I hate AI art but . . .

[AutumnPlunkett]

I find AI is a tool. I'd never compare it to something drawn by a human artist. Both have their pros and cons with varying quality, but it's also true that the results are different. However, I like the fact that I can take an AI drawing and cut out the parts I want to create something else for say a book cover. Otherwise, I'd be limited to images available as royalty-free images to try and scrap together an image to represent my story. That wouldn't give me anything decent and it would be a poor representation of my story.

I'm not going to pay for a book cover for a story I am largely providing for free. I never plan to officially publish the stories I write via Amazon or anything else. Using Patreon is the closest I get to that and, even then, my Patreon readers are paying for early-access chapters, not a final product. I'm lucky if I make 50 cents per hour spent writing, not even counting other hours spent working on my story, but it's often less than that after all the taxes and fees are accounted for. If you expect me to spend every last cent I have made in a year for a single book cover from a human artist when I can produce nearly 5 volumes worth of writing in the same time period, then you are nuts. Most other writers on sites like this are in a similar position as they are purely hobby writers who do it for fun, they have no money to spend on a book cover, but its a matter of fact that most readers won't bother reading a story without one.

I think the idea that AI limits creativity to only what is included in training data is also flawed. I use apps like Combye (a fashion app) to paste in images like playing paper dolls and then layer on image effects. I often times have to spend hours playing with the AI apps and then spend hours working on making a cover from the images I create. Then, when I have something that I feel looks alright and that fits the themes in my story, I still have to spend time in the Canva app using filters and working with the text and element features to get the final product. I highly doubt anyone would be putting down those with more experience using photoshop who use royalty-free images and the images they pay money to use in their work like people used to before AI was wide spread. What I do really isn't much different, yet it uses AI in the process so it is instantly discounted as worthless.

 

[Vsolon]

AI prompting can be an art in itself, but I feel the knowledge of prompting is more of an art form here than the generated output.

Depending on what you're using there can be a lot more to the process for Generative AI than just prompting. People can use Normal Maps, Poses, Segmentation, In-Painting and Out Painting. It's not uncommon to do some Overpainting and Photo Bashing too. The workflow certainly isn't like your standard illustration process or painting process. But its like a more complex version of Photobashing or a Procedural Node based workflow. Actually there are some node based GUI's for AI too.

 

[Kalliel]

Mastering the prompting part of AI art generation is an art in itself. To make godly AI art that is specific, you need skills... and luck. It's an intriguing process, to say the least.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

I'm not going to argue if AI kills creativity or not, but I don't agree with you on the topic. Art is all about expressing ourselves, ideas, imagination, concepts, and things. You don't have to be a good artist to express yourself creatively, but when you are offloading that (rather than using it as a tool) to an algorithm to get a good enough picture, it is not really human creativity, is it.

That said, AI art can be a source of inspiration or used in a creative manner, but as a source of creative expression, it is not the same.

I thought he would make the argument that AI art enhances creativity because artists will have to get creative to deal with AI copying.

 

[TwistedRomcom]

The gradual unshitification of diffusion models means I can include an illustration every chapter or two without sacrificing my focus on the actual writing part. I get nice comments all the time from people who like it and think it adds to the story. That simply wouldn't be possible with real art. It would cost thousands, maybe tens of thousands if the story ran long enough.

As for the concern that AI might remove the incentive for artists to produce art, only time will tell but I'm skeptical. If the primary concern for something you make is the time-efficiency to profit ratio, was it ever even art to begin with? Maybe decoupling economic concerns from art will lead people to produce more creative pieces rather than just whatever sells. Think about how many artists you know that produce NSFW furry diaper-fetish stuff on the side just to put food on the table, and so they can focus more on what they actually want to make.

Perhaps that's a bit naive, but that's my hope. Though, I understand that this is the real world and artists need to eat too.

 

[BetterNickPending]

That said, AI art can be a source of inspiration or used in a creative manner, but as a source of creative expression, it is not the same.

After two weeks fighting with multiple Ais, I lost patience. I took the best (not last) result and repainted it in Clip Studio to get what I want.

But to draw like that, it would probably take me at least a month. With AI, it took me a week.

If you didn't waste that week on Ai you would be 25% done and learned how to do it faster next time :)

they will never be able to truly replace artists. Unless people just stop caring.
Which is honestly a much more likely problem going forward, in my opinion.

I have seen multiple decent or good artists on DA who stopped drawing at all and use Ai only.
That is just sad...

Its a dumb thing to say that AI art kills human creativity.
You do know that we humans said the same thing when Cameras became a thing.

Because people understood that camera is a new medium.
Ai is not a new medium. It tries to emulate other traditional, physical and digital media.

Edit : .......oh...........

Are you the second person?

To make godly AI art that is specific, you need skills... and luck.

And patience.
Patience is most important here :P

 

[SailusGebel]

AI prompting can be an art in itself, but I feel the knowledge of prompting is more of an art form here than the generated output. As an example, if I hire an artist to draw for me and give them general instructions, am I the creative one?

I say depends on what you ask them to draw. Same reason why I think sometimes AI is expressing yourself creatively. More than that, if you really want a unique concept, apart from deducing how to prompt it, you might also need to train a new model. Which all takes time and effort. Is it more effort than learning how to draw? No.

I think a good example are games. When you make a game to express yourself creatively, you won't necesserily make every element from scratch. Howevver you will oversee the process of making different elements. You might not know how to make music, but you know what you want for that scene to work. Or you might not know how to draw, but you will do the same thing here.

Btw, the time and effort AI takes is one of the reasons I can't see how it will replace an artist.

 

[DannyTheDaikon]

Are you the second person?

To be fair, it's almost impossible to notice on a computer monitor, so I'm guessing most people browse on a PC or a phone with a big screen

 

[ThatTwat3000]

As a rule of thumb, if humans can't draw something, neither can AI. AI trains on human drawings; it can't generate something if it doesn't have the required training data.

I don’t know man, AI has started training on AI data now that so much of the internet has inherently become AI... just give it a few years. Right now, it’s only disfigured fingers and hands. AI will train itself to think those are normal, and start moving to other parts of the human body.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

As an artist myself, I don't think AI will kill creativity. However, it does 'blunt' the skill of the illustrator.

I mean, it's helpful in 'covering' the less-developed areas of an artist (backgrounds for me), at the cost of relying on AI whenever we have to do such art.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll return to bed. This is a random 3AM thought.

 

[LilRora]

Personally I think the vast majority of issues people have with AI generated art is not the art itself, but how it impacts the market combined with the psychological factor of having an AI perform similarly or better than the artist at seemingly no invested effort.

The thing is that the modern artists' and consumers' goals don't align at all. The consumers, they want good art. Most don't care how it was created. But let's be real, how many artists make art purely because they want to draw or paint or be creative and make good art? There is quite a lot of them, but that's because they have the freedom to do so - and they are still in the minority.

AI art in itself did not impact them in any meaningful manner. They still do what they love doing.

Issues crop up when AI art starts to bother artists, and realistically, that's either because of money or because people are being dicks and they are stealing art or being cheap, or accusing each other. Neither of those is a problem with AI art in itself, they're problems with the environment.

 

[BetterNickPending]

To be fair, it's almost impossible to notice on a computer monitor, so I'm guessing most people browse on a PC or a phone with a big screen

I made it on PC.
Aimed for it to not be to obvious.
But you are right. Mobile users have it easier to find out the real reason this thread was created...

 

[Reinaislost]

I say depends on what you ask them to draw. Same reason why I think sometimes AI is expressing yourself creatively. More than that, if you really want a unique concept, apart from deducing how to prompt it, you might also need to train a new model. Which all takes time and effort. Is it more effort than learning how to draw? No.

I think a good example are games. When you make a game to express yourself creatively, you won't necesserily make every element from scratch. Howevver you will oversee the process of making different elements. You might not know how to make music, but you know what you want for that scene to work. Or you might not know how to draw, but you will do the same thing here.

Btw, the time and effort AI takes is one of the reasons I can't see how it will replace an artist.

As long as you are the one making creative decisions, it is some form of art. Typing a bunch of stuff in and art out is the type of thing I'm hesitant to call art. But if you are using AI as a tool and actively making creative decisions, I'm willing to concede it is art—more the knowledge in this case. If Adobe brings some AI features that make editing videos convenient, it is still going to be an art nonetheless; you are still the one editing it. The question is: where does the boundary lie?

 

[LilRora]

As long as you are the one making creative decisions, it is some form of art. Typing a bunch of stuff in and art out is the type of thing I'm hesitant to call art. But if you are using AI as a tool and actively making creative decisions, I'm willing to concede it is art—more the knowledge in this case. If Adobe brings some AI features that make editing videos convenient, it is still going to be an art nonetheless; you are still the one editing it. The question is: where does the boundary lie?

I think, like with most things, it's a spectrum. Trying to draw a hard line is as pointless as it is impossible to do so objectively.

 

[Vsolon]

As long as you are the one making creative decisions, it is some form of art. Typing a bunch of stuff in and art out is the type of thing I'm hesitant to call art. But if you are using AI as a tool and actively making creative decisions, I'm willing to concede it is art—more the knowledge in this case. If Adobe brings some AI features that make editing videos convenient, it is still going to be an art nonetheless; you are still the one editing it. The question is: where does the boundary lie?

I don't think there's a ton of value in making that distinction for others works excluding commercial use in which case that's on your local government. It's something you decide for yourself if you're the one making the piece. At the end of the day if its vibes it thrives.

And honestly as long as you're transparent about it, its whatever.

 

[SailusGebel]

As long as you are the one making creative decisions, it is some form of art. Typing a bunch of stuff in and art out is the type of thing I'm hesitant to call art. But if you are using AI as a tool and actively making creative decisions, I'm willing to concede it is art—more the knowledge in this case. If Adobe brings some AI features that make editing videos convenient, it is still going to be an art nonetheless; you are still the one editing it. The question is: where does the boundary lie?

I think another good example are movies. Film director does not make all of the movie on their own. But they are the one behind the creative vision. And the boundary is the same as in games or movies. Are Marvel movies art? What about Tarantino's movies? Kubrick?

 

[DannyTheDaikon]

Film director does not make all of the movie on their own. But they are the one behind the creative vision.

That's an interesting analogy. It does feel like it would be more fitting to call people dabbling in AI "directors" instead of "artist"

 

[SailusGebel]

That's an interesting analogy. It does feel like it would be more fitting to call people dabbling in AI "directors" instead of "artist"

Ehh, you do call certain directors artists. Even though a director does not make all of the movie on his own. They technically can make a movie without actors, musicians, tech personnel, etc. But even with them present in a movie we still call certain directors artists. Instead of a pencil or a brush, ink or oil paint, they have actors and musicians, editing and lighting work.

 

[DannyTheDaikon]

Ehh, you do call certain directors artists. Even though a director does not make all of the movie on his own. They technically can make a movie without actors, musicians, tech personnel, etc. But even with them present in a movie we still call certain directors artists. Instead of a pencil or a brush, ink or oil paint, they have actors and musicians, editing and lighting work.

I mean as a more general term. "Director" refers to more than just movies and it's a way to refer to someone who supervises and guides the work and performance of others. It seems closer to what prompting is. Then those that prove themselves would still fall under the "artis" banner just like with movie or music directors.