AI ART: Rebirth of the digital artist
16 hours, 107 layers, 92 adjustment layers, 7 podcast episodes, and 3 microwaved meals later, your masterpiece is finally complete. A stunning piece of digital concept art, rich with vibrant hues, dramatic lighting, immersive world-shaping atmosphere, and a backstory that would have J.R.R. Tolkien asking you for lessons. Yes, this was truly one of your best.
And an AI just did it in 40 seconds. With multiple versions. In multiple styles. And with no microwaved meals.
Even a brief venture into the world of AI-generated art can leave you stunned at the speed, accuracy, and variation of the images produced based on only a few words of input. For anyone with a career in digital art or imaging, shock would be a reasonable response. As would falling on the floor in the fetal position, cold-sweating your way through contemplation of a new and divergent career path.
But, does it have to be this way?
"AI is likely to be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity" -Stephen Hawking
Our Perceptions
Now, I don't think that Stephen Hawking was laboring away at at a supercomputer working on iterations of a new logo design for the Cambridge Black Holes Major League Eating club - I would imagine the implications he was suggesting had far more gravity (see what I did there?). Nevertheless, the point he made remains a poignant one - that we don't know the eventual outcome nor the extent of the application, or if you choose to more localize this thought experiment into the short-term: how you move forward with the reality of this technology is entirely a matter of chosen perception.
Will AI replace certain jobs or tasks currently performed by artists? Of course, that has already happened.
Will some businesses and/or consumers choose AI-created content instead of hiring a digital artist? Sure.
Can AI fully replace a human artist? Not yet, and maybe not ever.
Art is - to infinitely varying degrees - expressive, emotional, personal, nuanced, full of life, and intimately tied to the human experience. As you will see in a bit, some of these qualities and specificities are very difficult to produce with AI alone and remain still out of reach.
Photoshop's 'Select Subject' is a native AI-based tool for making automatic selections
AI is already a fundamental tool
Most of us are already using AI on a regular basis, and have been for an extended period of time. For example, if you have ever used Photoshop to select a subject or adjusted the tone automatically, you've employed native AI technology to do so. Used the sky replacement tool? AI. Content-aware fill? AI. Used fancy, one-click neural filters to make it look like you commissioned Van Gogh to paint your family portrait? AI, of course.
We see all of these examples simply as tools to produce our desired result, yet integrated as a step in the overarching process, they have much less of a dramatic effect on our psyche. This leads me to wonder - what are the applications for prompt-based AI imaging in our daily workflow? Here are some to consider:
Why not just use AI?
You may be thinking, "okay, so if it can do all of this, then what is the downside? Why not just use AI as a total replacement?" Well, let's play this out. You are creating an ad campaign for a brand of backpacks and need a lifestyle background image of happy kids on their way to the first day of school, and figure you'll just let the AI handle this one...
How about this lighthearted piece with a Frankenbus merging realities with a turn-of-the-century roadster? And just look at how happy those kids are - a couple of them even (sort of) have legs! And are those turtles?
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Yikes. How about something a bit more specific, like, Optimus Prime eating a cheeseburger.
Big improvement there, but I am not sure if he is giving the cheeseburger away, guarding it, or planning to eat it, and by the look of him, I'm not sure I want to ask to find out.
Okay, let's stay specific here and take something everyone is familiar with. My kids watch Full House all of the time, that seems like a good candidate. Do you like card games? What about a full house of Full House?
?? Full House of Horrors is more like it. Maybe that wasn't quite fair. We are going to stay with the theme but simplify. Something straightforward, like Danny Tanner in a tanning bed. Seems easy. What could possibly go wrong?
Run. Run fast. And don't look back.
What if we broaden the parameters to include a subject with far more available data, something with a longer & more celebrated history than even Danny Tanner. Say, something like The Beatles, but as characters from Fraggle Rock.
...Better. I definitely think I see George there, although something is obviously very wrong.
To be fair, we could get much closer to the mark by refining our prompts and creating ever-improving versions, the kind of refinement that is at the heart of the power of AI image generation. Even initial prompts can often generate gold. Like these of Darth Vader as a Power Ranger:
Where do we go from here?
Here is the great part - the answer to this question is entirely up to you. Despite how we feel about it, the technology isn't going away. I know I for one am excited for the future of AI technology, and at the same time, I am enjoying the heck out of what it is right now. Instead of pondering how this could be threatening, I have asked myself, "how can I use it as a companion, and are there ways I can use it as an opportunity to become better?"
I think it is important to remember that behind all AI programs there are people; people who had a vision for creating the software, who worked tirelessly to train that AI, people who are surely artists at their own craft. When we zoom out to a broader view, we see human ingenuity and creative expression at work.
So dive in, see what you can come up with, have fun with it, and let go of the fear that your human spirit can be replicated or replaced.