There’s probably a possibility of creating a Trump subreddit that consists of entirely new AI generated content that mirrors his mind-numbing IQ-punching speaking style.
Not quite what you asked for, but at least this exists: Reddit - Dive into anything
The content is auto-generated, including the comments, but the upvotes are real. Well, “real”.
The jury is still out on whether CG has been a net positive for art (for commerce, no contest). If the Blank Check podcast* has taught me anything, it’s that most directors do their best work under creative constraints. A peek at a monster is almost always better than an hour of full exposure, and IMO the biggest failure of the early 2000s FF4 movie was all the “around the house” Mr. fantastic stuff.
It is funny though, how some folks assumed CG would make movies cheaper to produce, but instead just continued upping the ante to meet the same previous budgets.
Unequivocally at the very least I can say that “making of” meta-media is way cooler for handmade special effects than CG. those time lapses of stop motion process that themselves become stop motion, but with the human flashing in and out? priceless.
*we’ll convert them all soon enough @VeronicaConnor
I agree insofar that these tools are “AI” because they are not, but they are a tool to create new images from existing images. Calling it stealing from other artists is just false, but saying it’s created from nothing by an artificial intelligence is also false.
Such people exist?
Just kidding @knoxblox, I know you are out there.
Personally, I’ve never been that brave, to try to make money solely off my art work; I’ve always maintained a day job, no matter what…
Short thread from one of my Twitter buddies, a professional animation storyboard and comic artist .
The thing about messes is that artists like us can look at them and still find inspiration.
I do understand the concern, but one thing ai rendered images lack is soul, IMO.
That’s irreplaceable, AFAIAC…
That’s the thing, I think they’re great for getting ideas out and inspiring other images but they’re not better suited for finished artwork. It may work alongside, rather than replace, the traditional sketchbook but “AI” is really limited in utility as Kit said; Garbage in, Garbage out.
Art always changes. I agree with the soul part. Once photography came along there was no need for perfect rendering in painting any more, instead as a response we got Impressionism and that includes some of the most beautiful and expressive art of the last couple of hundred years, and people still use cameras and yet others still paint with amazing accuracy.
There’s no replacing the soul in art, that’s where the artist speaks. If the art is empty then that creator had nothing to say.
Oh, not at all.
Though I really like many of the results that come out, 9 times out of 10, there’s something ‘off’ with the renderings.
I concur. I dont see it replacing ‘hand made’ artwork, but possibly aiding in the creation thereof.
Word.
Excellent points, all.
Thanks for that quote. It says something that I’ve been trying to put into words. This is the same limitation as with AI-generated text, isn’t it? Even if it is coherent, it has no meaning, as there is no intent.
ETA: even that is a bolder statement than I intend. Obviously, the person steering the AI has intent, but the algorithm itself doesn’t add any
The embedded grasshoppers are your tell.
I’d be cautious about assuming that the flaws and apparent “soullessness” of AI art are a permanent feature of the output. The distance between the early Dall-e Mini thumbnails, and, say, the latest NovelAI output:
…point to rapid improvement and iteration.
I don’t think AI art will replace all art by any means. But a good analogy might be photography and painting: relatively speaking, a lot fewer people sit down for formal portraits in a world where quick selfies with a camera phone will suffice to capture the moment in time.
I’m not saying this is a good thing. It’s going to be horribly disruptive and I think we may lose a lot in the process. Some artists will be able to use this in their creative processes, but many people who do for-commission artwork will struggle to compete with the volume and speed of good-enough-for-a-given-purpose art this produces. I just don’t see a way to put the cat back in the bag. I honestly wasn’t expecting automation to hit creative fields first. More and more I feel like Zach Weinersmith('s comic characters) might have it right: God is real and likes cruel irony.
One thing that is making them “off” is that a lot of the AI Art services have been set up so that they do not render human bodies well, in order to prevent their use in deepfakes, etc. The full blown versions however can make very good people.
That said, I am often able to look at a portrait created by one of these things and see where it is pulling things from existing photos or artwork - it’s especially obvious if you ask for a picture that involves a celebrity. I had Dall-E make some David Bowie portraits and one of them was obviously pulling from a well known tour photo my friend Larry Hulst took. I sent him a copy - he was pretty displeased
In terms of using AI as artistic input I can’t help but feel that by typing a combination of terms rather than squaring that circle yourself, you’re just outsourcing a vital intellectual core of the creative process in order to skip over framing something within your own process of synthesis. Dada cut-paper poems or synthetic cubism or bauhaus collage pieces used external ephemera as materials to enable the artist as a conduit, but AI-as-reference nudges the artist from the creator’s chair in a subtle game of inches-- It’s substituting a keyboard for vellum but it’s tracing nonetheless.
It’s hard to articulate without sounding chastising, so please don’t take it that way. It just gives my instincts the willies in a WH40K silica animus kind of way.
whether selling a “new” image without credit or compensation to the creators of the source material is “stealing” is a matter of semantics
it’s definitely shady and will inevitably be regulated sooner or later, like music samples
Great post! Brilliant questions. If I had the answers I would share.
An interesting topic, we’ll get to see various institutions embrace or discard AI, and it’s always fascinating to me to read the opinions of people that call themselves artists.
Anyone rejecting AI this wholesale is going to look very silly in the near future.
You’re on the side of history that shunned the photographic camera, sneared at digital art software and attempted to ban Garry Neumann for not being real music.
AI tools are tools - banning them in the production of art is the height of silliness and people that are unable to see the beauty than can be created with AI art are either not looking very hard or are intentionally ignoring it, or possibly more likely, simply unaware of how pervasive it is because you only spot it when it looks bad. Most AI art at this point is indistinguishable from anything human made - also making it an unenforceable rule to begin with.
Creative collaborations with tools and other artists are as old as time. If it makes you uncomfortable that your only role is choosing a set of attributes and then hitting ‘go’ then you better take all the photographs off the wall of the art gallery too, it’s certainly ‘low effort’ compared to carving it into the wall of a cave.
That’s not how AI art works - it’s not collaging.
The irony is that most ‘real’ art is people recreating the likeness of something that exists, often crudely, in a style widely adopted by other artists.
AI that is trained on art learns about context, shape and form, relationships, lighting etc. - the same as people do, and it’s getting more advanced every day.
The works it creates are unique and reliant on the creative direction and inspiration of the human using it.
Any artist worth their salt should be excited by AI tools and how they can be exploited. If you’re fearful of what it means to you as an artist then I think that involves more internal questioning of your motivations and ego.
My main concern about AI is its potential to further concentrate the means of production in the hands of an ever smaller coterie of people who had money to begin with and who contribute nothing beyond having gotten to the punch first.
