Your thoughts on A.I. art creation

[LimpingFish]

I think you've got that the wrong way around. Someone using AI image generators probably does so because they only care about what they are creating, and much less about the other issues you and Limpingfish bring up (learning a skill, collaboration, providing an artist with an income, and all the ethical issues that have been mentioned).

Sure, none of my opinions will have any impact on those people to whom "art" is irrelevant, in the sense that it wouldn't even cross their mind. We can't assume they'll think about AI as anything more than another option on their phone.

But, if a person wants to work in the medium of illustration, and sees AI as a springboard to clear the "talent" obstacle, then I would alter the text "what they are creating" to "how they are benefiting." These are the people I would challenge, on the off chance it's simply a case of not knowing, rather than not caring, about any potential downfalls to using AI.

But I really do believe that within probably a single-digit number of years, practically all professional/commercial illustrators will use generative AI as part of their toolbox, much the same way practically every film made today uses CG - Complete rejection will be marginalized to "arts & crafts" hobbyist work on the one side, and "fine art" for a niche, luxury clientele on the other.

I disagree, not on any moral grounds, but simply looking at how Generative AI operates. The argument about what Generative AI can do, and how it will inevitably improve, is, at best, misguidedly optimistic. At worst, it's plain misguided. If anything, Generative AI will likely get worse, as data becomes more and more infected by Generative AI output, as less and less "clean" data is fed to it, and as algorithmic biases inevitably emerge. This isn't even taking into account that leaps in AI computational abilities are outpacing memory, network, and power technology advancements, resulting in a very real bottleneck in AI effectiveness.

But if you mean that, say, Photoshop will use AI in everything from the Magic Wand tool to color-correction, then yes, I would agree. I wouldn't even object to such a future. Using AI in lieu of "traditional" computing is potentially one of the more positive ways in which such technology could be implemented.

But, to go back to your earlier point, I can see mass adoption to be far more likely among the general public, simply due to it being forced into every type of product. If everyone buys an IPhone, and every IPhone is "powered" by AI, then by default you end up with (arguably involuntary) mass adoption. Whether this would lead to mass acceptance depends entirely on the product being offered. I suppose the same could be said about professional creatives, but while the general public may be happy with an AI chatbot, and something to fiddle with their photos and such, I'm not so sure about artists.

I also don't disagree that "traditionalist" cliques may form, much like how streaming has replaced mass-consumption of physical media, but a number of people still opt to purchase physical products. In fact, I'd point to the continued "enshittification" of digital media services as a cause in increasing numbers of people earning a new found respect for physical media. One might consider a similar response to AI in the future, as the same capitalistic forces chip away at any potential in the name of profit. But I would argue about just how niche such movements might prove to be.

I mean, I'm not simply pulling opinions out of the air; AI, in it's current form, is already showing it's limits, and tech companies are fully aware that to not address them is leaving themselves open to potential legal trouble. Look at Google's Gemini, and the small print that accompanies it's advertisements. You'll see terms such as "All results for illustrative purposes" or "Check responses for accuracy". Thanks, Gemini! Instead of just googling something, I ask a chatbot, and then google it anyway, because the chatbot isn't really intelligent at all and may be telling me to eat rocks. Never mind that algorithmic abuse has rendered Google as a search tool almost unusable. Or look at the ChatGPT update fiasco. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

This article, by Cory Doctorow, though eighteen months old (a lifetime in tech), is worth a read, as it highlights just how unsustainable large AI models might prove to be, while also addressing the potentially positive outcome for the technology should the AI bubble burst.

Yet, presently I mostly use generative AI to help me build my backgrounds. Not just by writing a clever prompt. But mostly by using a photograph I made and ask the AI to create a background based on it in a certain pixel art style. And then use that as a basis to further edit it into something that fits in my game. Or I ask generative AI to make a nighttime version of a daytime background. So far I've managed to get a consistent enough style. And enough of myself in it to not make it feel as 'soulless' as Generative AI art often feels.

I would argue, looking at your examples, that AI is almost superfluous to your needs, though it may be saving you time. It seems like a case of removing a splinter with a samurai sword. The sword is sharp, and will likely remove your finger along with it, but it's quicker than poking at the splinter with a needle!

I'm not going to shout "No AI! Bad man!", though. If a quick result is the driving force behind your use of AI, as you've detailed your workflow, and despite Grok being trained on similarly questionable large datasets as Stable Diffusion or Midjourney, I'm not going to harangue you into not using it.

I will say that to achieve a similar style in a graphics package would likely require minimal extra work (a posterize filter, a little blurring, maybe a pixelize filter, some minor paint-overs, though maybe not even that), and provide a lot more control over the outcome, while removing the threat of inconsistency. If I was using Photoshop, say, I would create an automated action (run filter x, run blur, run filter y, etc), and simply apply the action to my photos, one by one. Fairly instant results, that cost an initial (minor?) expenditure of effort. But as I said, I'm not going to personally condemn you for doing otherwise.

I've not used it with having a picture as input, but I feel it'd be faster for me to just shrink down a photograph and pixel over it.

And this is the problem with a lot of AI; a false sense of time-saving. I think I've previously referenced (a number of times!) the case of the film editor who attempted to use Generative AI video in an experiment to judge just how it would measure up to a traditional editing pipeline. What they found was that, though AI could do some cool things, they needed to produce so many iterations (literally hundreds!) just to get something that was passably close to what they were trying to do, that any time gained over traditional time-sinks, was ultimately lost to new time-sinks inherent to AI. And this was just to get something passable!

[Zwiffer]

I would create an automated action (run filter x, run blur, run filter y, etc), and simply apply the action to my photos, one by one.

And that is the gist really. That is what you would do. For you it wouldn´t save time and give a sub par result. But since I´m presently not proficient enough with drawing software and I´m already investing a lot of learning time in learning to code in AGS and learning to create sprites and animations. The fact that I can make backgrounds relatively quickly to practise these new skills on is pretty great.

That said, I'm really enjoying creating my own characters and animations in Asesprite. So I can see myself taking that joy and knowlegde further into my backgrounds (with other drawing packs). I don't rule out the possibility that I will eventually redo all the backgrounds.

I'm really just a noob starting out. And the usage of AI for me is a huge kickstarter.