FA+
Shop
AI artwork vs traditional art
3 months ago
First, I know how many people view AI artwork. That's why I have a nice fire extinguisher for myself, in case someone sets me aflame. Even as I am writing this, I have Grammarly auto-fixing my sentences. I have no issue with AI art or any technology when it comes to doing something. It's a John Henry story all over again. Someone using a machine to do work, faster, cheaper, and "more efficiently" than living people.
Technology is not the problem; it's those who use it and how they do so. Gun lovers love saying it's not the gun that kills, but people. Robotics and machines replaced horses with cars, mules with tractors, and traditional art with digital, and the list goes on. This is also the same as the automation processes. Why hire a baker when you can have a machine make the cake? Why hire an interior decorator when you can just sample looks with a computer? What's the point of going outside to stores and hangouts when you can be online and do everything from home? Yet, after time, most people forget how "terrible" it was to have all these previous things in place of convenience.
Traditional artwork is wonderful, has years of history, and techniques. But then digital came along, and the fight started between traditional and digital artists.
Digital artists are lazy! They don't use real techniques! They just grab a pre-programed tool to do the work for them! They can just "undo" their mistakes, unlike traditional, where you just have to work to get your stuff good.
Okay, yes, Digital artist have an easier time with their median because it can be erased and redone, or made. But it's also less wasteful; they aren't burning through endless materials to make something. They can send copies out quickly, make corrections, and have a personal quality with their customers because they can make alterations easier. That doesn't make them worse artists, just different.
Traditional Artists can make things with texture, physical items that affect more senses than just sight. You can smell the inks, paints, clay, and metal/wood, you can feel the textures, you can watch as your eyes can see not only illusionary depth from the piece, but real depth from the crevices, and mounds of paint or whatever physical medium is used.
AI Artwork helps people who do not have that talent or skill. It lets them make their dreams come true on their own. What about just learning to do it? Hiring a real artist to do the work? AI is just stealing!
Learning takes time, and not everyone has the time and means to put that kind of dedication into learning the craft, which also flows into hiring someone to do it for them. Hiring a contractor can be expensive, and not everyone can afford it, so if something is offering them something within their means, then they should be allowed to get it. Not everyone is good at expressing their vision to another person; this way, they don't have to.
AI is stealing. This is a doozy. Throughout history, many things have been stolen. That technique you used to make that pattern, the combination of colors to get just the right one, that cake you made, the clay pot you are working on. These are all passed down, sold, or even stolen by other people so they can do it themselves or sell it. Not all gave credit, said where they got it, or how they did it. But some did. But it is only because of this history of information being moved around is why people today even have access to such things. Don't say AI is stealing my stuff when you have no issue with Pirate Bay or Napster, or other pirating services.
Your reaction is the same as thousands of people before you, and how people in business are today. This is cutting into my livelihood/profits, I hate it, make it stop. Hey, I made that, I didn't get any credit! I should be the one people are complimenting! That person just stole it! This has been repeated for hundreds of years and will keep going for hundreds more. The media changes, but the story is the same.
Now theft is wrong, and yes, you should be recognised for your hard work. But AI isn't stealing your stuff. It's those who are programming AI whom is doing the stealing. The same copyright laws that everyone else has to follow, that businesses scream and cry about making others follow, should also apply to AI. Businesses often are hypocritical because they see their profits trump everything else. It's not right and it's not fair. But all you are doing is attacking the tool, not the person using the tool for the wrong reason.
My personal experiences have made me want to use AI for things. I commission artists. I love getting art from them when I can afford it. However, I have gotten burned many times. I've lost hundreds of dollars because I pay the artists, and some of them just skip out; they can just drop off the messenger, website, or email with the money I paid them, and they have done it. I know artists who have been burned by commissioners who refuse to pay them after getting artwork.
Sometimes I can't find an artist with the right style, or perhaps my finances are too low. So I will go to AI to get something I like, and for me. Once I do have the means and find the right artist. I bring up that AI artwork and ask. Hey, I know this is AI art, I did purchase it or make it myself. But I really would love for you to draw it in your style, would you do that? Now the artist has a reference for the artwork being requested, and if they accept will do the work.
This has gone on pretty long already. But I wanted to just say that AI artwork is just a different medium, it's not good or bad, it's a tool. It's not going to replace anyone anymore than other things have. People are still going to want to flock to artists because of their own unique style and vision. AI can't replace that, no matter what programming it gets.
Technology is not the problem; it's those who use it and how they do so. Gun lovers love saying it's not the gun that kills, but people. Robotics and machines replaced horses with cars, mules with tractors, and traditional art with digital, and the list goes on. This is also the same as the automation processes. Why hire a baker when you can have a machine make the cake? Why hire an interior decorator when you can just sample looks with a computer? What's the point of going outside to stores and hangouts when you can be online and do everything from home? Yet, after time, most people forget how "terrible" it was to have all these previous things in place of convenience.
Traditional artwork is wonderful, has years of history, and techniques. But then digital came along, and the fight started between traditional and digital artists.
Digital artists are lazy! They don't use real techniques! They just grab a pre-programed tool to do the work for them! They can just "undo" their mistakes, unlike traditional, where you just have to work to get your stuff good.
Okay, yes, Digital artist have an easier time with their median because it can be erased and redone, or made. But it's also less wasteful; they aren't burning through endless materials to make something. They can send copies out quickly, make corrections, and have a personal quality with their customers because they can make alterations easier. That doesn't make them worse artists, just different.
Traditional Artists can make things with texture, physical items that affect more senses than just sight. You can smell the inks, paints, clay, and metal/wood, you can feel the textures, you can watch as your eyes can see not only illusionary depth from the piece, but real depth from the crevices, and mounds of paint or whatever physical medium is used.
AI Artwork helps people who do not have that talent or skill. It lets them make their dreams come true on their own. What about just learning to do it? Hiring a real artist to do the work? AI is just stealing!
Learning takes time, and not everyone has the time and means to put that kind of dedication into learning the craft, which also flows into hiring someone to do it for them. Hiring a contractor can be expensive, and not everyone can afford it, so if something is offering them something within their means, then they should be allowed to get it. Not everyone is good at expressing their vision to another person; this way, they don't have to.
AI is stealing. This is a doozy. Throughout history, many things have been stolen. That technique you used to make that pattern, the combination of colors to get just the right one, that cake you made, the clay pot you are working on. These are all passed down, sold, or even stolen by other people so they can do it themselves or sell it. Not all gave credit, said where they got it, or how they did it. But some did. But it is only because of this history of information being moved around is why people today even have access to such things. Don't say AI is stealing my stuff when you have no issue with Pirate Bay or Napster, or other pirating services.
Your reaction is the same as thousands of people before you, and how people in business are today. This is cutting into my livelihood/profits, I hate it, make it stop. Hey, I made that, I didn't get any credit! I should be the one people are complimenting! That person just stole it! This has been repeated for hundreds of years and will keep going for hundreds more. The media changes, but the story is the same.
Now theft is wrong, and yes, you should be recognised for your hard work. But AI isn't stealing your stuff. It's those who are programming AI whom is doing the stealing. The same copyright laws that everyone else has to follow, that businesses scream and cry about making others follow, should also apply to AI. Businesses often are hypocritical because they see their profits trump everything else. It's not right and it's not fair. But all you are doing is attacking the tool, not the person using the tool for the wrong reason.
My personal experiences have made me want to use AI for things. I commission artists. I love getting art from them when I can afford it. However, I have gotten burned many times. I've lost hundreds of dollars because I pay the artists, and some of them just skip out; they can just drop off the messenger, website, or email with the money I paid them, and they have done it. I know artists who have been burned by commissioners who refuse to pay them after getting artwork.
Sometimes I can't find an artist with the right style, or perhaps my finances are too low. So I will go to AI to get something I like, and for me. Once I do have the means and find the right artist. I bring up that AI artwork and ask. Hey, I know this is AI art, I did purchase it or make it myself. But I really would love for you to draw it in your style, would you do that? Now the artist has a reference for the artwork being requested, and if they accept will do the work.
This has gone on pretty long already. But I wanted to just say that AI artwork is just a different medium, it's not good or bad, it's a tool. It's not going to replace anyone anymore than other things have. People are still going to want to flock to artists because of their own unique style and vision. AI can't replace that, no matter what programming it gets.
Having recently played around with some AI Art generation myself, as I have very little talent or patience for drawing as of late, I can honestly say it comes with its own frustrations as well, such as training the AI to actually match your vision. Most of the time it isn't going to. It's especially hard for fanart because most AI software struggles with intellectual properties and copyright.
For writing, it may be more out of pride, but I refuse to let AI write the story for me. I'll let it proofread and make suggestions and corrections, which is why I accepted grammerly in the first place, but the story will always be my work, I say. Furthermore even with stories I have used Grammarly and ChatGPT for, such as my recent Digimon fanfictions, errors STILL slip through the cracks, so even with tech help, not infallible.
So, I'm slowly opening up to Ai a bit more... Where my frustration comes is how capitalist CEO's see it as a means to replace people... The unemployment rate right now, especially in my area, is higher than it's been since the end of World War 2, and it feels like it gets worse every year...
People have issues with that. Its not 'who uses it' its 'how it learns' that is the problem. The creators of the AI program have literally said that it can't 'learn' without scraping without scraping work.
So people are unhappy with that. They weren't asked, they weren't compensated. And this really isn't referencing either. It's closer to tracing.
And past that. The way that the AI works requires a LOT of water and electricity. With the world the way it is right now, more use creates more waste. And we're already barreling towards ecological disaster. Look at all the AI data centers and how much water and electricity they use and how it's making shortages spread.
If the tool is unethical, its a bad tool.
Then when I tried it out forever ago, because my mind went 'it can't be THAT bad, riiiight?' and then when I used 'lucario' in a prompt it spat out something that looked almost IDENTICAL to my friend Galileo's character, and had a pose and expression from an art piece he commissioned from someone.
I think that's when it really hit me that this stuff can be, ah, unfortunate. Then I started doing research on what the AI is and what it's doing and HOW it does it.
Hell, right now in the US, Disney and a few other large corporations are taking one of the biggest AI companies to court for copyright infringement. And one of their defenses is literally that the AI can't exist if it can't consume artwork that's created by humans.
I've seen pieces in the media and news articles and scientific think pieces on how much water/electricity AI uses too. It's staggering. And after finding out that 'carbon offset' doesn't actually work and it's a cheap redirect that corps use to justify their excess it makes me more worried about how much it uses.
Anyways, attacking individuals does nothing. It just makes people entrench harder. So I figured I'd lay out my experiences and what I had uncovered as factually as I could manage.
I wasn't sure about AI generated art either. Years ago someone said it was coming and my endeavor to be a graphic artist was going the way of the dinosaur. I was understandably mad and never talked to that person again after that, since she constantly harped on it. Well, tadaa! Companies use more advanced desktop publishing and on-demand printing services that did a number on the print-production industry I was training for, and now AI art.
HOWEVER...
The product from AI is still horrible. Half the time I get results from my text directions that have more arms than Shiva, or look like Picasso or Dali rejects. If I get lucky, I might end up with a piece that's decent enough as a placeholder until I could afford to have a reputable professional create a superior piece.
AI is just a tool. Yes, it copies work from elsewhere, but so did we when we learned. I'm certainly not going to post AI work and say the artwork is original. My -concept- is, but executed with AI generation, meaning I don't know how or where the hell the damn thing got the styles from. And even that's not easy, I have to hit the redo button many times before it spits out something that resembles what I'm after. I certainly can't erase and re-draw that many times anymore!
Until something miraculous happens and I can draw without pain, or painkillers, I'll be working with AI to make my concepts real. Once upon a time, people were threatened by computers like the IBM series (accountants, bankers), UNIVAC (census trackers), ENIAC (various military applications), Colossus (decryption), and so on. Well, mankind didn't die out from the "big takeover", they just learned new ways to do their jobs, or trained on how to work with the damn things, didn't they?
Here we are again :3