Ai Art

My feelings about AI art are ambiguous.
I'm enchanted by the novelty. I'm fascinated by the way the models (especially the early, very glitchy models) interpreted prompts. I don't think there's been nearly enough research into the way models responded to prompts and how that provides a window into the collective unconscious. I'm worried about how good AI models are getting. I'm pretty sure it's going to get harder for me to make a living as a digital artist between now and my retirement age (which would be in 2050, if I'm allowed to live that long). It makes me very uncomfortable when an image generator comes up with a better illustration than I can.

(note - I put "AI art" in quotes because I'm aware that the technology making these images isn't really artificial intelligence - it's a neural network called a large language model. Still "ai art" has become the common parlance so I think it makes sense to keep using the term.)

There’s no denying that the digital art landscape is going to change irreversibly thanks to this technological shift. I’ve read comments from people talking about restricting the use AI-generated art (or even “poisoning” the models with tools like Nightshade); but in my opinion, this technology isn’t likely to get dismantled or restricted in a meaningful way.

I think the reality is that us digital artists are going to have to respond to AI art in an adaptive way, the same way painters did in the late 19th century when photography became more widespread, and the same way that traditional artists have had to do when digital art became more widespread.

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September 2022

July 2023

Midjourney prompt: "our lady sacred heart, black and white, pencil, sketch, draft"

First things first: there’s no denying that the digital art landscape is going to change irreversibly thanks to this technological development. Lots of us are going to lose money, have to switch careers, or have to upskill into web development or art direction. I don't think any efforts at copyright lawsuits or regulations are going to change that fact. I think that anyone who wants to continue making a living as a digital artist is going to have to make a game plan for how to adapt or upskill or make a shift in how they approach their career. Whether we like it or not, that's how we have to adapt.

But with the realities of the market aside, I think the topic of loss of work to AI in general raises a lot of interesting questions. Check out the other dropdowns for my thoughts on this.

First of all - is it right? Is it morally wrong for artists to lose jobs to machines?
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I think it's good to keep in mind that we're not the first ones this has happened to. Before the invention of the assembly line, cars were assembled manually by a few people. Before advances in telephone technology, switchboard operators had to manually connect you to the person you wanted to call. There are countless other examples (translators are another good one) of people who have had to adapt to technological change. Was it morally wrong for those people to lose their jobs to machines?

If the answer is no, then what makes digital artists different? And before you think that's an absurd question, I want to be clear that I'm talking about artists who do what I do : create commercial artwork like illustrations, graphic design, web design, or animation for business clients. I have a set of skills that involve emotion, creativity, and artistic skill, and I'm hired by clients to use those skills for a specific purpose that is dictated by the client.

There are plenty of cases where an ai-generated image works just as well or better than one of my artworks for what the client needs.

I want to be clear that I make a distinction between art that's done for commercial clients (graphic design, illustration, web design, mural painting etc) and art that we make for ourselves - art for art's sake, paintings that someone makes and later sells to a collector or patron. I don't think ai-generated art is as much of a threat to those artists as people think it is. The story of the human who made the artwork is as important as the artwork itself. If an artist uses AI to make an image that someone thinks is valuable enough

Maybe this is a bigger question

I think there are a few avenues open to us as digital artists. I think every artist needs to learn how to use these tools, whether there's an obvious way to incorporate them into the workflow or not. Training an AI on your own artistic style is an option that can be really useful, not necessarily to have the AI do your work for you, but as a way of brainstorming or creating

I’ve read comments from people talking about restricting the use AI-generated art (or even “poisoning” the models with tools like Nightshade). I think there are people out there fighting to get models taken down due to copyright violations. There are environmental concerns about the amount of resources these models burn to generate images. Those are legitimate concerns and they'll have to be responded to, but in my opinion - realistically, this technology isn’t likely to get dismantled or restricted in a meaningful way. I think we're stuck with it and we have to adapt.

Adaptation doesn't mean all of us digital artists are out of a job. In this way I think we're different from people like telephone switchboard operators whose job literally became unnecessary when telephone technology advanced. I think we're more like translators. For quick jobs (like translating text on a website for example), most people are more likely to use a translation tool now rather than hiring a translator. However, human translators are still required for official documents (I had to have my birth certificate translated for example),
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clients who are happy with the current state of AI art were not the clients for me anyway (satisfied with generic solutions - vague/nonspecific needs - no need for customization - content with fuzzy details)
- mailpoet example
- artists will lose jobs
- painters don't have as many jobs as 100 years ago
- people who make clothing have fewer jobs
- = technology has been making humans obsolete more and more rapidly and I don't think art should constitute an exception
- instead of trying to restrict technology in order to keep our jobs (probably fruitless anyway) we should rethink the way we work as humans
- I don't think AI will ever replace artists, any more than picasso replaced michelangelo... there will always be value in creating art, especially in smaller communities
- I think this question shoiuld be separate from the question of how we work, and I think people (more than only artists) need to grapple with how we will survive with technology reducing human workload.
- 2 hours per day?
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