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This AI art thing is actually terrible, BTW
3 years ago
General
While I had fun for those first 15 minutes with DALL-E like anyone else, the entire time I couldn't help but be nagged by the thought of what that technology actually means. At a time in human history when we can see pretty much all other facets of society nearing their end (we really are just gonna ignore that whole the-entire-Western-US-will-soon-be-completely-uninhabitable problem, aren't we?) it's disheartening to see that we're also in the process of eradicating artists, artistic theory, and the very motivation to create.
Anybody thinking about it for longer than four seconds can see that it's just going to end up being yet another casualty of capitalism, as corporations, ever concerned about their bottom-line, seek to remove the human element from art, as the human part is the one you have to pay. And if there's one good thing about humans, and it might just be the one thing, it's our creative curiosity, our unique habit of crafting, drawing, or building stuff as the most abstract means of saying what's on our minds. AI generated art promises to remove that element entirely, leaving behind only cold logic. What's most concerning is how accepting we already know consumers to be of mindless, algorithm-generated forms of media. Look no further than modern commercial music, specially designed to be as replicable as possible, specifically to remove any trace elements of unique, creative expression, a most unpredictable element which would make it harder to base targeted advertising around.
Defenders of these AI art programs will likely often be non-artists who view them as a source of accessibility, giving those untrained in art a means of "creating" something without relying paying an actual artist to do it for them. And this is where, perhaps, I become a bit of an asshole. Because it's my opinion that you're not owed access to art if you didn't put the work into it, and to my original point about consumer acceptance of the practice, you miss the point of art if you think the end result is all that matters yet, unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of consumers feel exactly that way. Additionally, it's especially insidious to see these programs popping up in the furry fandom, arguably the last remaining fertile source of original artwork and thus, original work for the artists. It's a community driven by that relationship between its artists and the people who rely on them to, frankly, craft the entire visual, literary, and audio framework of this world built entirely on fantasy and manifest it into reality.
And the truth is, art, and its originality, was already long suffering. To this day, massive swaths of amateur artwork are informed by the style of anime, the most popular tropes and techniques distilled down to cliches which exist in the work of countless artists just in this fandom alone, but also throughout the entire world. And much of the time, that's pretty much all you're getting unless you're getting one of those artists who instead wants all of their work to look like Steven Universe or similar to that cheap-flash-animation style that Cartoon Network has normalized as acceptable. Artists bringing a truly unique vision, or even just a less-utilized style to the mix were already becoming something of a rarity and now we're threatening all of them at once with the advent of a technology that can just simply dial in all the necessary details.
If you were to ask the artists themselves, plenty of them would likely contend that artificial intelligence cannot replicate the self-expression that goes into a given, hand-drawn piece. And I would generally agree but as previously established, the primary consumers of art - the non-artists - will often fail to see the significance, or the difference. The ends justify the means, and the means, for most of them, are irrelevant.
Personally? I'm tired of making art worse just so more people can feel like they've got a hand in it. Maybe that makes me an exclusionary asshole and I don't want to sound like one of those "bootstrap" rightwing fuckwits but there's something to be said for the work you put into your craft, the work anybody puts into their craft, and the personal insight and quality that goes into it. No, not every artist is bringing the same level of those concepts into their work, some do it for entirely cynical reasons, some may even see this new technology as a way to maximize profits and minimize work, as is the original intent of the technology, but for those who put the work in to get however as good as they are and leave a piece of themselves in everything they create, that intangible quality which leaves its own signature behind, it has to be a slap in the face to see that effort largely nullified so that businesses no longer have to pay for a new logo, or so that the same crowd who can't be bothered to invent a character without the aid of adoptables and YCH auctions can further that lack of effort by just telling a computer to do it all for them.
Because when it's all said in done, all you're seeing is a direct, existential threat to artists and everything that makes art, well, art. The technology isn't yet perfect but the advancement of these things is always exponential. And our only reward for this is going to be a world comprised of far worse artwork. And worse, an entire generation will never know the difference, because the biggest pushers of cheap, automated labor don't want you to know the difference.
Anybody thinking about it for longer than four seconds can see that it's just going to end up being yet another casualty of capitalism, as corporations, ever concerned about their bottom-line, seek to remove the human element from art, as the human part is the one you have to pay. And if there's one good thing about humans, and it might just be the one thing, it's our creative curiosity, our unique habit of crafting, drawing, or building stuff as the most abstract means of saying what's on our minds. AI generated art promises to remove that element entirely, leaving behind only cold logic. What's most concerning is how accepting we already know consumers to be of mindless, algorithm-generated forms of media. Look no further than modern commercial music, specially designed to be as replicable as possible, specifically to remove any trace elements of unique, creative expression, a most unpredictable element which would make it harder to base targeted advertising around.
Defenders of these AI art programs will likely often be non-artists who view them as a source of accessibility, giving those untrained in art a means of "creating" something without relying paying an actual artist to do it for them. And this is where, perhaps, I become a bit of an asshole. Because it's my opinion that you're not owed access to art if you didn't put the work into it, and to my original point about consumer acceptance of the practice, you miss the point of art if you think the end result is all that matters yet, unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of consumers feel exactly that way. Additionally, it's especially insidious to see these programs popping up in the furry fandom, arguably the last remaining fertile source of original artwork and thus, original work for the artists. It's a community driven by that relationship between its artists and the people who rely on them to, frankly, craft the entire visual, literary, and audio framework of this world built entirely on fantasy and manifest it into reality.
And the truth is, art, and its originality, was already long suffering. To this day, massive swaths of amateur artwork are informed by the style of anime, the most popular tropes and techniques distilled down to cliches which exist in the work of countless artists just in this fandom alone, but also throughout the entire world. And much of the time, that's pretty much all you're getting unless you're getting one of those artists who instead wants all of their work to look like Steven Universe or similar to that cheap-flash-animation style that Cartoon Network has normalized as acceptable. Artists bringing a truly unique vision, or even just a less-utilized style to the mix were already becoming something of a rarity and now we're threatening all of them at once with the advent of a technology that can just simply dial in all the necessary details.
If you were to ask the artists themselves, plenty of them would likely contend that artificial intelligence cannot replicate the self-expression that goes into a given, hand-drawn piece. And I would generally agree but as previously established, the primary consumers of art - the non-artists - will often fail to see the significance, or the difference. The ends justify the means, and the means, for most of them, are irrelevant.
Personally? I'm tired of making art worse just so more people can feel like they've got a hand in it. Maybe that makes me an exclusionary asshole and I don't want to sound like one of those "bootstrap" rightwing fuckwits but there's something to be said for the work you put into your craft, the work anybody puts into their craft, and the personal insight and quality that goes into it. No, not every artist is bringing the same level of those concepts into their work, some do it for entirely cynical reasons, some may even see this new technology as a way to maximize profits and minimize work, as is the original intent of the technology, but for those who put the work in to get however as good as they are and leave a piece of themselves in everything they create, that intangible quality which leaves its own signature behind, it has to be a slap in the face to see that effort largely nullified so that businesses no longer have to pay for a new logo, or so that the same crowd who can't be bothered to invent a character without the aid of adoptables and YCH auctions can further that lack of effort by just telling a computer to do it all for them.
Because when it's all said in done, all you're seeing is a direct, existential threat to artists and everything that makes art, well, art. The technology isn't yet perfect but the advancement of these things is always exponential. And our only reward for this is going to be a world comprised of far worse artwork. And worse, an entire generation will never know the difference, because the biggest pushers of cheap, automated labor don't want you to know the difference.
But yes, for me that's the part which bothers me the most, and it's already bothered me for some time, watching people trying their best to be somebody else, creatively. Now we've got this thing that allows you to be nobody in particular, and threatens to remove the expectation of that individuality and intangible personality that comes with any given art piece, until the population at large is trained to simply view art as yet another product, which as I said, they already largely do. In my opinion, digital art removed a lot of the 'soul' from art already but individual habits and styles could still shine through with certain artists. When AI-generated art really takes off, you won't even really have that. It's just be...images, basically. Not, objectively, art.
I'm reminded of two things here. One was a Perry Bible Fellowship comic about old fashioned barbers seeing a robot barber. One is intensely worried, the other is not, and he's right, as the last panel shows the barber bot murdering an entire shop full of people. The other thing is, AI isn't there yet and people might strangle it in the cradle if it isn't good enough immediately, our obsession with immediate gratification doing something good for once. I tried out the Dall-e, and gave it tame but leaning towards something more prompts. I got nothing like I wanted. It's not good enough to replace the kindly Japanese guy who cheerfully draws cute characters being smutty. And I won't say it never will be, but not in my lifetime will it be.
I wouldn't be confident about that. 10 years ago having AI generate decent prose was a pipe dream, today it's reality. I've been playing with NovelAI for a year now, it's surprisingly competent. It won't write a bestseller, it can't do long term plotting, and it has trouble keeping details consistent, but if you shepherd it, you can have it generate 99% of the words of a fine quality story.
Image generation is just starting. We're seeing only the second generation models now and for that they're already scary good.