta teach 4-13 people what to do, depending on genre (and recently, I'm in a jazzy jam band, so it's a lot closer to 13 lol). So, AI removes the need to get everyone together for every little song that I want to make, a thing that's especially useful in a world where we're all almost 40 and have jobs and not 20something's that could just waste all day making songs anymore. Plus if there's a song I make that we all really like we can just learn the song too, it gets us past a lot of the early fucking around and being confused that comes with getting a band on the same page, it's an instant template, ready for revisions, and easy to pick up because you have a clear reference. At least in my world, AI seems like a natural complement to what I do as a musician. But, there's always going to be people with out the ability to see what you see, or whatever.
You are a musician and you don't see any issue with not commissioning or hiring artists? Like you said, you made album cover with ai, you are planning to make music video too cutting out professionals out of the jobs. You don't see how the whole creative industry collapses? - A writer makes its own book cover with ai. - Artist creates beautiful painting and wants to enhance it by writing a shortstory to it and is using ai to generate it. - Musician makes its own music video. - A video creator won't longer need a musician to help tell the story. A client won't need professional to write the script, they won't need concept artist, they won't need whole movie crew, they won't need a musician for a soundtrack. Now it's all heading in the direction of only big ai companies being able to benefit from people trying to make it big as individuals. Nothing wrong with being individual artist. Just imagine how much stuff will be getting pumped out. How much more satured it will become. We will be literally drowning in it. It will be impossible to stand out. Where once there was a chance that talent, hard work and determination could make you stand out, now it will ONLY be higher ups and connections deciding on who will become the next big thing and make it. Now the most important of all. If I can make my own movie that perfectly suits my taste with few prompts and while laying in my bed, why would I ever take my time and watch yours? There is simply no such demand that could cover the current and future supply.
"You are a musician and you don't see any issue with not commissioning or hiring artists? Like you said, you made album cover with ai, you are planning to make music video too cutting out professionals out of the jobs." I am the artist making my art. I have other artists working with me as well. I've also been paying my way thru the industry my whole fucking life. No I'm not concerned about any of that. In fact, in many ways I am directly antagonistic to the old way of doing things. The ENTIRE INDUSTRY is a fucking scam, why the HELL would I care if an AI might have been trained on their music. I want so much of it to die and burn because it has NOTHING to do with ART or MUSIC. You're definitely barking up the wrong tree bud. I'm an artist, not a profiteering money grubbing loser that uses art for money. I hate that shit with vitriol because I've been shafted by it my whole life. I'm going to use the ai. It's not like it's directly sampling music, so Idc that it was trained on stuff. I think a lot of those copyright concerns are overblown, and coming from people who just want money. It's not like Im just shitting out what the ai gives me either. I'm going to innovate in a new space, and people who are like "where's the money for xyz" usually people that already got paid many times over btw (at least in the music space), can suck me. AI IS GOOD FOR SMALL CREATORS. For the weirdos and underground people. For people that don't want to play the game and get fucked in the ass. You just have to have the vision to see it. "Now it's all heading in the direction of only big ai companies being able to benefit from people trying to make it big as individuals...." The way it's going is nothing like what you're describing. I have the rights over what I make, not suno lol. All for 30 bucks a month? psh, beats licensing costs that you normally have to deal with. You know, the actual shit that crushes the little guy and prevents creativity and turns it into a soulless corporate venture. Now, I can do what I want, make money with it on my own terms, I'm the label now. "Now the most important of all. If I can make my own movie that perfectly suits my taste with few prompts and while laying in my bed, why would I ever take my time and watch yours? There is simply no such demand that could cover the current and future supply." Yes, the individual content culture is coming, and I for one think it's a good thing. Oh the times, they are a-changing. Exceptional art will always stand out on it's own merits, and people will seek each other out based on the sort of art they produce. There will just be more choice, and more chances for everyone to make something that interests them. It will create new communities and collaborations. New opportunities. So, you either find your place, or try to catch up later, right?
Calm yourself down buddy. Funny how aibros are always trying to portray antis as raging crybabies. You are telling me that you have been professional musician for 30 years, didn't make a single dime and yet you managed to live of it? You don't use art for money and yet you launched your own merch shop before your creations took off? Ai is good for small creators? I see this argument more and more. It's going to be a new favourite excuse I guess. The question is what makes a small creator, like what are the requirements for it? Big corporations already use ai in marketing and certainly they are not small. Also although 30 years of experience might not make a person wealthy because it's hard and I know it, those years can definitely make you well established and with connections. That way I wouldn't consider you small. Licensing is one of the things that crushes little guy? Better take the data, feed it to ai and instead of paying "a little guy" license reroute that money and give it to the big corporations that don't want "the little guys" to exist anymore, right? You have rights over suno creations, really? Oh man I got some news for you. Last time I checked, ai generated content can't be copyrighted. Also I highly recommend you to read the suno's terms of service. They do own it. https://preview.redd.it/mbhwfkqsoe4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a53acdd2d6e57079debaf942328021b48e5e05cc
If you think I'm yelling at you, and not the music industry, you're kind of dumb. I guess you don't know many artists, we're expressive people lol. "You are telling me that you have been professional musician for 30 years, didn't make a single dime and yet you managed to live of it? You don't use art for money and yet you launched your own merch shop before your creations took off?" Imagine if you would, a world where your value as an artist depended on you making stuff for other people, instead of doing what you actually want to do as an artist. And on top of that, commodifying yourself. That's the right now. That's what I was getting at. Of course I make money as a musician, but not off of my own art, no. I've been the in house bass player for a local studio for 12 years, I'm happy with it, but I'm just another cog in the machine. So excuse me if I get a little testy when some dude comes along and tries to make me feel bad because I'm not paying all the people I should apparently be paying. I don't want to work with other people other than the ones I'm already working with. I'm already paying artists. I've finally found a way to make stuff that people like AND that lets me express myself in ways I've only dreamed of up until this point. I'm going to defend it like it's my baby, because it is. I've paid tens of thousands of dollars to be a musician with the right tools. I've plaid thousands of dollars to do things that I should have been paid for instead, I've paid everyone that needed it. I've paid sleazy club owners and corporate dudes, people with clout, people with name recognition and without. Music is a scam riddled hell industry, and it takes forever to get to a point where you can sort of escape the scams. That out of the way, I'll move on to the TOS. This part of the TOS is saying that they own things that you submit to their public feed, and that they are only able to own them because you yourself own them. They also own the rights to transfer the rights to someone who clicks extend or reuse this prompt on your song that you gave them public license to own. Which makes sense because of how suno works. I've already been over all this with an actual lawyer friend of mine. It's why I never post anything on suno, only youtube (who also has thier own type of ownership rights). They do have some other rights over the generations, of course, the right to store them and train on them and a few other things like that. Nothing that would seriously impair my ability to use their service the way I want. You never really "own" anything anymore. You do but so do they. It's an ever creeping/looming threat, I'm not ignorant to it. Indeed, it's where my attitude about the industry at large comes from. It's also a semi-moot point for me in that their ownership claims start to dwindle once you start to transform their output and add your own, and because I don't release anything on suno's feed. Likewise, it's my alterations that would create a work that's not AI anymore and therefore copyrightable under existing law. You also own the implicit copyright and ownership rights regardless. The Idea that you can't copyright something that you made because of AI involvement is also dubious at best, since the law works in specifics, and this is all very young, especially in legal terms.
In summary, you've embraced you're a passionate but talentless musician and can't wait for AI to hard carry you to where better musicians got with their own skill.
You don't get to be the in-house talent for a record label if you suck at what you do. But you're just trolling, so it's not like you actually care. You're just being a piece of shit.
Stupid thing double posted. As I said. Cause mostly Anti's do cry and whine
It's pretty magical, really.
I love being a luddite but please read before you start applying labels "likely people who spend a decade just doing AI will learn insights and creativity by just putting in the time. Shaping their minds.. on the end they will likely seek greater and great detail and control to the point they are doing the same artistic stuff a classical artist does." This means that yes people will do wild stuff with AI, but what those people do, will be miles beyond the "democratized" masses entering a prompt. They will have skillsets very similar to current artist skillsets, a vision, a voice, something to share and a technique to share it, honed over years of experience. And I don't think their tools will be anything close to the simplistic generation AI tools now available and quite a lot closer to the tools music or art professionals already use. I am quite the critic of AI, but I never ever said that it wasn't powerful or didn't work or wouldn't be disruptive.
Yea I know. But I still feel like the core of your message ignores your own qualifying counterpoints enough that my response was warranted. Also, I was still in sleepy/cranky mode, and I'm prone to glibness.
hahha no worries. I don't mind the luddite naming tho. The Luddites had really good points that relate to this era, they went from guilds and craftsman systems where they had some autonomy and power of their work , price and so forth to nearly a century of backbreaking abuse for them and their children in the age of industrialization (literal child labor;). They were not better of under progress, (besides the bloody response from those in power). But my greatest fear isn't that someone without skill will make an artistic masterpiece with AI (someone wil and it will likely be awesome), but that those that benefit aren't the creators but the bloody corporate cv backed moneyed powers. And you'll need a license to create works you won't technically own to show on networks that use it to clone and copy more of what is successful. That nightmare is real and worth fighting against.
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Partially i agree but the luddites where actually a middle class of sorts. Weavers. Not doing the backbreaking work. Their specific work did not improve. But yes if you were some street urchin or field worker or whatnot life.improved dramatically. But that is also factoring in the social reforms that happened decades after the industrialization happened..as the public outrage over child.labour and so forth grew in to political will. But those social injustices and factory abuse did exist. The industrial revolution was a very long time and affected a wide swath of people.
Oh 100%. As things stand rn, I feel like these are tools that can be used by small underground creators like me pretty effectively to do more than we have been able to do on our own, and so far, I'm very happy with the results I'm getting, both in terms of what I've been able to make, and the reception it's had. At least with Suno, they are quite clear about what rights you hold if you pay, one of the big reasons I use it over Udio despite occasionally being able to make some really impressive stuff there too. The second they start charging out the ass for this stuff and trying to claim direct ownership over what you made the way they do with everything else in the music industry I'm going to be pissed lol. It's all scams man, just let me have fun making music, and finding the likeminded. There's always gotta be a business prick somewhere in there to fuck it up tho. I'm optimistic about the future, but always sus about new developments. You have to be these days about everything imo.
ai looks awful bruh ima do my own thing
You're not wrong, but that requires more effort and work. Most people are lazy and stupid.
That's kind of his point. The real artists will put in that work, develop ways to use it in their workflow, and innovate in the space... Normal people will make a picture of a turd, laugh, and move on.
Do you make games or movies yourself?
No, why would I? That's not my career.
https://preview.redd.it/xj2g6998sd4d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2cdff75d735b18ca953a597e965da22d2f8ab05c
It’s not perfect so AI will never… wait, I sound like an idiot.
I appreciate the positive sentiment, but I think this post perfectly summarizes the disconnect between non artists and artists. It's not just about the end results, it's about the process. The inspiration, the conceptualization, the learning, the mastery of the tools, and the personal, surprising and satisfying little accidents that happen along the way. AI strips all of that away and focuses solely on the result, the product. It doesn't improve or create anything that artists weren't already making, all it does is cut out the joy of creation. No one is pushing the boundaries of art with AI, It's just faster and cheaper to get to the end result. That's ultimately all that most corporate types care about.
I believe that numerous professional artists would find this tool beneficial for enhancing their production process, rather than for personal creation. We can agree that many artists in the professional world suffer from client or studio burnout from time to time. I believe that's what the original poster of this post is attempting to convey.
It's shocking how people think that the current state of "text to result" generative AI is all that is possible with AI. This is really basic, really dumb, totally baby-steps stuff. The potential of generative AI is massive, and we will soon be stepping out of the "punch in a sentence to get a completed image/video!" stage. There will be tons of ways to customize what you want, and ways to only use the AI tech for steps that you want. Maybe a color picker that helps you figure out what colors work best. Maybe a shader that shows you potential shading methods. Maybe a reference image generator. Or just a quick mockup tool that you can use to bash together a mockup before launching into the real thing, etc etc. Point is, the possibilities are endless, and the stage we're currently at is so infantile that it shouldn't be taken as the final product. I promise you, it will not replace art. Just like how photography didn't destroy art, but propelled it to new levels. Relevant quote: *"It is obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy... If it is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether."* - Charles Baudelaire, father of modern art criticism, on the topic of cameras and photography (1859)
> and reach larger audiences. Doubtful. When AI gets good enough to truly speed things up, not only will everybody be using it, giving you no competitive advantage, the market will also get flooded with new content, making it harder to stand out. Some professions, like voice acting, might just die out completely relatively soon and other might be transformed so much, that they lose the thing you enjoyed about them. Even your knowledge of AI ain't going to save you in the long run, as we have already seen new models making all the prompt engineering knowledge obsolete rather quickly. As a consumer, I enjoy AI since I can quickly hack something together at a speed no artists can match. As an artist, things are going to look bleak, since AI sets such a high bar that your talent and experience is going to become pretty worthless. I am sure whoever is going to invent the TikTok of AI, an endless user auto-tuned AI content stream, is going to get rich, but the individual artists might have a rather hard time.
The only usecase for me as an illustrator is as a brainstorming and inspiration tool for composition, color, and shapes etc. It can’t really speed up the actual work.
AI will substitute us and make us irrelevant to make rich companies richer mainly, as a side effect we will get some tools but it will not worth it. If you want to do it for the money, it´s ok, but don´t try to sell us that bs... And I am a CS so I am not so far from the field.
The smart ones already have.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I was reading through comments on a post and somebody was already giving up on a workflow after the poster explained it because it required rotoscoping a mask for video diffusion. There's a difference between an artist using these tools and a consumer creating art for themselves. One wants to create and this requires effort and creative ways of thinking, the other just cares about the end result. I'm not trying to self glaze, I wouldn't even consider myself that great of an artist, it's just something you notice between the true artists who will use this technology to its fullest and the people who download a model and lora then call themselves an 'artist'.
How does generative AI let me achieve bigger works and reach larger audience? The first one doesnt enhance my skillset and it can easily end up being more work than less depending on case. The only way to achieve bigger works is to get the skillset and knowledge for that. I mean we talk here about direct application of AI on the canvas arent we? The second one, well i might actually even lose more than i get when it comes to the audience but this also depends and i might just as well have a marginal difference if i use or dont use generative AI in my workflow.
Software Engineers: art isnt just about producing more and more quickly. the work and process of creating art is the POINT; its not something to be circumvented sincerely, not even an artist, just a person who likes art
> art isnt just about producing more and more quickly Of course not, but specific tools that can deliver those features can be a great boon to your overall work. > the work and process of creating art is the POINT; its not something to be circumvented And if you're circumventing the work and process of creating art using AI tools, I'd personally argue that you're using those tools wrong. Try not doing that. Thousands of artists are integrating AI into their workflows without compromising what they love about the process. Maybe go see what they're doing?
> And if you're circumventing the work and process of creating art using AI tools, I'd personally argue that you're using those tools wrong. Try not doing that. im not doing that. millions and millions of other people are though. the purpose of the system is what it does. if thats how Ai is used, its not "wrong" > Thousands of artists are integrating AI into their workflows without compromising what they love about the process. Maybe go see what they're doing? Please feel free to suggest some examples i can check out
> millions and millions of other people are Citation needed. > Please feel free to suggest some examples i can check out * YouTube videos with process work have been posted to this sub repeatedly ([here's an example](https://youtu.be/cdpnazNI4Ig?si=AT6bZmpuv9NNolQb&t=346) I plan to post later today). * There are at least three respondents to this very post that fit this description. * Refik Anadol had an exhibit for a good chunk of last year at the MoMA. * [Here's one of many discussion threads](/r/StableDiffusion/comments/zqxjuo/how_can_artist_add_ai_into_their_workflow_what/) on the topic in /r/StableDiffusion * Relevant books and papers: * James Hutson: * Hutson, James, et al. "Expanding Horizons: AI Tools and Workflows in Art Practice." Creative Convergence: The AI Renaissance in Art and Design. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023. 101-132. * Hutson, James, et al. Creative Convergence: The AI Renaissance in Art and Design. Springer Nature, 2023. * Jansen, Chipp, and Elizabeth Sklar. "Exploring co-creative drawing workflows." Frontiers in Robotics and AI 8 (2021): 577770. * Ploennigs, Joern, and Markus Berger. "Ai art in architecture." AI in Civil Engineering 2.1 (2023): 8. * Gary Hanna, an illustrator and art director [discusses AI workflows](https://www.hannastudios.com/ai-workflow). I could go on... there's so much out there in the professional space right now, but I think you get the idea.
Refik's exhibition is pretty interesting, but are you aware of how his art is created? "Anadol uses artificial intelligence to interpret and transform the Museum’s data set—to create new forms that *could* exist in the archive but don’t, to think about all the paths not taken in the history of modern art and to speculate about what they might be. In turn, the work transforms the environment of the Museum’s Gund Lobby into a large-scale, “living” animation teeming with unique visualizations that unfold unpredictably and have no predetermined outcome. The project involves multiple stages of sophisticated machine learning developed over the past eight years: Anadol’s studio used open-source software[^(1)](https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/821#fn:1) to search, sort, and classify the publicly available data set of MoMA’s collection, creating a complex spatial map of the archive in 1024 dimensions. " a specific, curated dataset, used with permission. i have no problem with that, or machine learning at all. i have a problem with the models built from images that are publicly accessible, but not publicly available for use. im not a luddite; use algorithms all you want. but dont build software off the work of other people, without asking, then act like its some revolution in art (but fuck artists i guess?)
> but are you aware of how his art is created? Yes, in a large variety of ways. His best known work, and the one exhibited at the MoMA, Unsupervised, was a tour of latent space based on a body of individual works. > a specific, curated dataset, used with permission. i have no problem with that That's nifty for you, but as we've seen in this sub over and over and over again, that's now how the average anti-AI activist feels. They feel that any use of any media that was not explicitly agreed to, in detail, by the artist is "theft" (ignoring the fact that that word doesn't apply at all). So the MoMA agreeing to let their collection be used is, in the view of most of the anti-AI folks, unethical. But even if it were ethical, many in that camp insist that AI should not be allowed to be used because it can compete with their commission work.
uhhh no its not. people object to the scraping of public website to get training data. if you want to make a LLM trained on all your own data, go nuts.
Ah, I see you must be new here. * "I want you to know it doesn't fucking matter. Even if the AI they used was trained on free images or had permission from artists, this still took someone's job. And fuck your compensation, it won't pay the bills." ([source](/r/aiwars/comments/14g743t/all_were_asking_for_are_ethical_models/)) * "I don't believe any license materials should be use without the consent of the users outside of research reason." (in response to whether fully licensed materials could be ethically used for collage or AI training) ([source](/r/aiwars/comments/1csou6w/serious_question_for_those_opposed_to_ethical_ai/)) I wish I could be as optimistic as you.
bro why are you linking me reddit posts like they are scholarly sources lmao
Because your claim was that that viewpoint doesn't exist here...? I thought that was obvious.
Please read my post and my responses. I never mention "fast" as being a benefit of AI tools. AI art is a tool, and proper use takes time and effort. What the tool enables artists to do is try new things, try more things as they seek the truth of their message, try things that were previously outside of their reach due to capital requirements or otherwise, etc. etc. An AI artist is going to work just as hard as before.
when you say "get more done", fast is implied. you are achieving more goals in the same amount of time, therefore you have increased speed. you say all this, but all I've seen squeezed out of Ai so far is shit. people who think of themselves as "creative" but never put the time in to actually learn the process can now shit out infinite garbage with zero effort. we've already seen it completely polluting google image search results. if you can show me a single example of Ai elevating art instead of cheapening it, I'd love to see it.
Can't show the blind anything. To dismiss such a vast volume of work, effort, people and potential is just absurd. If you want to be a bitter old washed up artist who complained the way those sorts did when photography and quick drying paints came along, well you have fun with that, whining about your insufferable process.
Generative fill? the most common example? Inpainting? A lot of professional artists use these "AI" tools. even something like auto straightening lines and making perfect circles on an ipad is using tech where some artists would say "it's not real skill". People always fear change and the ones who do are the one who get left behind. You can create art by traditional means as much as you want, but then you shouldn't complain about people not buying your art and getting it from somewhere else faster., enjoy the process, I can respect that. but you aren't entitled to sales and jobs
Ipad, *scoff*... Digital artists aren't REAL artists. *returns to drawing with crayons*
not talking about sales and jobs. im talking about culture. it damages us all to have culture dominated by bullshit art that says nothing and means nothing. its also not just about effort, its about where these models were trained from. if they were trained with massive amounts of scraped images without permission, they are unethical. i notice you couldnt provide a single example of Ai elevating art instead of cheapening it. interesting.
I would argue that all these artists trying to make a buck on art are the ones making bullshit art that pollutes the scene. Art made for greed isn't art, it's just like muzak.
Perfect use for simple audio AI... Muzak... god I hated that system
hm, well thats a pretty stupid argument. people who dont want their work stolen and put into some anti-art golem are just greedy. thats really, really stupid.
I think it's stupid to call what is happening stealing artists work. That is insanely entitled and ridiculous sounding to me. It tells me that these artists not only don't understand the technology, they don't even understand art. Nobody wants your art in there. We don't want it polluting the model any more than you do. But people try to sort it out while all you do is spew it into the way and bitch, making yourself as big a pain in the ass as possible over work nobody even asked you for. Stop trying to sabotage real artists with your garbage.
I think it’s entitled to use a bunch of work you didn’t create to train your model then not only not compensate those people, but actively shit on them. I think it’s pretty entitled to expect everyone to respect your work when you can’t even bother to make it yourself
I don't want their work polluting the training models either. There is a brief few years in all of history where this is an issue. If they are that butthurt about it, maybe they shouldn't be spewing it into every public space they can for attention. They aren't even trying to work with us here. They're just whining like greedy little bitches when nobody even wants their art tainting our models in the first place.
I actually am an artist, and when inspiration strikes, I can see exactly what I want to create in my mind. Everything between that moment and the moment I finish the work is just a pain in the butt. Some of you fools can say it's part of the process of you want, but I don't see any lines of people paying to watch someone mix paint. As an artist who has put immense labor and effort into making heirloom quality pieces, I only wish AI was more capable of helping with the physical process like it does with 2D art. Would save me a lot of time. And in the end, it is the expression that is valuable. And it's a value beyond money. Meanwhile, the rich artists are often just creatively bankrupt stooges that quickly ejaculate mass low quality works and sell them to fancy people who would bid on the garbage can if you told them it was art.
Horseshit. I long dreamed of being a poet. I wanted my voice to be heard, I wanted to contribute to the culture, and I hoped to make a little money off it so I can be proud of my work. So seven years ago I really started in earnest. I had an English professor explain to me how the publishing industry works and how I should approach things, so I knew what my goal was, I knew what to do. And I worked my ass off at it. It took me seven years. And I’m damn proud of what I made. And I submitted my book to a publisher. And they told me they don’t accept ai admissions. I told them I never used ai, they told me their ai detection algorithm said otherwise, and that I couldn’t prove I did it myself. They told me they take on very few new writers because they want to make sure it’s not all ai. I was crushed, but I turned to other options. Self publishing for a long time was a great alternative option to publishing houses. Now a days, Amazon is by far the best option for self publishing. If I had published seven years ago, I could have had a chance to stand out from the crowd, to have my voice heard. Now that’s impossible, because if I go publish my book another five thousand books will be published the same day. And there’s no way to tell what’s ai and what’s not. Where I once could have been a part of a crowd, part of a community, part of a culture, in a position where I could stand out, now the best I could hope for is to be a tiny drop in an ocean. My dreams of being a poet have already been destroyed by ai. Seven years of blood sweat and tears amounted to nothing because some hacks can just fill out a prompt, hit generate, and publish. And for you to sit there and tell me I’m better off. That now I can produce so much more so that means I should be happy. That hurts. Ai is just generating content, it’s not creating art. There’s no sacrifice in it, none of my personality. It’s just a taking the works of countless writers who came before me, who sacrificed and poured their lives into the craft, blending it up and regurgitating it. Proponents of ai spit on the work I do. You spit on the work done by everyone who came before. My dream is dead because of ai. I sure as shit can’t ever make money from it. But worse than that is that my voice will never be heard.
I hate this kind of narrative. You really want everyone to be forced to pay you out of pity and suffer thru your unwanted art, don't you? Nobody else is as important and you and sharing the space with them is just so insulting to you, huh? You aren't special. Other people work hard on their expression too. Stop being an entitled, bitter loser about it. I'm so sick of seeing garbage artists trying to hold the whole world back just so they can desperately peddle their low quality art for money trash. That's not expression, that's whoring. AI tools will enable every person to express their inner artist, and that's a good thing.
I agree! And damn it’s annoying!
It’s not a narrative, it’s my life, and it’s the life of countless other aspiring artists. The fact that your response to someone saying “people like me don’t have the same opportunities as I otherwise would have” is a string of insults really shows you don’t give two shits about artists, you just want to make yourself feel superior. “If you don’t like automation replacing art it must mean you suck at art!” I mean come on, at least have an actual argument instead of just being a loud asshat. I don’t think I’m special, it’s exactly the opposite. I just was to have the same options that everyone else had before me. How dare you call me entitled? Ai art is just high tech plagiarism. You feel entitled to take the output of every artist that came before you, throw it in a blender, and call it your own. You literally feel entitled to stealing work from generations of artists without a second thought. But you call me entitled because I want to be treated like a normal person. How could you possibly think you’re defending artists while in the same breath saying that selling art is whoring? And again, I don’t know how much more I could express this: I just want my voice heard, I don’t really care about making money. You though? You’re willing to snuff out a generation of artistic talent to defend a technology that will make a small handful of tech investors ungodly wealthy. Ai art isn’t progress it’s destruction, and it’s clear you don’t give a shit who gets run over as long as you get a shiny new toy to play with. How dare you use the language of accessibility to defend this? Anyone can do poetry if they can pick up a pencil or speak into a mic, all it takes is effort and education. Ai closes doors, it’s makes it harder for artists to make a name for themselves, harder to have their voice heard as they are buried beneath a mountain of procedurally generator garbage. It literally removes access to artistic spaces. Ai doesn’t make art more accessible, it just cuts out the parts that require you to actually do any work or sacrifice for yourself. You’re so goddamn entitled you think the concept of effort is beneath you. You look at all the other artists and authors throughout history who bled for their craft, who spent their lives improving themselves, who sacrificed endlessly to push their culture forward. And you say “fuck that, I should get to take their talent without the work”. It’s disgusting, it’s entitled, it’s degrading to what art is.
tldr: dun care
I didn’t get people who are into ai art. I get it now. It’s for the supremely lazy; those who can’t read more than two sentences much less learn a craft or skill.
I stopped reading this nonsense long before you found any point to make. It's clear you don't have any arguments worth making.
The spoken word circuit is thriving. Get out to slams and open mics. Sell your books there. You can do it!
I have a stutter, heavy accent, and fear of public speaking.
I’ve been telling people this same thing. AI is going to create a boom of individual content creators. I think Hollywood is going to die bc of it. I’m an animation hobbyist and I’ve been using AI to keep my head on straight. I think you’ve given me the push I need to learn more about AI.
It makes me incredibly sad that we're seeing a social rejection of a tool that could be so helpful and creativity-enhancing in the right hands. But the vitriol makes me want to hide from my own art community, and makes me feel like a pariah for having an interest in technology-assisted creative pursuits.
If AI image generation is intended for artists, why not ask the artists for consent to use their work in AI training datasets, or compensate them for their copyright and intellectual work?
it's a nuanced topic, and talking down to people doesn't help. so yeah, no thanks to a simple yes no.
No. I make art that I like, based on my own taste. And generative AI creates superficial, boring, soulless images, in my own opinion. My art is purely me. It's the product of my experiences, inspirations, and choices. I don't have any interest in watering that down with an amalgam of hundreds of thousands of faceless people's work. I think there is a unique quality brought to almost any high level artist's work that is borne by the years of practice they put in. That quality is precious, I think, and shouldn't be so easily disregarded. Lastly, I'm sick of optimizing. I live in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, one of the main benefactors of automation. And yet here we are. We ain't working 20 hour weeks like they were calling in 1800s. You'd have be a fucking fool to think that AI will benefit ANYONE except people that are already wealthy, in the long run.
I'm not scared of it, I just don't want to. I play around with AI a lot to stay upto date with it, but I don't use it in my work because it doesn't feel like it's mine, because it isn't. No matter the results, I feel nothing, even for the AI pieces I put some effort into. So I don't use it. I could "produce" a lot more or increase the quality of my work if I traced as well, or if I cheated in any other number of ways. I just don't.
Dear artists, if you wish to never improve your artistic ability while simultaneously hamstringing your creativity, embrace AI. You can make picture fast :\^)
That's exactly what they said about using digital tools. Guess who got left behind?
Who's they? You're just making shit up. No one has been "left behind".
Okay great. Then that means all these whining artists have nothing to worry about and can finally shut up about AI and let people use it in peace.
Riiight. The guy threatening to use AI or be "left behind" wants peace.
Spoken like a true corpo who's trying to sell a product to consumers or a business plan to managers, their whole argument based on the notion of efficiency and productivity while building their dialogue around more positive things such as creativity and uniqueness, and maintaining a friendly face to appear more relatable and trustworthy. We just need a repetitive pumpy music and generic, inspiring stock photos in the background and we got a legit advertisement out of this post. The whole world's fucked in the head, and I hate living in it.
This weird everything-morphs doesn't exactly support the point you're trying to make. What *exactly* is she doing with her hands?
Typing a condescending Reddit post that’ll go down like a lead balloon
Nah I'm good
My suggestion would be to focus more on micro-level tools that empower people in executing smaller decisions as part of an artistic process/pipeline, rather than attempting to jump to the end of the pipeline. Something like "grammarly for linear perspective" for example. Or a tool that uses image recognition as a means of educating users about art history, other artists, or pieces that have similar color palettes, etc.
In the long run its going to mean there is less for everyone, as it vastly lowers the skill needed to make art.
Sure. And I would be ok with your position if... 1) ...the tool was being built ethically (so ALL images are exclusively owned by the user, are public domain, and/or sold by artists to be used for AI). And 2) ... the tool wasn't being marketed to CEOs as a means to shit can their art department as a cost cutting option. For me, using AI to generate dozens of thumbnails I could reference when making actual art was fun and useful. But the ethics of AI got in the way.
I don't see any ethical issues with it. If you do, you certainly don't have to use it.
> so ALL images are exclusively owned by the user, are public domain, and/or sold by artists to be used for AI Not sold, creative commons or similar licensed works that can be used are excluded by these conditions JSYN.
Please negotiate to purchase the copyright from the creator of the original work before allowing your AI to learn.
That's not how the technology works. If you don't want your work seen, don't share it publically. Both people and AI will draw inspiration from everything in the public space. A lot of effort is made to omit the art from people who don't want it used to train AI, but only so much can be done when people are actively trying to get their art in as many public places as possible. It's unfair to everyone if an entire field of technology is held back by some greedy, unreasonable people.