this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 103 points 7 months ago (7 children)

AI is going to destroy art the same way Photoshop, or photography, or pre-made tubes of paints, destroyed art. It's a tool, it helps people take the idea in their head and put it in the world. And it lowers the barrier to entry, now you don't need years of practice in drawing technique to bring your ideas to life, you just need ideas.

If AI gets to a point that it can give us creative, original, art that sparks emotion in novel ways...well we probably also made a super intelligent AI and our list of problems is much different than today.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (3 children)

As someone who's absolutely terrible at drawing, but enjoys photography and generally creativity, having AI tools to generate my own art is opening up a whole different avenue for me to scratch my creative itch.
I've got a technical background, so figuring out the tools and modifying them for my purposes has been a lot more fun than practice drawing.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

This is the perfect use case.

Photoshop didn't destroy jobs forever, all it did was shift how people worked AND actually created work and different types of work.

[–] DumbAceDragon 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've only dabbled a bit with ML art, and I am by no means an artist, but it doesn't scratch that itch for me the same way that drawing or doing stuff in blender does. It doesn't really feel like I'm watching my vision slowly take shape, no matter how precise I make the prompt. It kinda just feels like what it is, a transformer iterating over some random noise.

I'm also a very technical person, and for years I was stuck in that same mindset of "I'm a technical guy, I'm not cut out for art". I was only able to get out of this slump thanks to some of my art friends, who were really helpful in pointing me in the right direction.

Learning to draw isn't the easiest thing in the world, and trust me I'm probably as bad at it as you are, but it's fun, and it feels satisfying.

I agree that AI has a place as another artistic medium, but I also feel like it can become a trap for people like me who think they don't have an artistic bone in their body.

If you do feel like getting back into drawing, then as a fellow technical person I'd recommend learning blender first. It taught me some of the skills I also use in drawing, like perspective, shading, and splitting complex objects into simpler shapes. It's also just plain fun.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

I think the way I use AI is fundamentally different from how most people draw. For me it's much more like I'm exploring what's possible, while making creative decisions on the direction to explore. I don't start with anything in particular in mind. In a lot of ways it helps with the choice paralysis I get when faced with completely open-ended things like art.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (3 children)

As someone who’s absolutely terrible at drawing

Then practice. Nearly no artist was born knowing how to draw or paint, we dedicated countless hours to learn what works and what doesn't.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

As a musician, I couldn’t agree more. Talent really helps with initial aptitude, but will peter out when challenged. That’s when real skill development begins. Time and investment connecting you to your craft until there’s nothing in the world between the two, that’s self actualization.

[–] explodicle 9 points 7 months ago

But that's not fun for them. You get really good at things you like to do.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It feels like you didn't read the 2nd half of their comment. They do practice. They have a creative side that they want to explore, but they don't enjoy that sort of grind. Instead, they like tinkering and combining tools in interesting ways. I don't think this is a bad thing.

Leo Fender didn't play guitar and always wished that he'd sit down and devoted the time, but never actually enjoyed it. But to say that Leo didn't contribute to the music world, would be insane.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

i like the idea of AI as a tool artists can use, but that's not a capitalist's viewpoint, unfortunately. they will try to replace people.

[–] mindbleach 9 points 7 months ago

And if text-based images remain uninspired and samey... oh well? Congratulations, you will foreverafter be able to spot when someone's extremely timely gag image was cranked out via its description, rather than badly composited from Google Images results. I've done a lot of bad compositing for Something Awful shitpost threads and speed beats effort every time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Some people also doesn't care if there is a Rembrandt or a Picasso or an AI but like to dabble in the arts anyways because it's something they like to do.

It's fulfilling (I do love Renoir though).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This. AI was never made for the sole purpose of creating art or beating humans in chess. Doing so are just side quests for the real stuff.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

What do you think the "real stuff" is?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Tbh I hate Photoshop for a lot of photography. It is unfortunately necessary for macro photography, which is the only type I do. Which is one of the reasons mine is not nearly as good as it could be because I refuse to use it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I hate this sentiment. It's not a tool like a brush is to a canvas. It's a machine that runs off the fuel of our creative achievements. The sheer amount of pro AI shit I read from this place just makes me that closer to putting a bullet in my fucking skull

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Once you reincarnate in the future, generative models will make even better art than they do today. It'll be a losing battle against time.