[removed]

It's not change but theology that's the problem; meaning, purpose, direction.

Ex: If you can't agree that a nation can be sovereign and determine its own future, you're gonna justify invasion and violence as a necessary evil. Drones and deep fakes litter the battlefield as nonchalantly as soda cans.

Interesting. I've given this message quite some thought! :D

For one, I wonder: do you incline a lack of direction in general? As in "modern society struggles with an unfulfilled need of purpose/meaning"?

Second - I struggle to get the point of your example. Do you mean "embracing change fully" might as well be understood as "use all you know to its max extent and benefit, forget morale" (drones, deep fakes, necessary evil)? If so, that wasn't what I wanted to convey.

If not, I would enjoy clarification :D

So we will be healthier/happier with ai art and music as it snuffs out our creativity ?

"snuffing out" as in the same way as television, photography and smartphone technology do? Yes.

Actually reducing it? No. The way we use it will change, not to what avail. AI is one more tool, at least for the time being.

And yes, I do believe that this will eventually result in a more developed society. (which I hope will lead to more happiness, unless everyone keeps worrying about what ifs instead of enjoying life)

You’re clearly not a career artist or musician. There’s nothing AI can currently produce like the organic expression of actual human artists, yet it’s already cutting into these artists financial abilities to exist. If we were all to just be cool with it, it’d only be a matter of time before no one was there to create anymore. AI is turning art into a commodity more so then corporations already have. It’s a tool that seems intentionally designed to undercut artists where they’re already hurting- their bank accounts.

[removed]

The problem is with AI art specifically, not change/advancement in general. Art is a fundamentally crucial thing for humans - it gives more meaning to our existence as a means to express ourselves and leave our lasting mark on the world. Even right now with how it's being generated en masse, the world of art is quickly becoming over-diluted, expressionless and without purpose. It's essentially like an insult to humanity itself, like saying "there's no point for you to create any more".

You say that we should be perceiving this as a positive thing, and yet we are already seeing the results, and people are very much not "enjoying the thrill of discovery".

I get the point that art is more important in terms of philosophy.

However, how is AI helping in solving technical solutions any different? Finding this 'solution' could be phrased as "our creation/purpose", which makes the individial discovery "expressionless" and "ridding" us of purpose as humans.

While I agree that there's currently many concerns and negative responses to AI art, I see it more as proof for human fear of change; due to not wanting to adjust and fear of the unknown.

AI is - currently - not going to replace artists. It is going to change the entire sector, how and what people work. Many mundane tasks will become redundant and people focusing on that will lose their jobs (hence reducing these opportunities for creativity). However, AI cannot reinvent art (as it is now), always leaving this hole of "new" which has to be filled by artists, and there will be an unchanged demand for that - although I have to agree that it the overall demand will decrease (or shift to AI-Art-Engineers).

I just realized that my response is the photography discussion all over again :D

My thought is that you may be undervaluing the potential risks/consequences of all these new discoveries. While I agree that most recent discoveries are not made with ill intent, the current political, physical, social, etc. climate around the world reinforce the ideas that humans don't always plan ahead, listen to science/common sense, work together, and that there are many bad actors with bad motives that will use any means to achieve there goals (consequences be damned).

Given that reality, and how hard it still is for laws to even adapt the to internet, there's good reason (in my opinion) to be cautious and thoughtful about how new discoveries could be used and try to consider disincentives to limit bad actors.

It's a balancing act that no one person, agency, or country can get 100% right but the more we think together the more we can be prepared to integrate new discoveries to the benefit of all people.

The rise of AI generated art, music, etc. is the tip of a new ethical iceberg. Copyright laws will be challenged and fair use laws put into place one would hope. Artists continually struggle to view the world through their own lens/constructs then reinterpret it back to us. The essence of AI corrupts this process, manipulates and even misinterprets existing art by changing its very essence. I think there are so many ethical questions at play here and technology is progressing at a rate that ethical questions are being answered on the fly. With all our societal and spiritual norms being questioned (with good reason)I think new societal constructs will emerge. We are constantly pivoting and questioning not only our future but our past. We have learned that we have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to our own history. The future is upon us and there really isn’t a way to predict outcomes. Welcome to the new Wild West.

>"there's no point for you to create any more".

If you were confronted by a robot that cycled oxygen through an air sac, would you give up breathing?

I've enjoyed writing poetry for decades, since before AI could do it, but it was a dead art since before I was born. The market for it is small and the barrier to entry is low, so I was never going to make money from it, and practically no one would ever see it, but I still do it for me.

Visual art is going to the same place, just much more suddenly.

I think human made art will always hold intrinsic value, they’ll be 2 distinct camps and human art will always be more ‘valuable’.

That, and, just like human art, only the best of the best AI art will be of any value to people.

I would argue that there’s already a virtually infinite mass of human made art in the world, by virtue of the explosion in population over the last generation or so. The argument that AI will flood the world with endless amounts of tat I find to be a bit weak, I think we’re already at that point?

Yes there is a bunch of extra rage going on.

But what matters is the core argument: the AI tech takes from artists and repurposes it for profitable gain.

This is a legal issue, and people are passionate to get it figured out. Nothing wrong with that.

Also the problem of, in the context of sharing professional art, individuals are sharing AI art. And people want that to instead be shared elsewhere. That’s also just something to be worked out in the context.

—

There is a lot more noise.

But just as you are trying to make an argument, it’s good to pay mind to what are the core arguments that make sense and exist for a reason.

—

This is in response to a section in the middle of your post that addresses AI art.

Boy you sure like quotations marks huh? The problem here is that you’re still suggesting that throwing an idea into an ai algorithm is equivalent to art. This is a false equivalency. Sure- the end product may seem similar to most (consumers), but the creative process is the defining line that divides them.

As it stands, many artists have been plagiarized (or at least their ip has been infringed upon) in DALL-E, simply by inputting their names… this isn’t at all ethical, nor should it be allowed. Why pay for the real thing if you can get a representation of it for free(ish)?

AI should be focused on larger scale objectives, like automating industries and mundane tasks within an industry that no one would choose to or at all want to work in/on, or more pressing issues like maybe trying to help humanity thwart our environmental crises. Churning out AI representations of art is doing nothing but flooding an already flooded market with it’s version of fast fashion. It’s trying to fix an industry that isn’t broken (yet), while simultaneously cheapening a craft.

The other problem with the potential replacement of artists with AI is perspective. What biases have been plugged into AI algos? How many people have been involved in the initial base build of this AI? This leaves a LOT of social and cultural blind spots, or at least grey areas, on how certain cultures are represented- mostly by a handful of people. Cultures that have historically been oppressed will have the most to lose and be hurt by AI art.

Examining potential risks of something is not equivalent to fearing it. I’d argue that the main concerns about AI art aren’t exclusively based off of fear of the future at all- it’s about what’s already happening with these crude versions of AI and the potential issues surrounding them. As the technology advances it will have even more impact on art through it’s effect on the philosophy of art, societal impact of art, financial viability of being a career artist, projected falsities within AI art etc etc…

The real question is- If there was currently an AI companion/sex doll, do you suggest we embrace that as the societal equivalency of having a human partner? Or are we not “waking our inner child’s curiosity” enough for you?

>There’s nothing AI can currently produce like the organic expression of actual human artists

If that were the case, you'd think it would be easier to tell what is and isn't AI generated art, but people are routinely failing at this in both directions.

Here's the thing, though. Remember that last season of Prison Break, where they revealed the video used to incarcerate the buff Scoffield brother was fake? How they went over every frame with MS Paint and recorded a superficially convincing gun shot to make it look like he'd fired that gun?

We're not just at a point where we can make shit like that nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, but at a point where anyone with a mid- to high-end GPU can render these deep fake images and videos.

I can't bring myself to be overjoyed about living in a world where so many dastardly things could happen. Imagine getting blackout drunk and losing your job the next day over a video of you beating up a homeless guy with the company logo on your shirt. You're pretty sure you took off that shirt before going out that night...or did you? Everything's a haze. You've never been violent when drunk, you surely wouldn't do anything like that...right? But there it is, the damning evidence, and it looks so real that you don't even think it could be a deep fake. You know your life is over.

I, for one, am not comfortable with AI being so good at recreating people's faces, no matter how fruity marshmallow you make it out to be with your pseudo-spiritual talk about our perceived reality and the flow of time.

Replying to correct shitty example. Imagine some girl getting curb-stomped by all her male relatives over pictures of her getting bukkaked while on holiday with her friends. Make it India or Brazil or Iran or some such place.

Pretty sure I could come up with increasingly plausible and crude scenarios.

The implications of being able not just to create realistic human faces, but to put existing ones into all manner of damaging scenarios, enormously outweigh the uwu factor you're trying to sell here. I will continue to loathe the rise of AI.

First of all- Organic expression isn’t meant to be interchangeable with quality. There’s a ton of bad art out there lol. But to be fair- not everyone’s literacy and understanding of specific arts are on the same field of understanding. Subjectivity of the end consumer plays a major role in constituting someone’s concept of quality. The fact that ai is blurring the lines between ai curated art and human creative expression is problematic- but organic expression can’t exist in AI by definition.

edit for a point

The takeaway from my point was supposed to be- even in AI’s infancy, it’s negatively effecting artists now.

I think you grossly overestimate latent diffusion models and their long term potential.

On a curmudgeonly note, I've always hated calling this stuff "AI" rather than "machine learning".

The difference is what someone is willing to pay for it. Yes it’s flooded, but yes AI can flood the market more; for less money. You must see the problem with this. The term “starving artist” has been around for over 250 years and it’s just getting worse with the industrialized commodity model.

I do get your point, but at the same time, are we not already past the point of human comprehension? Google Images for example, search for anything and put ‘art’ at the end, at this moment in time (or at least a year or so ago) the vast majority of the uncountable search results would be human made digital art, or an image thereof - my point being, I still feel we’ve already reached that point in my opinion, AI will definitely add to that 100x over, but it’s already incomprehensible volume.

I’m just a filthy casual philosophy wise, but I’m super interested in postmodern ideas; I’ve heard people refer to the present day as ‘The End of History’ - culture has disintegrated into infinite niche groups / bespoke experience for each individual, all music is a remix, rehash, or is fundamentally unoriginal at its core, and I think what we’re describing here is just another symptom of the world we’ve been delivered to, culture wise - quite mind blowing that we’ve born now to witness such profound changes to everything.

Just the right mix of provocation and input to deserve a reply instead of a shaking head! And mind you, I do like quotation marks.

I would like to answer your last questions with a question: why would I not choose an AI companion for certain interactions, like chores, given I don't rejoice in mundane daily interactions (and accept I don't leave space for special moments)? If I do not enjoy the hassle for bonding sexually, i can have my sexual fulfillment artificially while seeking social interaction for other reasons (i.e. platonic connection). Similar to this, I'd argue there's many forms of art which can be reduced along the lines of "a cool, colorful sticker for this wall" of some sort, likely a re-scrambled version of artwork that's already been made.

Still, I absolutely agree on the bias topic and over/underrepresentation. I did not consider this while writing up the thread! I do absolutely have to disagree on "AI should be focused on larger scale objectives" (why should a powerful tool be used for one thing alone?).

Just a thought: wouldn't 'underrepresented' communities actually benefit from the rise of AI art? Given their style will be more unique as it isn't easily mass-produced? In that sense, it would push artists to beyond great and average, in a way not observed before (or wielding AI properly for the best results), transforming the occupation as I pointed out already.

It might even become more interesting to actively investigate the residuals (what hasn't been depicted by humans yet). Or mess around with terrible AI that's so overfit it might produce quirky fun stuff :D

Yeah but i think this is where philosophy meets the real world in terms of use licenses. So for designs and art used for business or anything that will be sold there are strict rules around what’s fair use and what’s not. Most creative projects and businesses alike are forced to work with artists to create unique designs because of those rules, as it’s not legal to just pull from Google images and release something for profit. So what AI art will do is make it way cheaper to get small artwork created, and our price current “starving artists” while also driving going rate in the market down tremendously.

It’s not about the art itself or the proliferation of art in the world, but the humane aspects of how AI’s creation and distribution model will impact the humans in the same creative space

The discoveries themselves are nothing to be feared. It’s the timo act it will have on real people that puts us into a philosophical quagmire. These changes have real human cost, this one potentially being larger than we even know.

It’s a really cool time to be alive, but there’s nothing wrong with lamenting or trying to change the toll it’ll have on many human’s lives

You mean just like computers will never be available to the public?

Jokes aside, most simple machine learning models suck. But you should know that these systems basicly "scale" with input size, right? Big data, long (re-)training cycles and you'll get a good guess for a great solution eventually. Which is exactly what many companies pursue rn.

Edit: spelling error

For sure, I completely agree. It’s not ‘right’ (? Perhaps wrong word) but it’s just one of many industries that will be majorly disrupted by AI, albeit one that we all rightfully hold very close to our hearts - in our capitalist world, this is clearly now unavoidable for the reasons you’ve stated, every penny counts when it’s time for a corporation to get artsy.

EDIT: adding to this, I just want to emphasise how dearly humans hold art in their hearts, and when coupling this with the idea that perhaps (or maybe just me) art wasn’t what people were probably expecting to be the first major public victim of AI (over vehicles, law, accounting etc), I think this explains the strong public response.

Yep very well put

Gonna say again that problem with AI art is not the fact that it generates images.

Its more of an ego problem, people thinking they can be on the same level of artistry and skill without going through the most important part of what makes the art amazing, which is the process.

Seriously, only a month after the mainstream release of DallE or MJ, theres already a ton of ego fucks who think theyre hot shit who think they can beat artists because they type a couple of tags and change a bit of sliders here and there. Theres no process to it other than referencing off AI models. Seriously its like cryptobros all over again.

Ah dw about the argument part. I was just sharing my view of things, and how surprised I am by the magnitude of negativity regarding AIart. Maybe it'd turn into a nice discussion or create some positivity for someone out there :D

Thank you for giving my post extra consideration!

Tldr: the collusion between money and mass reprduction tech ends in poverty for most and prosperity for the few.

In my law enforcement career I just never had a story end well where money and mass production colluded and usually traded in prophecies versus pure speculation. (Anthropomorphising here).

Ex: I'm checking into the AI debate and look at what always comes up: money and "the bright big financial opportunities awaits!" selling shtick I have seen with ponzi schemes, drug busts, and even MLMs. Then there's the Robinhood app and Bitcoin, to use recent financial cases.

Tech is good until we write rules for me (so I win) and rules for thee (so I win). Win-win for me but not for thee. Speculation is good until it's passed off as prophecy.

I misinterpreted you to mean that it felt soulless. But whether the consumer sees the soul in a piece has more to do with them than the artist.

In any case, yes. Artists are bound to be negatively influenced, and I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone with the receipts to show how their commissions fell off a cliff. I'm sure it's happening for a lot of people.

No; I mean that what they do, fundamentally, is actually pretty limited.

Recall that GANs were the big thing until they hit a plateau.

You loathe the technology, but not the people using these tools for such nefarious ends? That's a weird stance to take.

This is beautiful. However, I asked ChatGPT to improve it.

AI Art and Positivity

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in art has sparked significant debate and a largely negative reaction from artist communities. However, I believe that this development is inevitable and that rather than fearing it, we should embrace it.

Discovery and progress are natural human tendencies and AI technology is no exception. Just as photographs and digital filters have transformed the way we think, work, and live, so too will AI change the role of image artists. Rather than being "visualizers," we may see a shift towards "refiners" who start with AI-generated art and tweak it until it is suitable and "re-inventors" who seek novelty and new input from AI in order to create something new and artistically valuable. Additionally, we may see the emergence of "AI artists" who use this technology as a new "brush" to depict reality.

It's natural to feel sadness or fear about these changes, but it's important to remember that technology is here to stay and will continue to advance, regardless of our emotions. While its use cases may be difficult to predict and regulate with our current ethical frameworks, we can be sure that AI will continue to be developed and applied in pursuit of optimization and societal progress, just as we have seen with bioengineering.

Rather than worrying about the potential negative consequences of AI in art, we should embrace our innate curiosity and excitement about the unknown. The world is vast and full of possibilities, and the thrill of discovery and innovation is a fundamental part of the human experience. Change is the only constant in life, and rather than fighting it, we should embrace it and enjoy the unique journey that we are on. Remember that everything we know and who we are can change, and that this is a natural and exciting part of life.

wow! I didnt expect it to phrase the opening and pre-last sentence that much better - and it copied the major content word by word, which surprises me. I I have to admit by removing the final wordplay, it kind of missed the point of the last paragraph though :|

(similar result for the title, although I like how it tries to boil it down for readability)

ChatGPT seems very direct, which is amazing for writing :D

I would consider that while I do agree that artificial intelligence has the capability of being a beneficial tool to society, it also has just as much potential to be society's greatest downfall. As an example I've used before, a pencil is a great tool for writing up until you stab someone in the eye with it. Then at that point, it becomes a weapon. The simple fact is that part of human nature is in itself greed, and people will take advantage of any helpful tool they can in order to hurt others.

Yes, the advent of television, photography, and smartphone technology exist, but they don't snuff out creativity like you said they would. When the photograph was first invented it became a revolutionary tool and a creative passageway like it still is today. The introduction of film and television introduced new forms of acting and new ways to broadcast it to larger audiences, increasing the range and importance of film. Smartphones even now allow for photography on a much larger scale which broadens the number of artists and people with access to artistic avenues even more. We can even upload our work to billions of people with a single tap of the thumb. The problem with your argument is that these things snuff out art in the same way AI does, but that isn't true. A camera can't take a picture, let alone a good one, without an artist pressing the button and choosing how it's taken. A television can't create the shows it plays, and wouldn't even be worth buying if it weren't for the millions of artists willing to create the work it displays. Smartphones would only be bricks of information if it weren't for artists being willing to populate websites with their work. The point is, these items and inventions are tools and art forms. AI can too serve that purpose, yet the issue is that it isn't. The problem is that AI doesn't need an artist to create. Sure, the models are trained with our copyrighted work, but it would do the same exact things using non-copyrighted work from the library of congress. You can't even argue that "well it needs a human to give it a prompt first" because there's also nothing stopping anyone from hooking up a word-generator to an AI art model and letting all hell break loose. AI art strives to solve a problem that doesn't exist I.E the creation of art, and in the process strives to remove an entire subset of people. Yeah sure, I can switch to traditional art, but there's nothing stopping anyone from taking a picture of it and making a copy, the same way the Mona Lisa and Starry Night have been. The only difference now is that I'm living and breathing but the artists of those pieces have long since been dead.

Companies will use this new technology to avoid paying for employees, which will decrease the number of jobs and greatly increase the already growing number of homeless on the streets. People don't consider it, but artists legitimately make just about everything we use. This is because artists include fashion designers, architects, various engineers, web designers, etc. It's a larger profession than people are wanting to realize. And if a computer can just be used to replace us for a cheaper but faster product that "cuts out the middle man," the big corporations that pay a lot of us are going to be more than willing to buy into it. Right now it's artists that are at risk, but later on, it will be writers, YouTubers, programmers, engineers, and politicians even. It's only just the beginning. This is not the kind of utopia you're dreaming of. Development can equally become the downfall of man. The only way the utopia you're describing would ever exist is one where money doesn't exist and no one has to work or own a business- and simply put, this will never happen. As long as humans have the ability to feel hate and greed, there will always be people wanting something and people willing to do anything in order to get it, even at the cost of everyone else around them.

I believe people are greatly underestimating the potential damage that a proliferation of AI generated art will have on visual expression as a medium. I don't think even the negative voices in this thread see the true potential danger in AI art.

I foresee AI art being the end of this golden age of internet based artist collaboration. And I foresee a future where the only art you will ever see in your day to day life or anywhere on the internet is AI generated. I foresee a future where even those with the dedication and talent to try to learn to create visual art will find their resources greatly limited and no community to participate in. And I foresee a future where the hard core of remaining human-hand artists are closed off, bitter, and unwelcoming to the rest of the world.

Those who defend AI art generators say that they are no different than other tools that help artists, that the human still participates creatively. I'm not here to argue whether or not this is true, but what participation the human has is not visual art. It is, at a fundamental level, creative/technical writing. There is artistry to be found in this medium, but it lacks some of the core features that make visual art an evolving and collaborative process.

Visual artists do not render a scene or paint a painting pixel by pixel. At least not after you get out of the age of finger painting. The most elementary lessons of anyone who pursues visual art are how to deconstruct the image in your brain, and then how to build that image onto the paper. Not pixel by pixel, but by the rules of construction, anatomy, skeletons, perspective. Through these lessons the artist understands how to build a 2D image out of 3D space. The AI knows none of this, and the person prompting the AI learns none of this either.

But it goes deeper than this. Any artist that starts out will inevitably take inspiration in their "Style" from other artists around them. Having the ability to construct a scene is one thing, but applying colour, linework, shading, texture onto your framework takes knowledge and thoughtful direction. Those defending AI say that AI is doing the same as new artists, learning by example. But growing artists do something AI does not. By learning the techniques of those who came before them and emulating their styles, new artists nearly inevitably alter or experiment with those techniques to create a personal style. Something unique to that artist that makes their contribution to the art world special and personal. Every new artist that joins the community to learn eventually gives back by inspiring others with the unique techniques that they themselves pioneered. AI cannot do that. And while the AI prompter may learn tricks or keywords that produce results they like, they cannot describe a new brush technique to an AI without actually understanding what a brush can or cannot do. (even if the AI knew what a brush was)

In this way, AI on its own cannot evolve or grow. Prompters will undoubtedly be able to keep producing unique and interesting looking art, and what becomes popular with society or a community dedicated to it may change, but the art of building an image and the unique contributions that artists make to the medium will be lost. Art has always evolved and improved as artists learned from the techniques of those who came before them, and adapting what they learn to their tools, their interests and contributing back something new. Tools enable artists to make art more easily, but no artist should need any tool. If you hand an artist a blank wall and a bottle of ketchup and say "make a cat", they will still be able to make something you can recognize as a cat. And if you gave them a week to work on their ketchup skills they might get really good at it. If you take the AI generator away from a prompter, they cannot do anything. They have the image in their head, but without the specific tool they require, all they can do is describe it to you in words. Maybe beautiful words, maybe words that would make an amazing poem or story. But only words. If you can't do it without the tool, you can't do it.

Learning to be a visual artist, the kind who can improvise with ketchup, takes a very, very long time for a human being to do. It takes serious dedication, passion, and a desire to share the images in their head with the world. And no matter how much you want to do it, or what resources you have available, you will ALWAYS start off terrible at it. To get past being terrible and into making your own style and thus contributing back to the ecosystem takes a lot of effort. Prior to the advent of AI art, the only way to put a picture in your head into the real world (other than commissioning another human being to do it) was to do it yourself with your hands and whatever medium you liked working in. This motivated a lot of young artists to learn the skill simply because there was no other option. With the advent of AI, fledgling creators looking to draw their Sonic the Hedgehog Self Insert or their DnD Warlock or sassy cartoon hamburger cartoon could either spend half an hour producing something terrible while learning from the experience, or they could type "pink bat in the style of sonic the hedgehog with six arms" into an AI prompt and get 50 images looking like they came straight from Sega Studios in ten seconds. Great for your sonic RP Discord server, not so much for learning to draw. Many young artists will simply seek the instant gratification of AI generated art rather than learn to draw themselves.

Another thing that will discourage people from learning to draw is that there will simply be any potential jobs where producing artistic digital assets pays money. Nobody will pay an artist for slow hand crafted art when AI art is quick and free. The hand-crated art may be more appealing to some, but "quick" and "free" are extremely hard words for corporations to resist. Many artists in the industry are already losing their careers as they're forced out by AI replacements. With no visual art related jobs in the modern world, nobody will pursue learning to draw as a career choice. Jobs in visual design will be about wrangling AI prompts. And again, neither the AI or the Prompter is actually learning anything about constructing images, and neither is contributing back to the evolution of art.

This will lead to another problem, the drastic reduction in tools or instructional courses in how to draw or paint. With few children inspired to draw, and nobody wanting to make a career out of drawing, the only people who will pursue advanced learning in drawing or painting will be those independently wealthy enough to do so. Services will be fewer and far between, and far more expensive as the niche market pays top dollar for them. Drawing and painting will become something only the rich have access to and there will not be any free resources, because in the end game...

There will be no hand-crafted art anywhere on the internet. In a hypothetical future where AI art is quick and free, the only advantage a human has in this environment is the ability to work 50 years at it and create a unique style that the AI has not yet learned to replicate. However, in order to preserve that advantage, the artist must NEVER allow their art to be seen by an AI image scraper. If a scraper can get enough samples of their art, the AI will be able to learn the nuances and in seconds, destroy what value the human artist has earned. As such, no human who wants to be valued at drawing will ever put their art on the internet. The rich people who can afford the elite instruction in the decaying institutions will create a private clique insulated from the rest of the world where art can only be viewed in person without cameras present. Even those looking to hire real artists to create digital assets will not find any people willing to take the jobs offered. Every piece of artwork you as an average person will see on a day to day basis will be AI generated, by people who do not actually understand how to draw or paint without the AI generator. But it only gets worse from here.

With few new artists in newer generations, and those artists STRONGLY incentivised to never let you actually see their art outside of galleries and museums, the AI generators will have no new material to add to their scrapers other than more AI generated images. AI will feed off itself and wind deeper and deeper into mediocrity. Even the human prompters who are making the most earnest efforts to be creative and twist something unique out of the AI generators will be at a distinct disadvantage because the only thing in their world to get inspired by is more AI generated art, actually muddling their imagination.

This is the future of unregulated AI art. A small, insulated elite community of people who keep knowledge, originality and growth to themselves and a world where a single tool generates every picture you ever see and there are no people left who can function without it.

Edit: If you've actually managed to read through this wall of text, I commend you. I apologize for the rant. This has been stewing in my head all last night and at work today as I was reading the comments in other sections of people basically laughing at artists for having wasted their lives learning to draw. It really hurt. I needed to express that this utopia of free art they're imagining isn't nearly as wonderful as they think it is.

And yes, it hurts a lot that the skill I've been working on for 30 years and the only chance I had to leave something in this world I could be proud of is now just something to be laughed at by people who think I'm dumb for wasting my time.

Just wanna say as some rando who did read this, very good write up. I do not have much more to add, but I feel you may just be spot on on what is to come, but I guess we'll know for certain as it happens.

On that last bit, it truly is a shame how little empathy people have on this matter, because this will be coming for them just as much as it is for artists.

I mainly work in 3D, animation rigging etc, but had also been learning to draw more, and picked up playing guitar although more as a hobby. And also had an interest in voice acting. And of course, AI is coming for those fields as much as it is coming for artists in general, be it 2D or 3D. Interested in seeing how the argument will play out with other areas of entertainment.

Thank you, you have no idea how much better it makes me feel to be heard by even one person. I hope I'm wrong, I also hope that the world comes together to regulate scraping and the involuntary databases that have been collected for AI to draw from. These would mitigate SOME issues I described and provide legal recourse for existing artists to fight back when AI tries to step on their toes. However, some of these things like fledgling artists being unmotivated... I don't know there's any solution at all.

Anyway. Thank you. Seeing your response felt like my stomach un-knotted for first time in two days. I offer you a hug if you like such things.

[deleted]

I accept =) but yeah I hope pull through this. It's such a complex issue, with plenty of models already trained out there and info on how to do it, maybe more regulation will help but I hope it doesn't turn out draconian in the favor of just big media and their copyrights.

I can only imagine the discussion will only aggravate as more and more fields will be affected and subject to the same things. All the best to you.

[removed]