[Shibaroo Studios]

What is AI Art? How does it work? Should we, as artists, be worried about it? And perhaps most importantly of all, what can we do to protect our livelihood from it?

So AI Art was something I wasn’t overly familiar with beyond the very basic facts, so I decided to take a little bit of a deep dive into it, including a little research into its origins that date back to the 1960’s.

Here’s everything I found out, your AI Art 101, and what you can do to protect the very future of Art!

Check It Out Here

This was my first time doing anything like this and I really did have a great time producing it, I hope some of you can get some value from it too!

Enjoy!

 

[Janique]

I think artists are at risk, less for current famous artists but for the future poeple who will want to be artists. Here's the two things I think will happen:
Young person loves art so much, but has trouble making it(as we all do when young). Then Discovers ai art and decides that getting any art from your imagination in a snap, is easier and even kind of fun so they give practicing real art and just use ai. Then actually never becoming a real artist.

Or

Young person really loves making art, practices it and as they get older they become really good. Then they decide they want to be an artist when they grow up. But! The industry is so much tougher to get into, that the chances of becoming an artist as a job is very low.

 

[Clara]

i didn't click your external link. Sorry. People need to stop using forums to promote their private sm channels and the like. We are here to engage on this forum.

Ai doesn't make art. It creates digital images in the style of various artists by analysing their work. Unfortunately the average person does not care if the image comes from a machine stealing someone's expression or the artist expressing it. The only way to protect your expression is to keep your work off the internet, where AI bots now inhabit and spend all hours downloading the replicating various art styles. They weren't created for our amusement and benefit. Billions of follars were spent to create tools that make real people redundant by large corporate interests. If you think that is a fantastic innovation you will probably change your mind once you are made redundant this way.

Non-artists will not care that artists have their work stolen. People will only care once their own livelihood is removed this way. And that is the story of humanity.

 

[John Emmett]

AI doesn't make art. It creates digital images in the style of various artists

You can upload your image to the software…

AI alters the image. Example

 

[Clara]

You can upload your image to the software…

AI alters the image. Example

For what purpose? So the AI can imitate you? Once again people taking creativity out of creativity. Why people want to destroy the very thing they profess to be interested in I just don't know. It's depressing beyond measure, but that's humanity for you.

 

[John Emmett]

For what purpose?

Art for art’s sake

 

[Janique]

Art for art’s sake

But ai art is not art. There's a part of art where you work super hard and you can see it and feel it in your piece. Others will be able to feel the work in it too. It's not just about the end work (now this is going to sound corny, but it's true) it's also about an invidual artists journey. You know that journey that is super hard and mentally painful that only poeple who read love art will go on to one day make the art of their dreams and share it with others.

 

[Shibaroo Studios]

I’m very surprised to see anyone from a creative space in favour of such technology if I’m honest. It is very transparent to me that this is clearly the art world’s biggest threat at the moment.

As for the previous comment regarding not uploading your work online as a means to stop AI Art, sadly the internet became a wonderful tool and marketplace that could be so advantageous for helping artists earn a stable and sustainable income and it would be an absolute shame for artists to be prohibited from such an arena all because our work may be stolen to train algorithms.

I remember being an enthusiastic art student, but feeling that the education system didn’t Really value art like it did other subjects, and now it seems as if the law views it the same way as there is little to no protection offered against these systems stealing our own intellectual property without our knowledge or consent.

 

[Clara]

But ai art is not art. There's a part of art where you work super hard and you can see it and feel it in your piece. Others will be able to feel the work in it too. It's not just about the end work (now this is going to sound corny, but it's true) it's also about an invidual artists journey. You know that journey that is super hard and mentally painful that only poeple who read love art will go on to one day make the art of their dreams and share it with others.

I like your premise here that art represents a journey not just a visual image to stare at. I created a sketch this week of a jellyfish. It's just a sketch, working out colour, technique and tonal values but somehow that sketch surprised me. It contained within it just enough promise, just enough transparency and depth and colour in all the right places to convince me to continue with watercolour which I have to say I have been in a struggle with since day 1 of picking it up. It's been a love/hate relationship on both sides. And I had recently thought to gift my watercolour materials away and focus soley on pen and ink which seems to work better with my natural tendencies.

 

[Clara]

As for the previous comment regarding not uploading your work online as a means to stop AI Art, sadly the internet became a wonderful tool and marketplace that could be so advantageous for helping artists earn a stable and sustainable income and it would be an absolute shame for artists to be prohibited from such an arena all because our work may be stolen to train algorithms.

Art isn't sold by the internet really, it still takes a person to move pieces. It's a bit of a furphy that more people seeing your art = more sales or opportunity. Many social media artists have left sm stating that all it did was cause more of their art to be stolen than anything else. SM platforms where artists gather are an easy target for offshore manufacturing plants to simply take artwork from and illegally use it on merchandise knowing full well the artist won't have the resources to sue them over it. Merchandising platforms like RedBubble are also known art theft hotspots. So posting your work online creates a new job for you, doing image lookup searches to find all the ways your own art has been lifted and then marketed without your consent. Its just not worth it, imo.

Where AI is really going to bite in the short term is industries like surface pattern design and illustration. As AI is very capable now of creating such works easily and I don't think it will be long before businesses can simply buy a subscription to an illustrating bot service that will pump out any number of images within the space of a few minutes that you can select and then license. Goodbye to those careers overnight. Graphic design will follow shortly after. Fine art will probably be the last hold out but that market is so miniscule anyway it hardly matters. The majority of working artists are engaged in commercial art which will be replaced and replicated by AI.

 

[John Emmett]

I’m very surprised to see anyone from a creative space in favour of such technology

I made over 250 artworks via AI…

Not from scratch. I upload and alter my images.

 

[John Emmett]

A threat? No…

 

[Shibaroo Studios]

When you say this how exactly do you mean? You upload your own work and use the AI Database to alter your original work?

As I had mentioned in my research on the video I posted in the initial post in this topic, to my understanding the databases used in AI Art systems come from images stolen from other artists works, are you reworking your pieces with these types of systems? I’m intrigued to know your method and how you feel it is an enhancement to your work and not making your work a collaborative effort with the other artists who’s pieces have been data mined

 

[John Emmett]

When you say this how exactly do you mean?

My work is abstract…

https://www.johnemmett.com/ai.html

 

[Shibaroo Studios]

My work is abstract…

https://www.johnemmett.com/ai.html

I can look at these pieces and certainly see some elements that are indeed aesthetically please, some I could even go so far as to say are very emotive in their use of colour and the titles.

One question I would ask is how much of the outcome is recognisable as the work you put in? I can certainly see the AI Generated style, but I find it much more challenging to see what looks like human made markings.

 

[John Emmett]

One question I would ask is how much of the outcome is recognisable as the work you put in?

AI is very poor at abstraction

By itself at least

https://playgroundai.com/search?q=Abstract+art

 

[JohnK]

Well I've spent a good deal of time looking at the results of googling AI Art and I must say I am not impressed.

The first impression I get is that the results only emphasize that worst of concepts that are present in computer games dealing with the eerie and fantastic. Many adolescent illusions about what defines sexy are exploited to the full. A preoccupation with the macabre underlines many of the pictures.

Most of the pictures are just illustrations, that is comprised of a central figure or object in meticulous detail and a far off scene or just a textured background behind it.
Some manga influence is evident with overlarge eyes and references to and borrowings from Japanese animated films.
Pictorial books, what we used to call comics are frequently used especially those which deal with macho or violent subjects.

Competent artists need not fear any of this output so far, the only pictures that show any sign of useful graphical composition is when it is obvious that it is copied from a well known existing painting by a specific popular artist.
The basic rules of composition regarding balance, depth, relationships between dark and light, large and small shapes, areas of interest and direction pointers towards them are completely ignored.

Any properly trained artist who has these abilities at his command will be able to judge the emptiness of these collections of visual qualities and how lacking in cohesion and appeal they are.
If you don’t quite know what I’m talking about, I explain it all at length in my book available free to read on line at: Into Composition

The many comments of enthusiastic public approval that appear under each of these pictures shows the complete worshipping of detail fostered by the avalanche of detailed photographic images appearing on the web. The images pervert the critical facility of everyone who doesn't have the sensitivity of the practising artist.

The only people who might be affected are the dealers in fine art and rare documents, we all know that AI can improve itself by learning from its mistakes, copies of many documents and sketches attributed to artists and celebrities are going to be much harder to pick out.



John Kay

 

[Stotious]

Ai doesn't make art. It creates digital images in the style of various artists by analysing their work. Unfortunately the average person does not care if the image comes from a machine stealing someone's expression or the artist expressing it.

 

[John Emmett]

It creates digital images in the style of various artists by analysing their work.

Or… make partial or minor changes to something, so as to improve it

 

[Janique]

Or… make partial or minor changes to something, so as to improve it

Is that supposed to be a good thing? You don't steal someone's painting, paint over to change it and say, "your painting looks better" then show it off and never give credit or even return the painting to the artist.