Yeah honestly, what rubs me the most about this entire AI debacle, is the complete and utter lack of empathy from the AI bros who are so proud of churning out a generic piece of "art" that used stolen data from countless actual artists. This tech has brought out the ugliest human beings I've ever seen in my entire life. Never seen a group of people so eager and proud to step on people's livelihoods, passion, and reason for being. Ugly, ugly people who derive joy in the suffering of others. And if those are the people who are striving for this so called "utopia", I'm not sure I want to be living in such a place.

Have you ever played a game with all of the cheat codes enabled, only to find that you were completely bored within the next 20 minutes?

From when I was very young I always had this feeling, something along the lines of what Confucius says that every person has a designated role in society and they should follow it or else... trouble for them. The artist is drawn to art, the chess player to chess, the sports person wants to move their body, the business man wants to make money, etc. you get it. I ignored it.. due to fear. You know how it goes, fear of potentially not being good enough to reach a high level, fear of not being a viable career path, or just not wanting to see the ugliness of the works of a beginner. And of course I paid for that decision later on. Depression, regret, then apathy. Just like Steven says I wish I started many years ago. And now AI scared me off and killed an other year from my art journey. I am just beginning to heal and regain my desire for life. You can't escape who you are. The universe is nudging you towards the right thing but you ignore it. This is as much of an advice to myself as is to you: do what you want to do, don't waste time. Go hard or die with regret.

I have the opposite experience with CGI and my drawings. People relate more to pencil and paper and go "wow that's amazing" but a CGI scene that was all done from nothing which takes far longer and more thinking then a 2D image has less reaction because people are so disconnected from the process.

I honestly can't believe that there are people who think that the actual creative process can even compare to ai prompting. They must have no idea, and I guess that's why they would use ai. The amount of passion and life energy required to make real art is immeasurable. That, can never be replaced.

I've never felt more represented by anything like I felt when Steven spoke about the urge to create around 54:00. I'm 23, and art is the only thing that has given my life any meaning. I learnt to pick up a pencil before I could walk or talk. I grew up in my childhood and teenage years drawing in class, at home, anywhere I could. I spent hours and hours pouring everything I had into my drawings, but because of social pressure from family and teachers, I chose a career in science. For the last 5 years I have been extremely miserable, but 2 months ago I started taking private art lessons. For the first time in years, I feel alive. I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do, and I'll continue to do it even if it kills me in the process. For me, art is like breathing or eating, or even more important than those. Thanks for speaking about these topics, Steven.

I was originally going to say: "52:33 - this guy gets it." but after listening more, i want to say: "1:19:45 - these guys get it." sometimes podcasts are like really good songs that just uplift your spirit. the song/podcast doesn't even have to be "happy" or "uplifting," and they often aren't. it just resonates for whatever reason. good stuff. 👍👍

perfect timing, i was literally watching Steven's art talk during our Heat Transfer lecture earlier today lol

1:03:10 this is me right now, I am fairly popular in that realm but I just can't do it anymore and I have to rebuild a showable portfolio. I been through a great deal of mental anguish because of this, as stupid as it might sound to an outsider. Be careful what you wish for.

The one saving grace is that people are still the ones consuming art. We have to decide what is good and what isn't. I believe art is a conversation with the past present and future. As long as you can pinpoint some novel idea about one of those three things, it doesnt matter which medium you use; art will always be a career path even once everything is automated.

Yo thank you Kristian, feel inspired after finding your channel. A belonging type of sense comes to mind. It is good to hear. Here we go!

This was a really insightful conversation; thanks for doing this, Kristian.

An excellent conversation with plenty of helpful insights and takes. Steven continues to be both inspiring and motivating in his directness and honesty. Thank you for this! 🙏🏼

Great video. Love your interviews. They feel intimate, encouraging and full of great things to note and try. I'm trying to catch up with all of them and the more I watch the more I find value in them. Keep cool man 🤘🏾

I enjoyed this dubstep remix of this chat with steven zapata :)

Loved this thanks for putting this together, great listen.

Steven is a legend! Amazing episode!

Love Steven Zapata, great discussion especially as someone who doesn't really know what they want from art, other than they want to keep doing it

Playing Cyberpunk right now it's downright frightening how correct the Cyberpunk genre is. Particularly from a human and philosophical level to what our future has become today.

That was an awesome convo guys!

I can’t believe it took me this long to realise there was another sketchy van episode with steven zapata, incredible news. Really enjoyed this talk guys 🙏

awesome podcast!

Thanks for caring boys. ❤

this was cool interview thank both of you :)

that is the problem for me. i hate that so many of our arch's are right where they are supposed to be at what might just be the worst time. You really do need to do art for you. so much of what is in museums is from artists that never sold hardly a thing and were not discovered until they were dead. But as humans we want to feel important and art is about communication, so it feels like the art is wasted if people dont see it and understand. i think in the end everything will balance out and we will be fine. but the fact that we even have to worry about it because of some strange artificial source is strange.

The man, the legend

What a legendary conversation Steven is a modern day philosopher! He’s so on point with everything he’s said I cannot stress this enough please listen to this man!

About that "not a good reason to quit" thing. Can attest to that. Last autumn I was really afraid about ai and industries dying etc so in the spring 2023 I started learnoing to code. And I noticed that it's not like I can't - turns out I can learn it fine. I just don't feel love for it. And that just culminated into me ultimately abandoning a third of the year spent coding and reigniting my art career. By that time I quit my art teacher job (the company was becoming a bad place for me and teachers also got their salaries cut) so it was all very uncertain. Right now I'm independent, surviving through commissions and a course that I created myself. In the end my detour into coding taught me exactly that: I'll suffer if I quit. I need to try being an artist again.

ok, non rant mode activated: I vibe with the struggle to try and stop doing creative stuff. I did that for a few years, it was bad. Honestly, I don't like making money from my art, but I will never stop making art again. It's just too important for me.

AI will never be able to automate picking up the pencil, pen, brush, and creating on paper, canvas, wood, whatever.

I love how you can hear the lawn guys running the weed whipper in the background. This has been one of the banes of my existence when trying to record. good to know I'm not the only one.

Fuck Yeah Bro!

I love Steven, we’re so fortunate to have him.

YEEEAAAHHH

Only six minutes in but I can tell this vid will be a damn good one

ai art is crap, you can see it from a mile

Jesus that point in 29 min is so hitting. I would fucking hate trying to be some attention graber on the internet. Already tried it once during my freelance carrier to get more gigs and now Im so thankful for my studio job, never that shit again, I just want to create and be left alone

let's say one day we have athlete robots empowered by AI. does it mean that we should give up exercising? my POV is that we can use AI to make better art for industrial purposes. but learning, growing as an artist, listening to our thoughts and bringing them to life, it's not replaceable by AI. in general The process of doing a job in my opinion is two parts: 1- the idea or the thought behind it. 2- the effort of executing the idea. AI is helpful to make better results for the second part. but if it's gonna do the first part as well, then it's not a project done by a human. the job is done. but it's not ours.

When people draw comparisons to ai image generation and the effects of the industrial revolution on traditional craft- they're appealing to the argument that that it's progress, that it's normal. And it is! but what they don't account for is the fact that progress isn't always wholly good. Those handcrafted clothes and furniture pieces were better! they lasted longer, there was genuine artistry, they were significantly less wasteful- the problem was that they were so expensive. So that's the trade off- something previously confined to the few is suddenly plentiful, but worse quality. Tradition and craft are either lost, or become the realm of fewer and fewer artisans.

AI art reminds me more of ikea furniture than something I'd actually pay for. If it's in consolation, AI art channels on KZfaq are struggling while actual artists are still thriving.

When the financial rewards disappear completely, the incentive also goes because of the time and effort involved in getting to a level where you can expect any form of reward beyond "that looks soo nice!" from your mom.. 95% of artists will likely go the way of the British weavers when the automatic loom started the industrial revolution.

They interrupted the podcast to get in touch with him about his cars extended warranty.

AI was trying to hack this recording by sending in glitches.

It takes a pretty soft head to believe in and pursue AI Utopia and Universal Basic Income

AI is the clicking fingers of Thanos.

AI art generator makes pretty images, real art makes art and artist.

so for AI art, my thought on it is, 'does it look uncharatistically like something I made, no, then i don't care. if it looks unique then thats all that matters. If it looks like all you did was copy my image, then I hold the same values as I do for people that trace art to put into crappy andriod apps. Just credit me' this thought came about when I was making a new oc with a specific hair spike and I thought. 'yeah thats the goku hair spike, nice I nailed it.' and it started to hit me how if we apply the same values to normal artists that we do to ai art , then i just stole something and should feel bad LOL Not gonna happen

Most artists will paint and draw and design with AI. The tools are quickly coming online that you can create any composition, character, or object in any style rapidly with AI. Artists will use their skills to illustrate any project rapidly and consistently. Draw an entire graphic novel in a few days with consistent characters. Illustrate an entire book. Generate all the art assets for a video game or movie. And so on. Art is being completely commoditized just like widgets made in a factory. For those commercial artists who care about their craft, they will train AI to recreate their style and it will be a companion for the artist to generate art rapidly alongside their own original work. Multiplying an artist's output exponentially. It will be the only way for them to compete. I'm not advocating for this future, just stating that it is plain to see where this is going.

Yeah I see that all the time now with these thumbnails and graphics of AI imagery and even people incorporating it in tattooing. To me it just looks cheesy and inauthentic. The fun and pride is in having something you did or commissioned someone actually talented to make cool art that can't be replicated.

Money talks, we are not value in the end.

Imo, there is some good side to AI art, or shall I say, sides I prefer. For example, they can enable people who are physically or mentally incapable of pursuing art to have that experience. I think AI art is genuinely good, but for those incapable people. What I don't understand however, is those people who can try to get better at art, who are capable, yet think doing AI art makes them an artist. The argument they often bring up is they don't have enough time because they're doing jobs something as if they think artists have it easy. As if they think earning enough through making art is easy. But I think they only think that way, but also realize art isn't actually easy. Otherwise, they won't say they don't have time. However busy their schedule is, can't they take out ten minutes a day to practice if they really like art? Sure, it might take them years that way, but they will get good enough and what's more, they'll have the satisfaction of making the art they want by themselves. The good artists didn't get good just because of some talent or something, they put in enough work. And they did that because they cared about the art they made. If you don't have enough passion to get good at art, then I suspect you don't really care about creating art. You just want a pretty picture, or a story to read catered to your particular tastes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I personally can't think of AI artwork as your artwork, however complicated putting in word and image prompt and photoshopping process might be for you. It's just a pretty picture or story you commissioned and made a few tweaks to. The only difference is you didn't have to face the hassle of a human artist's moods and stuff since it's made by a machine. I understand that, since I don't have enough money lying around to commission a book cover for my story. That's why, along with an aspiring writer, I'm now an aspiring artist too. Aspiring, not established. Since I haven't made a single coin from anything I've created yet. Anyway, whether AI replaces artists or not(I don't think it will, not fully anyway) using an artist's work without their consent is not something I like to see. And since that can't be regulated properly with the data already out, I think commercial use of all AI creative work, whether art or writing or something else, should be made illegal. They should be free for everyone. That way, it'll truly be 'fair use' and also lose it's biggest appeal to the big corporations and stuff. After all, they won't be able to make money with it and it'll just be something for fun.

I love how the Arrogant Draftsman calls us "ARROGANT".

the absolute slave conditioning you have gone through to think that you are not capable of being an arbiter of morality is truly astounding , though i would bed you not to go to therapy because i don't want you to harm yourself by doing that....

I am an artist deeply dedicated to my craft and the pursuit of mastery. Additionally, I harness the power of SDXL to create AI-generated images, a tool that has significantly enriched my artistic journey. This technology serves as a wellspring of inspiration for me, allowing me to explore creative realms unbound by copyright concerns when I draw from generated images. It offers a lightning-fast avenue to experiment with ideas and fuse diverse concepts, complementing my traditional sketching process, which I still cherish. Moreover, your point about photography is astute. The advent of photography revolutionized the art world, ushering in abstract and impressionist styles that liberated artists from the constraints of creating hyper-realistic portraits and character pieces. I am excited about the future of "analog" art in the era of AI image generation. In my view, AI is not a threat to fine art; rather, it presents a new frontier for artistic expression. While there may be challenges on the commercial front, artists are known for their adaptability, and we will continue to evolve alongside these technological advancements. The essence of art remains resilient and enduring.

I wish you guys would just understand. There’s nothing that could be done. There is no stopping what is happening. I have worked in many fields. This is just the same as people who were experts and graphic, design, and cut and paste, and Wax and using dark rooms, Photo retouchers pre-press , paper magazines Photo labs each time it got bigger and more encompassing And you just can’t stop it you have to work with it you have no choice. You are just feeling the first wave every job. Every career will be gone in 20 years.

I'm the only one who thinks Steven looks like Andrew Tate? =))