I think I know where AI art could be helpful. I’m an artist. I have a style. I’d like it if I had a bot trained by my art I could use to create my own work. Not trained by other artists. Just trained by me. And as I create new art and improve, I could improve it. It would save me time and money and save my clients time and money.
The bots trained on art by artists without their consent is tantamount in my mind to hiring a counterfeiter. They churn out work quickly for a fraction, it’s rough and details are missing. You still need an artist to finish and make sense of it. But it’s good enough to sate curiosity, give someone a laugh, or be entertaining.
Many people are creating images they never would have before; because it was cost prohibitive, the majority of people can’t draw, and it’s free to showcase the ability of the AI…
But some websites are encouraging AI prompters to sell their AI generated work as though it’s their own original work. And that it’s criminally negligent of Ytse* now isn’t it?
We’ve now had an AI art generator prompter threaten to sue another prompter because the AI spat out a similar image because the “prompt was copied”.
…
The world always goes mad before it goes sane again.
The tech industry often won’t ask permission, because they don’t want to be told no. It’s better to ask forgiveness… get sued by artists in a class action kind of way.
Is AI evil? It’s not true thinking for itself AI. It’s a copy and collage tool the tech dream team made without permission from the sources and therefore they’re facing the consequences of their assumptions.
Is AI art free? There is a cost. Or rather, we’re trying to figure out how to conscientiously use it for profit in a fair and safe way to benefit all.
Is it fun? Depends if you can make art for free with it. I have no doubt there will be some artists who would happily give some of their experimental art to such programs for a pittance if they’d been given the option. Permission should have been asked. Then a guilt free product would exist. Then it could be fun for all.
Have I enjoyed any AI art? I have. I thought John Oliver marrying a cabbage was extra special.
And I would love if this becomes a product I could train to help me produce more of my own art. A sketching tool I could use to speed up my process up would be ideal. If a sketch could take minutes instead of hours, awesome. If it’s trained by my style and only my style, fantastic.
That’s where I see one facet of this headed.
The other is a generator of profile thumbnails for OCs. People have been using these AI generators for that left, right, and centre.
Another is to create joke images for television sitcoms and late night. Shows are already using it.
What I’m saying is, it’s time for these AI generated things to not be free anymore. They’ve made the rounds. Let’s see how valuable humanity finds them? What are we willing to pay to use them? When AI generated art is no longer free, that will change the tone of those on the side of the technology developers and defending them. It will change the tone of the lawsuits. It will change everything in these matters. And I want to see what the cost to artists wanting to use this technology will be.
Will tech companies get into the business of making art: replacing graphic designers, fleecing talent, or will everything newly generated look like it came from centuries ago; because there’s few copyrights in old galleries and museums. Rhetorical questions.
When the free-to-try trials are no longer free, when the gavel comes down on the lawsuit(s), we’ll see that even this new tool will have a value and a cost associated with it.
People wanting to use it, being curious about using it, already shows it’s got value and worth.
*Name scrambled to protect my butt as what I’ve heard is hearsay. I don’t personally work with this company.