AI Art Wasn't Inevitable

About 2 years ago, I made this video about AI art and how I felt it was on the verge of destroying art itself or something. Very existential, very somber. But in the time since I’ve made that video, I’ve realized that maybe I was duped.

Maybe this technology isn’t all powerful, all capable, and maybe there are limitations that technological progress can’t solve.

Maybe this is destined to just make funny clips on the internet.

So today, I’m gonna take a look back at what’s happened, what I think will happen, and why ultimately AI art isn’t going to replace humans.

[Yon]

The entire tech space really did just spend the last few years funnelling billions into shitposting technology.

[danang]

i've seen a few AI "artist" complaint about their "artwork" getting stolen

talk about irony

[something-bitstudios]

A 'recent' issue that I encounter often is when looking for any references to draw/model/... many of the results are AI generated, but the quality is high enough that I can't tell from looking at the thumbnail, so the workflow is significantly slower than before. AI is not only NOT making being creative easier, it is actively making it harder.

[ibisskb]

As an artist, back when I saw the audio models and the early image models, I accepted the idea that they would end up being very useful for my artistic input, that they would be like "my personal movie studio". Five years later, I have to write "before:2022" everytime I search for references with Google, and the closest thing to "my personal movie studio" is a 2004 videogame.

[joshmerchant]

i am 100% convinced Suchir Balaji was murdered. Corporations have been getting bolder and more blatant in recent years in taking out whistleblowers. we need to stand against it.

[technetium]

If it at least proves anything, is that we are dogshit at predicting the future

[shyguy]

in retrospect, maybe we should have just learned from mario maker... "just because you give people the tools, doesnt give them any good ideas"

[RemnantCult]

The additional eyes on the back of the head of the cat unlocked a rare emotion in me that's akin to the Uncanny Valley. I'm pretty sure this is what it feels like to see something truly alien and frightening.

[wildmooseking]

I’m an illustrator and for the first year I was terrified, angered and flustered by ai art, but then I realized something. Creatives develop tastes. A palette of media that influences their creative output. The reason why the majority of AI art output is so banal is because the people abusing it have not developed any taste and interact with media in a rushed encyclopedic way that is counter to making anything of creative value or merit.

[Facepalm-Guy]

Why tf is no one in the comments mentioning how a whistleblower in Open AI got assassinated?

[tidmouthmilk]

I forget the exact quote (and whoever originally posted it, sorry) but one of my favourite responses to this whole AI "art" trend was "Instead of doing the tedious tasks for creative people it's doing the creative tasks for tedious people."

[exospaceman]

No matter how advanced AI art becomes, it won't stop me from drawing by hand. I've been drawing for a long time.

[Tall_Order]

One annoying thing about AI, is almost all the AI services charge money for tokens, that are quickly wasted by bad generations that totally ignore several key parts of your prompt. No matter how many brackets you wrap around them. You quickly start to realize that AI is not so intelligent. No chance of a token refund once it's been made...

[zenniththefolf]

Even if the battle is won against AI the war is never ending. Even if corporations reel back due to backlash, they might try again in a more subtle way until they get what they want without anyone realizing what we lost.

[Kazazoic]

Ai might be a generational nothing burger. All the hype, all the corporations pushing it in my face, all the fears and it all lead to no significant change in my life or how I engage in art. I still watch shows and videos made by humans, I still play video games made by humans, I ignore anything that is made by ai and I talk with ai chat bots just for momentary fun and not as a true companion. It’s all just a nothing burger to me. Ai has never and will never replace my appreciation for real art made by real people to me.

Edit: the nvidia stuff is pretty cool though

[ThecrruptedNeko]

I miss back in 2022
Where ai was just a silly little thing that made stupid looking funny images
Then a year later, it was everywhere
And I wish it would just go away, it’s ruining and overtaking everything I enjoy

[iamjustkiwi]

I think I'm slightly less concerned about AI art than I am about AI writing. It's already becoming incredibly difficult to find information on niche topics without stumbling across generated articles with quite frequent factual errors, especially in the tech sector (which feels pretty ironic), as well as the capacity for AI to streamline scamming operations through TTS, which is getting increasingly convincing. All in all, it's just a ludicrous amount of resources dumped into something that i feel has yet to demonstrate a positive reason for it's existence and insane amount of investment - a while ago all this tech was conceptualized as a way to save us time and money, to enable us to enjoy doing more of the human stuff, and it hasn't really accomplished any of that yet - ESPECIALLY not for anyone of lower or middle class.

[raishijtenobles]

7:12 ...huh. I mean, it's obvious that AI does scrape copyrighted art, but wow, that's pretty brazen. Not to mention that tech companies are only going to gain more power over the course of a few years. Yeah this is not good.

[JamesTDG]

18:31 I've seen people TRY to actually use AI to generate pixel art, but the fact that the fundamental structure is flawed, just makes it so they can NEVER even get CLOSE to legitimate pixel art.

[ninja]

I think something ai slop has made me realize about real Art is that it is a form of communication. Every piece of art says something about its creator. Every painting, movie, show, book, comic, photo, piece of music, cave painting, napkin doodle, etc. even if its unintentional theres always something that is being said.
We as a species have been creating art for as long as we have been talking to each other, I think that are abilities to communicate and create are the core part that separates us from other animals. Ai has none of that, it has nothing to say, it is fundamentally anti human.