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My thoughts on AI
a year ago
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I've only tested it on a handful of images, most notably the background of this one: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/54335796/
In all likelihood I'm probably going to redo the background on that one and not use AI again. Dont get me wrong, it was cool it generated a tropical island background, but it doesn't sit right with me. I feel like I skipped to the end credits of a game without playing it. There was no discovery, no new methods figured out, no endearing human error that adds charm to the art piece. I don't mind the three woman I threw in, they're great, I love them: but looking back on it I hate the background. Even if AI made it look perfectly like what was in my head, I still feel like I cheated a speedrun.
Honestly? Cant say I like it that much. I'm a 3D artist: I know all about the tedium and the jank that gets 3D to work, believe me when I say I get why people want to cut corners: but that still didn't bring me a sense of accomplishment when I finished it. The process of art is what makes it fun, the people peddling AI to replace artists don't realize limitation IS an artistic choice, not a constraint. The fact that you cant do everything as an artist is what makes art endearing: what you cant do highlights where you decided to focus on as an artist.
Let me give you an example, this is one of my favorite Rembrandt pieces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembr.....rt_Project.jpg
Notice how the face is detailed, but as you look down his shirt to the rest of his body you see progressively less detail? That's because the shirt isn't the focus of the painting, the face is. Not every part of a painting needs equal level of detail: that would make it look messy and cluttered. AI doesn't realize this, it details everything equally without thought to composition, lighting, perspective, or anatomy: That's the easiest way to spot an AI image by the way.
It was fun for a few experiments, but after the novelty wore off: I'm going to pass. It doesn't feel right. In the short term I feel robbed of accomplishment and it the long term I would be so reliant on it my artistic ability would atrophy.
I cant stop people from using it, but I can say this: If you took away Maya I would use Modo, if you took away Modo I would use Cinema 4D, if you took away Cinema 4D I would use Blender, you take away Blender I would sculpt with clay. The tool doesn't matter, the artist makes the tool. If I became too reliant on AI to the point I couldn't make art if it was taken away: then at that point can you really call me an artist? If someone claims they're a mathematician, but cant do math without a calculator: then they're not really a mathematician are they?
In all likelihood I'm probably going to redo the background on that one and not use AI again. Dont get me wrong, it was cool it generated a tropical island background, but it doesn't sit right with me. I feel like I skipped to the end credits of a game without playing it. There was no discovery, no new methods figured out, no endearing human error that adds charm to the art piece. I don't mind the three woman I threw in, they're great, I love them: but looking back on it I hate the background. Even if AI made it look perfectly like what was in my head, I still feel like I cheated a speedrun.
Honestly? Cant say I like it that much. I'm a 3D artist: I know all about the tedium and the jank that gets 3D to work, believe me when I say I get why people want to cut corners: but that still didn't bring me a sense of accomplishment when I finished it. The process of art is what makes it fun, the people peddling AI to replace artists don't realize limitation IS an artistic choice, not a constraint. The fact that you cant do everything as an artist is what makes art endearing: what you cant do highlights where you decided to focus on as an artist.
Let me give you an example, this is one of my favorite Rembrandt pieces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembr.....rt_Project.jpg
Notice how the face is detailed, but as you look down his shirt to the rest of his body you see progressively less detail? That's because the shirt isn't the focus of the painting, the face is. Not every part of a painting needs equal level of detail: that would make it look messy and cluttered. AI doesn't realize this, it details everything equally without thought to composition, lighting, perspective, or anatomy: That's the easiest way to spot an AI image by the way.
It was fun for a few experiments, but after the novelty wore off: I'm going to pass. It doesn't feel right. In the short term I feel robbed of accomplishment and it the long term I would be so reliant on it my artistic ability would atrophy.
I cant stop people from using it, but I can say this: If you took away Maya I would use Modo, if you took away Modo I would use Cinema 4D, if you took away Cinema 4D I would use Blender, you take away Blender I would sculpt with clay. The tool doesn't matter, the artist makes the tool. If I became too reliant on AI to the point I couldn't make art if it was taken away: then at that point can you really call me an artist? If someone claims they're a mathematician, but cant do math without a calculator: then they're not really a mathematician are they?
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People froth at the mouth when I say that... But it's not like I'm going to fork out ~100$ for each and every monster I put into a game, and be willing to wait up to a year for some artist's queue times or shoddy reliability. I'm not some huge corporation that fired people who had jobs previously as concept artists, I'm just some fucking nerd with limited resources.
Not even starting on how AI as we have it now is useful in my own career.
Like, in Cybersecurity- The field I'm studying to go into- AI is immensely useful for studying the darkweb without having to sift through mountains of horrific material. This shit saves people's sanity.
It's a part of the world now, for better and for worse. Just like all technology, it reshuffles paradigms and disrupts people's livelihoods while simultaneously opening new possibilities. I just wish our civilization was kinder to people who are swept aside.
But yeah, you make good points. I totally think that at some point, there will be a space where so-called "prompt engineers" have a place making throwaway, industrially mass produced art, there will also always be a place for "artisan artists." I certainly don't think that it's going to change much about the Furry Fandom. It's kind of like what you said about mathematicians and calculators - though I will nitpick the metaphor in saying that advanced mathematicians often don't crunch numbers by hand, they do heavily rely on calculators, but they understand the theory and methods that go into that calculator. Without those skills, a calculator might as well only be good for typing "80085."
I feel like right now, the AI integration with art programs is rudimentary. It doesn't really provide enough space for creativity. It's too.. intrusive.
It's really wild when you think about art as a product, and compare it to other products, and how they were made pre-industrialization and now.
AI art is a fad. It's being passive aggressively pushed from the top down by out of touch tech bros as the future of art, hot off the heels from the dumpster fire of NFTs that they never forgave us for rejecting. It's interesting technology: but it's overhyped, it has more in common with "The Mechanical Turk" than actual Artificial intelligence.
Thats why I think you raised a good point that Image Generation is mostly going to be used by corner cutting corporations and it's probably going to become the new "Corporate Memphis"
What worries me the most is how AI is already being used to fake videos and pictures for the powerful. If AI gets better and doesn't Hapsburg itself because too much of the internet is now slop: then I can see no bright future with this technology. It will only be used for evil. This is too much power for propagandists, advertisers, corporations, and governments to pass up.
As someone who dabbles in programming, AI simply can't output code that works. Try again and again and it spits out borderline nonsense. It's useful for troubleshooting, as a supplementary tool. It's just gonna be a matter of finding appropriate use-cases for it.
Especially with how much energy AI takes up for so little practical use, I can totally see its hype dying down as its implementation is dialed back in shit like Windows. I do hope that Bing continues to offer image generation though, that's so convenient for making npc's lol.