AI art or AI can’t? | Clockwork of the Universe #4

Seeing the controversy around AI art I've decided to hop on this wave and give my own thoughts on this topic.

First things first, artists will not disappear because of AI art, there are mass produced statuettes, wardrobes, plates, but there are still wood carvers, carpenters, pottery makers and so on who still make all these things, only as luxury products now.

Maybe less people will decide to learn to make art, because they don't think it's worth it anymore but old artists can still make art and sell it and people will still buy it — while we may be the worst species on this planet, at the same time we're the best species — people will still support you if they enjoy your art.

And anyways all this is just the age–old Tech Panic Cycle:

1. A technology is created and no one takes notice as it’s in its infancy.

2. It starts being noticed and people say it’s dangerous ‘cause it doesn’t work well.

3. But then it starts working too well, so it needs to be stifled.

4. It’s everywhere, we can’t escape it.

5. A new technology to panic about appears.

Many people vilify AI, making it the Big Bad Evil Guy of this whole situation, but AI itself is doing nothing wrong and it is a wonderful tool if used correctly, completely stopping it's development would be a great loss. The real problem to discuss is using copyrighted art without the artist's consent nor any type of compensation.

However, some people compare AI art generators to artists using others' art as reference/inspiration and it’s a surprisingly good comparison. Most people think that the AI merely mashes existing artwork together, but how could that get even close to the beauties it creates? Instead, during its learning process the AI looks for various patterns like “roundness”, “redness”, “foodness”, “treeness” and after someone asks it to make an image of an apple it uses those patterns to create a completely new image.

I can’t help the feeling that most artist are somewhat misguided, if you’re not an influential artist, removing your art from the training set of ~6 billion images will not make a dent in it, the result will look the same with or without it. And even if you are influential, removing your art doesn’t change much, because you are influential your art style influences others’ art, which in turn influences the AI.

Examples of art generated by AI - credit goes to original creators

Bringing it back to AI being the BBEG. AI is a natural development in technology - technology that allows me to write this, you to read it and many artists to create and share their art. Why would this particular step be taking it too far? Maybe we've already taken it too far? Should we revert back to the stone age? Or the 1800s? I don't think so and (probably) neither do you.

Another thing to take into consideration is that making the AI do what you want is not that simple, just try it yourself. People who know the ins and outs of working with AI generators, let’s call them promptors, can make the AI obey their every command. Most generators limit prompts to about the length of a long tweet. If they were longer they’d muddle together and the image would turn into mush. So behind every single image lies a short incantation that summons it in all its “demonic” glory.

The whole process is basically directed evolution, the prompt is the DNA and images are creatures formed from it. You tweak the prompt multiple times creating different offsprings then you breed them with each other to create ones even closer to what you want. Micromanage the AI until you reach its limits and then if needed you can make final adjustments in Photoshop only to post it online for people to think you’ve done no work.

When we look at it from this angle it becomes clear that they also engage in a sort of art form, which requires talent and skill on par with other artists for the results to be comparable. For me there is no difference between AI and artists using others' work as inspiration. And I don't think destroying or even limiting AI art generation is fair to non–artists.