AI Art: Friend Or Foe To Us Fleshy Artists?
Turns out, like a lot of things, it's complicated
Was doing a little reading today, and have been thinking about it ever since.
I have discussed this topic many times on various shows, as well as in this newsletter and on social media. Am I concerned that AI will eventually take over my art commissions and contracts? Perhaps. However, I believe that I am more concerned for those who are currently working in industries where there is a push to reduce costs and increase output simultaneously.
The gaming industry appears to be a prime example of this trend, as it is moving faster than most other industries. I have used this example on numerous occasions, but consider even a small RPG studio that is accustomed to allocating a significant portion of its game budget to commissioned artwork for all the characters in the game, including a vast selection of options for a player's avatar. With the use of AI models, this studio could drastically reduce its budget and have only one or two individuals overseeing the creation of all of the necessary artwork.
And why wouldn't they do this? With competition in the gaming industry being so high, coupled with the time that would be saved, the benefits are too significant to ignore. Moreover, the resulting artwork would look as good as the traditional method to players, their chief customer.
If we expand these savings to other departments, such as animation, UI design, story editing, and software engineering, there are even more reasons to embrace AI as the next major automation tool set for game developers and publishers.
Are all these advancements signaling doom and gloom for jobs in these industries? Perhaps not. When Lotus 1-2-3 was introduced, accountants feared that it would spell the end of their profession as they knew it. However, they couldn't have been more wrong. The introduction of more automation and faster tools actually resulted in more business and new types of business, ultimately creating more jobs rather than limiting or eliminating them.
Similarly, artists were initially uneasy about the rise of tablets and digital drawing tools, but they ended up creating more opportunities rather than limiting them.
Of course, there are significant differences between those examples and the large language models and image generation systems such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. Previous tool advancements helped people create more efficiently, but still required human input. These new tools have the potential to outright replace humans and increase production exponentially. To what extent, however, remains unclear.
It's not difficult to imagine that a team of twenty artists could be reduced to just one or two individuals whose job would be to input prompts, clean up results, and otherwise ensure that the work is completed faster and more efficiently.
Let's return to the question I began with: Am I concerned about this in my case? To some extent, yes. While I engage in various activities that keep my work diversified and have found an audience for it, it may ultimately depend on their appetite for these changes. As always, “time will tell”. The difference now is that the message may be delivered by a generated voice with an avatar photo that's not based on a real person.
Until next time,
Scott
PS You gotta love how bad AI is at comedy, as exhibited here:
I keep viewing the AI art question from the position of a consumer who is really only tangentially aware of the professional art industry. Like, I KNOW there are people who work in an office like me but instead of JIRA and Excel they use... I dunno probably also JIRA and Excel but with drawing/creating as their primary work product.
Even setting aside that industry though there is the freelance artist, like you brought up, who can’t really miss a commission. As much as I downplay the effect these generative models will have I can’t deny the fact that people WILL be impacted, someone WILL lose their job, and that sucks. I hope this new paradigm will open more doors than it closes.
Great take on all this. I’m not really tapped in to the gaming world so this was all quite logical while being eye opening at the same time. I don’t know if you are familiar with @timtadder ‘s work on IG. I find it staggeringly beautiful. And he also spends a huge amount of time talking about his philosophy around #AIart (I’ve seen it referred to as synthography by other folks - love the term.). He also talks about the burgeoning field of prompt engineering and his ongoing journey to refine/control an AI for creative purposes. Keep up the good stuff.