Seems like this day and age not a day goes by where there isn’t some new controversy. The soup du jour appears to be art created by an artificial intelligence.
At first glance it is easy to see how people would be upset by this. Imagine you were a heavily indebted art student desperate for work and now there is an AI that can perform amazing tasks in seconds for almost no money. That is your competition. Something that turns out amazing works of art and is effectively free.
The reaction from creatives is exactly as you would expect even going so far as to seek protectionism. Now the largest rpg marketplace online will de-list your product if you fail to disclose that you used an AI for any part of your art.
Can You Use AI and Still be an Artist?
Can you use a camera and be an artist? Is a photographer an artist? I mean, he didn’t grow all those trees in his picture right?
When someone uses AI to generate their art they begin by coming up with several prompts and parameters that describe what they want. The AI then throws up several possibilities. The technician has to dig through these and select which are promising and run further operations to progress a piece.
Even when you have something useable from the AI you often have to do some manual work to get the finished product.
In my mind this requires a great deal of technical prowess coupled with an artistic eye. Anyone can use AI just as anyone can use a camera. However, not everyone will get equal results.
What Matters is the Final Product.
If I can create a superior product by utilizing AI generated art then that is what I am going to do. These are not projects that would have had professional artists in the firt place. The alternative was me squinting over a piece of copy paper with a box of markers.
Why not join me in the video below? We can explore generating AI art together.