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I think it's a vast misconception that art even has to be highly "skillful" in the first place. Realism portraits are impressive and take lots of practice to begin with, and that's not to discount the skill that goes into them, but AI does not widen the scope for anyone to make art even if they don't have the "skill." Anyone already can make art. Art is just as much about the statements, methods, and intentions behind it as it is about the raw visual appeal. It's why modern artworks that look ridiculous or don't even look like art can have such immense contemporary or historical value with pages upon pages of analysis and response. Art is uniquely human expression, uniquely human communication, and if we are to continue having art as it has been, we must keep that idea at the front of our minds, as you suggested at the end of the video. Nicely put together and empathetic as always, Salari. I hope this is enough controversy! 😅

I wouldn't have such an issue with AI art if we didn't live in a capitalist society.

I went to an art school and the amount of time it takes to make a piece is very long, modern society wants artists to produce at a rate that is impossible to keep up with. Art needs time and dedication.

The way non-artists see art is, imo, pretty weird. They either believe it's an outstanding skill that only "gifted" individuals can manage to make, or they think art is so "easy" that "everyone can do it" (usually said about modern, abstract art) The thing is, none of these two pretty contradictory statements are true. AI generated art do, however, represent these two misconception of art : it's "easy" and "accessible", and at the same time, it's "incredible" and "close to professionalism". See, the biggest argument I read used by self proclaimed "AI artists" is that thanks to AI art, "art becomes democratized" and "accessible to everyone". Because their misconception is that art is an uncheavable skill to begin with. Which is... very false. I am an artist myself, and totally self-taught. I started drawing when i was in primary school. In fact, we all start somewhere, and I am not necessarily more "gifted" than anyone else. I just took interest in representing things and wanted to improve my skills. I wanted to tell stories about characters of my imagination, and be better at representing them. Almost 20 years later, I sure improved a lot on art and I now consider myself rather skilled. But that's only because I had the patience and motivation to go through the process of learning how to draw. And it seems like many people really minimize how learning how to draw is a skill that requires training. You don't magically know how to play piano after a week, the same way that you don't magically know how to draw after a week either. I understand you, techbros. You wished you knew how to draw to illustrate your mediocre attempt at writing a novel. You wished you knew how to draw things that are appealing and "beautiful". But all the time you actually spend finding out the correct prompts to generate an image, you lose it actually learning how to draw. And that's a shame. Learning how to draw has never been as accessible as today, thanks to the abundance of art tutorial online. Everyone can draw. Art doesn't have to be "beautiful" to be good, on the contrary. And even the most beginer-looking art style says a lot about what one wants to convey. And even drawing stickmen can have a meaning when you try to make something out of your limited skills. I won't talk about how companies use AI art to replace artists, because it's only a decision driven for money. But damn, for people celebrating AI art for their accessibility, it's just ridiculous.

I'm a professional artist and have felt the impact of this technology. In my view it empowers the worst aspects of capital/consumer culture at the expense of the value of having art be a practice. Good video.

That Can't Help Myself piece always makes me sad. The artists designed the robot to make little gestures, to appear frantic when it senses the liquid puddle is growing too large. It's very depressing so yes, I think they succeeded in making me feel something. T - T AI art may be very pretty, but you're right, it's a bit dead behind the eyes (and weird hand blobs).

'I, Robot' (2004): Human: Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful painting? Robot: Can you?

(preemptive apology for the incoming wall of text) this has nothing to do with your video, but your comment about cashiers in the middle immediately reminded me how every store i go to now is managed by like one person who is run absolutely ragged because they're expected to do the job of 5 people because the store won't hire cashiers and instead keeps replacing them with self-checkout machines. the thing about cashiers is that our jobs aren't SUPPOSED to basically be store managers, but that's what our jobs end up being because corporate refuses to hire anyone. if you're lucky, it'll be you and one other guy who is actually called a "manager." installing self-checkouts doesn't really "automate out" cashier jobs as much as it gives corporate an excuse to hire even fewer people than before, when horrible under-staffing was ALREADY a dire problem. they only wanted to have one guy manning the store to begin with, and basically were practicing that as close as they could get away with, the self-checkout machines just got them over the finish line. except the PROBLEM is that you need people in the store to run the damn thing, and now the pre-existing problem of being chronically understaffed is so, SO much worse. the self-checkouts took away (from one store) at best like 2-3 jobs! because they were already NOT hiring anyone! why is the customer service so bad? why can't you find a living soul to help you in a store ever? because they just won't fucking hire anybody to run the damn store. this was a problem long before self-checkout. i'm sure it's different in other stores and for other people, but my experience as a cashier is that automation isn't the problem... it's stingy executives slashing flesh off the bones of their companies until only a mangled, barely ambulating skeleton is left. this is the problem that plagues all industry. it's why train derailments are a constant, daily thing. because they won't hire anyone to do the necessary work to keep things running smoothly and effectively. it's lay off, lay off, lay off, until there's 1 dude left, and he's got to work mandatory 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, until he inevitably careens his train into a ditch and spills carcinogens into the surrounding water systems that'll take decades to fully manifest the consequences of. it's not the god damn self-checkout machines! infinite growth is the specter that ruins and maims and haunts even the most mundane aspects of existence.

I'm a hobby fanfic writer, and the most angering thing about all this is how these AI programmes just steal work that took real human effort to regurgitate it for profit. It's a sick and ugly feeling thinking that the free work of so many fanfiction writers could be scraped for profit for 'writing programmes'. I agree with you that it's the application and the potential for harm that makes this technology evil, and as far from advance and discovery and beneficial as it otherwise might have been.

"We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could that we didn't stop to think if we should." - Silicon Valley proverb

the disco elysium music was so nice to hear and yet also felt ironic in a way considering what happened surrounding that game. not exactly the same situation as ai art but within the same spirit, to steal from passionate artists for the sake of money

Whether or not AI generations count as art or whether or not the tech is ethical, one thing I fervently believe in is that the prompters aren't actually making art. They're more like art directors, or people requesting free art. That's what bothers me about this stuff clogging up sites like DeviantArt. I want to see art somebody made themselves, not something they got after entering a prompt into an AI.

I remember you mentioned that artists have to deal with customers who don't pay/ scammers, ect... 14:27. I think that those types of people would flock towards Ai and what would be left for the artists are the people that are fans of the artist or know that that artist can do this specific job and that they are good at it. Another thing is that not every person that uses Ai would have ever considered to commission an artist in the first place. Lastly the non artist that fake their skill with Ai will get called out, and the ones that commissioned those people well idk they shouldn't be spending money on a field they don't know much about.

Oh this is going to be good, at the trajectory we're going humans are going to be dying in factories and office cubicles while machines make art

AI will ruin way more things than art. Ruining art just hurts more because it is one of the primary things humans have to express ourselves

I'm an illustrator, designer, and colorist with a BFA in illustration. My whole purpose as an illustrator is to tell stories with my images, and to help my clients translate what's in their head onto paper, so to speak. There are a lot of artists out there who get intense professional enjoyment out of doing that to earn their living, all while creating their own personal work on the side for their own enjoyment. Thank you for this video overall. Many visual artists are in the minority for holding the opinion that using AI doesn't make you an artist. That usually pisses off AI users. Shockingly, _we don't care._ I've been seriously dedicated to developing my skills as an artist since I was 12, which was more than 25 years ago now. I destroyed my body in the process, and have lived with permanent nerve damage for the last 14 years as a result. That being said, I still wouldn't take it back if I had the opportunity because doing what I do means too much to me for that. But sure, typing words into an AI prompt field is the same damn thing. _Right._

That absolute hero Michelangelo, relying on no one as he single-handedly painted the chapel. What an alpha artbro.

we live in a DYSTOPIAN society

Spoke my heart, but with less vitriol than I'd do. Please continue doing what you do, it's so rare to hear someone with the same opinions and pov as myself, it's honestly a breath of fresh air. I'm not yet in a financial state to compensate you for the work you do, but I hope I will soon be able to!

I’m an aspiring artist and I’ve been training for 13 years now in hope to be a pro fantasy artist. I am also autistic so the regular job market is also not for me . I have been having dark thoughts because ai 😢

“It lacks all these things good artists have and can’t draw hands” I’m convinced this AI is a clone of me now…

Had a Marxist friend tell me that art is bourgeois and that it should be free (free as in having no cost). With all the talk that AI is democratizing art it's not much of a surprise for a leftist to take this position, and it's quite demoralizing for me as an artist to hear this from a close friend. Nevertheless, thank you for making this video Mr. Salari.

People seem awfully eager to subscribe to the lovely, humane slogan "evolve or die" when it comes to automatization. The question of empathy aside for a moment, I wonder if anyone genuinely believes in this, or just dishes it out like there's no tomorrow. Evolve - where, exactly? Improve our skills how, exactly? I find it delusional to think that any human, no matter how adaptable they are, has a chance to keep up with the pace AI is improving. Sure, soft skills like emotional intelligence, critical thinking or teamwork might be a safe haven for now, but it's just a matter of time. AI presenters and facilitators are already here, and they are advertised to large companies to replace human ones. Sermons and lectures are getting written by ChatGPT. If you're not concerned by this, you're fooling yourself. And as for the question of empathy: people seem to forget that not everyone has the resources to develop new skills or constantly adapt to rapidly changing technology. Should they just, y'know, die in the name of progress? Is this _really_ the philosophy you want to preach?

It most certainly will. When you cheapen the perceived value of human expression to such a degree, you'll not only cause the value of the art to plummet--you'll cause people to lose grip on reality as they are confused as to what human expression actually *is*. There are people who think that typing the prompt counts as expression, and if they believe this holds a candle to the process of creating then they are missing the point entirely.

Society : Don't be afraid to show your talent and follow your passion Artist : *Start making money to provide enough for themselves and family* Society : Hey don't do that

As a fine artist, it’s hard enough knowing that I’ve put so much of myself into a field that realistically isn’t going to yield much financially. I take great pride in my craft, and personally, this AI created art feels like a huge, unnecessary slap in the face - because it’s taking away something from creatives who already fight tooth and nail to be recognized as legitimate contributors to society

Thanks a lot for this video. I am a musician and I'm 100% sure that we are next. I work everyday from morning til night to write commissions for other people instead of writing my own music and I get paid very low rates compared to people with "real jobs". I've trained myself to work through burnouts, but my will to live is almost non-existent anymore, I just don't see the point. Streaming industry destroyed the value of music and AI generated music will come sooner than we all think it will. This is just so weird that of all the stuff that machines could do, they are doing art and entertainment while people a left with boring jobs that should be replaced with machine labour. It's the most frustrating time in my life because I had to leave my home country, but no other country is interested in musicians, they only need IT guys, so now I'm just screwed. But I keep writing music for other people hoping that it will make them happier. Thanks again for the video. We should enjoy our last days as professional creatives.

I think in some sense digital artists will soon become like traditional artists, where the main factor lies in manual labor, heh. Large companies will try to save money and switch to AI, so there will be another separation of mass production and hand-made products

People who complain about self check out are the worst. I've literally heard people argue "I don't work here, so I shouldn't be ringing up my own items". Considering how little cashiers get paid as you mentioned, they're basically asking to be given 16 cents for going through a shorter line and ringing things up at their preferred pace. Thanks for defending artists while acknowledging the pros of technology where it's beneficial.

Thank you for making this video. I've been a pen & ink fine art illustrator for over 50 years. Last week, I removed my digitized gallery and made the decision to only publish my work in physical books going forward. This brought me a great deal of peace of mind. What I am struck by and fail to understand are these "clickbait drink the AI Kool-Aid" videos and comments that keep repeatedly declaring, "AI HAS WON!" - My question is - "Won what?" Clearly, the people saying this have absolutely no comprehension of what art and the making of art actually is.

The common horror with these things is how they ask us to communicate with something that doesn't exist. I've never seen a machine learning experiment that doesn't plateau, so take heart fellow Luddites - the period of rapidly expanding capabilities can't last. The big players being bought up means the guys in charge are cashing in now, which seems like they're not expecting things to meaningfully improve beyond this point.

We should stop calling it "Art" and call these things what they actually are. "AI Image Generators"

"AI art is a lie" sums up my perception of it perfectly.

Imo the problem is something you stated yourself in this video “labor is severely under-valued”. That’s on purpose, and the government has shown it will always do what helps ceos. What helps ceos? Automating everything, so labor costs are eventually nonexistent.

Yeah, I looked them up. "Can't Help Myself" in was a special kind of ouch. Honestly, I at first interpreted "Perfect Lovers" to be a reference to how "even a broken clock is right twice a day", relaying the message that anyone can find love even if they're total morons.

Ffxiv background music! 😮

What I find funny is that you came out today with a video about A.I and I just finished writing an article about A.I art yesterday for my degree! Kinda like you read my mind.

People in the comments revealing that they have no empathy and/or have never put more than the bare minimum of effort into a single thing in their lives.

The response to Glaze by the AI art community has shown exactly how little they value artists. These are people creating technology to protect their work from being used in ways they don't approve of, and all AI art enthusiasts have to say is "Yeah, but we'll just figure out a way to get past it." It's like somebody decided to add a new high tech lock to their house and someone just said "But I'll still find a way to break in." It's disgusting.

Physical, material art will prevail. Hand painted work, drawings, ink and pen, carving, sculpture, engraving, etc. Not a picture on a computer screen or something printed by machine. The hardest road ahead will be for digital artists.

Some of the artists that I pay so that they can keep on doing art have had their very distinct art styles ripped off thus making what makes them special and what makes them able to sell their pieces null and void. AI should be used to do boring tasks and not do what takes a human touch; true art.

My life was hell before artificial intelligence and now I don't know how to describe my life

As an artist this means a lot hearing from you, thank you for sticking up for us

I know many people say “you don’t have to suffer for art”…but you kinda do. It’s the full embodiment of the beauty and suffering of human life, it’s the way the artist used hours of their limited lifetime to create the art, they suffered for it. AI is not putting any time, humanity, suffering, joy or pain into these pieces. Deciding which prompts to plug into mid journey is NOT the same as being an artist.

so... to be honest, before seeing this video, i haven't thought that much about AI art and everything it implies for a society to have machines producing art/graphic compositions. that beeing said, after 18:36min of video, i've rarely been more convinced that AI producing art... is actually good. this video ironically convinced me of the opposite of what it was trying to convince me of. i think the argument according to which "AI is gonna steal real human artists their job !" - which is one of the rares arguments presented in this video and the main one - makes little to no sense. i see 3 possible scenarios for the future : 1. AI is used to replace certain forms of what i call "unartistic art" (like advertisement or the graphic design of ready-to-wear clothing sold by big capitalist branches for exemple) but human artists continue to prosper in academic painting because their organic human creativity surpasses what can be produced by an AI. 2. AI totally replaces all human artists in all artistic spheres because its art is as good or even better than what humans can produce. in which case, if a machine is superior to human mind, i really don't think it would be a problem for human to be replaced. 3. AI use is totally forbidden which stops the progress of the human mind - great. Of course, humans losing their jobs in a capitalist society because machines are taking them is for sure a problem, but i don't think replacement of humans by ANY machine (AI, automated machines in industry, etc.) is inherently a bad thing. actually, i think it is an advancement in the emancipation of human lives from certain works which could allow an evolvement - in society, but in art too as humans would try to make better/newer/more original art than AI. that being said, i honestly don't think most art - both made by humans and by AI - is actually kinda bad and not original at all. Van Gogh - who is quoted in this video - is a great painter because he broke with tradition in paintings. what makes him famous is - and i cannot emphasize this enough - his o-ri-gi-na-li-ty. And that's what i think is so interesting in art : people breaking tradition and creating something who has NEVER been done before. All that AI can do - at this point at least - is produce art inspired by what has already been done in the past. among all the art i've seen made by AI, 99% was totally unoriginal... and if you study human art, u realise that also 99% of human art is as unoriginal as what has been made by AI so far. all history of music and painting is 1 person finding an original good idea and then being copied by thousands of others for decades/centuries. People who make good and TRULLY original art are 1 in a thousand or even maybe 1 in a million and i really don't think we should worried about AI destroying human creativity. there are always being rare but creatively smart and original human being since the night of times and there will still be for very long time. and if AI happens to be better than humans at creating new beautiful and original things, then i think it's still a good thing it does ! and what we humans would have to do is to stay open-minded and enjoy the music/painting made by AI and/or try to surpass it, instead of pointing an accusative finger on it and calling it a devil machine. just my opinion...

My girlfriend and I happened upon Perfect Lovers in a museum and we were so struck by it that we recreated it in our home.

One of the more interesting elements circling around AI "art" is the omission of context. Specifically, the context of why it's unethical, why it's a concern, why it could lead to the death of art. Because we're living under Capitalism. If we weren't all constantly struggling to survive by monetizing elements of our lives, personality, body, etc., it would be a very different matter. The only way we can continue to _have_ art under Capitalism is for it to be used to generate capital for the artist to trade for food & shelter, and that only happens if the Capitalists decide they need art (typically to use for more wealth generation) and will deign to give some money (as little as possible) to an artist to create that. That artist is then able to live off the money provided long enough to create the art they actually wanted to make in the first place -- something not just commissioned for Capitalism. Something with meaning. AI "art" allows the capitalists to cut the humans out of the equation and just generate their shitty marketing / advertising / reputation-laundering art from a machine that can be reduced to the barest expense (or get the government to pay for it, somehow). ============================================ In an ideal socialist world, we probably wouldn't care overly much. It'd be a thing we could use, but few would care much since it wouldn't have the same meaning and most of us would prefer real art. Or prefer to _learn_ real art and take our own crack at it. We wouldn't be so starved for time and energy outside of work to want something to just do it all for us at the click of a button. I mean, it _might_ see some use, but I just don't think it'd be as big of a thing because it wouldn't have any emotional or interest-based value. Also, there are a LOT of flaws with AI art because it is (at least currently) incapable of understanding context and implication. It just knows patterns. So you wind up with too many fingers on a hand or architecture that makes no sense or shadows that don't quite align with light sources or the things that would cast them. I would guess that there will probably always be shortcomings and flaws with AI generated works. In a capitalist world that's fine -- because the art doesn't matter, it's just a means to an end. And so people can be made disposable and human-made art can become endangered if not extinct just so long as the capitalist machinery keeps chugging along. There is no value under capitalism. Money is completely fictitious, and as it becomes a stand-in for intrinsic value of something, that thing loses its value to be replaced with the fictional value of money. AI art is bad under Capitalism because it will be used not just as a tool but as a cudgel against society, against humanity, to extract yet more wealth.

9:15 "Did you check my CGI work, boss?" "Yes, it looks like shit." "Thank you, boss!"

As a visual artist, THANK YOU. The discourse is stressful as hell and every time I see someone I respect speak out against it my faith in humanity and the future is restored a bit.

I think one of the scariest things is ai image generation soon being able to generate indistinguishable images of real people. The ability for anybody to quickly generate an image putting people into any situations and spread it as misinformation is going to have serious geopolitical consequences. There's also the fact that this technology can be used to generate massive amounts of illegal material as well such as child exploitation images. It really feels like nobody in the tech field thought about the consequences of releasing this technology and broke the standards of ethics we are supposed to uphold as software developers.

The AI debate is so interesting; particularly in regards to art. It's the latest example where the muscle of industry is fighting against our collective humanism. If industry continues to overpower our ethics and values, then at some point in the future we'll stop being like humans

I agree that AI art isn’t actually art, since it doesn’t have any intentions or tries to say anything. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful. Sunsets are beautiful, some people can even be moved by them, even though they weren’t created with the intention of saying anything. Beauty doesn’t exist in the work itself. Beauty is created in the minds of people who see it, and that doesn’t make their feelings “based on a lie”. I don’t believe that AI will replace artists, but it will have a big impact in it. Similar to how cameras made it less common for artista to paint portraits. Yet art still continues. I don’t think it is a problem that AI can create images that people like. I think the problem is that people need to commercialize their work to be able to do it. I don’t know if there’s a solution for that, but I don’t think that AI is the problem.

I believe there is craftsmanship in making art

Everything I hear about Silicon Valley makes me be like, “Nuke from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” Because has anything good come from Silicon Valley like at all? Right now, all their innovations seem to accomplish is make already shitty things even worse. And after shit like Theranos and Juicero, they’re still treated like they have any ideas worth addressing. Nuke ‘em now! All the futurists of the past envisioned technology as a liberating force, yet that has yet to happen. The idea behind technology is that it can take over dangerous or repetitive labor, granting humans more time for leisure and creative efforts. Instead what winds up happening is that people work harder and produce more for increasingly lower wages. Not saying that we should go all anarcho-prim and live like we’re in the Stone Age, but clearly there’s some kind of problem that cannot be addressed by technology alone. A. I.-generated art just further illustrates how fucked-up and dystopian the future being presented to us is. Because most futurists foresaw things playing out like this: “This machine will take over your dead-end job so you, the frail and mortal human, can spend more time on leisure or creative efforts.” Instead, we’re getting: “We’ve created these programs to flood the world with auto-generated art, so you, the frail and mortal human, can devote more time to grinding away at your dead-end job.”

thanks for including the whirling in rags music :) i imagine you don't have plans for it but i would love to hear what you have to say about disco elysium!

You can compare it as a handmade product and an industrial product (just like a handmade chair will always be 10x more valuable than an indsutrial made chair). At this point you can't really fight against it, the flood gates have been opened and artists should evolve with it. AI needs a human input, artists should think of ways of using this tool to upscale their work. Also, the only artform affected is digital art, while physical art like sculpture or even architechture are untouched.

I don’t think it is fair to say that no emotion can be invoked from AI art, or that emotion is a lie

Please, what is the music at 19:39?

As an artist I thank you for the kittens to quell my existential crisis.

thank you for telling about the perfect lovers piece. it's devastating

I have to say, as a self published manga artist, all this AI art thing is really scary. Not long ago I've heard of someone who made an entire comic only using an AI art generator... That's... terrifying. I literally started to panic when I heard that. I, like every other atrtists, have been through a lot to perfect my art and I still do. Meanwhile some guy just put words into a generator and poof! "Here's a comic ! Enjoy !" That makes me sick...

20:33 YESS OMG!! they think that their inventions, that technological advancements, are always better than what a human could do on their own. its so dystopian. i cant think of any other word to describe it than dystopian. im an artist, i went to an art school for 3 years, and its like a big part of my personality, like art means a lot to me; its soul crushing to see and hear ppl flock to support some sketchy, exploitative pos ai, that makes art that isnt ever as good as REAL, human made, art.

this video was amazing. Salari.... I consider you an artist! What wonderful writing.

I really love your review and opinion on the subject! :)

This might be a relatively unimportant detail for me to get stuck on and challenge, but it’s in my nature to be a pedant… in this video you say art is “exclusively human” but that isn’t true! Some other animals make art too, most notably bower birds. MacGregor’s Bower Bird is probably the most fastidious species of the avian creatives. And there are many manakins whose dances are so impressively exact and beautiful or even so alien-looking. It’s honestly pretty tear-jerking to me to see the beautiful things birds make, do, and are (not sure if centuries of sexual selection to make brightly coloured and otherwise useless or even detrimental plumage counts as an art, but it’s worth noting). Birds have fascinating artistic minds. They make art. So art isn’t exclusively human, but it IS exclusively animal. Thank you for bearing with me while I made my case here!

Brilliant video. Thank you so much for making it. The ending had me in tears 💜💗💜

i agree but you have to realize most people dont care about feeling things and just want cheap dopamine. the average person nowadays consumes shortform content for hours on tiktok and youtube and wont care if something is produced by ai or in a factory for 2 cents in ch1na because its entertaining to them and sticks them to the screen for 6 seconds. the only path you can take now is to watch old anime like kinos journey and ergo proxy because it had passion in it and avoid ANY media at all made post 2020

whelp, this comment section is going to be a mess. Great video, and good message! i completely agree with you!

I needed to hear this today. Thank you.

That's a misleading explanation of Stable Diffusion. There's no "search", there's no "database"; the training data isn't stored in or accessible to the final algorithm. Instead of knowing what a "cat" is or searching through all images of cats and combining them, the program "knows" how to change an image of a cat with random noise added in order to make it more closely resemble the original version of the image.

Who determines the value of art? Is it the artist or the buyer? Can an artist that only creates charcoal sketches be considered valuable? If you explain the process of sketching it only sound like cheating? If you want to have a drawing of a chair all you have to do is grab a pencil and draw the chair you see. Is that how it works? Have you tried to create an exact image in an AI generator? If you are watercolor painter can you automatically sculpt? Having been the tech guy who artists needed to get others to see their art I have a particular perspective. All AI is doing is giving people like the ability to create art that we weren't before because we didn't spend the hours honing that craft but a different one. The homogenization of all work is happening and is a good thing. You don't have to be a anything, you will just get to do what makes you happy to earn money and your hobbies won't have to be you funding source.

If we had UBI (or something similar) then none of this would matter, art wouldn't even need to be a commercial product with a monetary value that can be diminished by AI art

AI is Anti-human. Most defenses of AI imagery (and text) are silly arguments that will disappear in a few months as even the most diehard defenders of these notions will see and feel how hollow it is. They will “make art” this way a dozen times - and realize the result is meaningless, even to the so-called "creator" of the AI-produced art. Especially when absolutely no one else is impressed with or even gives a flying fuck about work they say is their "art" but the rest of us know is result of pushing a button on an AI. Even if you delude yourself that AIs "expresses your vision" - when it takes you a few seconds, you will come to not even value your vision or the result yourself. This will damage your own self esteem as you devalue your own artistic vision by having a machine produce it for you in a few seconds. Me? I write novels. I look at my finished book and I know that it took me a year, and I am proud of my persistence and the result of the work. I do not want to type a few sentences and have an AI write the book for me. I would have no pride in that. I would not think I've expressed anything. I would not expect anybody to value my work. However, I know that there will be wannabe authors who will "produce" novels this way, and feel they have accomplished something. And there will be just as many if not more who will do this for a while simply to make a little bit of money. Neither I, nor these AI users who think they are simply profiting from a tool, however, will benefit in the long term from AI. Unfortunately, what we all face is that, in my example of novels, an AI can write many books if not an infinite number, in the time it takes me to write one. No human required. No one using it as a tool. Those books will be more than likely just as entertaining as my own. And for many readers, that will be all that matters. When they can have a book produced in seconds that delivers the kind of story they want, and even better tailored to their specific interests than any that a human writer could make, and Amazon sells it to them cheaper than any human-written book could be sold - why would they not be satisfied? TLDR: we’re doomed.

Also, don't know if you read comments, but the massive game Atomic Hearts also was accused of using ai art, and also, the wonderful paining, woman with the pearl earrings has currently been replaced by an ai piece in the museum temporarily. Which is a huge punch in the face to all artists everywhere

as a person who used to be exited for the potential of this technology I would like to say the thing that changed my mind was not any sort of ethical argument, which by the way A.I is only unethical because capitalism makes it unethical and it would be perfectly fine to use another's work if the artist who mad it's basic needs were met, it was 1 the fact that A.I is from my neurodivergent perspective ableist due to the fact that I struggle to communicate with word and find that using prompts to make anything to be a writer's block nightmare due to fact I would like to have perfect control over the result which A.I doesn't give me because I would be stuck at the keyboard trying to think, and by think I mean try to force the words from nothing, of the perfect words to get the perfect result that I would be satisfied with, and 2 I just have a feeling that professional art jobs are going to go down slightly due to the fact that big companies are going to embrace this technology to lower the amount of needed workers, and honestly the amount of pro artist should be stigmatically higher than 1% due to the fact that I bet you there are like way more that 1% of humans that have at least 1 dream art project they want to make before they croak. my only hope now is that the technology is used by creative people and independent studios/ creators that never had no desire to make anything or gave up because they suck to balance out the corporate job loss, but knowing how capitalism works I have no doubt that the technology will be used by grifters to screw over real artist. in fact I think grifters will use AI to sell commission and sell them as if they were not made with AI which I consider to be a scam because your an artist and you to train an AI on your word to make commissions easier and faster fine, but you better be transparent about it and sell the art you make with that AI for less because there's no way in hell making "art" with AI requires more work than traditional methods. with all that said I would say the worst use of AI came before AI art was even controversial, that being NFTs made by the crap ape dingy club an other examples like that

Your conclusion is very accurate. Contemporary art for example will infinitely be more art than "Ai generated art", for it has a meaning, an intent behind it. Contemporary art is often decried (and I was not necessarily a huge fan myself at first), but I think it really seeks to reach the core of art, putting the intent forward and putting aside everything else. That's why hyperrealistic nerds that love "AI art" because it's "well done" will never be able to threat Art itself with their creations. As a comic artist and writer, I don't feel threatened by "AI art" because it's an empty shell, and I know that any human experience will be far more impactful. On the other hand, I'm not gonna lie, it's hard to make a living out of it.

Every AI art has a human / artist behind it too. There are many ways to make AI art in a more creative way. You can combine various different AI models, hypernetworks, and loras to make models for each task. You can use both positive and negative prompts to get more specific images, and you can set the poses and background using addons like controlnet (pose2image / depth2image). Third way is to use img2img or inpainting on the same image over and over, and slowly build or triangulate to the results you want. (get similar images works too). Or you can keep the seed while changing the prompt, adding "sunset" for example changes the lighting without changing much other parts of the image that way. This all can take a while, and requires a lot of choices and vision from the human artist operating the AI. Regular artist are free to use this technology too for ideas or inspiration, and most of the AI generated art won't matter too much, if it does not have a specific purpose, or is not part of some larger project. Any artist can still gain a following based on the work they make, and the community they build online. Or you can embrace the physical instead, or might be already doing so (though even here I've seen couple of robots that can hold a brush).

I looked up the art and omg😢😢 that was rough

I personally prefer Portrait of Ross in L.A. when it comes to Félix González-Torres pieces but perfect loves is also really interesting!

I wish I could upvote this more than once. I'm so tired of people parroting the "It's just another tool" argument ad nauseam. Generative AI is not a tool, and it wasn't developed for making people's jobs or lives easier, it was developed with the sole purpose of making money, and our lives are all the worse for its existence. And I'm not talking only about pro artists or even hobbyists - I'm talking about everyone who has appreciation for art.

Thank you so much for dedicating a video to this topic! It's been a stressful year for artists and there's still so many people that don't understand. Luckily there are some campaigns right now fighting to change IP/copyright laws both in the USA and UK/Europe, both in gofundme "protecting artists from AI technologies" I know most people don't care about the feelings of artists, or if the art they are seeing was made by a human during long hours, or by a machine in seconds. But for me the reasoning is more simple: this is a massive copyright infringment on every level, that is not only affecting plastic arts but also music, writing, photography, etc, and the only reason it's not illegal is because it's a new technology that couldn't be foreseen. It the music industry they were able to regulate it, hopefully the same will happen for AI art.

Art is more than "it takes effort. Art has to be more than just "skill" or it becomes just the artist flexing on the audience.

What's that art behind you on the wall?

Thank you. This is a nice takeaway. Too many people are focused on "its just a tool like Photoshop, bro. Relax." No its not. You still have to have the skill to use Photoshop to make the art. Plus the guy who won the competition enrages me. They always go "B-but i had tp tell it what to do, that makes it my art."

Artificial image generation was a solution to a problem that never existed. Great video! i enjoy these non technical takes. I couldnt agree more! Welcome to the good fight friend!

Is that the Mare Lamentorum theme from FFXIV Endwalker?

Perfect Lovers - two synchronized clocks, what garbage...if you dont look beyond the surface meaning. But then they are going to fall out of sync. I felt that so hard.

When the AI started copying other artists work, I genuinely fell into such a depression, I am not a great artist, I don’t know if I ever will be, but it still made me feel so empty inside, and still does, it feels like there is no point in making my art anymore. I will still make it,though, because I can’t not make art,

I am a software engineer and have published an ML paper recently. I also do art. Most people severly misunderstand how ML works and AI art is formed. I look forward to this video and hopefully it is not disappointing.

What Artwork is devoid of data?

Benefit of self checkout: if you're clever about it you can get some pretty big discounts on products.

AI has accidentally created one of the most interesting depictions of dreams I’ve ever seen. Things that make sense at first glance, but once you look closer it doesn’t make any sense. I think that’s pretty interesting

AI art is art, because what "art" has become has been so devalued and commercialized, to even agree that a canvas painted a single color is a million dollar art piece. You cannot extoll modern art, contemporary, digital art, and absurdism as art and at the same time deny that AI art is actual art.

The NieR Replicant ost behind... Omg

Nice Hades cameo you got there.

The rise of AI art has depressed me so much.. I haven't been able to finish any drawings lately. I used to create everyday regardless of whether anyone was even going to see it or not, but 'training' and learning to be better seems pointless when AI can just create what takes me hours in minutes without any effort...

Thank you for making this video. I'm a realism fantasy artist so it means a lot to have people speak out against AI.

My personal view, as an artist, is that some of the devaluation of Fine Art in people's minds, which can lead to thinking that AI art is as worthy as Fine Art, has to do with a modern confusion between what Fine Art is, or does, and what Graphic Design/ Graphic Design influenced art is, or does. While artists like Warhol and others in the 50s played around with graphic design influences, this was in order to have a conversation with the viewer about mass produced media vs the hand-made traditional style of art. These two are quite different, I think, in their intentions, with regard to the kinds of emotions they seek to evoke in the viewer, and the kinds of self-reflection, or reflection about the world we live in, that they produce as a response in a viewer. I don't think AI art can come anywhere near the subtlety and sensitivity that Fine Art can, because it throws things together in a fairly random, insensitive way, something no Fine Artist ever does. That's just a personal view though, and of course anyone's free to disagree.

Every time I hear about AI and all the things it will replace, I have to think about a book I read a long time ago, 'The Diamond Age'. One thing I will never forget is how everything "real" like paper books, and furniture from wood, but also art was just for the 1%, the rich. The rest of the population had everything printed everything was nanotechnology, and it was "fake". And I think the same about AI Art, yes it will be for mass production, but it will never replace real art or real craftsmanship.