Support NeoGAF

[QSD]

The (Artist) Terminator.

*knocks on door*

*door opens*

*Arnold Schwarzenegger voice*

"Van Gogh?"

Van Gogh: "yes."

*Gunshot fire*

Hey c'mon the guy already offed himself to stay out of the hands of the machines, isn't that enough?

 

[Bragr]

Ahhh but the mind of a child is connected to a body, that has needs and is evolutionarlily programmed to react to novelties, explore the environment, seek out pleasure, avoid pain and loss, etc etc.

What 'want' does an AI have? Why would it want to react to input when it can also do nothing, and suffer no pain or loss as a consequence? IMHO you are still attributing some kind of human qualities/motives (like curiosity or sociability) to a machine that it will never have unless we specifically instruct it to do so.

Yeah but the reason why a rat wants to eat is not because it has a body, it's because its brain tells it to. If the brain didn't tell it to, it would just stand around and die.

The idea is you can have a system you can boot up, and you can type "hello" and it will wonder what is going. The first systems might not be able to reply or anything, but the processes that our brains have, logic and reason, IS intelligence as we know it. That is what they are trying to create, the building blocks of intelligence. If it would just do nothing, we wouldn't even detect it.

 

[QSD]

Yeah but the reason why a rat wants to eat is not because it has a body, it's because its brain tells it to. If the brain didn't tell it to, it would just stand around and die.

Yeah, but that is kind of the thing right? It has a brain *because* it has a body that needs to survive. Even 1-celled amoebae 'eat' and they certainly don't have a brain! Evolutionarily, the body came first, and the brain gradually evolved to 'help' the body survive and reproduce. (or at least, it evolved because it turned out to be advantageous to survival). So another view would be that the brain is just part of the body's 'food + sex finding' apparatus. In any case the brain is very much part of the body, not separate from it. One of the things I'm questioning here is what you would actually get if you tried to divorce the brain from the body that spawned it, which is basically something that can think but has no reason to, thus will be completely passive and inert.

The idea is you can have a system you can boot up, and you can type "hello" and it will wonder what is going. The first systems might not be able to reply or anything, but the processes that our brains have, logic and reason, IS intelligence as we know it. That is what they are trying to create, the building blocks of intelligence. If it would just do nothing, we wouldn't even detect it.

I do understand what the idea is, to create a kind of 'disembodied' intelligence that still wants stuff and demonstrates some kind of initiative. I'm wondering if that is really possible or what that would mean.

 

[jason10mm]

Thanks for the clarification and update, ArtStation

Source: ArtStation Terms of Service
Updated 12-16-2022, Term #46

Sad as it is to say, in 50 years a statement like this will likely be viewed as discriminatory hate speech just like a Jim Crow law. A.I. Lives Matter.

 

[RainblowDash]

While there are technical art skills to master, it's all still subjective.

I wish I had the pictures of the modern art garbage my campus used to host.

 

[Bragr]

Yeah, but that is kind of the thing right? It has a brain *because* it has a body that needs to survive. Even 1-celled amoebae 'eat' and they certainly don't have a brain! Evolutionarily, the body came first, and the brain gradually evolved to 'help' the body survive and reproduce. (or at least, it evolved because it turned out to be advantageous to survival). So another view would be that the brain is just part of the body's 'food + sex finding' apparatus. In any case the brain is very much part of the body, not separate from it. One of the things I'm questioning here is what you would actually get if you tried to divorce the brain from the body that spawned it, which is basically something that can think but has no reason to, thus will be completely passive and inert.

I do understand what the idea is, to create a kind of 'disembodied' intelligence that still wants stuff and demonstrates some kind of initiative. I'm wondering if that is really possible or what that would mean.

We don't know if it's possible yet, but the top experts seem to think we can make something simple within 10 years.

I don't understand why it needs the body, sure a brain is a tool at the end of the day, but a tool for intelligence. Sure, the brain developed because of our needs, but now that it's developed, I don't see a reason why it would stop working if we could simulate certain parts of it. The parts we need to simulate don't need the body. An excavator is a tool for digging, but it can still work without the dirt now that we made it. If I couldn't eat anymore, it's not like I would stop thinking.

 

[Tumle]

As a professional artist I can tell you this is a paradigm shift. There's no use trying to fight it. It's like pissing in the wind, trying to stand against a crashing tidal wave. It doesn't matter what art is anymore, so much as what the AI makes is passable enough or better to fool the majority of people that will see it as art. Art is as much about provoking emotion or experiencing something as much as it is who (or what) makes it. Art imitates life and art is abundant in nature, which is made by no human. And the AI has no problems fitting into that. Artists argue what the AI is making is "not imagination", and that it's "stealing" or "learning" from real artists without any credit or payment. Well when you can see clear influence or homage but can't pinpoint any one specific artwork the AI borrowed from it's not plagiarism is it? In fact that's what real artists have been doing since time immemorial. Any artists will be lying if they said they didn't study in great detail or even copy a lot of other artists to learn their craft at any given point in their artistic journey. And any concept artist working today will also be lying if they didn't just take stock (and sometimes not so stock) photos and just bash/collage them together then do a bit of speed painting over it and call it a day. Any gatekeeping of the sort against AI doing the same is well intentioned to protect artists but it's all semantics and useless for the practical world.

By Picasso's own definition, AI artists are the greatest artists of all.

In terms of commercial application, this is a huge win for corporations, and number crunchers who want to cut costs. Artists in most industries are hard to keep in line just by nature of being creative people. They are emotional, inconsistent, unpredictable and oftentimes combative. To be creative is to be out of the box, to be individualistic, to be unconventional. The lucky ones reach the top and make stuff that defies all expectations. But the rest of us are just finnicky tools. The push-pull between creatives(artists) and non-creatives (management, HR) happens everyday at every studio I work at. The AI can eliminate all that uncertainty, all that, and give commercial art production at the top what they've wanted all along: soulless factory line products that appeals to the masses, from 100% obedient slaves who won't fight back. Soon most artists will be out of work, and only those who can prove themselves useful alongside the AI providing complementary skills will remain, albeit at far lower wages and far lesser demand.

I think you are right on all points.. but I still feel like there needs to be an artist involved in the process of making art.. those number crunchers from the economics department doesn't know anything about composition or what makes for a good image.. you still need to feed the computer with text information that it can then turn into beautiful pictures.. but yea sure they might be able to half the artistic staff..

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sounds about right. People are self serving. NIMBY syndrome.

 

[nocsi]

lol artists are the only ones fighting in this AI war. I've never seen a group of people so threatened by AI before

 

[GeekyDad]

That original Twitter response might have been generated by AI for all we know.

Insteada gettin' mad, perhaps people might wanna stop and think.

 

[squeakywheel]

Wait till we can make songs easily using AI. Musicians are the whiniest folks. If we thought this backlash is bad, wait till a good AI model creates good songs.

 

[sinnergy]

As a professional artist I can tell you this is a paradigm shift. There's no use trying to fight it. It's like pissing in the wind, trying to stand against a crashing tidal wave. It doesn't matter what art is anymore, so much as what the AI makes is passable enough or better to fool the majority of people that will see it as art. Art is as much about provoking emotion or experiencing something as much as it is who (or what) makes it. Art imitates life and art is abundant in nature, which is made by no human. And the AI has no problems fitting into that. Artists argue what the AI is making is "not imagination", and that it's "stealing" or "learning" from real artists without any credit or payment. Well when you can see clear influence or homage but can't pinpoint any one specific artwork the AI borrowed from it's not plagiarism is it? In fact that's what real artists have been doing since time immemorial. Any artists will be lying if they said they didn't study in great detail or even copy a lot of other artists to learn their craft at any given point in their artistic journey. And any concept artist working today will also be lying if they didn't just take stock (and sometimes not so stock) photos and just bash/collage them together then do a bit of speed painting over it and call it a day. Any gatekeeping of the sort against AI doing the same is well intentioned to protect artists but it's all semantics and useless for the practical world.

By Picasso's own definition, AI artists are the greatest artists of all.

In terms of commercial application, this is a huge win for corporations, and number crunchers who want to cut costs. Artists in most industries are hard to keep in line just by nature of being creative people. They are emotional, inconsistent, unpredictable and oftentimes combative. To be creative is to be out of the box, to be individualistic, to be unconventional. The lucky ones reach the top and make stuff that defies all expectations. But the rest of us are just finnicky tools. The push-pull between creatives(artists) and non-creatives (management, HR) happens everyday at every studio I work at. The AI can eliminate all that uncertainty, all that, and give commercial art production at the top what they've wanted all along: soulless factory line products that appeals to the masses, from 100% obedient slaves who won't fight back. Soon most artists will be out of work, and only those who can prove themselves useful alongside the AI providing complementary skills will remain, albeit at far lower wages and far lesser demand.

Yup! As a designer myself , so true! Good thing I am out of the box and produce great stuff!

 

[Joshmyersbv]

An AI can do crazy shit. I was on Twitter the other day and saw a thread of one AI creating villains for each country. The results are fucking crazy.

 

[Trilobit]

Robots replace factory workers.
Software replaces office workers.

Artists when being replaced by AI:

Jokes aside, the writing was on the wall long ago so I don't understand why they are so surprised. Must be demoralizing though especially for young people taking up painting to see AI spit out something like this:

 

[Doczu]

We are one step closer to calling AI "Abominable Intelligence" and outlawing it after they take everyting from us or going Butlerian Jihad on it.
All it took was to make some Twitter artists poorer than they already were.

 

[BossLackey]

The guy who used the AI is still an artist. Doesn't matter what method he used to make it. Machines can't imagine or make art, and niether can people on twitter who have anime profile pictures.

You're right. He's an artist. An artist with zero talent, but an artist nonetheless.

 

[lukilladog]

You're right. He's an artist. An artist with zero talent, but an artist nonetheless.

I don't know about that, commissioning someone or some thing to make you some painting doesn't make you an artist.

And I am seeing this argument about imagination, but every "new" thing humans "create" seems just to be about associations of previous concepts that were acquired from things already existing in his enviroment. Like the unicorn for example, someone imagined that, but he certainly knew about horses and different horned animals, so he put those together and then he was called "imaginative". I don't see that being a problem for these so called AI programs... wait, I think these programs are doing just that, so... they are imaginative in that sense.

 

[Spaceman292]

You're right. He's an artist. An artist with zero talent, but an artist nonetheless.

Seems like he has a talent for AI art

 

[Lukaku's First Touch]

An AI can do crazy shit. I was on Twitter the other day and saw a thread of one AI creating villains for each country. The results are fucking crazy.

That shit looks better than 99% of current gaming characters.

 

[BossLackey]

Seems like he has a talent for AI art

I think you're being incredibly disingenuous. To imply that prompting an AI is in any way difficult and couldn't be done by just about anybody is absurd. Full stop.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I'm not the target audience for buying art. I just buy a handful of shit to hang on a wall, and it's same shit I got for 10 years.

But give it some time. For anyone who enjoys art and hanging stuff on a wall, it'll get to a point you do your own AI art, pick one and get a printing and framing store to do it for you. No more rummaging through stacks of crap at stores to finally find one you like. You can all churn out stuff on AI in minutes with your own criteria and pick one you like to produce.

Faster, something you like, cheaper. And even though it's AI doing the work for you, it also gives you some tiny bit of appreciation you made it yourself (not technically true as you just do word inputs, but you know what I mean.) Aside from a store having the tools to make a big print and framing, it's now in your control.

 

[Joshmyersbv]

That shit looks better than 99% of current gaming characters.

Yeah I mean look at this, it more creative then most of the shit I see in gaming.

 

[BossLackey]

I don't know about that, commissioning someone or some thing to make you some painting doesn't make you an artist.

I was being facetious. I do not think creating a prompt makes you an artist any more than pressing the button on my Keurig makes me a Barista.

 

[Spaceman292]

I think you're being incredibly disingenuous. To imply that prompting an AI is in any way difficult and couldn't be done by just about anybody is absurd. Full stop.

I think there's more to art than just showing off how good or 'talented' you are. If you create something interesting, that has worth. Some of the most famous artists don't have much hand in actually fabricating their art.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That country villain art is amazing. Evil Canadian moose. Love it. A lich hockey player swinging a steel hockey stick would be awesome too!

 

[Spaceman292]

Yeah I mean look at this, it more creative then most of the shit I see in gaming.

Scotland is so sick oh my god

 

[Joshmyersbv]

That country villain art is amazing. Evil Canadian moose. Love it. A lich hockey player swinging a steel hockey stick would be awesome too!

Yeah it's great stuff.

Here more

Honestly there is so much in the tweet it could be it own thread.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The UK one looks incredible. Blizzard could use the bottom pic for boxart for Diablo 8: Tijuana Tales

 

[Joshmyersbv]

Scotland is so sick oh my god

These are my favorites

 

[Spaceman292]

These are my favorites

UK is good too

 

[Joshmyersbv]

UK is good too

Yeah the Western ones are amazing

 

[Spaceman292]

Yeah the Western ones are amazing

Kind of insensitive that it gave France frog eyes

 

[Joshmyersbv]

Kind of insensitive that it gave France frog eyes

I mean it's an AI, it has no feelings lol

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Game companies got to use these AI programs and figure out how to put it great generated artwork onto their polygon models. Aside from Germany (that one looks kinds of crap to me), the rest looks slick.

But one thing that looks odd (I dont know if it's specific to these works or humanoid characters in general) but some of their foreheads seem super long.

 

[March Climber]

Going by the last few posts, two other big problems are that:

1) There are a lot of creative minds who have ideas but can't draw, that are using AI as an outlet to do so.
2) These same people possibly either refused to pay a dime to artists for commissions on their unique ideas, or simply didn't know that professional quality commission artists at artstation existed for that purpose.

So because of those two problems, it leads to thoughts above that no artist can match the ideas that were posted in that twitter comment thread. Is it true on a creativity level? No, it's not true. On a level of speed? Yes, no artist can draw as fast as an AI.

I also think it's unfair that everyone's lumping in all types of artists together. The average artist you find at deviant art very obviously won't be posting the same quality artwork that you'd find on artstation, yet both will have a twitter account. Why should the person who's clearly worked extremely hard for the craft for years and is posting very, very professional work on artstation be punished because you want the random amateur deviantart/twitter artists to suffer?

 

[Joshmyersbv]

Here is a few more

 

[Joshmyersbv]

Game companies got to use these AI programs and figure out how to put it great generated artwork onto their polygon models. Aside from Germany (that one looks kinds of crap to me), the rest looks slick.

Agree, we're already hearing reports of games starting development targeting next generation consoles. I feel like not enough quality games have released this generation. It doesn't help that a good chunk of them are remakes. Whatever can improve the speed and creativity of game developers they need to do it.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

So far my top picks are UK, Saudi and NZ.

One other thing that the AI seems to have issues (other than often giant foreheads), is the fingers and thumbs are messed up. You got no thumbs or 6 fingers. Looks like the AI has trouble formulating 4 fingers and a thumb.

 

[Joshmyersbv]

So far my top picks are UK, Saudi and NZ.

One other thing that the AI seems to have issues (other than often giant foreheads), is the fingers and thumbs are messed up. You got no thumbs or 6 fingers. Looks like the AI has trouble formulating 4 fingers and a thumb.

I just noticed that, I wonder if scans or motion capture would alleviate issues like that.

 

[sinnergy]

Someone should do the Netherlands.. must turnout like a Smurf

 

[Bragr]

I must have spent 3 to 5 minutes on these. It's incredibly fun and terrifyingly easy.

 

[-Minsc-]

Automation has replaced a vast majority of factory workers over the past decades. The mere transition from analogue to digital has massively changed a myriad of jobs. What makes people think that the technical progress that has transformed our means of production will suddenly make halt before the creative industry?

Instead of seeing this inevitable process as a threat, it should be embraced as a new tool of creation. Will it make artists obsolete? No. Will it change the way how art is produced? Yes. Just with good craftsmanship, people will find new appreciation for man-made and handcrafted goods while the mass-generated stuff will satiate the basic needs of the masses. You'll never sell a designer table to somebody who is perfectly contempt with IKEA.

From autotune to computer-generated melodies, this process already happened to the music industry anyway and nobody really cared. For the most part, music isn't crafted anymore, it is generated and produced. Real artists though are still appreciated by the enthusiast crowd.

So, not the end of the artist but the final blow to the artist being a celebrity? For a fact, I do not appreciate the effort artists put into their work. All I looked at was the end result.

I wonder how some of you would feel if an A.I program helped reduced video game development from 4 years to 2 or 1?

I for one would welcome it. Game development is crazy ass long and getting more games during a console cycle is never a bad thing. Especially since it seems like with each console generation we get less and less.

I honestly wouldn't care. As I said above, I cared about the game I played and not the people who made them. Most up and coming kids will be drawn in by the experience of the game.

As a professional artist I can tell you this is a paradigm shift. There's no use trying to fight it. It's like pissing in the wind, trying to stand against a crashing tidal wave. It doesn't matter what art is anymore, so much as what the AI makes is passable enough or better to fool the majority of people that will see it as art. Art is as much about provoking emotion or experiencing something as much as it is who (or what) makes it. Art imitates life and art is abundant in nature, which is made by no human. And the AI has no problems fitting into that. Artists argue what the AI is making is "not imagination", and that it's "stealing" or "learning" from real artists without any credit or payment. Well when you can see clear influence or homage but can't pinpoint any one specific artwork the AI borrowed from it's not plagiarism is it? In fact that's what real artists have been doing since time immemorial. Any artists will be lying if they said they didn't study in great detail or even copy a lot of other artists to learn their craft at any given point in their artistic journey. And any concept artist working today will also be lying if they didn't just take stock (and sometimes not so stock) photos and just bash/collage them together then do a bit of speed painting over it and call it a day. Any gatekeeping of the sort against AI doing the same is well intentioned to protect artists but it's all semantics and useless for the practical world.

By Picasso's own definition, AI artists are the greatest artists of all.

In terms of commercial application, this is a huge win for corporations, and number crunchers who want to cut costs. Artists in most industries are hard to keep in line just by nature of being creative people. They are emotional, inconsistent, unpredictable and oftentimes combative. To be creative is to be out of the box, to be individualistic, to be unconventional. The lucky ones reach the top and make stuff that defies all expectations. But the rest of us are just finnicky tools. The push-pull between creatives(artists) and non-creatives (management, HR) happens everyday at every studio I work at. The AI can eliminate all that uncertainty, all that, and give commercial art production at the top what they've wanted all along: soulless factory line products that appeals to the masses, from 100% obedient slaves who won't fight back. Soon most artists will be out of work, and only those who can prove themselves useful alongside the AI providing complementary skills will remain, albeit at far lower wages and far lesser demand.

I'm quoting your post because you say you are a professional artist and can give the perspective that, as a non artist, I can not. What comes to my mind as it came time to write this response is how AI will (or probably does) create posts just like yours. It's amusing to think that a long time forum onlooker such as myself could be conversing with an AI bot. When I first signed up to a forum in 2000, such a thing was not a thing. I never would have stopped to consider the person on the other side being a bot.

For me the situation is simple - if you create art as a traditional job for people in need of certain artwork/generic music etc. then you're screwed, because the AI can do the same or better and it doesn't require a salary. If you're a proper artist who sells art with your name attached to it, then you can still succeed assuming your work is good (and preferably if you have your own style or something that makes your work unique).
I don't think AI should be allowed to learn freely based on everything - it should be limited to stock content and to artists who agree (or are paid to agree) to share their work... but I think it's too late for that unless AI art is going to be banned and everything will be reset.

So basically, you have to be really good.

I think you are right on all points.. but I still feel like there needs to be an artist involved in the process of making art.. those number crunchers from the economics department doesn't know anything about composition or what makes for a good image.. you still need to feed the computer with text information that it can then turn into beautiful pictures.. but yea sure they might be able to half the artistic staff..

Does a person who makes such a discernment need to be an artist? Are the majority of art critics really artists themselves?

I wonder if an AI image modification program was used to modify the top expression into the lower?

Yeah I mean look at this, it more creative then most of the shit I see in gaming.

As a Canadian I just had to chuckle at the Canada Terror Moose.

 

[Bragr]

It's amusing to think that a long time forum onlooker such as myself could be conversing with an AI bot.

This is what confounds me, chatbots that sound and argue just like people do will flood every channel and comment section, how are you supposed to stop this? I don't understand how any sort of mainstream popular social media site is gonna survive the oncoming bot-horde. It will be impossible to believe anything.

 

[Joshmyersbv]

I must have spent 3 to 5 minutes on these. It's incredibly fun and terrifyingly easy.

My goodness, insane what can be done.

 

[DragoonWalker]

So, not the end of the artist but the final blow to the artist being a celebrity? For a fact, I do not appreciate the effort artists put into their work. All I looked at was the end result.

I honestly wouldn't care. As I said above, I cared about the game I played and not the people who made them. Most up and coming kids will be drawn in by the experience of the game.

I'm quoting your post because you say you are a professional artist and can give the perspective that, as a non artist, I can not. What comes to my mind as it came time to write this response is how AI will (or probably does) create posts just like yours. It's amusing to think that a long time forum onlooker such as myself could be conversing with an AI bot. When I first signed up to a forum in 2000, such a thing was not a thing. I never would have stopped to consider the person on the other side being a bot.

So basically, you have to be really good.

Does a person who makes such a discernment need to be an artist? Are the majority of art critics really artists themselves?

I wonder if an AI image modification program was used to modify the top expression into the lower?

As a Canadian I just had to chuckle at the Canada Terror Moose.

But why do you think the AI would come up with such a response? It's because AIs like GPT are designed to take from the general sentiment and opinions it sifts through that are out there, and present it succinctly in a matter of fact, analytical way, but with a layer of human emotion to conjure up the illusion of speaking to a human so to make the reader comfortable. It's manipulative is what it is.

I understand most people can't be arsed to care about people who make the things they enjoy in life, we all have too much of our own lives to care about. Although one day AI will affect every single one of us in ways we cannot yet imagine, no matter what your profession is, and by that point it'll be too late for you to start caring, about your profession or any other field.

 

[Bwesh]

I've also been having a lot of fun with AI art. I just can't understand the hate.

 

[Wildebeest]

AI can certainly come up with some interesting concepts based on not much. I bet nobody could guess one of the four keywords I used to generate this.

 

[Joshmyersbv]

I've also been having a lot of fun with AI art. I just can't understand the hate.

I mean just giving developers ideas through concept art would be a good idea. I think it would be a good idea for writers who are extremely talented but aren't capable of drawing for like comic books could use AI art.

 

[-Minsc-]

This is what confounds me, chatbots that sound and argue just like people do will flood every channel and comment section, how are you supposed to stop this? I don't understand how any sort of mainstream popular social media site is gonna survive the oncoming bot-horde. It will be impossible to believe anything.

Ironically, while AI-bots will create a new set of problems, they may make old ones obsolete. As I said in my previous post, I joined a forum in 2000. The reason being it was easier to go online then go out and meet people face to face. Largely, my social development from eighteen and to my mid twenties was online in the text only space. Sitting down and typing a post such as this would have been nerve-wracking. Experience has taught me this text based social interaction does not directly translate to face to face conversation. When reading online I find it's much easier to put my own emotional spin on whatever a person writes. Honestly, I'd do the same if I were reading a bot post. I suppose this relates to how I said I didn't care about the person behind the art but only what was directly before me. There can be a whole post about my own ego, but that can be left for elsewhere.

Obsolete. Unlike me, those who come next will likely be taught from from the young development age that the majority written online is Bot-BS. The person they are conversing with is not in the flesh and blood like themselves.

** A pause for supper. I've decided to insert this note. Perhaps to showcase how my own mind wants to wander off to something different**

What ever point I was trying to make is seeming getting more difficult. The end result I had was that people, fed up with not conversing with real people, will be inspired to go out and find real people to interact with. Thinking deeper, I can see the opposite also being true. Not wanting to deal with real people, there will be those who will escape into these AI conversations with the full knowledge there is no person. If there's no person to hurt, there is no person to hurt.

From my own direct experience, I very recently sat down with my wife for a bite to eat. I wonder, how much more time will I sit here writing? It takes a fair amount of time for me to compose a post, regardless of how much substance there is. This post probably took 30-40 minutes. Drawing together my erratic thoughts into something.

As a final thought, returning to AI art, I see future artists being heavily inspired by what the computer produces. There will be more sources of inspiration then ever thought possible.