Is AI Art good or bad?

[matrixman124]

Wanted to open a discussion here because it's a very interesting subject.

So, artificial intelligence currently works via machine learning. This means that information is fed to an AI and then the AI trains on the information and creates new output based on that information. While this has been tested out in developing algorithms, robotics, etc., it's most publicly famous use case has been creating art.

As a result, we've seen AI art bots like DALL-E spitting out its bizarre uncanny art all over the place. And not only visual art but music being produced as well.

While AI produced art still looks "off" and is decidedly aesthetic inferior to manmade art, we are starting to see it used by media - for magazine covers and article inserts, but this arguably could eclipse artists who make stock photos for a living.

Furthermore, there is little regulation on what kind of input is going into these AIs and some output copies existing copyrighted art to the extent that it could be a violation.

So we have two sides of this:

AI art is pushing machine learning in a creative direction. It can be used as a tool to aid artists in finding new ideas if they hit a block or they could use it to produce a base for a unique pose.

And the other side is AI art could be used to replace artists since it would produce art much more cheaply than a person.

Please feel free to share your thoughts!

 

 

[PokeNirvash]

From what we're able to produce ourselves for free, it could be better.

But really, it's best used as a source of inspiration, as opposed to an actor on that inspiration itself, at least at the current stage.

[matrixman124]

36 minutes ago, PokeNirvash said:

From what we're able to produce ourselves for free, it could be better.

But really, it's best used as a source of inspiration, as opposed to an actor on that inspiration itself, at least at the current stage.

Right and then it gets a lot stickier when we get into commercialization since it could replace stock photos potentially.

[Blatch]

I'm mostly used to AI art from memes, and I've taken a stab at making my own a few times. It's going to be weird seeing more mainstream uses of it. I also think a lot of the fun from DALL-E came from the early versions of it where it was rougher, and thus whatever you got from your fucked-up queries was especially deranged. To some extent, I'd prefer if things stayed that way.

[matrixman124]

Right, it's a novelty right now like most meme images. The problem is if it's commercialized I think. That makes it a whole different beast.

[matrixman124]

Btw, I finally got access to Dall-E which is being used completely non-comercially which is good.

[viperxmns]

reasonable fear cheap fucks are gonna rely on it instead of paying an artist, especially if it produces passable results

[matrixman124]

So OpenAI which created DALL-E 2 was co-founded by Elon Musk. I'm not sure what we can surmise from that.

 

[GunStarHero]

Probably going to go the porn route eventually. That is to say, the average person will use that access to free, on demand content/product and will never see a need to pay for it when it gets to a certain level of polish from the AI. 

On the one hand, this will inevitably "steal" work away from artists as potential customers will opt to go for the free route, though I'm sure those in the know will just continue using artists for polished results for the time being. 

On the flipside, it can give an artistic voice to those unable to produce their own art for one reason or another and may result in a collaborative art between a human wordsmith and an AI artist giving us something we have otherwise never had. As potentially beautiful as that may be, I am reminded of rage comics, which gave a similar voice to those without artistic ability by giving them the option to plug in art and text to express themselves, albeit in a much more static manner. 

I am also sure some enterprising users are already planning how to make full blown content this way. Imagine a graphic novel series made entirely from AI generated images (or the visuals, anyways). I recall a previous discussion I had regarding the harnessing of dreams to create things on a screen and a strong willed person making a full blown story/movie from that. While that may remain science fiction, I could easily see someone fine tuning these AI and hammering out the logistics to make a visual story. 

[SwimModSponges]

AI is good.

[DragonSinger]

I think there would be less controversy around it if there had been better action taken towards copyrighted materials. As someone with health issues who does want to eventually work on a webcomic, it's helpful to me. 

[matrixman124]

2 hours ago, DragonSinger said:

I think there would be less controversy around it if there had been better action taken towards copyrighted materials. As someone with health issues who does want to eventually work on a webcomic, it's helpful to me. 

Yeah. Dall-E does actually do that but there is no legal precedent from preventing other companies from doing it 

[matrixman124]

Interesting article 

[viperxmns]

Saw something about someone submitting AI art to a contest and winning

Well we're fucked

[matrixman124]

https://openai.com/blog/dall-e-introducing-outpainting/

So the idea here is that it takes an existing painting and tries to compose a larger painting around it. The problem is the AI is constructing the rest of the composition based on the original and it's existing input, so you have a lot less deliberate actions so everything around the painting looks random as hell. This does a great job if anything showing the limitations of AI art right now.

[matrixman124]

12 hours ago, viperxmns said:

Saw something about someone submitting AI art to a contest and winning

Well we're fucked

I really doubt it. AI art looks way too uncanny valley to compete with human art. We're not quite there yet.

 

[viperxmns]

I think it was something that showed up in my twitter feed so finding the post prob gonna be difficult by now, but I wouldn't rule out some art competition judges being fooled by shiny colors, looked to be one of those digital fantasy sort of images idk

[matrixman124]

7 hours ago, viperxmns said:

I think it was something that showed up in my twitter feed so finding the post prob gonna be difficult by now, but I wouldn't rule out some art competition judges being fooled by shiny colors, looked to be one of those digital fantasy sort of images idk

I found it. It looks terrible if you take a close look at it. Artifacts and garbage all over the place.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmvqm/an-ai-generated-artwork-won-first-place-at-a-state-fair-fine-arts-competition-and-artists-are-pissed?utm_content=bufferc7441&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Edited September 1, 2022 by matrixman124

[viperxmns]

ah good catch

that was upsetting to read

[matrixman124]

2 minutes ago, viperxmns said:

ah good catch

that was upsetting to read

I really don't understand how it won. It looks like random gibberish all over the place. Nothing looks deliberate. Like the competition must have been really garbage if that won.

[viperxmns]

could be enlightening to see the other entrants/finalists I suppose

[matrixman124]

18 minutes ago, viperxmns said:

could be enlightening to see the other entrants/finalists I suppose

Here's the runner up. You can see the deliberate work in it.

[matrixman124]

 

Nice mini-thread about what AI art should be for VS what it is being used for instead 

[Lemming]

It’s whatever, think about the most poppy search terms, throw in a few technical terms,  push the button, then apprehensively claim it as art.

[André Toulon]

My experience with it sucks, I could paint what I wanted myself before the ai produced what I wanted

[matrixman124]

 

This is very interesting. You could use this to potentially make any expression for a specific character model or style. It could revolutionize animation.

 

[SwimModSponges]

4 hours ago, André Toulon said:

My experience with it sucks, I could paint what I wanted myself before the ai produced what I wanted

So this is sorta the thing. Folks are like "you didn't create anything, you can just type whatever you want into the computer and it will make perfect art."

Thats not how it works, not if you want to make something decent.

You have to know exactly what you want from it, you have to understand how to ask for it in a way that doesn't result in a jumbled mess, you've got to workshop it. Many, many times.

Then once you get the gestalt of the image, you go in with "inpainting" and "outcropping" to fix your details and your framing. Heck sometimes I go in with MS Paint to manually fix up a handful of things. Last project I did was 15 separate prompts to get something i was happy with.

Now, am i a painter? No, of course not.

Would it be a fair to compare it to somebody cutting up magazines to make a collage? 

Yeah i think so.

[matrixman124]

4 hours ago, SwimModSponges said:

So this is sorta the thing. Folks are like "you didn't create anything, you can just type whatever you want into the computer and it will make perfect art."

Thats not how it works, not if you want to make something decent.

You have to know exactly what you want from it, you have to understand how to ask for it in a way that doesn't result in a jumbled mess, you've got to workshop it. Many, many times.

Then once you get the gestalt of the image, you go in with "inpainting" and "outcropping" to fix your details and your framing. Heck sometimes I go in with MS Paint to manually fix up a handful of things. Last project I did was 15 separate prompts to get something i was happy with.

Now, am i a painter? No, of course not.

Would it be a fair to compare it to somebody cutting up magazines to make a collage? 

Yeah i think so.

Yeah it's a tool really. The real issue I see is if it replaces artists and threatens their livelihood.

[SwimModSponges]

This guy's got a fun idea- 

https://twitter.com/DalleOnTheDaily

[SwimModSponges]

3 hours ago, matrixman124 said:

Yeah it's a tool really. The real issue I see is if it replaces artists and threatens their livelihood.

There goes capitalism, making us ask the wrong question.

So, I'm hobby brewer. Some day I would love to open a brewery. And that brewery needs a logo.

I should probably pay somebody to make me one, right?

Well, we almost did that last year- one of my wife's friends is a freelance graphic designer, and we figured that'd make a great Christmas present for me.

Well that whole thing fell through. Due to her day job she didn't have the time to take the commission, and likely wouldn't have had time for any revisions or workshopping. It would have been "Send me a few pictures of logos you like, an idea of what kind of look and style you're going for, and $200. I'll send you your logo in a month."

The other night I sit down at the computer and say "Y'know what? I wonder if I could make a self portrait with an AI by typing my name into it and fixing it up from there..." 

After about $1.50 worth of credits and a handful of times wiggling things around in Paint, I had an essentially accurate portrait of myself looking like a medieval lord holding a barrel of brew with my own custom designed label on it.

And the joy that brings me is fucking incredible.

Art should never have to be a livelihood. Art should not have to be "work".

Art should be expression. Art should be breath.

[matrixman124]

51 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

There goes capitalism, making us ask the wrong question.

So, I'm hobby brewer. Some day I would love to open a brewery. And that brewery needs a logo.

I should probably pay somebody to make me one, right?

Well, we almost did that last year- one of my wife's friends is a freelance graphic designer, and we figured that'd make a great Christmas present for me.

Well that whole thing fell through. Due to her day job she didn't have the time to take the commission, and likely wouldn't have had time for any revisions or workshopping. It would have been "Send me a few pictures of logos you like, an idea of what kind of look and style you're going for, and $200. I'll send you your logo in a month."

The other night I sit down at the computer and say "Y'know what? I wonder if I could make a self portrait with an AI by typing my name into it and fixing it up from there..." 

After about $1.50 worth of credits and a handful of times wiggling things around in Paint, I had an essentially accurate portrait of myself looking like a medieval lord holding a barrel of brew with my own custom designed label on it.

And the joy that brings me is fucking incredible.

Art should never have to be a livelihood. Art should not have to be "work".

Art should be expression. Art should be breath.

That's a very fair point.

If the use case is what you describe, and it's purely for self use, it's great.

The problem becomes when it's capitalized so yeah. Art should not be treated as capital. Hard agree.

 

 

 

[SwimModSponges]

Seen motherfuckers trying to charge people for prompts.

Not even the images themselves.

These motherfuckers be trying to sell folks strings a' goddamn words.

https://promptbase.com/prompt/modern-logos

CAPITALISM WHY MUST YOU PISS ON THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

[matrixman124]

8 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

Seen motherfuckers trying to charge people for prompts.

Not even the images themselves.

These motherfuckers be trying to sell folks strings a' goddamn words.

https://promptbase.com/prompt/modern-logos

CAPITALISM WHY MUST YOU PISS ON THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

The cult of tech capitalism has ruined any exciting tech innovations indefinitely. Thanks, Daddy Elon and co

[SwimModSponges]

I found this fellow's take very accurate.

The censored part isn't a weiner I promise.

 

[SwimModSponges]

HOT DAMN Y'ALL IT'S 3D NOW.

 

[SwimModSponges]

And now they can do videos.

 

[SwimModSponges]

Tangentially related-

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3pezm/scientists-increasingly-cant-explain-how-ai-works

[matrixman124]

Ooh nice article 

[Insipid]

They are gaining a sense of humor.

[SwimModSponges]

 

Dude simulates biological evolution via AI.

Pretty doope.

[rpgamer]

Waiting to see the posts about all the ways the porn industry gets in on it.

Alternatively, I find it hard to imagine there aren't already bots/scammers on tinder et al. using it for fake profile pics.

 

In the end, it's just a tool, and there will always be shitty people using tools for shitty purposes. Seems like it might kinda suck to be an art streamer now, if anyone can screenshot your work in progress, feed it through a program, and upload it first just to declare it the "original."

[SwimModSponges]

10 minutes ago, rpgamer said:

Waiting to see the posts about all the ways the porn industry gets in on it.

 

I wouldn't necessarily consider it "industry" but I have been making just all kinds of crazy looking ladyparts on crAIyon. 

[matrixman124]

I think making good AI porn will take a long fucking time. The uncanny valley effect of AI art can be a real boner killer.

[SwimModSponges]

Im going to disagree with you there- you can harness the effects of the uncanny valley to create pornography more surreal and disturbingly erotic than anything that currently exists IRL.

For real, i went through and made new ladyparts for the diverse alien species of the Mass Effect games because all of the rule34 out there uses the exact same human anatomy and it just ruins my immersion man.

[Jman]

I’ve been thinking about this for a few months, particularly as I see a lot of writers and people who can’t draw going to town on this in communities that would otherwise require spending a large amount of cash on commissions from artists willing to tackle the material.  For a fraction of the cost, dozens of images are now strewn out. 

The worrying thing is how fast does the AI develop?  It’s still not there to completely replace real people (John Oliver demonstrated this a few weeks ago during the final episode of his season).  Now it’s a cute toy, a novelty.  If the AI ever develops to make complex scenarios instead of a person standing there, then things are going to get much dicier.

[SwimModSponges]

A few weeks ago is decades when it comes to AI advances.

 

[Jman]

That is very impressive, but there’s still a lot more to be done.

I think the inevitable barometer for this stuff is…adult material.  Hear me out, the VHS triumphing over Betamax, sites like Tumblr, TikTok, OnlyFans started as adult websites or at least adult material friendly, only to jettison it when advertisers and corporate cash came knocking.  Because adult material always tends to lead the charge into new technologies, only for the rest of the world to follow once they’ve proven if safe and reliable.  If AI art can fix the fingers problem, and give people cheap, professional quality commissions without the cost and/or deep sense of shame that comes with spending money on artists, the rest of the art world is in trouble.

[SwimModSponges]

This guy got it work through StableDiffusion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/weirddalle/comments/zdfd49/naughty_prompts_result_in_nightmare_fuel/

Spoiler

 

[SwimModSponges]

So I've mostly only been paying attention to Dalle 2, but I looked at some of the things the newer versions of stable diffusion and midjourney are doing these days, and hoooooooly shit.

They've pretty much passed the "human artist or a robot" test. 

My god.

 

[SwimModSponges]

So, I was gushing about AI art to someone I work with tonight, and she comes at it with the perspective that she thinks "AI art is theft".

Ok so, you know what? I think that's just a catchphrase people use to oversimplify the process of what machine learning entails. I mean I didn't tell her that, that's just something I thought of here and now.

I basically simplify it to that adage "all artist steal, great artists steal from everyone" or some bullshit like that, whatever, not the point.

When you look at the sheer, near infinite variety of amazing things that can be created... I mean how is that not a net gain for humanity?

This year, I have seen the most captivating and engaging images and works of art I have ever seen. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

What a time to be alive, amirite?

*not mine, found on reddit.

Edited December 19, 2022 by SwimModSponges