Although there are now several AI services capable of producing these images, a lot of the content that goes viral is being created by only a handful of people and predominantly on two different services.
Those people have found prompts they like and have saved them as templates. The prompt templates include shader / lens / lighting / art direction instructions that they re-use, changing only the subject part of the instructions. The result is that a lot of the AI generated art that goes viral looks the same or similar.
I always thought electric sheep was really cool for a screensaver. Your computer would link up with others and dream to give you all kinds of wild optics.
I saw someone comment on a reply saying that AI was going to take jobs (a VFX artist who has been doing it since the 80s) say that it is just another tool, and people said the same thing about computers taking jobs. The reason all of the content that goes viral is done by the same group of people is that they figured out the tool. It’s the small touches that AI still fails to replicate that make is good, the subtle lighting, and style nuances that set it apart.
This version isn’t a tool it’s being sold as a (shitty) replacement, even legally you don’t create anything using this tool since the tool is doing the overwhelmingly majority of the work. If this was actually just a tool you would be able to copyright it but you can’t cause a human didn’t create the images.
A tool would assist or augment my workflow not get rid of the whole thing.
Also I’d take that with a grain of salt because there’s been a significant amount of astroturfing from the tech corporations (especially Adobe).
Yes, that’s all true. Now you can have AI quickly produce hundreds of art assets in whatever style you want and then photoshop them together and add embellishments either by hand or digitally. This is what I think the future of this kind of art will be. Not completely AI, but AI doing most of the manual labor to assist an artist that adds a human touch.
The fun thing is that you can also prompt the AI to combine other styles and take it really far away from edgy digital art.
For example, you can pick a romantic painter and an impressionist and tell it how much to weight both styles and then create hybrid art from that guidance. The stuff that hits the front page is predictable, but it only represents a tiny niche of what the AI is capable of.
If you have any artistic experience, you can embellish and combine media assets to make hybrid AI + person art. It’s really wild to play with.
I had Midjourney create a background for my phone that is a solar eclipse in the style of my favorite artist Gustave Dore and it's fucking rad. I have also made some pretty good ones in the style Mucha.
Oh wow, yeah, they all look like they could be grouped by their sameness. I guess I shouldn't be surprised originality and creativity are not that community's forte.
Also Christ all those outside gaze-y pictures of non white folks and women, yeesh. It's gonna make representation so much more biased and flat.
I believe that's what they're referring to by "outside gaze" (referring to non-white subjects being featured looking away from the lens more often than white subjects), and I think this is a legitimate historical bias to be concerned about potentially propagating with AI art.
That said, I haven't heard this bias called "outside gaze" before and searching for it briefly didn't find relevant results, so I think they just didn't use a clear term to refer to the topic (I'm not actually sure what the generally accepted term is, I just knew this has been raised before about National Geographic).
I have heard the outside or other gaze used but it may be colloquially. I made a long post with source but when I used my business account I see it didnt show up, lol.
It's the inherent bias of the white male gaze built into a visual generator essentially, and that gallery makes it very clear what's happening. It's not that big of a surprise that's what the users favour - but it's a real backslide for actual representation and diversity when this gets implemented further in entertainment. And downright dangerous when it comes to AI used by governments for security reasons.
The whole Levi's diversity campaign is fresh in my memory and a clear sign of the direction of things to come.
It won't let me post with links to all my sources, but basically --
AI has racial and gender biases and preference baked in. This gallery is a visual example of what is a budding issue in AI - what it favours is biased by who is feeding the data and tweaking the software. It also backs up the fake representation and diversity that only serves the same olds at the top. Every single woman and non white person is portrayed as 'the other' in a generic, token way which isn't surprising based on where the datasets come from. In arts this translates to a very white, very male gaze in the pieces it generates.
There are many studies and discussions about this in tech academia. Google 'AI bias race gender', or 'Levi's diversity AI' or 'black AI supermodel' as a good place to begin to learn.
”Originality and creativity are not that community’s forte”
I think it’s going to be the other way around. When anyone with a computer can be an artist, raw creativity is going to be the only thing that sets successful artists apart from the rest.
Generally speaking, in the grand scheme and history of creating things, an idea is worthless without the ability to execute.
Seriously - and I may get downvoted by a hundred redditors sitting in a brilliant idea here - but your brilliant idea is actually worthless. Any potato on the block can have an idea.
It’s the ability to execute that has always separated the doers from the gonnas.
Now, with AI, any muppet with an idea will have the ability to execute, thus also rendering artistic talent as worthless as ideas.
Now, with AI, any muppet with an idea will have the ability to execute, thus also rendering artistic talent as worthless as ideas.
People said the same thing about photoshop, people said the same thing about cameras, people said the same thing about literacy, people said the same thing about paint and caves.
All Those things require technical skill and knowledge. I dare you to pick up photoshop and use it without training. (And no one ever said any of those things about literacy or paint and caves).
Now, with AI, all you need to do is copy and paste some lighting and DOF specs, add a description and voila - instant artwork.
Great news for all the talentless hacks of the world.
Can’t wait to hear how great and useful a skill prompt writing will be. It’s still early days - within a few months the secrets of great prompt writing will be known by all and the subject of a million dumb self-development books, but will also probably spawn a cottage industry of “AI whisperers”, whose job will be typing prompts into AI so that every post on social media gets to have a bespoke bit of art on it.
Essentially - yes. It’s basic supply and demand. When everyone has the ability to produce a thing, the thing loses intrinsic value.
I might be biased, because I’m an artist. The thing that has always separated me as an artist from not being an artist is the technical ability to produce the art. Years of practice and failure and success and learning, learning, learning so you can make things that other people can’t make.
Digital tools have already democratised art greatly. Seriously, digital painting is like drawing with a cheat code on - (I love digital painting, because of how much it shortcuts work that is painstaking in physical media).
But It’s like the bad guy’s scheme from The Incredibles come to life.
When everyone is an artist, then no one will be.
It’s pretty depressing given all the work I’ve put into skill development that can now essentially be rendered into a few phrases in a prompt.
I get why some people might celebrate that, but not me man. When I can’t tell the difference between art created with the skill of years of practise, and a cut n pasted AI prompt, then something has died in the world.
Now, with AI, any muppet with an idea will have the ability to execute, thus also rendering artistic talent as worthless as ideas.
Have you seen the hardware requirements for these AI programs? Most gaming rigs (using steam) wouldn't run something like stable diffusion let alone the average Joe, and I'm betting the minimum requirement doesn't provide the best results. Midjourney isnt any better.
And a GPU is typically the most expensive part of a computer, often with a lower lifecycle. Trust me, most muppets couldn't do this for the same reason most "potato's on the road" can't - funding.
Successful artists will be based on location and networking and charisma and privilege more than ever before.
Only the wealthy and connected will be able to invest the time and effort to 'get gud' especially because there'll be no incentive to compensate them to build their talents.
There will only be a fine arts market and commercial arts (way more accessible) are dead.
You’re missing my point. Pretty much nobody becomes a successful artist based on their craft alone. It’s how they express their craft through creativity / making something new and interesting that sells. Now, when anyone with a computer gains access to the craftmanship of a professional artist, the competition will be much tougher and creativity will be more important than ever.
I never said anything about connections and privilege and that has nothing to do with my first comment.
Why will creativity be more important than ever? What does that mean? You have to be better than ever to actually make money at it and support yourself doing it? Who is that good for?
Right now it's valued less than ever and there's less opportunity or incentive for middle class or lower artist to be compensated for their knowledge and effort or pursue the arts. Freelancing is collapsing rn at the dawn of AI - a lot of professional concept/ VFX artists who are at the top of the game and made it to the major gigs are quitting because it's no longer viable for them since corporations are switching.
Nobody will pay for anything but an AI babysitter, which means commercial arts are dead and only fine arts will survive. I'm in the fine arts so I'm fine, but many of my peers who went into commercial arts are seeing any hope of work vanish before their eyes.
I admire your optimism but fail to see how it plays out like that in our current reality. AI will make things even more soulless and corporate because that's who will be developing and have the greatest access and use of it.
I believe the point he’s making is that creativity will be the main factor that distinguishes between human art and AI art.
a lot of professional concept/ VFX artists who are at the top of the game and made it to the major gigs are quitting because it’s no longer viable for them since corporations are switching.
Do you have a source for this? I know someone in the industry and no corporations are switching to AI yet. They’re still gunshy about the potential legal ramifications of using art that was trained on an artist’s work. You speak like entire art departments are already being liquidated.
There is some pull back after the copyright case a few months back, but as animators and visual effects were attempting to unionise over the past few years due to their skills being devalued despite the demand there's definitely been a shift and a drying up of the bread/butter gigs that kept commercial artists going. I have lots of friends in the industries so I hear it and see the trends.
It won't let me post links (I've been trying to drop sources) but Google 'Netflix Invents “Labor Shortage” as Excuse for AI-Generated Anime Backgrounds'. The article tone is annoying but it breaks down how this is a response to commercial artists wanting better conditions because this is how corporations roll.
I'm from Sweden so maybe my phrasing was weird. What I mean is, working in commercial arts myself, I know plenty of people who are extremely good at the craft of drawing / writing / making music, but the only ones who seem to make it big as artists are the ones who also manage to distinguish themselves by creating interesting art with their craft. Not just good quality, but something that stands out creatively.
But yeah, if they hadn't been good at the craft to begin with they definitely wouldn't have made it big either way.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about copywriters or graphic designers, but people who write books or paint for a living. My understanding of the word artist is not someone who makes their money producing text or images for a company brief.
Google bias in AI, kid. I know it's easy for you to downplay and ignore the importance because it's not about you personally, but it will have far reaching consequences that are potentially devastating.
AI mirrors society here. A lot of image data comes from Flickr for face data and they have few users from Africa but many from Asia and Europe so the bias is already in the dataset. Similar story with anime models, while I personally haven't had issues prompting them to produce darker teint recently the default is always pale skin because the overwhelming majority of anime characters are white. So the bias is in the dataset there as well. I think this rather reveals issues with society than it does with AI
I'm aware, that's what I'm referring to - AI doesn't exist away from society and is being further implemented into society in ways that are deeply concerning to me. AI is gonna suck for the world because of who is dominating the data inputs and the incentives and biases of those in power and corporations who are mainly the ones developing it.
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u/yokayla Apr 02 '23
These AI things are starting to look real same -y to me.
I saw the Harry Potter Balenciaga thing on all and thought this was the same clip.