AI bros love to talk about how generative AI "opens up art to anyone" (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by doublepepperoni@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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But they conveniently leave out that it costs money to do anything with AI. It's more like "open to anyone with a credit card." The vast majority of people don't have computers powerful enough to run generative AI models locally, and even then, server farms with a billion GPUs will always produce better results

This means that people have to rely on corporate platforms where you buy tokens that you use to get pulls at the various AI slop slot machines, hoping you get something decent. The mechanics more closely resemble a gacha game than any kind of artistic process

By contrast, learning how to draw, animate or make 3D models costs nothing. There's free tutorials and tools everywhere, and you can also just pirate commercial ones if you want

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[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 18 points 2 weeks ago

i really hate this reasoning. when people say "i can't draw" they mean "i can't draw what I set out to draw" not that they can't make marks on a paper. People want to make what they have in their head, likely to a level of competence that would be appreciated by an audience beyond their mom, not some other thing that they physically can that will look bad to them and anyone else.

I also dispute OP's assumption that we can all learn to draw competently, i've tried on and off for years with various tutorials and programmes and my brain and hands just do not work that way.

[-] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ask any artist if they are satisfied with their art. They won't be. That is the nature of the beast. Doesn't matter how good they are at it.

I have done art on and off for years as well. I would estimate I did maybe a few thousand hours of art in my life. Other people have done literally 10 to 100 times that and they are better because of it. You hone your skills over time. Anyone like me dabbling in art has to accept that there are countless people who put in more time, who are better and who will stay being better because they will keep putting more time in then us.

Using AI, you steal those hours from those people, for a product that doesn't show what's in your head. It's stilly to pretend AI can do that and you know it. If that were true, all the art prompters wouldn't include the names of existing artists in their prompts.

So yea, put in the fucking time, or get off the field. Don't be fucking selfish and then try to defend it in flimsy ways.

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 3 points 2 weeks ago

Ask any artist if they are satisfied with their art. They won't be. That is the nature of the beast. Doesn't matter how good they are at it.

duh. but "good enough" or "ok this is fine i need to work on something else" are out of reach too.

Using AI, you steal those hours from those people,

lmfao

for a product that doesn't show what's in your head. It's stilly to pretend AI can do that and you know it. If that were true, all the art prompters wouldn't include the names of existing artists in their prompts.

idk lots of musicians try to copy the guitar tone or whatever else of their influences. what's in your head might be a copy of styles you've seen until you develop your own style... idk what "your own style" maps to in generative "ai", i'm not here to defend ai or say that the people using it are doing art per se, my whole thing is that I can't get even remotely close to an acceptable level of competence and it ticks me the fuck off when someone goes "aNy OnE cAn mAkE aRt" or upholds capitalist framings of intellectual property.

[-] sunshinesoul@hexbear.net 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

i am a professional artist (and maybe this makes me a bit out of touch,) assuming that it's for personal use and not for profit at all, i would rather have someone take my work into photoshop/gimp/krita/whatever and trace it near directly or make edits to it to fit their vision than have that person go spend money to further refine The Slop Machine. other artists may have differing opinions on this but since generative AI has gotten popular i just simply do not care anymore as long as my work isn't being fed to train image models. hell, if you're tracing someone else's work using tools on paper, that's still building muscle memory and linework skill and while not the ideal scenario it's doing more for you than you might think. with generative AI you are paying to generate an image based off countless images that already existed from artists that were not paid for their work to be included in the model. is that...not capitalistic or not at the very least exploitative?

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

end-users aren't necessarily paying into anything other than their own electricity bill. We universally have a problem with the companies profiting at your expense of course, and that might be the more common case.

Those parts of "ai" discourse are tangent to someone's aptitude or ability to have something that looks how they want it to look and i'm trying to limit myself here to being mad about the position that art is accessible already because everybody can make shitty art that isn't what they want to make.

[-] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Also a professional artist, and I agree with you. Someone making a collage or a trace from my art, or even just photoshopping it is still practicing creativity. Someone typing a prompt into the art slot machine has no creative process, they aren't learning anything, experiencing anything, struggling with anything, it's just empty output. It's just a "pretty picture" there's no sense of accomplishment or understanding. One of the most rewarding things in my life is when I draw something and recognise that I flat out wasn't skilled enough to do that 6-12 months ago.

And this can apply to any hobby or skill, are people so alienated from themselves that even the most basic concepts of satisfaction at self-improvement are seen as outright insults to them?