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GLBFew toughts about latest poll
142
Poll results so far.
Whats the scariest aspect of AI as an artist?
Financial and cultural devaluation of human-made art 36%
AI taking jobs by replacing human artists 30%
Does Not Apply To Me 21%
My art being used to train AI without my consent 8%
Someone else making money off my art 5%
If we set aside the existential threat of AI singularity and focus solely on visual and audio-generating AI models, I believe the public is increasingly valuing human-made art. The knowledge that someone has invested time, effort, and creativity into a video, visual, audio piece, textual work, or performing art brings it more recognition. Human-made art resonates on a deeper level because it reflects genuine personal expression. When a piece of art has a commercial aspect, this recognition can translate into higher value and greater success in the market, even more than in previous eras.
On the other hand, AI models should be seen as tools that can enhance an artist's productivity, streamline workflows, and reduce the time required for commercial projects. These models are not replacing creativity but are assisting artists in achieving their visions more efficiently. By leveraging AI, artists can explore new possibilities and push the boundaries of their craft without compromising originality.
The real threats posed by AI lie in its potential economic, energy, and military applications. These areas raise concerns about job displacement, resource consumption, and weaponization, which are far more pressing than the role of AI in artistic endeavors. In art, AI is a complement, not a competitorit enhances human creativity rather than undermining it.
Whats the scariest aspect of AI as an artist?
Financial and cultural devaluation of human-made art 36%
AI taking jobs by replacing human artists 30%
Does Not Apply To Me 21%
My art being used to train AI without my consent 8%
Someone else making money off my art 5%
If we set aside the existential threat of AI singularity and focus solely on visual and audio-generating AI models, I believe the public is increasingly valuing human-made art. The knowledge that someone has invested time, effort, and creativity into a video, visual, audio piece, textual work, or performing art brings it more recognition. Human-made art resonates on a deeper level because it reflects genuine personal expression. When a piece of art has a commercial aspect, this recognition can translate into higher value and greater success in the market, even more than in previous eras.
On the other hand, AI models should be seen as tools that can enhance an artist's productivity, streamline workflows, and reduce the time required for commercial projects. These models are not replacing creativity but are assisting artists in achieving their visions more efficiently. By leveraging AI, artists can explore new possibilities and push the boundaries of their craft without compromising originality.
The real threats posed by AI lie in its potential economic, energy, and military applications. These areas raise concerns about job displacement, resource consumption, and weaponization, which are far more pressing than the role of AI in artistic endeavors. In art, AI is a complement, not a competitorit enhances human creativity rather than undermining it.
! REPORT
AI is based on what is or what has been. Any creativity that may happen, comes as a side-effect of complete a task using fragments of the past from which it was trained on. For example, the Picasso like addition of body parts to a photo-realistic depiction. Because AI is trained on the past and because the source material it is trained on is likely not edited for errors, increase reliance on AI as an answer (not as a tool) locks societies into a static quo. The blue line MicroSoft gives you defines correct grammar and trying to change the model is just some Karen or Ken screaming into the void. No AI was used or harmed in the typing of this post.
REPLY
! REPORT
"If we set aside the existential threat of AI singularity and focus solely on visual and audio-generating AI models, I believe the public is increasingly valuing human-made art. The knowledge that someone has invested time, effort, and creativity into a video, visual, audio piece, textual work, or performing art brings it more recognition. Human-made art resonates on a deeper level because it reflects genuine personal expression. When a piece of art has a commercial aspect, this recognition can translate into higher value and greater success in the market, even more than in previous eras."
This is a flawed statement.
First off, on an individual level, making art to sell has always been a poor business move unless you make what we call commercial art. While there's creativity involved, the focus is on the skills used. If you're going to make art for profit, you're going to have to make art that people want. Most artists thrive on making art that they love, and often enough it isn't what people want. And since so much of it is a string of ones and zeroes now, the inherent value has diminished to nearly zero. The ability to copy infinitely with imperceptable loss of quality devalues everything in that space. So your best bet as an artist is to create commercial art. The very few people who have been able to go it alone while making what they truly love, and make money at it, have effectively hit the "art lottery". Less than 10% of art majors go on to make a living at creating art. So this percentage is even lower amongst those who don't have the networking advantage that "proper" schooling brings.
This piggybacks onto the new problem we now face. Joe Public does not care how hard you work, how long it took you to learn your craft, or what tools you use to create. Joe Public has been conditioned to believe that everything on the internet is free. Joe Public is going to look for whatever that individual wants, and then take it. AI image generation has brought that mindset straight to your browser now. For free, anyone can type in a prompt and upload a picture, and let the machines generate whatever is desired. "Art" as they call it, has devolved into a virtual slot machine. And then we get into things such as commissioned art. Reddit has a subreddit for artists seeking commissions. There are a ton of them, and pretty much nobody is making any money. Since AI image generation has really hit the scene this year, I have seen zero commissions. I am a character artist. I used to make caricatures of real people using DAZ figures. People don't need to come to me and pay me 50 bucks for a character anymore. They just upload a photo of themselves, type something in, and "pull the handle". Hell even I have been doing it for around 2 years now. I run my own renders through the algorithms. I started it to really learn how it all works, and it turned out that I was 100% right about how it works.
TL;DR AI image generation has debased and devalued all digital art to near-nothing outside of commercial art. And the typical person places zero value on art due to the accessibility of such media, and the "democratization" of the visual digital media space. I still have fans and they aren't going away, but they are no longer paying for the artwork. You have to take yourself out of the perspective of an artist to see that the public never really placed any monetary value on artwork outside of commercial art that is generally sold by corporations. And since corporations are heavily developing AI generation, that tells me that soon commercial art will not be a viable income source for any artist. The average person out in public can't even distinguish an AI generated image from a Human generated image. They hit the Like button and scroll. Media is now a giant Skinner Box.
This is a flawed statement.
First off, on an individual level, making art to sell has always been a poor business move unless you make what we call commercial art. While there's creativity involved, the focus is on the skills used. If you're going to make art for profit, you're going to have to make art that people want. Most artists thrive on making art that they love, and often enough it isn't what people want. And since so much of it is a string of ones and zeroes now, the inherent value has diminished to nearly zero. The ability to copy infinitely with imperceptable loss of quality devalues everything in that space. So your best bet as an artist is to create commercial art. The very few people who have been able to go it alone while making what they truly love, and make money at it, have effectively hit the "art lottery". Less than 10% of art majors go on to make a living at creating art. So this percentage is even lower amongst those who don't have the networking advantage that "proper" schooling brings.
This piggybacks onto the new problem we now face. Joe Public does not care how hard you work, how long it took you to learn your craft, or what tools you use to create. Joe Public has been conditioned to believe that everything on the internet is free. Joe Public is going to look for whatever that individual wants, and then take it. AI image generation has brought that mindset straight to your browser now. For free, anyone can type in a prompt and upload a picture, and let the machines generate whatever is desired. "Art" as they call it, has devolved into a virtual slot machine. And then we get into things such as commissioned art. Reddit has a subreddit for artists seeking commissions. There are a ton of them, and pretty much nobody is making any money. Since AI image generation has really hit the scene this year, I have seen zero commissions. I am a character artist. I used to make caricatures of real people using DAZ figures. People don't need to come to me and pay me 50 bucks for a character anymore. They just upload a photo of themselves, type something in, and "pull the handle". Hell even I have been doing it for around 2 years now. I run my own renders through the algorithms. I started it to really learn how it all works, and it turned out that I was 100% right about how it works.
TL;DR AI image generation has debased and devalued all digital art to near-nothing outside of commercial art. And the typical person places zero value on art due to the accessibility of such media, and the "democratization" of the visual digital media space. I still have fans and they aren't going away, but they are no longer paying for the artwork. You have to take yourself out of the perspective of an artist to see that the public never really placed any monetary value on artwork outside of commercial art that is generally sold by corporations. And since corporations are heavily developing AI generation, that tells me that soon commercial art will not be a viable income source for any artist. The average person out in public can't even distinguish an AI generated image from a Human generated image. They hit the Like button and scroll. Media is now a giant Skinner Box.
REPLY
! REPORT
Design Heretic
Karma: 16,298
Wed, Dec 11, 2024Very philosophical and somewhat negative analysis of contemporary situation. I really value your view on this issue, but we clearly have diametrically opposite experiences. I would love to hear more people and their opinions.
Pinspotter
Karma: 5,479
Wed, Dec 11, 2024I used to play the convention circuit so I have sorta seen this coming for a while now.
I'm gonna keep this to just AI art, and not other uses of AI. I'm very anti-AI in its current form in corporate America because so much of what I've seen and reviewed is just awful and really a glorified search algorithm masquerading as "AI".
I will also say that I own and pay good money for traditional artwork, comic book artwork in particular. Reason being that it has value and I can hang it on my walls and marvel over the technique the artist used to make it, and I can sell it. Digital art, not so much, it goes in a folder somewhere on my PC. I personally rank digital lower in value than physical art.
Regarding AI, I find it neither sinner or a saint, it's just technology. We had a similar battle about 20-25 years ago, it was traditional artist vs. digital only artist. I remember the taunts of "real art doesn't have an undo layer function". And basically that digital only artists were the "AI" in that battle. I imagine that similar to that battle, the upstart will still be around long after the feud ends. Just like if you're a good and accomplished traditional artists, you could do amazing work with digital artwork. A good and accomplished artist can probably find a way to work AI into their workflow.
For pluses:
In fairness, there are people that are just never going to master art. Either because of lack of time, skills, or interest. If those people want to make a silly AI pictures to express some limited form of creativity, why not? Didn't a lot people start out in 3D because they couldn't draw? Related, I really wish those god awful annoying RP'ing accounts on Twitter and other social media that steal tons of art and then repurpose them for their weird rp ads would use AI instead. Would be way less irritating than having your art repurposed w/o your permission (speaking as someone who has had that happen to their art).
Also sometimes you need generic art or photos for things. AI is actually pretty great at making that generic stuff that exists in the real world (think ad on the subway or bus), because AI itself is so generic.
You can get inspiration from AI generated artwork and designs. I'm currently working on a slutty Santa outfit in Daz because I saw a pretty cool and wonky slutty Santa outfit that AI made and was like "hey, that looks cool."
For minuses:
I wish there was a better way of training it. But I've seen enough trace-over images on twitter, instagram, facebook etc. of comic book panels and covers and people trying to pass it off as their original artwork that it's almost just as cringe. There's also a lot of people that just trace over photos, digital lightboxing. I use photos from the internet for posing practice in Daz, and one time I posted one of those images to twitter and someone replied with "you copied that from X artist!" and I was like "no, we both used the same reference photo." I then posted the photograph that said artist traced over and I used for posing practice
Also, I think the people that try to take AI images they make and then rebrand themselves as an "art studio" and begin selling patreon subscriptions or "commissions" is just crazy. I'm sorry, you're all using the same LORA's and anyone with a civitai account or a decent GPU can make the exact same image for free. There is no value to it at all. I think anyone giving up making art (3d art, traditional art, or digital painting) for AI prompts is crazy. It would be like giving up steak, potatoes, and chocolate cake for a diet of potato chips and twizzlers. And the sad part is I'm starting to see people do that. My guess is because they only care about the $ and AI is a much cheaper and easier way to make $ now.
It really isn't that good at the end of the day. An accomplished traditional, 2d, or 3d artist can run circles around AI. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
/rant off
Life sucks for a lot of people. If making AI artwork of their favorite characters brings them some happiness, so be it. Good quality artists will still be in demand, especially traditional ones. Your ability to prompt stuff in Stable Diffusion or MidJourney does not make you an art studio or someone who can charge for unique art, because anyone can make it with the same loras and prompts you used.
For a lot of people moving forward, it's gonna be a real question of "Do you like the process and get fulfillment out of the creation process" or "Do you want shiny generic-ish picture in 5 seconds"?
I will also say that I own and pay good money for traditional artwork, comic book artwork in particular. Reason being that it has value and I can hang it on my walls and marvel over the technique the artist used to make it, and I can sell it. Digital art, not so much, it goes in a folder somewhere on my PC. I personally rank digital lower in value than physical art.
Regarding AI, I find it neither sinner or a saint, it's just technology. We had a similar battle about 20-25 years ago, it was traditional artist vs. digital only artist. I remember the taunts of "real art doesn't have an undo layer function". And basically that digital only artists were the "AI" in that battle. I imagine that similar to that battle, the upstart will still be around long after the feud ends. Just like if you're a good and accomplished traditional artists, you could do amazing work with digital artwork. A good and accomplished artist can probably find a way to work AI into their workflow.
For pluses:
In fairness, there are people that are just never going to master art. Either because of lack of time, skills, or interest. If those people want to make a silly AI pictures to express some limited form of creativity, why not? Didn't a lot people start out in 3D because they couldn't draw? Related, I really wish those god awful annoying RP'ing accounts on Twitter and other social media that steal tons of art and then repurpose them for their weird rp ads would use AI instead. Would be way less irritating than having your art repurposed w/o your permission (speaking as someone who has had that happen to their art).
Also sometimes you need generic art or photos for things. AI is actually pretty great at making that generic stuff that exists in the real world (think ad on the subway or bus), because AI itself is so generic.
You can get inspiration from AI generated artwork and designs. I'm currently working on a slutty Santa outfit in Daz because I saw a pretty cool and wonky slutty Santa outfit that AI made and was like "hey, that looks cool."
For minuses:
I wish there was a better way of training it. But I've seen enough trace-over images on twitter, instagram, facebook etc. of comic book panels and covers and people trying to pass it off as their original artwork that it's almost just as cringe. There's also a lot of people that just trace over photos, digital lightboxing. I use photos from the internet for posing practice in Daz, and one time I posted one of those images to twitter and someone replied with "you copied that from X artist!" and I was like "no, we both used the same reference photo." I then posted the photograph that said artist traced over and I used for posing practice
Also, I think the people that try to take AI images they make and then rebrand themselves as an "art studio" and begin selling patreon subscriptions or "commissions" is just crazy. I'm sorry, you're all using the same LORA's and anyone with a civitai account or a decent GPU can make the exact same image for free. There is no value to it at all. I think anyone giving up making art (3d art, traditional art, or digital painting) for AI prompts is crazy. It would be like giving up steak, potatoes, and chocolate cake for a diet of potato chips and twizzlers. And the sad part is I'm starting to see people do that. My guess is because they only care about the $ and AI is a much cheaper and easier way to make $ now.
It really isn't that good at the end of the day. An accomplished traditional, 2d, or 3d artist can run circles around AI. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
/rant off
Life sucks for a lot of people. If making AI artwork of their favorite characters brings them some happiness, so be it. Good quality artists will still be in demand, especially traditional ones. Your ability to prompt stuff in Stable Diffusion or MidJourney does not make you an art studio or someone who can charge for unique art, because anyone can make it with the same loras and prompts you used.
For a lot of people moving forward, it's gonna be a real question of "Do you like the process and get fulfillment out of the creation process" or "Do you want shiny generic-ish picture in 5 seconds"?
REPLY
! REPORT
SnarlTheWerewolf
Karma: 2,126
Wed, Dec 11, 2024Thank you for coming to my TED talk, apologize for the massive block of text 
Pinspotter
Karma: 5,479
Thu, Dec 12, 2024Something to add here. Way back in the days we had a fairly large amount of what we call "taggers". These are people without a lot of skill in say... illustration. And back when e-mail was the primary form of online communication, many of us had banners in our e-mails to represent us, very similar to how we use avatars today. But since they're in a banner format, you can add a favorite quote or your website address. And there would be artwork that represents what we are or what we like. They're just like the forum banners we'd use. Anyway they were called "tags" because they didn't always have to be a banner. They could be a fancy frame with artwork.
How I got involved with that community is another story. But to make it short, I sold 2-D rendered assets in "tagging" stores. At the time it was fresh to see a 3-D character in a "tag" in place of a digital illustration. Many of the renders used still had backgrounds, and there were teams of artists whos sole job was to remove the backgrounds by hand. I got in at the tail end of the "tagging" thing. Social media was taking over as the main form of comms online. People wanted avatars, and I was making those as well.
But the point here I am making is in how the method of making an asset for "tagging" has changed. I have watched it move from illustrated characters, to 3-D characters in 2-D images, to purely AI-generated images. The few artists left are churning out AI-generated characters and other elements for pennies. And they look terrible. The AI assets these few "tag" artists are generating are claimed to be "their artwork". So it's insulting to me. I used to be featured in monthly online magazines dedicated to "tagging" and now these few asshats are pulling a slot machine handle churning out gar-bitch while they show their Dunning-Kruger on their sleeves.
How I got involved with that community is another story. But to make it short, I sold 2-D rendered assets in "tagging" stores. At the time it was fresh to see a 3-D character in a "tag" in place of a digital illustration. Many of the renders used still had backgrounds, and there were teams of artists whos sole job was to remove the backgrounds by hand. I got in at the tail end of the "tagging" thing. Social media was taking over as the main form of comms online. People wanted avatars, and I was making those as well.
But the point here I am making is in how the method of making an asset for "tagging" has changed. I have watched it move from illustrated characters, to 3-D characters in 2-D images, to purely AI-generated images. The few artists left are churning out AI-generated characters and other elements for pennies. And they look terrible. The AI assets these few "tag" artists are generating are claimed to be "their artwork". So it's insulting to me. I used to be featured in monthly online magazines dedicated to "tagging" and now these few asshats are pulling a slot machine handle churning out gar-bitch while they show their Dunning-Kruger on their sleeves.
Pinspotter
Karma: 5,479
Thu, Dec 12, 2024And to be fair, on the other side of things; I have been messing around in Artflow for about 2 years now. I've generated a ton of cute characters in a ton of fashion styles and settings. The stuff I can generate now looks really cool and the characters are adorable. But it's still pulling a slot machine handle. The fans who love my own rendered creations, also love the AI stuff I post on my Facebook profile and over at Pixiv. It's just fun, and I have never claimed it as my own, not even the images generated from my own plugged-in renders. Some of my friends/fans have been doing it too, with their own photos. None of us are selling the stuff, we're just having fun. I am still really pissed about how these algorithms were first trained, but technically they got away with it due to the nature of the internet. But these days it's like the new "meme generator". The laws haven't caught up with those people actually selling the generated images, but eventually it will. The biggest problem I see now is that these people really do think the're creating art. But it's vastly different from someone picking up a digital camera, or using Photoshop with a digital tablet. The difference now is you're just sitting at a terminal typing in phrases and/or simple code. The AI does 100% of the heavy lifting. You're not coding from scratch (and yes I consider coding an art form in a certain context). So me typing "Toon anime girl wearing a black corset with lace trim, with long black hair in tails, posing in a castle doorway" isn't making art. But we all know that already. I get four fun-looking images but that's really all it is. Scary thing is, I bet a few people would actually pay to see them through a Patreon page. That's what grinds my gears.
I don't like AI "Art". Perfect image composition, perfect color scheme ... perfect soullessness.
Then there are the subtleties such as 6 fingers or - in the adult range - more orifices than a person should have. But all this is consumed - or rather gobbled up - by the AI folks: Picture, picture, picture, picture - next handkerchief, please.
We had miles of discussion and picture comments on the topic over at 'rotica (that's how I know about the countless orifices). Unfortunately, many AI "artists" don't hold back with self-congratulation and want to be seen as "art" and "artists" (there's a really stupid line from AI apologists about A. Wahrhol and his Campels paintings). Two of the most apt replicas were (IMO):
* Are you really proud of what a machine has created for you?
* If you are an artist because of the picture - are you also an author because you wrote a prompt?
However: AI "Art" is here to stay - but we don't have to look at it
Thanks also to Renderhub for the "No AI"
Then there are the subtleties such as 6 fingers or - in the adult range - more orifices than a person should have. But all this is consumed - or rather gobbled up - by the AI folks: Picture, picture, picture, picture - next handkerchief, please.
We had miles of discussion and picture comments on the topic over at 'rotica (that's how I know about the countless orifices). Unfortunately, many AI "artists" don't hold back with self-congratulation and want to be seen as "art" and "artists" (there's a really stupid line from AI apologists about A. Wahrhol and his Campels paintings). Two of the most apt replicas were (IMO):
* Are you really proud of what a machine has created for you?
* If you are an artist because of the picture - are you also an author because you wrote a prompt?
However: AI "Art" is here to stay - but we don't have to look at it
Thanks also to Renderhub for the "No AI"
REPLY
! REPORT
You know this painting, is it art?
'And the sun fell asleep over the Adriatic'. This is the name of the painting by a certain Joachim-Raphaël Boronali exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1910.
In reality, it was a hoax perpetrated by Roland Dorgelès and two accomplices who had the painting done by a donkey with a paintbrush attached to its tail.
For me, the AI is like the donkey who painted this picture, the AI like the donkey, is not aware of what he is doing.
'And the sun fell asleep over the Adriatic'. This is the name of the painting by a certain Joachim-Raphaël Boronali exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1910.In reality, it was a hoax perpetrated by Roland Dorgelès and two accomplices who had the painting done by a donkey with a paintbrush attached to its tail.
For me, the AI is like the donkey who painted this picture, the AI like the donkey, is not aware of what he is doing.
REPLY
! REPORT
I've just completed the pool, the result update
Whats the scariest aspect of AI as an artist?
Financial and cultural devaluation of human-made art 32%
AI taking jobs by replacing human artists 26%
Does Not Apply To Me 21%
My art being used to train AI without my consent 11%
Someone else making money off my art 10%
Thanks for taking the poll
503 people participated so far
Whats the scariest aspect of AI as an artist?
Financial and cultural devaluation of human-made art 32%
AI taking jobs by replacing human artists 26%
Does Not Apply To Me 21%
My art being used to train AI without my consent 11%
Someone else making money off my art 10%
Thanks for taking the poll
503 people participated so far
REPLY
! REPORT
