Are you truly an artist if you use AI?

There are a lot of opinions flying around about AI art, some treat it as a new tool for artists and others as a bastardization of what artists can do.
Which is it a lazy attempt to generate bad art? Or a new technology artists can use to make new and better art? What if they are both wrong? Stick around and I'll let you know how I feel about it.

More tutorials ARE coming I promise, but they take a lot longer than these talking head videos and I am trying to be more constant.

[GeminEyeArt]

Seems straightforward to me. My clients don't consider themselves artists just because they've given me prompts to deliver them something. Should they decide to take my image and manipulate it themselves it would then be a collaboration at best, but they're not the sole artist. On top of that, as an AI "artist" you can literally instruct ANYONE else what to write as a prompt and the result would be the same as if they prompted it themselves no matter the experience of the stand-in. No amount of coaching on my end would enable another individual to produce what I would, let alone an amateur.

[Our_Remedy]

To me, art can be practically anything as long as it's meant to elicit emotion or be beautiful in some way. Beauty being able to range from how someone might find the simple and fleeting rainbow to be beautiful, or the profound yet disgusting process of open heart surgery and what it represents about human prosperity. The quality therein being how effectively it's able to interest you. So abstract painting, video games, photography, video essays, plays, philosophy, etc. are all considered artistic to me.
So it feels so strange and limited when peoples definition of art seems to be excluding ai, instead of how I see it, where even IF the AI is a completely soulless amalgamation of thousands of different images slapped together into a Rorschach blob. How does that at all depreciate how intriguing a given art piece is? If you hung it on a wall and asked someone, unprompted, do you think this is art? I can't imagine many people would say no.


I can't help but remember how throughout history, painters hated cameras, scribes hated paper and writers hated the printing press. Not to say I think AI art will take over like those inventions did, but I do think it's a thing that exists now, and people are going to use it. It's going to develop into it's own thing, and I don't think it's going to be good or bad. I just think it's going to be different.

[natemiller]

One thing about AI art that I have found interesting is the style. Being that the AI is piecing together from given prompts they tend to have a look that, while stimulating in it's seeming complexity, is too scattered, and feels like it is regurgitation, because in one sense it is. Also there is the fact that AI are being told to make something that "looks like", they are not creating from originality, and they tend to be non-distinct because of it. In many cases your brain is doing half the work to interpret what the AI has generated, and it works, because there are enough key elements for the art to "look like" X or Y. This being the case perhaps they will offer a challenge to the abstract artist, in a juxtaposition of the way that photography offered a challenge to the portrait artist.

[enigmawstudios]

AI and it's Art variants is an amazing tool, especially from this future standpoint. If elicits jealousy and fear, but for a small business owner, it's freaking gold!

[bitninja]

I think if you are an actual physical painter the value of your work is only going to increase in the years to come. That is, until a robot can make physical paintings.

[Cytryz]

Having used it and having drawn my own stuff.

It’s essentially claiming you as the commissioner being the artist. We would never call the commissioner an artist for having prompted the one creating the image they desire. It is commonly understood within this context the artist is the on bringing the commissioner’s idea into fruition.

The same scenario is playing out with the Ai.

As for the threat to art, It boils down to over saturation of content and the perceived cheapening value of art / the cost of art thanks to over saturation. This paired with the consumerist mentality that seems to have no limit. A lot, not all, will have much less desire/appreciation to pay for artwork or artwork in general as at a point it’ll just be a given. After all anybody can do it with a fraction of the effort it took me to write this response. That’s hardly something worth valuing in the eyes of a lot of people.

[codeyvo]

I am late to this conversation since it feels like AI-generated art has been becoming an online talking point just recently. I have been pondering what it means for something to be a piece of art and what it means to have value as an artist. The biggest difference between traditional and AI-generated art is intention. If an AI-generated piece of art is built up of hundreds of paint strokes, unless you painstakingly told an AI to perform a hundred brush strokes a certain way, you didn't create those brush strokes, the AI did. Something is only a tool when it requires skills to use it and the intention to produce a result. I hate it when people compare this trend with the digital-art renaissance. A computer/tablet is a tool because it still requires both skill and intention. AI-generated art is a triumph in technology, and I think it's cool, great even, but you can't equate creating an AI-generated piece to drawing a painting yourself.

Now speaking in the grander scheme of things. At the moment, I've seen indie artists talking about having to cancel their commissions because their customers decided to enlist AI instead, not only because of the gap in "skill level" but also from a logistics standpoint. There have also been a lot of arguments around the ethics of copyright and AI-generated works because AI learning depends on "copying" a work in its totality rather than "interpreting" it as a human would do. At the moment, the trend is doing more harm than good because:

1.) It discourages up-and-coming artists from entering the industry knowing that AI is a far better competitor.
2.) It provides less incentive for directors to hire concept artists for projects
3.) People are abusing AI-generated art and selling them off as "real"
4.) People further take for granted all of the fundamentals and details that artists spent millennia mastering
5.) Society as a whole views art as a less and less viable career path

Once we find ways to rectify most (if not all) of the above problems, I think there is a world where artists and non-artists alike can fully embrace AI. I think the big thing is once artists get governments to establish firm regulations of copyright to protect artists (like they do for music), some of the fallout surrounding the topic will die down. I personally think the trend eventually reach a lull state once people wise up to the fact that establishing interpersonal connections is as just a large part of the art world as the art itself. I think the best thing we can do at the moment is continue supporting real artists and let them know they're still wanted, so that we're not looking at a future where even more parents discourage children from pursuing the field.

[aureliangamelin]

I've been studying Machine Learning and AI for the past two years with the intention of working on creative AI. From my standpoint I'll say that history will decide whether outputs are considered art and prompt writers are considered artists. It's an interesting debate to have but with the pace in which AI tech advances in every creative field, from writing to music, it'll be difficult to have a solid stance on this when the ground is rapidly moving beneath your feet.

[MGmirkin]

A little of Column A, a little of Column B.

It's definitely a co-authoring.

The human provides a prompt input. The AI interprets the prompt and then generates an image based upon it.

The human controls the prompt, but not really the output. But varying the prompt one can vary the output though, so through iterative prompting, the human can, in fact influence, to some degree, the content or style of the image, etc. It's still early days, so there's no super granular control over stuff like scene composition, character position/pose, etc.

I suspect that over time it will evolve further into something more user-directed, where the user can more directly influence the evolving image with additional prompts, and the AI can use language/image recognition to in-paint or out-paint the image and edit specific portions of the scene, in ever more complicated ways.

Where rather than simply saying "scene X, " maybe one starts with "scene X, " but then 'evolves' that to "add house Y, " "add chimney on the left of House Y's roof, " "add Wizard Z in front of House Y, " "move Wizard Z closer to the camera by 40%, " "change wizard Z's robes to purple, " "give wizard Z a purple hat, " "make the tip of Wizard Z's hat a curved curlyQ, " "move Wizard Z's arm up, " "give wizard Z a wizard's staff with a lighted crystal on top, " "Make Wizard Z's staff's lighter crystal purple with purple light rays emanating from it, " "make wizard Z's staff's purple light rays wavy, " "make Wizard Z older, " "give Wizard Z a long white chaotically wavy beard blowing in the wind" etc.

We're not quite there yet, but I suspect that someday we'll get there, and the user will eventually take a more direct role in "doing art." Right now the "art" is more in creating the initial prompt and adding modifiers, style guidelines, etc. And then the AI "does everything else." But I think that as it evolves, the user may end up taking a more active role in the co-creator seat, and the current outputs will seem "primitive" by comparison to more "artistically directed/evolved" works where the person is more "artist" than "director, " or is, I suppose a melding of both artist and director, making specific decisions involving what seed image(s) to use, how to evolve the images, which specific things to alter (inpaint/outpaint), etc.

[simianrogue]

Ultimately I think down the timeline companies will have 'hired' their own AI programs that will design for them, be it concept, graphic design, set design, costume design, etc. The 'artist' will be the person entering the 'data' requirements in order to produce the final product. The same way there is a divide between traditional artists using the medium of oil and canvas versus the digital artist. AI will assume the role of the 'artist' for studios.

[Xsuprio]

Calling it a tool is one thing. But people are starting new accounts thinking they're actual artists now. I even seen them "open for commissions". They're not art directors. They are not creative. They are typing words and seeing IF it'll make something that looks cool. It takes next to zero skill. Even an art director has experience and knows how to apply it.

It's cancer. A mutated growth that is going to spread and devalue art. Cameras did not replace paintings. Paintings kept their value or arguably went up in value, because people appreciated the skill and "feel".
Digital art also takes knowledge of what is possible in different programs. Things you can't do with actual paint, all different kinds of brushes and applying filters/FX in a specific manner.

Ever hear of time is money? What company boss is going to hire a concept artist when he can type shit in a program themself and have results in minutes? And even small time artists with small time clients... why spend 20 bucks commissioning someone on an art forum when you can just fuck around with AI AND call yourself "the artist"? "Look what EYE made!!!"

But that's progress. AI will perform surgeries, drive us around, make our food, take care of us in our old age, will know exactly how to please us in bed... We won't have to lift a finger in the future. Why should artists be spared?

[masehostoryteller]

It’s funny how people argue about the democratic access to creativity- basically there are 2 major points both rather from a legal than a moral perspective:
1. Copyright, utilisation rights concerning sales or winning prizes, awards:
So far, the AI platforms reserve the right to use all prompts & images one has created (Wombo Dream, midjourney).
It is as well not clear how high the percentage of manual input must be to grant the work is suitable for artist copyright (“visible traces of a human touch).
2. The unauthorised use of contemporary (copyright protected artwork or personal artistic styles): The AI tool companies do want to be held liable but then again they are the ones who reap profit (subscriptions) or benefit by having their tool learning to add this artwork or style into its dataset.
3. I do not see anything wrong using AI art to create mood boards, visually entertaining social media content but artist will be even more occupied with tracking their art by image search which is very time consuming

[bulldogravenwolf]

All my life, I wanted to be a photographer 12 years ago. I asked the job club if they could help with sending me to a professional photographer class, they told me no it was not feasible as everyone can take photos with their phones, so I think Ai is a great idea artist are complaining about this tool. What about all the people that no longer have jobs because of machines that do the job faster and less people need to employ. It's called EVOLUTION TOOLS ARE MADE TO MAKE LIFE EASY. I LOVE AI I WISH I HAD A COMPUTER I'D MAKING THINGS I WANTED TO SEE.

[javozmeade]

Hhmm...sounds familiar doesn't it digital artist? ( wonder how traditional artist feel now ).

[NoahtheGameplayer]

To me it's art, I'm not sure if you guys know Ratatouille the Disney movie, but there was that quote that said:

"You must try things that may not work, and you must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul. What I say is true - anyone can cook... but only the fearless can be great."

The idea is that anyone can do it, even a computer, So there should be no saying of saying that's not art or thats stolen, because we do the exact same thing as we all been doing for centuries, getting references for our own drawings, Even existing drawings that we don't even know that it's even copyrighted or not, but either way, ai art is organic enough, not fully, besides, we still need humans to do some of the tasks that AI could not really do all the time

[SanBear]

It's art but the people who prompt the AI to create the art aren't artists, it's the same as commissioning a work of art. You're paying or telling someone else to do the art in this case the AI.

[mewffhp]

The only Art i can appreciate on AI generative images is the programmer who made the algoritm.

[kemek]

I’m just glad to see someone being level headed about this after punishing myself and watching 10+ videos of people being angry about it 😆 I feel like a lot of the people that have felt threatened by it have kinda lost or forgotten what it means to be an artist. Usually it’s the “professional artist” that works in the part of the industry where they’re not actually creating anything new themselves. They’re doing so under the direction of the art director. They’re more like a craftsman in that function rather than an artist. So they’re really afraid of jobs being replaced by Ai.

An artist is just a creative person making new stuff. Meaning, no matter what a machine is doing I’m still going to be creating art my way.

[cindyliart]

I don’t think AI art itself is art, since it does not consist of the same amount of human decisions required compared to art made fully by humans. In traditional art, every detail in the art piece is decided and created by the artist. While the details within the AI generated image requires little human involvement. So I think that AI art functions more as a director, and the pictures generated by AI can be used for something that does not require deep meaning. Such as a place filler with something that’s pretty.

[MichaelPetrus]

Hi. Interesting take on the subject. However, I think that much bigger problem that people are dealing with concerning AI art is that it will take their jobs. We are talking about illustration/comics/game design industry. OK. Not now, but how about in 10 - 15 years when AI will be improved dramatically in the precision, options to edit on the go, use specific style (maybe even from imported image)? What do you think? Then all of us will be art directors/operators of AI but no real craftsmen will be needed?