for me personally if it is used right, like as an idea generator, ai is completely fine. it can help those that may be having an artist block or an idea they cannot seem to get to look right. as a tool it can be really useful in those ways, but when it is used for profit, like claiming it as your art and hiding it behind a pay wall, then it is not so good. and if you do just want to show off something an ai made, making it free, and specifying it was an ai generated artwork, is not as bad. i have messed around a bit with one, and have made a few that i want to eventually get turned into actual characters. i will be paying someone to actually do that (not the best at drawing XD).

Considering the AI needs input, we can definitely never replace the artist. Though I do wonder if there's already enough material for AI at this point.
Personally I will always prefer actual art over AI art, simply because of the work that's put into it. Not to say AI art can't be beautiful, but proper art simply has more meaning.
The best people can do is keep supporting artists, and to make sure that people share awareness on what's normal art and what's AI art, as awful people will try to cash out quick with AI art claiming they personally made it. This will make streaming and things like WIPs a lot more important.

Agree! But is manual labor really that important? For example, we'd rather buy a printed book on a machine tool than a handwritten book, simply because it's cheaper and a machine can do better. This is absolutely normal in relation to the drawing. But yes, I think that the idea and vision of the artist will be important. Although, again, it's all possible to imitate! And I'm a little scared at the thought that people can just smear the wrong places in the drawing created by AI and pass it off as handmade. Then you really need to always record the process of work.

I suppose if we can make it intelligent enough we can make AI replace a lot of menial graphical work. Especially if we can apply it to things like animation. Imagine educational photos, presentations, or proof of concepts. I imagine it could be very useful in such situations. But a flawless system with minimal human input? That's going to be quite a few decades more.
Right now the process is along the lines of it spitting out thousands of images and going through them manually to see if any of the trash is salvageable.
I'll stick to said manual labour. Art still has meaning behind it, ideas, wonder, inspiration, drive.

It's like Sonny from I, Robot (spoilers), who drew a "dream". It was technically a vision, or even a desire, so there was a kind idea that was attempted to be portrayed. Up until when that happens, manual labour and artists in general should be fine. And even then there's the idea that AI would be conscious at that point, which would bring a whole other problem with it.

But yeah, considering the several situations AI art has created already; like first place in an art contest, people will now need to be able to prove that they made something if they want their art to keep the same value.

Oh and I haven't even touched the issue of AI learning from existing art, which is technically a convoluted copyright violation, but then that doesn't consider how we as people get inspired and learn to draw, so where do you put the line with that? I'm interested in how that'll get handled.

Ai in the outset isn’t that bad of an idea in my opinion. It’s a tool that can be quite useful if used properly.
The problem is that while some look fantastic, they have that uncanny valley effect. Once you notice the mistakes that ai make. It just kind of starts to make you sick.

Besides, I like working with artists, people who tend to have the same interests as me, as we figure out the best way to bring to life ideas and worlds. I also just like supporting artists.

I really agree with the idea of the "uncanny valley" effect on some AI drawings. But I think that she will gradually cope with it.
About working with living artists.
I'm sure you can imitate the "artist". Create a mascot, create a page on a social network, edit AI work and pass it off as handmade. And so deceive and deceive yourself.

I’d still rather work with artists.
It’s just too much fun to talk to and bounce ideas off of them.

I think this proves that nobody is safe from being replaced by a machine. Creative and management or leadership jobs were considered untouchable, but I don’t know if that’s any longer going to be the case. Then we have to start addressing the question: what does this mean?

Does it mean nobody can work and everyone lives in poverty or does it mean there’s no more need for labor, so wealth and money become outdated and people can pursue their passions, in the world?

If enough people in society frame it the right way, that modality gets built into our perception and that’ll be what society builds on.
If your as soon is art - you can still create. You can do art all that you want and not have to worry about being compensated anymore, because labor has become outdated.

Not that AI isn’t dangerous, as well. Building machines that can self-learn does have its drawbacks. But I dunno, there’s so much to consider and it’s all still in its infancy, so we don’t have enough information, at this stage, to reasonably predict where things will go.

I will draw what I like as long as I can do it. Drawing is my drug, I can't stop drawing for more than a week (my personal best).
The question is that I will no longer be able to do this as often as I do now, because another job will appear in my life that will support my life in this world of immortal machines.

Either way, I don't panic. I can adapt to circumstances. It's just that I mentally prepare myself for one of the outcomes where I will close this page of life for myself with quiet sadness where drawing is a job that I love so much (it will be like 5 stages of accepting death).

This is not a tragedy. This is a new phase. And that's okay!:)

Well but that's the thing, right? In the new machine driven economy... will you even need a job? If nobody works, because machines make up the entire labor pool, then everything's going to have to function without money anyways. I'm not saying that will happen, but it is a potential consequence.
But like you said, it's not a tragedy. People have had to adjust to these kinds of things, for centuries. The world will continue along and you'll continue along with it.

Indeed, nobody is safe from the tides of progress. Some people are working on making machines walk. Others are progressing the brains and making them talk. Yet more are working on batteries that will never run out, keeping these walking/talking machines from even needing a coffee break. They will be smarter, faster work slaves that (hopefully) enjoy not questioning why they do things. (We can only hope.) Less we organics become their pets in the process. (And not their insects... like pests to be eradicated. (Say, the road building company paves their road. They don't ask the ant colony to relocate before leveling it to dust.)) They are the future. Though, I do question why we're so diligent about giving them one to begin with.

The way I envision future economics is that Humans need control. Currency will have to be restructured, much like how a child gets an allowance. This future currency is there to keep someone from just up and being able to build an ICBM from their home 3D Printers. Or, a far more likely scenario is to keep printing their favorite foods until they are bloated like some future human out of Wall-E. With machines doing everything, the traditional notion of jobs will be mostly a memory. Though, I do envision luxury jobs that make more credits may be possible. How about a job where you take in the latest data from a space probe, figuring out how a planet is born? Or teaching Hobby Drawing courses on a level that pre-made video courses don't offer. After all, we've gone from a position where Hunting-gathering was a full time career to careers where working at the factory/office/farm field/etc is a part time experience with paid time off and regular week days off. Who's to say that once we get our food from some 3D printer with pastes and water and some robot does the housework, we can't find hobbies and family life to occupy our days with?

What concerns me is that there will be a transitional period. The robots slowly take over, regardless of the promises of the smart. Jobs slowly get phased out. Yet the economics of the world want to stay with the typical notions. Meanwhile, the people who used to depend on those lost jobs are the ones that lose out, big time. Unable to pay rent and food, they wind up on the cold streets. Others struggle to get by. All the while, the rich keep ringing out money while saving on the former work force by machines that don't ask for paychecks. That rocky road to restructuring may be very painful to far too many before things get better.

I think a lot of people don't really stop and consider the long-term consequences of what they bring into this world. Why is it important that these machines have such a prominent future? I dunno, I'm just getting paid to make them this way (whether the worker who earns money from an organization, to build the machine; or the mastermind who's making money from investors who expect results and profits). Which, that gets into what you mentioned about the rich, in that transition period. That concerns me, as well. Who has the most to lose, from changing or abandoning currency altogether? Do they also have the greatest amount of power and authority in society, to hold onto their wealth? Once again, that short-sighted thinking "Oh, who cares how this effects 99.9% of the workforce - I don't want to lose my money! So screw everyone else, they should have just worked harder in life, like I did!" (Which is very rarely that prominent a factor of success anyways, but y'know...)

That period scares me a bit, as well... but it's no the first time we've seen it. We went from hunter-gatherers to an agrarian society to a society of individual experts of their crafts who served the whole town to mass production & manufacturing to now a high tech, global world run by robots and the internet. The transitory periods were always rough, but mankind as a whole always ended up better off, in the long run. The average person today lives a higher quality of life than the richest kings and queens did 150 years ago. But because of how much struggling is going to happen, people will, of course, try to push to return to a human workforce, which the rich and powerful also will never have any incentive to return to, so that focus on the past keeps people from thinking about how to improve the current circumstances to pave the way for a better future... it happens all of the time.

Your vision of a future economy is interesting. I also kind of thought about luxury jobs (we wouldn't really want robots running society... right? Making those large-scale decisions? Although, if AI is advanced enough, maybe they could actually do that better than we ever could. So who knows...? But assuming that's not the case...) like politicians and maybe company leaders would be those kinds of luxury jobs. We'd still rather have humans do them, so there's an incentive to keep those around. But I'd imagine that credit system is basically just communism. Like, pure communism where everyone gets an equal share, based on what they need (instead of what we get today, where somehow it always leads a dictator taking over). Maybe that even cuts down on overeating, because you get food credits that you can't surpass. That also helps conserve those organic resources and maybe even lessens land usage for farming. Or no farming at all, if 3D printers can actually make food (I don't know how those work. Can it build food with carbon matter?) It's definitely going to be interesting, though.

My takes are that AI is used by chuds who view art as a commodity to be produced rather than as something to be enjoyed or interpreted, and that AI-generated images are still art theft with extra steps.
But, yeah, as someone I interact with on Mastodon also put it: we're stuck with it. If we are going this route of automation, not just for art but for everything, then we should have some UBI or something along those lines
In the meantime, people like me will be throwing wrenches into the databases. Some are weaponizing Disney's lawyers by putting Disney IPs in there. I'll probably go for the camp of putting in and things so nonsensical they make Giraffes? Giraffes! album covers look sane and coherent.

I am considering training in IT for myself to be able to adapt to the world of machines.
Like in the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", where the father of the protagonist learned to repair the machines that replaced him in the workplace.

The only problem is that I hate math!:D

AI is good at drawing single character. AI cannot draw complex scenes properly two or more characters interacting. Like porn.
AI is no good at drawing furries so far since furries are way more complex and varied than humans. Draw furries.

Conclusion? Draw furry porn and you should be fine at least for a while.
Time has changed. And it's not like it hasn't happened in history. You cannot fight, only thing you can do is adapt.

Porn will save artists. HAHAHA.
But hell, I'm 100% sure she'll learn that too.

I think you heavily underestimate people's drive for porn. So many inventions were driven or made great by porn, like what you're using right now, the internet.
I've already seen reasonable furry AI art already; though it was monotonous so far. Also for interaction, though like usual the limbs were off. But those are just kinks that they need to work out. ...and in, probably.

I think if neural network will get to work in tandem with some kind of 3d editor which we already have a lot, we'll be able to get any porn in any poses in any style.

Training it will be tedious thought.

I`m not an artist like ya`ll folks, but artists didn`t go nothere when the photograph was invented, they didn`t go nothere, when printers become tabletop size, artists didn`t go nothere, when PS and other digital art came to the stage. You`re just afraid of something you don`t understand and all you really have to do is learn the matter and adapt to it. AI can`t make custom precise things exactly like customers want and when they tell you changes for dozen of times - this is the thing AI won`t give them. So, I think artists and digital artists are safe with their enterprise for now, just learn how to use it to your cause and become more competitive.

No it won't replace the Artist.
The machine can only iterate on existing things but not imagine. Algorythms are great at guessing or bein exact depending on what you look at but they are not good at imagining things.
An artist can form shape and guess what the clients wants even going so far to know what the client wants when not even the client does. The Machine in contrast needs to have very very exact info on what it should do. The best results from an AI "artist" (no really dun call it that) you get when you give it similar work. From that it can iterate and make random changes to the previous result until the commaning Unit (the human) has found something he likes. That is not art it is copying art and repeating it with different details. Thank copying the monalisa and plaster horns on her forehead.

So this poses the question on what is it if not an artist.

It is a tool like a brush in digital art. Artist could for example make use of it to prevent being stuck in pose repitition it can be used to inspire new ideas.

There can be though a new form of art similar to programming a demo (check Demoscene in wiki) or game.

Remember the "The Last Selfie of earth" incident? It has been an amazing picture and yet that was not a "Oh I put in this and wow I got that straight back" Results like that are hours and hours of adjusting the "orders" so the machine creates an awe inspiring (and it was amazing) result. Things like this take hours.

So where will this go where do I see this going?

I see artist using the tool AI to help them find scene where they go on from I can see the aI thinking up acessoires races places settings and positions from where the artists can go "Oh I did not think of that. Maybe if I do this it will be YES!"
Dear amazing art people do not be like TV do not try to ban it embrace it to widen your own horizon you people are blood this machines work from and while that can be misused by people it is a hard and toughjob that demands talent in a different form of magic then the one you do.

I kind of had this feeling when I saw an AI-generated story. But my thoguhts are,

1 First, the AI isn't creating anything. It's taking already existing art and mashing it together. If permission hasn't been obtained, this is art theft, and should be treated as such.

2 There are probably exceptions, but most of the AI generated art I've seen isn't very good. It ranges from "okay" to "awful" -- and the same goes for the generated story.

So my biggest concern on that angle is that there is a risk of the market -- both visual and literary -- being flooded with AI trash, which a lot of people will settle for, because it's cheap and easy. However, there will still be a place for really good artists and writers for those who want high-quality, personal content. Works with soul in it.

I think the art theft angle should be played up too as a legit way to fight back.

At this stage of 'Computer Learning, (I give credit to Mr. Fox In Space for the term. His real name is playing hide and seek in my thoughts, as of this typing.) the computer is doing a really good job at copy/pasting from its vast database we call the internet. And I like to think that it is at the stage of virtual first grade. A really good set of smoke and mirrors. But not yet qualified to have earned the name of 'Artificial Intelligence'. And FA is currently dedicated to keeping out these computer derived 'works of art', as it completely undermines the whole meaning of FA, which is to showcase our hard work of art, music, poetry, writing, thoughts and such.
Oh, no doubt in my mind. These 'Computer Learning' tools that are out there are doing truly amazing things. However, it's just like you stated, they can't (yet) get things just right. Sure, you can tell the thing to have a 'kitty cat sit inside a large, tin can upon a porch' and it will probably produce some kind of 'traced' cat in a 'traced' can on a 'traced' porch. But trying to make it produce what you see... may currently be beyond its abilities.
One thing that is troubling is that the abilities of these tools are only going to increase with time. And the ball rolls faster and faster. I grew up with 8 bit and 16 bit machines. They could do good math and their ability to produce graphics was a slow and steady process. These were virtual toddlers. The world eventually got a world wide web with a browser that could handle text and a way to change pages of text, along with some 2 kb images. The internet improved as the computers improved. Now, everybody's got phones that can take dictation... (Smoke and mirrors. Some mainframe does the crunching.) much like how BattleStar Galactica predicted. And a bunch of programs are turning sound waves into text, identifying text to meanings, copy/pasting images together and producing some very interesting results.
However, I feel that if I were to try feeding one of my stories into one of these picture making programs, it would probably be pretty darn hard to follow by one that just looks at the pictures, alone. Much like how a language translator can be really good at creating Engrish. The end results are both laughable and headache inducing. Like I said, 'virtual first grade'. It's a glimpse into what is to come.
Question is, how much better will this 'Computer Learning' get when it reaches its version of 'second grade'? And how soon? What happens when real AI emerges? After all, the world's smartest minds do warn that when true AI emerges, it will do so in a matter of hours. (Some believe it already has.) And are we suddenly racist to be turning down AI generated works of art? It is competition, after all. To me, Computer Learning is just a fancy doorknob. It does its job and doesn't ask why. AI... should.
To me, Human drawn artwork will always have value. It's actual work and takes time to create. Whereas, these computers can churn out work at a blazing rate of speed. And that factor will only increase in time. And not a whole lot of it, either. If the toddler took 20 plus years to grow and the preschooler... maybe a decade, give or take. Then the first grader probably won't need 10 years. Second grader may be under 5. Why, vurtual Doogie Howser may just skip high school and be ready for virtual college in a matter of weeks... at some point. By then, I may just paste a story of mine in and the thing churns out a full length movie, complete with DeepFake voices, Hollywood grade images and probably a whole crew of plot refinement to get around my Human made flaws. Plus, a bunch of copy-pasted stuff from a wealth resource about what works best. And I get a version of Gone With The Wind with characters in antlers. And what chance does a multi-million-dollar movie have against some main frame that merely needs some electricity and an internet connection for a budget? (We might even be nixing electricity costs if new technologies really do produce self-recharging batteries that outlive us all.) I say that people may start clambering for some old fashioned, filmed movies with flawed plots and overly built, real sets when computers start producing seasons of shows to stream, using only advertising funds.
In essence, computerized things are going to be replacing pretty much everything. Because there are people out there that are dedicated to making it all a reality. It's like some kind of instinctual drive to make Humanity outdated. We won't be drawing for money. We won't be working for money. We may not even be lifting a finger, as some machine will do everything for us. The rich and governments will just have to give up their power via money, once the circulation that drives it all becomes a one-way drain. This is just inevitable... barring that the sun doesn't have one crazy day that hits the Earth and fries everything with an active power grid and a functional CPU chip, first. It really is a slippery slope that is all too easily drawn towards. If the populous of Earth becomes too dependent upon technology as a crutch, we could be doomed losing ourselves, simply by becoming too lazy.
They say that the technology used to build the Golden Gate Bridge is a lost technology. If we all start drawing our images by merely asking 'Draw me a table with a wood finish and curved legs' and forget how to use pencil and paper together, that, too, could become a lost technology of sorts. So, while what you learned to perfect your art may become outdated by the progress of technology, it was never a waste. The waste is if what you learned should ever be forgotten by future generations. Whom will be born and living in a world where art is merely a few spoken words away.

nothing can replace pure artistic talent

I played around with it a bit, but was never real thrilled with the results... except the few I had nightmare fuel as a tag. That produced some truly creepy stuff. Fun for a little while but got bored pretty quick.

I am going to offer a different view on technology as a whole. Everyone who says AI or computers are going to put people out of work are completely and utterly full of shit. There are thousands and thousands of "automated" systems world wide and every single one of them has to be babysat by a single person or a team of people depending on its complexity, during every moment of its operation.

Airplanes have been able to do everything including take off and land since probably the 1990s, and they cannot do anything with out a pilot or the copilot having their butt in a seat watching it. Ocean cargo ships with nothing around them for hundreds of miles, still have a full crew monitoring it at all times. Same with factories, Chobani has a very advanced automation system, a 30 min malfunction will ruin 25 tons of product because they produce so much so fast.

Yes people make mistakes, but computers break down or fail and they can only do what they are programmed to do. The AI art bots don't create, they mash things together to form an image. The more images there are the better it can do, but if there is no example to pull from, it will get stuck. Changing the color of something is simple, but abstract concepts or creatures that don't exist are a lot harder for it to define.

Are they going to replace artists, no. Could they be a useful tool, maybe depends on what you want.

AI art just isn’t the same as real art. That being said, I’m better off just paying an artist for a commission rather than relying on some half-assed software program. On top of that, sites such as FurAffinity and Newgrounds have banned AI art from being posted on their sites, and rightfully so. More sites need to follow suit because AI art is as much of a problem as NFTs.

I've seen a video about the results when one told such an AI to create a sword. It took a bit of work to get results that looked like a functioning sword. Some people will be satisfied with such results.
But the more a complex a picture gets the more time you need to create what you want. And that's before having more than one character and a background.

However, the speed such things develop tells me that these things will get better fast. I give it around 5 years before these AI's get good enough to constantly produce useable pictures.
I wonder how the one from Deviantart develops, considering the number of pictures they are feeding it.
The fact remains, the current ones would not worry me if I was an artist. The future ones would.
This video more or less predicted something like this 8 years ago: Humans Need Not Apply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq.....57XQU&t=2s

Though artists are not alone. As the video predicts and current developments, we'll be left with not only not enough jobs for everyone (if that even is still true), many jobs will be lost. Though this is only a problem if we don't change the way things run. And no, this technology doesn't create enough jobs to replace the ones lost.

Ai does not create. It only replicates what it has learned. Problem is that it learns fast and replicates structures and colours to such degree, simple human wont spot it.

However there is second bottom. No matter how well made, now matter how exquisite.

A lie will remain a lie. Same goes for machine.

Machine has to be fed by human, it has to be maintained by human, machine will do what you tell it to, not what you wanted.

By this, artists will always be one step ahead of the machine as without artists input? Machine won't replicate.

However we go now to third bottom... Effect on social standards. Not that many people are into art and often just see it as granted. Fools never lived in grey blocks of eastern europe it seems.

While i love all arts i commissioned, even if sometimes it bit my wallet. They bring memory of coming up with idea, admiring results, cooperation with artists which i befriended after that. I want art to have soul, i want it to bring tear to my eye.

And that is simply something that machine won't give you, it is production line. It removes what made it special.

Yet as much as i know about the machine, humans are simply unpredictable. Now? All we can do is wait how it goes and hope it will not become wide spread public programs.