Acceptable uses for AI in art

[HayleyMulch]

Would you not say thats the same as using a digital drawing tablet? You can study traditional painting for years and develop a personal technique with your own brushes and even mix your own unique paint. However when you use a digital drawing tool you are getting perfect brush strokes created by pre-made brushes using simulated paint. I don't think anyone here would argue that digital painting is not a valid form of art through; its not the same, but they are both valid and allow you to focus on different things with different results.

It's not the same as using a digital drawing tablet at all. The key here is using hand-eye co-ordination and working your brain to visualise the end result. Most of what I visualise in my head isn't what necessarily comes out in the end. But that is the fun of it too, to see how close or how different we get to our vision. And then, we can try again if we desire. Part of the AI bros argument is wanting perfection. We value it too much. We need to enjoy the process again, playing with traditional materials or seeing which digital brushes make what results by our own brain, hands or body parts (if you cannot use your hands).

This brings me right back to the hand-eye co-ordination bit. This is not to say that you can't be an artist if you have a physical/mental disability or are neurodivergent. I have myofascial pain syndrome/fibromyalgia of my right side. It physical hurts me to draw - traditional or digital, because the motion and movements are the same no matter the medium. Even typing for long periods can hurt me! But when it does, we learn to use another part of our body with our brains. I use my left hand. It's not as fluid, but by god it works. Others may use their mouth, feet, etc. Maybe their whole bodies in whole different ways that work for them when they practice

If you want to paint a picture with words, then you write a book. You can dictate out your book to write it, and use cool new words and develop intriguing sentences and writing styles that the reader then can visualise in their head. There is no replacement for the human brain and imagination.

In my ideal world, the only way I can see AI art being ethical is that an artist creates their own stock images. And then uploads that to their own personal AI tool that no one else can use. And then they use prompts from their own existing artworks to have the tool mush and meld it together to see what comes out. That's fine, because the work by the artist has already been done. They consented, the tool is theirs and theirs alone. No one else can touch it.

[HayleyMulch]

I might be thinking of AI being used in a different way than you. If you're telling the AI "make a comic strip in the style of Garfield about Garfield doing a Garfield," yeah, you're just copying someone's style intentionally. But is that really better than you drawing a comic strip in the style of Garfield about Garfield doing a Garfield with pen and paper? I don't see the AI as being the issue here. It's the person making the image who is committing the copyright/trademark infringement.

Yes, that is absolutely better than doing it with an AI tool. If this is going to be the status quo (which I absolutely hope not), imagine if we actually lost the art of drawing in a century's time or so because people didn't want to learn to hold a pen and draft something themselves.

Imagine it's because this is what society wanted now. They didn't want artists, they wanted a fast food version with zero human emotion and input. And because it made money, people wouldn't want to be artistic anymore.

We do have to think of longevity here, cos there are people as I said starting to feel drawing, painting, etc is pointless.

[Guest]

I genuinely disagree with the idea that "skill" is something that is required for something to be art or that generating art should be banned because it's less effort than using different tools to do so. Why is it always about the path of most suffering and studying, when a picture can be beautiful either way regardless of creation method? Is relative skill of the author required for something to be valid to look at? Is music objectively more art when it's acoustic compared to digital?

I think the entire debate about stolen art and not paying artists is working from a wrong perspective. Art is a product, a symbol and the lifeblood of an entire society and its culture and should be in the public domain as a whole as a basic human right. A society functions in unity, and as I said earlier in this thread, no artist can claim a work solely as their own, for all of them are inspired, influenced and assisted by generations before them.

Of course artists deserve to survive on their art, but is it not time then that we get an economic solution on that as a whole? Why do we have to lock down our cultural products and make them stingy commodified property just so artists can get crumbs for their work by forcing people to pay for it (arguably making artistic expression into an economic act of marketing instead of a passion) when we could have a general basic income that anyone can survive on, without strings attached?

Artists could therefore be paid a living wage without restricting their works with copyright and getting up in arms about perceived slights. I believe artists are way too protective over their own works and folks "stealing" them when in reality it should be a general cultural good, a public domain to partake in. The notion that our human lives are here to produce and treat society as a potential customer base is dystopian.

I say that as a musician and a programmer who has published all their works under free copyleft licenses out of conviction.
I think it is unfair to characterize anyone who enjoys the idea of algorithm assisted artistry as an evil artist hating tech bro. We don't have to draw battle and property lines over art until everything is proprietary and locked down.

[HayleyMulch]

I genuinely disagree with the idea that "skill" is something that is required for something to be art or that generating art should be banned because it's less effort than using different tools to do so. Why is it always about the path of most suffering and studying, when a picture can be beautiful either way regardless of creation method? Is relative skill of the author required for something to be valid to look at? Is music objectively more art when it's acoustic compared to digital?

Skill isn't required for art at all. When we are children, we all believe we are a great artist and do it for the love of it. Everyone needs to realise this. You don't have to be good at painting or drawing. You can just enjoy it and be terrible at it. I'm trying to return to that myself. I'm relearning to be messy, be imperfect, and just enjoy using the tools with my own imagination.

I do not believe this is the same as typing in some words into a machine and hoping to see what you get. There is no process here. There is no journey. No fun. No soul.

Use pens, paper, markers, paints, acoustic guitars, electronic keyboards, synths, text programs. You're still the one purposefully using your imagination to arrange all of the parts together in your own unique vision. Not allowing a machine to steal that fun and creativity all away from you.

[Guest]

Most of what I visualise in my head isn't what necessarily comes out in the end. But that is the fun of it too, to see how close or how different we get to our vision. And then, we can try again if we desire. Part of the AI bros argument is wanting perfection. We value it too much. We need to enjoy the process again, playing with traditional materials or seeing which digital brushes make what results by our own brain, hands or body parts (if you cannot use your hands).

...

I wish I had waited a few more minutes before my last reply so I could have seen this one, because I just want to say that this is a beautiful sentiment. I'm definitely guilty of perfectionism whenever I make something, which is probably why I have used AI to help with the portions I can't create myself rather than accept my limitations. I have an image of what I want in my head, and I'm going to make exactly that

Also, to your point about people with physical/mental disabilities adapting to create art in spite of (or inspired by) their limitations, that goes right along with what I said about appreciating the work that goes into practical effects and physical puppets vs CGI, and rejecting "death of the author". To me, knowing how much effort someone put into their work has a huge influence on how much I appreciate it. Artworks entirely generated via AI are just a novelty to me right now because it's amazing (and often hilarious) what software is able to accomplish now.

Yes, that is absolutely better than doing it with an AI tool. If this is going to be the status quo (which I absolutely hope not), imagine if we actually lost the art of drawing in a century's time or so because people didn't want to learn to hold a pen and draft something themselves.

Imagine it's because this is what society wanted now. They didn't want artists, they wanted a fast food version with zero human emotion and input. And because it made money, people wouldn't want to be artistic anymore.

We do have to think of longevity here, cos there are people as I said starting to feel drawing, painting, etc is pointless.

I don't disagree, but what you're describing is a negative feedback loop resulting in an extreme dystopia and is itself a "slippery slope" argument. If all new art is created by AI trained by traditional art, to the point where people eventually lose the skill to create art on their own, then art itself will come to a standstill because AI will have no original art to train on. Eventually all of the permutations that AI can generate from their original input will be exhausted, and even before that it'll lose all novelty as all new art becomes too similar.

As long as humans value novel art, this isn't a situation we need to worry about because the need for something fresh will inspire people to create new art. Using your fast food analogy, just because fast food exists and a lot of people want it and can't afford a gourmet meal, that doesn't mean the culinary arts have ceased to exist. Many people still value a home-cooked meal or food prepared by a master chef.

Of course artists deserve to survive on their art, but is it not time then that we get an economic solution on that as a whole? Why do we have to lock down our cultural products and make them stingy commodified property just so artists can get crumbs for their work by forcing people to pay for it (arguably making artistic expression into an economic act of marketing instead of a passion) when we could have a general basic income that anyone can survive on, without strings attached?

Artists could therefore be paid a living wage without restricting their works with copyright and getting up in arms about perceived slights. I believe artists are way too protective over their own works and folks "stealing" them when in reality it should be a general cultural good, a public domain to partake in. The notion that our human lives are here to produce and treat society as a potential customer base is dystopian.

I say that as a musician and a programmer who has published all their works under free copyleft licenses out of conviction.
I think it is unfair to characterize anyone who enjoys the idea of algorithm assisted artistry as an evil artist hating tech bro. We don't have to draw battle and property lines over art until everything is proprietary and locked down.

100% agree. We just need to get all of the world leaders to agree to abandon capitalism.
That was a joke, but I absolutely do want this for society. I just think we need to separate what an ideal world looks like from what a practical one is.

You mentioned you're a big Trek fan, so I get where your utopian ideations are rooted in. But the perfect world where we can all do things for our own betterment and the betterment of society instead of what pays us what we need to survive isn't going to come through a hard cutoff. We'll get there gradually, or we'll kill ourselves off. But that's not to say we shouldn't be pushing for the ideal world right now. It's people pushing for it that will lead us away from our inevitable demise. We just need to learn to be happy with limited progress in our own lifetimes so that in the future others can benefit from our effort.


Also, I just wanna say that I'm glad this topic sparked so much conversation and passion. I wish every thread I started could reach two pages in less than an evening.

[HayleyMulch]

I wish I had waited a few more minutes before my last reply so I could have seen this one, because I just want to say that this is a beautiful sentiment. I'm definitely guilty of perfectionism whenever I make something, which is probably why I have used AI to help with the portions I can't create myself rather than accept my limitations. I have an image of what I want in my head, and I'm going to make exactly that

Also, to your point about people with physical/mental disabilities adapting to create art in spite of (or inspired by) their limitations, that goes right along with what I said about appreciating the work that goes into practical effects and physical puppets vs CGI, and rejecting "death of the author". To me, knowing how much effort someone put into their work has a huge influence on how much I appreciate it. Artworks entirely generated via AI are just a novelty to me right now because it's amazing (and often hilarious) what software is able to accomplish now.

I believe you can still do that yourself. But, it's just me.

All of this is quite personal to me, which is why I'd say ye'd be rolling your eyes thinking "Jesus, she's having a go!" But it is.

I am drawing for nearly 24 years of my life. I then had an accident. That accident slowly in the last decade manifested into a disability. It now limits what I can do. All my big plans now have to be taken at a slower pace. And it hurts. It's broken my heart numerous times. The stories I want to tell using my art. I fear I'll never be able to do it all in my lifetime, also having to work a full time job to support myself.

To get me along, I say to myself that whatever higher power is out there just KNEW I was too good, and NERF'd me ahahaha. Having had very low self-esteem I need to have some mantra like that to keep pushing.

I believe in humans. I believe we have no limitations. I believe we are all capable of creating magnificent things. If I lose that hope, it's over for me. I don't want some silly computer to show me up! I'm more powerful than a computer goddammit lmao.

So that is why I won't give into the novel of it. It's nothing to me. It's devoid of the fun and passion I feel when I pick up a pen.

As long as humans value novel art, this isn't a situation we need to worry about because the need for something fresh will inspire people to create new art. Using your fast food analogy, just because fast food exists and a lot of people want it and can't afford a gourmet meal, that doesn't mean the culinary arts have ceased to exist. Many people still value a home-cooked meal or food prepared by a master chef.

I really, really do hope you are right. I genuinely believe with late stage capitalism, they'll find any means to sink so low to put artists out of meaningful work. Feed the algorithm with this, don't make your own stuff. I want to have hope everything we do isn't pointless.

[plantovision]

Personally I believe there is a line of separation between a tool and something that makes the art for you, a line that (in my opinion) AI goes far over. This line (in terms of visual media) is determined by whether or not someone needs to know what makes something visually appealing in order to make something visually appealing.

An experienced animator knows how to make a smooth motion, how to time their motions, how to manage complexity and complete works in a reasonable amount of time. An experienced photographer knows what makes a good shot, what angle to take a photo at, how to use editing software, how to use their camera effectively. An experienced digital artist knows how to compose a scene, what colors work together, how to make something look good, how to draw hands. These are all examples of theory. Theory is knowledge about your media, rather than knowledge about your subject).

AI image prompting removes the need for theory, for all you need is to give it instructions on what it is you want, the only bit of theory around it is how to tell the AI what you want. The AI is what's providing most of the visual appeal. This is the line where tools turn to automation.

(Note: I don't mean that you need to know theory to make art, I'm trying to say that in an authentic art form, artists have to have a reasonable amount of theory that they will learn as they cultivate their skills. My point is that it's dishonest to claim that AI prompters are artists (due to the minimal amount of theory used and the indirectness of the effect that prompters have on the final product) and to claim to they deserve the legal protections (such as copyright) and public attention of artists.)


I've often seen people use the argument that there isn't a problem with AI taking over in the commercial sphere because art should be about personal enjoyment and expressing emotions rather than making money (along with a similar argument that art shouldn't be copyrighted because it takes away from artistic expression as a whole). This argument is (and forgive my sternness here) wildly naive, and has only been able to propagate because it tries to pull at your heartstrings. We currently live in the year 2023, on planet Earth, and people (artists included) need to work to live. Artists are passionate about their art, and they (like everyone) want to work in a field that they're passionate about. We (as people) shouldn't need to worry about losing our entire field of work because enough people thought AI art was novel enough to let it stay around long enough to take us over. So long as we live under a capitalist economy, (which doesn't seem like it's gonna be changing for a while) AI image generation needs to have heavy governmental regulation in order to defend the field we've been spending our whole lives studying or else the world's talented artists will be forced into either soul-sucking jobs or poverty.
But hey, that's just the classic capitalism experience^TM.

Sorry if this post got a little heated, I'm just kinda passionate about this stuff.

[star dreams]

Not much input from me that hasn't already been said in this topic, I think AI in the art industry can be difficult to discuss sometimes bc of the mix of economic values and human values (Artists should be paid for their work vs should artists create with profit as the goal in the first place?).

I don't doubt that AI will eventually take a hold of the art industry, as it has done in other industries. And considering AI is mainly threatening the business aspect of making art, I think it's a bit futile to push for the innate reward of learning and labouring for a piece from scratch, because we've always known that corporations, and most consumers, don't really care about the journey. In business, the end product is always what's most important. I think the argument that "there's no such thing as bad art" is also pretty useless here, considering consumers and corporations definitely already have a set standard that they expect in the media.

However like what melon said, I don't think the current human practice of making art will be totally wiped out. I definitely think there will be some studios (perhaps mainly indie) who will stand by supporting human artists, and there are already artist communities built on the foundation of supporting creative works. And considering the horrendous backlash people get online from using AI art, I think the transformation will definitely take a lot longer

And I think that's the most business-relevant thing that separates human art and AI art; AI lacks creativity, it just takes preexisting images and merges them together, it can't create anything unique! VS humans being inspired by the things they see and transforming it into something new. I think is AI really did take over the whole industry, we wld see pretty quickly the stagnation of new ideas and concepts, and we'd instead be fed boring media copied from each other that all look the same. I think creativity is the power that we currently have over AI.

TLDR... Do I support AI in the industry? Of course not! While I do believe in the value in making art for yourself (no such thing as bad art, innate rewards blah blah blah) and that the capitalist focus on profit can be pretty stifling to creativity, I'd still rather artists be able to make a living!

PS. I think AI art shldve just stuck at the surreal, incomprehensible but weirdly accurate generations of single prompts like with DALLE, where people just generated random ideas for fun. (personally I think that's what images projected by my brain actually look like )

[RodFireProductions]

When AI art first started becoming a thing, I paid no mind to it. I even played around with it myself because it was just a fun little thing to mess with. What has truly grown my bitterness towards it is the people who are mostly using it. I don't believe most have pure intentions. The main tech bros pushing for AI feel like the same ones that pushed for NFTs. They don't truly care for art.

For me personally, I don't see AI "art" as art because it's not made by a person. It's made off of an algorithm trained to notice patterns in static based on keywords. There's no true thoughts behind why things were done the way they were in a piece. Nor do I believe one can be an AI artist. The person putting the prompts in is not an artist. The AI is the artist. The prompter is the commissioner and the AI is the artist being commissioned. The "skill" of knowing what you type as a prompt is the same skill of knowing how to properly communicate to an artist what you want. To me a drawing made by a toddler will always have more soul than a drawing someone prompted a computer to make. A child learning to draw more than a stick figure is more work towards art than the "artists" who only make AI "art".

Would you not say thats the same as using a digital drawing tablet? You can study traditional painting for years and develop a personal technique with your own brushes and even mix your own unique paint. However when you use a digital drawing tool you are getting perfect brush strokes created by pre-made brushes using simulated paint. I don't think anyone here would argue that digital painting is not a valid form of art through; its not the same, but they are both valid and allow you to focus on different things with different results.

As both a traditional and digital artist, I can tell you that you're not even close. The main difference between traditional and digital art is the ability to do certain things easier and faster, but there is a steep learning curve. You have to study digital painting the same way you have to study traditional; it can take years and both offer many different type of tools that take time to learn. Even getting "perfect brush strokes" in digital art can take a lot of time to accomplish. Digital art is just another medium of art. You still have to understand your craft to make it.

AI image prompting removes the need for theory, for all you need is to give it instructions on what it is you want, the only bit of theory around it is how to tell the AI what you want. The AI is what's providing most of the visual appeal. This is the line where tools turn to automation.

AI art doesn't understand theory nor do most that push for it being used for profit. That's why when you look closer to at a lot of AI art, no matter how pretty at first glance, you can start seeing the flaws and illogical attributes in it.

A traditional artist being forced to use a drawing tablet doesn't suddenly lose their ability to draw and create art, just like how a digital artist being forced to use a pencil doesn't lose theirs. You take the trained algorithm away from an AI "artist", they can no longer create their art without another algorithm and other people's art.

[Guest]

I still do not get why so much of the conversation is focused on whether it requires skill or not.

Is it not completely irrelevant where the art comes from? Is the end product not worth looking it by itself if it has not met a certain threshold of artist skill? I can imagine looking at algorithmically generated art and enjoying it. Is really anything else required to consider something art?

And even if we assume that artist skill is required for something to be truly art, we are at the very beginning of all this algorithmic art technology. In the future, the simple skillset of phrasing a creative prompt might be expanded by actually fine-tuning all kinds of algorithmic variables, at which point it turns into an actual skill you need to learn. Sure, it's not the same skill-set as a manual artist that uses fine motor motion to sculpt lines on a medium, but it might simply be a newly emerging multi-modal visual-written art form. Who says that something can not be art? If I wrote a poem and used that poem as a prompt for an algorithm, then it's a multimodal art piece consisting of both a visual and a prosaic component. Perhaps they complement each other, or they don't, or they showcase multiple facets of a certain idea. Of course that's art.

I think in a knee-jerk opposition to what people perceive as "tech bros", we lose sight of what art actually means. If something is more art when it requires more manual skill, by that logic using a sequencer is not music because if you take a sequencer away from a chiptune musician, occasionally you will find someone who has never learned to play any instrument at all. I also think this logic is kind of ableist because not everyone has the fine motor control, sense of rhythm or even the required senses to create art, so it can be nice for someone to see the product of their creativity come to life in a visual form who otherwise would never have had the opportunity.

I think it's a very emotionally charged discussion because traditional artists feel like something is taken away from them, while in reality, it's simply one more niche that we can grow into. Traditional art and computer art will co-exist in the same way that sampled music and manual music co-exists right now, like Scratch and C programs co-exist, and like auto-generated news articles and manual news articles co-exist right now.

I think other parts of it are much more dangerous: like ChatGPT being ascribed some sort of communicative intent or "knowledge", when in reality, it is literally just a text generator without any knowledge of the world. The prospect of using ChatGPT and other similar "large language models" for anything but the party trick it is right now is incredibly dangerous. It just puts words behind each other. And of course I don't feel threatened as a programmer or writer by ChatGPT because it might have been trained on my code or writing.

[Guest]

I think this topic drifted more into a debate over AI art in general than I intended. I don't disagree that it's a very problematic tool creatively, economically and ethically. But I do see some uses for it that I think respect those issues while not writing the technology off completely.

For those who have spoken out against it, are there any applications for AI art that you would consider acceptable or ethical, or is it a hard "no" in all situations?

An experienced digital artist knows how to compose a scene, what colors work together, how to make something look good, how to draw hands.

This line (in terms of visual media) is determined by whether or not someone needs to know what makes something visually appealing in order to make something visually appealing.

...

AI image prompting removes the need for theory, for all you need is to give it instructions on what it is you want, the only bit of theory around it is how to tell the AI what you want. The AI is what's providing most of the visual appeal. This is the line where tools turn to automation.

I agree that composing a prompt doesn't require any theory or knowledge of what makes something visually appealing. However, it doesn't preclude it either. Here is an example prompt given by an AI art image generator:

High detail RAW color photo professional [...] close photograph of a ((blonde woman standing)), in a city or a field, [...] matte, pastel colors, backlighting, depth of field, natural lighting, hard focus, film grain, (3d), ray traced, rendered, photographed with a Sony a7 III Mirrorless Camera, by photographer

The specificity of the prompt shows that whoever wrote it knows both theory and the traditional tools of the craft very well, and they're going to have a lot more control over the end result because of it. Yeah, you can also generate an image from a simple prompt with no knowledge, but you're not going to have much control over the result. You might like what comes out, but like I said previously, is that any different from an amateur photographer taking a snapshot of a landscape they think looks good without any knowledge of lighting, framing or composition? You can recognize that something looks good visually without understanding why it does.

Similarly, Jackson Pollock can throw paint at a canvas and we consider it high art because he had a great understanding of traditional forms of art before he started experimenting with splatters. If you look at Pablo Picasso's early works, you can see he both knew how and had the skill to create realistic portraits before he began experimenting with cubism. If I haphazardly chucked paint at a canvas or started sketching subjects at weird angles, I could probably create something very similar but nobody is going to respect it because A) I'm just aping someone else's style, and B) I don't have the knowledge and experience to justify such experiments.

E. E. Cummings famously didn't use "proper" capitalization or punctuation in his poetry, but he knew all of the grammatical rules and how to compose traditional poetry, so we can appreciate him subverting those rules and forms. Whereas if a child did the same thing, we'd correct them because they're doing it out of ignorance rather than experimentation. And we're definitely not going to fault a typewriter or word processor for allowing someone without knowledge or experience of writing to make such rudimentary mistakes even if the end result resembles something created by an expert.

All of this is to say that it's not the tool or the medium you should be concerned about. It's the person using them that matters.

I still do not get why so much of the conversation is focused on whether it requires skill or not.

...

Some people's valuation of art is increased by knowing the skill and effort required to produce it, but it's not a requirement for all people's appreciation. I love hand-drawn and stop-motion animation a lot more than CGI, but that doesn't mean I dislike CGI animation entirely. It can be done well, and I actually love when it's used to replicate hand-drawn/stop-motion animation. Because, even if it's easier to produce, it shows that the animators understand and appreciate those traditional methods enough to replicate them. The movie Klaus is a great example.

And my appreciation of AI art largely comes from the skill of humans required to create machine learning systems rather than the AI itself.

I think other parts of it are much more dangerous: like ChatGPT being ascribed some sort of communicative intent or "knowledge", when in reality, it is literally just a text generator without any knowledge of the world. The prospect of using ChatGPT and other similar "large language models" for anything but the party trick it is right now is incredibly dangerous. It just puts words behind each other. And of course I don't feel threatened as a programmer or writer by ChatGPT because it might have been trained on my code or writing.

This is a big issue as well. I don't think we're close to creating artificial intelligence that is sentient or sapient. But I also don't think the first time we create such AI will be intentional or immediately recognizable. It's going to emerge from the machine learning systems we're working on today for other applications, and it's going to go unnoticed for a long time before we're aware of it. So I can kind of sympathize with that Google engineer who was fired because he thought their chat bot had become self aware, but I do think he's very naive and easily duped. Natural speech engines will get very convincing long before they reach self awareness. His reaction came from a place of caring, though, and I hope that's how we'll respond when truly self-aware AI emerges.

However, we also need to be wary of emergent intelligence that doesn't resemble our own. That's going to be the most difficult to identify.

[tarraxahum]

Is it not completely irrelevant where the art comes from? Is the end product not worth looking it by itself if it has not met a certain threshold of artist skill? I can imagine looking at algorithmically generated art and enjoying it. Is really anything else required to consider something art?

I will just quickly* address this before returning to the actual topic I swear - but I think it's not about the technical skill per say (as was already said, the littlest children can make art). But there's a piece of the artist themselves in each and every art I've ever liked. There's a reason why "art vs artists" compilations are surfacing every year - because indeed there's often something fasctinatingly similar between how the art looks and how the artist does. It's often immediately visible what artist loves (for example, I've stumbled upon a new artist yesterday and I immediately knew they were a lesbian and gender-ly queer at that, because the way they draw butches and what features they highlight is telling and speaks to me on a personal level), and people gravitate to that art if it speaks to them. Sure, artists get inspired by each other and give/take all the time, but they always make it their own because it passes through them like a filter. The same reason they teach to consider time period's and a writer's life circumstances in literary analysis. A photographer frames a shot and focuses on details based on what they see in their subject. A sculptor focuses on muscles or on soft folds of fat, artists make the lines hard or soft, colors bright or muted. Those pieces of love and inspiration are what makes an artist someone's favorite, that's why certain artists get commissioned from and subsequently that's why certain artstyles get requested from AIs. Because they touched someone, their soul or however you want to put it. Now, generating AI art and working with prompts can surely require skill, more and more as the time goes, but it's still going to be asking a machine to build your vision out of someone else's feelings, personality and love, and you won't be able to add much of your own unless you put your own art in the mix. I agree with one of the points above, it's more akin to commissioning.

Also, concerning the "why do artist need to 'own' their art", even if we do remove money from the equasion: the same reason, honestly. A lot of art is incredibly personal, steaming from the artist's lived experiences and inner feelings. In a certain way it is my child of sorts. I want to show it to people, I'm happy when people like it, but to see or even just imagine it taken from me and mutilated for someone else's amusement like it means nothing, just some meaningless lines on paper... genuinely hurts. Like, it does. I've made it our of my own metaphorical flesh and blood, it's everyone's to look at, but I don't think it's everyone's to do with at they please. Forgive me for going all artistic and individualistic on you, I guess.

For those who have spoken out against it, are there any applications for AI art that you would consider acceptable or ethical, or is it a hard "no" in all situations?

OKAY BACK ON TRACK I PROMISE! As I said, I think that if regulated properly it could be a very nice tool to assist in creation (say, you draw the characters, it draws a background, something like that). Or even used for fun, as is the case with that one AI converting your photos into anime characters. I believe there is a game in development (or is it released already...) where you actually create an AI generated character to play with before the game actually starts. How cool is that? I also think AI art is there to stay commercially, and in theory that's not such a bad thing. Bring on artificially generated half-naked women on advertisement billboards ('cause that strategy is hardly going away), half of us are pining after 2D anyway!

_{* - they said like a liar}

[Guest]

Now, generating AI art and working with prompts can surely require skill, more and more as the time goes, but it's still going to be asking a machine to build your vision out of someone else's feelings, personality and love

This is a great way of putting it, and a perspective I hadn't thought of before. No matter how carefully you craft the prompt to get exactly the result you want, it's always going to generate something possessed of other people.

I believe there is a game in development (or is it released already...) where you actually create an AI generated character to play with before the game actually starts. How cool is that?

That's a really cool approach to character creation in a game. It kind of reminds me of that NBA game that let you put a photo of your face onto a player, but the results from that ranged from bad to nightmare fuel.

[Onio]

The hard truth is that its not really up for debate; AI is not going away; its going to get better and it is going to be used by a lot of companies and people who need things created. I think AI will replace the jobs of many print artists, comic book authors, UX designers, graphic designers, video editors, audio engineers and many many more! - Its not nice to be replaceable, but it happens

However the technology itself makes me really excited! In the same way as computers and software like Unity or even your web editor has allowed you to create things that would have been impossible 30 years ago, in 30 years we will be able to make things that are impossible today! I think AI is an amazing tool and its gonna have the potential to really positively impact the world and our creative lives.

I feel pretty similar.

For the record, I am also an artist. As a teen and in my 20s, fine art was the only career I was ever really interested in. I went to college for my craft, and spent years working on my career. When I first realized the implications of AI over the spring and summer, I had a bit of an existential crisis. I thought, man, I bet most of my life on this, only to see that soon I might be rendered useless. But I don't think it's something we can put back at this point, there's too much money and corporate powers are going to push its development now that the potential is realized. We can push for regulation, though.

As the anxiety receded, though, I began to realize a few things...

1. While it might replace image rendering, it won't replace the role of the artist in generating a creative vision, of translating their internal framework and philosophy of life into a visual experience that expresses the way the artist feels, views, and perceives life. If anything, it might push artists away from relying on eye candy to create work and toward substantial self-reflection and observation of life, and toward thinking on how to express their observations and philosophy of life into a potent visual experience/artwork. I think the most powerful artworks are those which touch on aspects of the universal human experience through the lens/individuality of the artist, connecting the artist with their audience through their artwork, to "speak" to them through the visual experience (the artwork) that they've created. That's something an AI art generator can't do, because it's so much more than "draw a landscape in X style."

2. It might just push discussion on a clearer definition of art, which I think is well needed. I really dislike the whole "art is anything" approach to art, because it muddies the water and doesn't set any helpful trail signs for artists who really want to improve their work beyond mere technical craftsmanship.

3. The speed with which it can produce "finished" compositions can lead to a lot of ideas for artists. Having access to AI generators gave me so many ideas for new compositional approaches that I might have overlooked or hadn't thought about before. I would love to have my own private use AI that I can train on all my artworks for this very reason. Obviously out of my price range now, but in a few decades, they might have a full featured and very powerful model that is obtainable for the average professional working artist.

4. Based on the responses I've seen across the web, I'm relieved and confident that there will DEFINITELY be a market for fine artists who create their work themselves. I can see the vast majority of collectors wanting to work done by genuine human beings.

5. At the end of the day, I started making artwork because I wanted to bring my vision to life, express myself, create things others enjoy and make awesome stuff. If AI helps me to accomplish this at even just double the speed, I am now for it, because I have way too many ideas for my work to be done on my own. The money situation may be difficult to figure out, but I'm beginning to pivot my practice and looking for alternative ideas for supporting myself in the future so that I can keep creating what I wish to create.

I've been nervous about AI in general for yeaaars. At the end of the day, while I wish we hadn't created it in the first place, it might be too late to turn around now, because we live in a money motivated world. The best bet is to adapt, learn how to use it, and grow in other areas (such as developing a creative vision with depth.)

[Melooon]

I came across this video today (The video topics not so important-deals with mental health); Im sure its not a unique style and Im sure we will see lots of it in the future - but I think its incredibly engaging - its like the AI is visualising his words in the same way your mind would when someone is talking to you and you're imagining their words - somehow I find it very relaxing, like its speaking to my brain in a language I didn't know I was missing