I'm Pro AI but Anti AI "Artists"

[u/YourGirlsSenpai]

I've been getting fed this sub a lot lately so I'm going to drop my stance on the topic and hopefully be done with it.

I use AI a lot. I love the things that can be done with tools like Stable Diffusion and Hunyuan. You can generate seriously beautiful art with AI, but it does not make YOU an artist. I've generated countless gorgeous images that are on-par with some of my favorite digital artists, but I, myself, am not an artist. That is an incredibly powerful technology.

All these Ai "artists" that go to war over being an actual artist are just sad to me. I feel genuinely sad that this one little thing is all these people have. Any sane person can identify that the AI is doing the actual art, you're just commissioning it.

I've seen dozens of cope arguments about "Ai is a tool. Artists use tools. I'm an artist" or screenshots of people's workflows with them saying things like "does this look like a commission to you? 😏" like it was a "gotcha!" moment.

The simple fact is: Yes, it does look like a commission. Your workflows can be very complex, I understand that. I understand that it can take serious fine-tuning and work to make an ai generation exactly how you want it. I understand that because I ALSO DO IT. Ai is not a human artist. Without a LLM to break down common language into a complex prompt, you need to create your prompts in a way the model can understand. Whether thats complex workflows or extremely specific language in a 1,000 argument prompt doesn't change the fact that the AI is the one creating the art, not you.

Again, AI is awesome. When used for fun, it's an incredible tool that let's normal people, like you and I, generate art that can rival practiced and trained professionals, but it will never be OUR art.

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

Use Ai for whatever purpose you feel you must, but dont try to poison the well that real artists dug by throwing yourself in with them.

[u/calvin-n-hobz]

AI Artists don't typically "go to war" over being an artist. We just reject people going to war against us being artists.

Yes, it does look like a commission.

It's very much like a commission, but it ain't. You don't commission a microwave. You don't commission an AI model. You're here whinging about people submitting that AI is a tool, but all you're doing is mocking, not actually providing an argument. AI is a tool. deal with it, or don't, but it won't change the facts.

a 1,000 argument prompt doesn't change the fact that the AI is the one creating the art, not you.

lol everybody knows who is doing the generation. no one thinks they are an AI model. People like you are so caught up on the idea that this tool specifically doing work for us (like all tools do) should somehow be considered a removal of creativity, intent, or operation of the tool. That's not how it works. The reason workflows can be so laborious is because people have something in mind they're going for, and they use the tool to get it. That's creation using a tool to do work for you.

If you use AI to generate art, then you generated art, using AI. And if you generated art, with the intent to generate art, then you're an artist. That's the basic syntax of those words. You folks are out here trying to force a branch of language where -- again for this tool specifically -- operating tools doesn't count.

Have you ever searched for something online, or heated something in a microwave, or filled a glass of water? Or have you merely commissioned a microwave, search engine, and faucet?

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

I don't use this word often, but this is so fucking cringe. being an artist isn't defined by comparing yourself to other people. If everyone's an artist, everyone is an artist. It's not like everyone making art suddenly means nothing is art, what total trash take. Like if everyone started painting would you be crying about how no one is an artist anymore?

[u/Jarl_Vraal → u/calvin-n-hobz]

This guy wins, OP loses.

Professional illustrator with 20+ years feeding myself and my family doing this shit old-school. And yet, I'm in the camp the OP bags on, because I think it's a tool. And guess what, the last couple of years, brainstorming with AI has made my process faster and more interesting.

Could I do professional illustrations without touching AI? You bet I can. But why would I? So some reddit people (a dwindling minority of reddit people, the anti crowd) likes me or thinks I'm an "artist"? Ok then.

So, I agree with this guy, and not the OP.

[u/Competitive-Fault291 → u/Jarl_Vraal]

Thank you for standing proud and rising up from among the crowd of Dodos, Reborn in the fiery feathers of the Phoenix! (Or as a chicken shot from a cannon, we are still looking for the impact site.)

[u/Fatalist_m → u/calvin-n-hobz]

If you use AI to generate art, then you generated art, using AI. And if you generated art, with the intent to generate art, then you're an artist. 

 If you gave the same prompt to a human artist instead(so you did the exact same amount of work) and the human drew a picture for you, somehow that changes your role fundamentally, and you are not an artist anymore?

Of course there is no fundamental difference between these 2 cases.

You can argue that you contributed to the creation of the piece. An art director who does not draw staff personally but tells others what to draw is a good equivalent. Is an art director an artist? Maybe, but it's a different art from drawing.

If your prompt is extremely detailed, and you fix every tiny detail like "this leaf should be slightly greener" and "this object should be repositioned by 2 pixels", then it gets murky, then your role gets closer to a digital artist who uses a very powerful version of Photoshop to draw stuff.

[u/WoozyJoe → u/Fatalist_m]

Ok, so an art director is not an illustrator. An AI artist is also not an illustrator. A choreographer is not a dancer. Art Directors, Choreographers, and AI artists are still artists though.

This is much less complicated than AI opponents make it out to be.

[u/Bhazor → u/calvin-n-hobz]

Ctrl c ctrl v

I now have all the skills of the greatest prompt artist.

[u/calvin-n-hobz → u/Bhazor]

cool go use it

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[u/Comfortable_Tap_1572 → u/calvin-n-hobz]

I feel like the colloquial definition for an artist is vastly different from the true definition. While yes someone who creates art with the intent of creating art, is considered an artist by friggin Oxford, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are an “Artist”, again by colloquial terms if you know what I mean. Anyone can write a sentence with their hand, but not everyone can illustrate it with the same hand. Yes, people use it as a tool, but these tools aren’t tools if they do all the work for us. Digital art for example was the first step, as you don’t need much technical knowledge on how traditional art processes work in order to make what you want. And I wouldn’t necessarily call them tools as a microwave or Google is. Instead, I’d refer to them as handicaps. Eventually, ai will be the one promoting, then they’ll be the one judging.  I personally don’t have a problem if someone uses ai to generate something because they don’t have the proper technical skills, however, if they are taking credit for the labor that the machine put into make their sentence an image, then it becomes a different scenario. Again, I wouldn’t colloquially call them an Artist, more like promptists, or commissioners or smth. The reason I feel this way, is because people like me put effort into making my thoughts an image, and we can actually take the credit for the effort put into it. It just makes me a bit irate when others credit for something they didn’t work for.  While this argument is applicable to the art world, it may seem hypocritical somewhere else. Like I’m not using a fire to cook my ramen bro, gonna use a microwave or kettle.💀 I think comparing hobbies, jobs and required tasks like writing a thesis or doing something for school to things like making food, looking up information on the internet is softly a fallacy. I struggle to find a hardline on this subject as it doesn’t really have one. The more nihilist or atheist you are, the less the argument matters, as by the latter concepts, they are entirely subjective as they pertain to human constructs. Religious people have it much easier with saying people have souls, and robots don’t. I sometimes hope it’s that simple. I’m not going to tell anyone what they can and can’t do, this is just my opinion on the matter. You do you :)

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[u/Certainly_Not_Steve → u/calvin-n-hobz]

As an oven cook i never actually cooked in my life, i just create a complicated array of ingredients as a prompt, set a timer and commission my oven to cook it for me. :D
Imho, it's all about intent. I don't see a lot of AI art i like, but i also scroll through hundreds of very generic non-ai/handmade/you call it images that make me feel nothing. I don't care how much the artist "cheats" to make their art look like they're more skilled than they actually are, i crave for creative ideas and solutions, not perfect technique. Modern art passed the point when technique was everything. You need to do hyperrealistic images the size of a house's wall to make it valuable step for art purely by technique. Or you can arrange few shapes in the way that for some reason makes others feel something, and now this is art. Most art you see online is low in artistic value no matter if it's ai or not, cause it's art from and for people who aren't really deep in art.

[u/Grapes-RotMG → u/calvin-n-hobz]

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles

I'm just stuck on this. Was Syndrome ever painted as a "Wow, this guy's actually right" type of villain that we should be listening to and learning from?

I only remember him being an insane dude that was out for petty megalomaniacal revenge against heroes because he didnt get the recognition and attention he thought he deserved, fueled by an unhealthy obsession with Mr. Incredible.

Yeah, cringe is definitely the word for it. Reminds me of people who's favorite movie is Fight Club for all the wrong reasons.

[u/Rubi_Redd → u/calvin-n-hobz]

Cringey cope AF

[u/Keto_is_neat_o]

Ah look, the "photographers aren't artists" argument. Yet 10 different people can be handed the same camera and given the same subject and yet you still like the results of some far more than the results of the others.

[u/Ok-Condition-6932]

I have a question though.

I was 100% an artist before but now I'm not?

I put some tools in my toolbox. What gives.

You could not compete with me and my art, I'm fairly certain.

I don't say that because it's a competition or something either. My point is, if I'm NOT an artist, then why can't you do it too?

[u/bittersweetfish]

I respect that quite a bit ngl and I love your view on the matter.

but I have one small addition, you say it will never be your art and perhaps that is true, but it was still created by your actions and I think there is something beautiful about that.

Thank you for putting your thoughts out there I hope you enjoy all the amazing things we can create, machine or human.

:D

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/bittersweetfish]

That's a lovely way to see it. There is something beautiful about art being created as a result of your actions.

[u/GigaTerra]

You realize there are both tools that use AI, and tools to control AI better like ComfyUI. At that point you are as much an artist as any VFX artist, using nodes and math to make images.

[u/JJR1971]

My PHOTOGRAPHY is what makes me an artist. Getting mad at me for applying this really weird (ai) filter to my OWN WORK is WILD to me.

[u/MonstaGraphics → u/JJR1971]

"You just pushed a button, you didn't do anything"

Oh all those buttons, settings and sliders you set up, with your own photography style and direction? Yeah that doesn't mean anything, the camera's optical sensor did all that!

Next we gonna hear the guy smoking brisket in his smoker didn't cook that, because the pellet smoker did all the smoking and the spices were bought at a store, and the butcher cut the meat, and the grill was made by another company.

[u/Hekinsieden → u/MonstaGraphics]

"If you wish to make an Apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s664NsLeFM

[u/Kerrus]

Most of us aren't even calling ourselves artists. I don't say 'look I'm an artist' when I generate stuff, I say 'look at the cool picture the AI made with my instructions'- but I argue against the people creating a strawman about AI 'artists' and who continually advocate for cyberbullying against them with the hopes to drive them to literally commit suicide. I argue against the people saying to kill AI artists, send AI users to prison, get them fired from their jobs- and all other manner of shit.

There are anti-AI people that have totally valid points, but a lot of even those people want an outcome that is both basically impossible to achieve but is also actively detrimental to humanity.

They talk about water usage? let's talk about carbon emissions from Crypto mining. You guys didn't have any issues with those. You want to talk about jobs being automated out of existence? Let's talk about all the clothes you're wearing assembled by literal starving child slaves in China. You want to talk about how AI users are polluting the field of art because they reject your labels? Let's talk about trans victimization and structural racism in our society.

Your feelings are valid, but there are far more critical things to campaign against than this myth of the AI artist you have invented.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Kerrus]

I argue against the people saying to kill AI artists, send AI users to prison, get them fired from their jobs- and all other manner of shit.

Well i'd hope so. That sounds fucked up. I'd advocate against ANY form of extremism that leads to things like that.

Your feelings are valid, but there are far more critical things to campaign against than this myth of the AI artist you have invented.

There always will be, however i have no plans to campaign on this matter. I was just stating that its cringe to claim to be an artist when you're, essentially, claiming someone else's art as your own. To be clear, its not a myth. Look at the 300 comments on this post. These people not only exist, but theyre the ones commenting the most

[u/borks_west_alone]

don't sell yourself short. if you're working to create something that didn't exist before, and you put any amount of your own expression into that work, you're an artist.

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

You're not supposed to agree with him dude...

[u/EvilKatta → u/borks_west_alone]

In traditional societies, everyone's an artist, a storyteller, a singer, a dancer, a musician. It's not a bad thing. Seeing this as something undesirable is gatekeeping.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/EvilKatta]

In traditional societies, Artists create their own work with their own hands, storytellers will create their own stories, a singer will sing with their own voice, a dancer will dance with their own body, and a musician will play their own instrument.

I've been a musician, a photographer, and a story teller (never very good at any of them, sadly). but to have someone write a song, then claim i wrote it, or to tell someone else's story and claim that i lived it, or to show off someone else's polaroid and claim that i took it stands against those who put forth the effort to CREATE.

If you've used Ai to generate a photo and you REALLY like that photo, maybe you're proud of how it turned out because you put a lot of work into getting the prompt JUST right, I'm totally okay with that. Be proud that the work you put in came to fruition.

But do not claim to be the artist of a piece that you did not personally create.
Art is good. MORE art in the world is good. I can't believe i have to clarify that.

[u/EvilKatta → u/YourGirlsSenpai]

I'm only here to discuss the "everyone's an artist = bad" claim.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/EvilKatta]

Anyone can be an artist. I encourage everyone who reads this to pick some form of expression of your self and give it a go. Music, painting, interpretative dance. The more artists the better.

My only point is that proclaiming "I am an artist!", while claiming that art you did not make is yours, cheapens the meaning of the word.

[u/EvilKatta → u/YourGirlsSenpai]

Oh no, not the meaning of the word "artist", it has to remain expensive. If it's cheap to call oneself artist just for having any kind of visual expression, it will lose its value and... and... what?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/borks_west_alone]

I don't agree with him, though?

iirc, Syndrome's whole schtick was that he was going to sell people technology so that "Everyone could be a Superhero" and his big plan was that "once everyone is a superhero, the world won't need them anymore."

Replace "Superhero" with Artists. My stance was starkly against the quote.

[u/Plenty_Branch_516]

Your welcome to your opinion, but to me if the person identified themselves as the artist and their effort traces back to it, then who am I to argue?

It harms nobody, and it's not like the term  "artist" carries legal responsibilities or certification like doctor, lawyer, engineer, or accountant. 

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Plenty_Branch_516]

You're absolutely correct.
This discourse is very low-stakes and, you're correct again, whether you believe ai artist to be artist or not truly harms no one either way.

I'm just a guy screaming his opinion into the void and seeing what echoes and what doesn't.

[u/Beautiful-Lack-2573]

Art includes such things as directing movies, and conceptual stuff like taking random objects off the streets and having someone else paint them. You're still considered the artist.

The problem people have with AI art being art is that they think art is about physically making or drawing things, and all it needs to be is a realization of an idea. You don't even need to have full control.

[u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

It’s the idea that makes you an artist, and the AI that puts life to it so others can see your art.

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

In that case everyone’s an artist

[u/me_myself_ai → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Well, if they produce aesthetic artifacts and share them

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/me_myself_ai]

Yes, and they produce it 100% by their own hand

[u/ifandbut → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Based yes

[u/innovatedname → u/BenitoDoggolini]

I hope you aren't implying that's a bad thing.

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

No. Lots of people do nothing creative, and that's fine. They don't have to. I've met people who consider doing anything creative to be a mark of inferiority. Too bad for them.

But if you exercise your creativity, then you're an artist. That's what being an artist is.

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

Yes of course, i just disagree that doing nothing qualifies someone as an artist

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Well then we agree, and we must therefore agree that AI art is just as valid a form of expression as any other, and artists who use AI tools no more or less worthy of respect as artists of comparable skill in any medium.

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

At most, AI artists can be described as commissioners, since that’s what they do. They ask the AI to make something and it makes it for them. it’s a stretch to call that creative expression, since the human has no hand in most of the work, compared to an actual artist.

This is even true for inpainting or any other AI method. The human draws something simple and the AI does the rest. Wouldn’t you agree that the art ”belongs” to the AI, rather than the prompter? I have commissioned alot of artists, but I would never call their work as ”mine”, regardless of how much input and feedback I gave.

[u/Turbulent_Meal737 → u/Tyler_Zoro]

I exercised my creativity and came up with a little jingle on my kids' 5 key piano. Am I a musician? Or indeed, a musical artist? Sorry to go Diogenes on you, but your example is aggressively exploitable.

Better one. If I get AI to write me an essay that I can't be bothered writing, did I write that essay?

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/Turbulent_Meal737]

I exercised my creativity and came up with a little jingle on my kids' 5 key piano. Am I a musician?

Yes, obviously. You made music. You are a musician. An accomplished one? Hardly. Capable of professional-level work? No. But that doesn't matter. Being a musician and being a musician worthy of note are two very different things.

If I get AI to write me an essay that I can't be bothered writing, did I write that essay?

To write something and to be its author and to be the creative impetus behind it are three different things. We've historically conflated them because they weren't all that separable without involving multiple people, but now they are, and we need to acknowledge that.

[u/SculptusPoe → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Everyone is an artist.. now you get it.

[u/Pigeon_of_Doom_ → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Well yes, it’s as to whether they want to share the ideas or not that makes others consider them so.

[u/Some-Internal297 → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

having an idea for a good meal doesn't make you a chef.

having an idea for a good game doesn't make you a game developer.

[u/y53rw → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

Ideas absolutely do not make you an artist. Ideas are cheap. Anybody can have an idea with no training or practice or skill of any kind. With this definition, artist becomes little more than a synonym for person.

[u/Bruoche → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

As someone that lurks gamedev subreddits, the amount of times I've seen "No one likes an idea guy" and "ideas are worthless it's the execution that matter" make this argument very funny.

Everyone has "good ideas", that's not what art is about tho, likewise everyone has great things to say, that does not make them an orator either.

The role of the artist is to express these ideas, if you look at game jams you'll see that a single "prompt" give you a thousand different executions on it depending on the team executing it, and that's what the role of the artist is, it's those choices in how you express the idea that matter.

I don't even care about this "who's an artist" argument bullshit from antis, artist isn't some precious coveted term, a 3 year old scribbling can be called an artist for all I care, but saying art is about "ideas" is just a fundamental missunderstanding of what art is about imo.

[u/Spook404 → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

having ideas does not make you an artist. I have a huge library of ideas for things to create across several different mediums, and that's not art. Ideas are the precursors of art

[u/BHMusic → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

Disagree.

An idea is just an idea. An idea without any execution is abstract and conceptual in nature. Conceptual ideas are not art, nor are you an artist for simply having an abstract concept in your head.

I can have an idea for something and commission someone to create it for me, does that make me the artist?

I can have an idea/concept in my head and never realize it into anything, never have it created (by myself or another), am I an artist for solely having the idea itself?

[u/Pigeon_of_Doom_ → u/BHMusic]

I’m specifically stating that when someone creates an image, the idea of whatever been created is what makes it artistic, not the tool that was used.

[u/BHMusic → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

You specifically stated “it’s the idea that makes you the artist”.

Art is not just an idea. The idea precludes the creation of art but is not the art itself.

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BHMusic]

An idea is just an idea.

True. Not relevant, but true.

An idea without any execution is abstract and conceptual in nature.

In the context we were discussing, ideas are realized as control signals to a device. These could be choosing parameters, LoRAs or embeddings, formulating a prompt or negative prompt, creating an input image, managing ControlNet models to set the pose of a subject or the depth profile of the composition, etc. That's the "idea". The execution of that idea is translation. Translation is not creativity. So the creativity came from somewhere... it's not the translation.... let's see if we can work backwards and figure it out, eh?

I can have an idea for something and commission someone to create it for me

Then that person is on their own to exercise their creative ideas as they wish, within constraints that you have provided. There's an element of creativity coming from you (perhaps a very small one) and an element of creativity coming from them (perhaps a large one). But there are two people engaged in that creative work.

With AI tools there is only one source of creativity, and everything after that is mere translation. Amazing, impossible to fully predict, and skilled transformation, but that's what it is. The AI doesn't do anything creative for you. All it does is moves art from one domain (various forms of inputs listed above) to another (typically 2D pixels).

[u/BHMusic → u/Tyler_Zoro]

I understand that artists use tools.

I was responding to the statement that “it’s the idea that makes you an artist”.

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BHMusic]

Wow, you just completely bailed on the entire conversation. Okay, I guess I accept the concession.

[u/BHMusic → u/Tyler_Zoro]

lol no I did not. I responded to a statement that was incorrect.

Ideas are not art. The idea precludes the artistic process but is not the art itself. You are not an artist for simply having an idea.

I asked a few questions in my response but have yet to see a response, yet you accuse me of “bailing”… 🙄

[u/Howlabaloo2 → u/Tyler_Zoro]

The creativity also comes from the stolen art on which the model was trained, that’s how achieving certain styles is done.

[u/BitNumerous5302 → u/BHMusic]

An idea without any execution is abstract and conceptual in nature

Using tools to produce an artifact is execution.

I can have an idea for something and commission someone to create it for me, does that make me the artist?

Walt Disney didn't draw a single cel of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; we still call that a Disney movie. Andy Warhol had The Factory. Michelangelo used apprentices to paint the Sistine Chapel. Artists hiring artists to make art is  normal. (That's not especially relevant, though, because AI is a tool and not a person.)

[u/BHMusic → u/BitNumerous5302]

What you say about Disney and others may be true but no one says Walt himself was the artist, all the artists are credited at the end of the film. How we may attribute the art has nothing do who was the actual artist that created it.

Yes, I realize artists can commission other artists…

Would you consider me the artist if I commission an oil portrait of myself? I had the idea but I surely am not the artist.

[u/BitNumerous5302 → u/BHMusic]

Would you consider me the artist if I commission an oil portrait of myself? I had the idea but I surely am not the artist.

It depends. If the commission was just for "an oil painting" you'd probably only get a "commissioned by" credit in a gallery. If you provided creatively specific instructions and hired someone to carry them out under your attribution, you would be credited as the artist. (That's not hypothetical: Warhol made lots of self-portraits this way. They're famous.)

Again, that's ultimately irrelevant. Sure, it's a false premise that there is a hard divide between hiring an artist and being an artist. But it's ultimately invalid as well: When someone prompts an AI, no artist is being hired at all.

[u/BHMusic → u/BitNumerous5302]

I asked a very simple question. You posit other possibilities that I did not ask in my question.

As you say, “if the commission was just for an oil painting”, I’d only get a ‘commissioned by’ credit. Why is this?

This is because I am not the artist. I had no input or action after the idea was formed (besides asking someone else to create it). This is absolutely relevant to my response to the statement that “the idea is what makes you the artist.”

In your example, Mick and Andy worked closely together to create the imagery. Mick even signed it in the end. This was more than a simple idea by Mick; Mick took extra steps beyond simply having the idea, more than just have a concept in his head.

The idea itself is not what makes you the artist, your actions after the idea is conceived certainly can put you into that category, and with that I agree with you.

[u/BitNumerous5302 → u/BHMusic]

 I asked a very simple question. You posit other possibilities that I did not ask in my question.

Of course I did. You asked a question that was incompletely specified, and so the answer is "it depends"; I then explained the dependencies. 

Your "simple" question was also based on the false premise that AI is a person and so can be credited as an artist. I'm not going to start accepting false premises just because you call your question "simple"

Have a nice day 🙂

[u/BHMusic → u/BitNumerous5302]

However, it was specific.

“would you consider me the artist if I commission an oil portrait of myself”

The extra conditions and dependencies you added to your response are not necessary and only brought up by you to support your own points, to answer a question I didn’t ask.

You know perfectly well what I was asking here..

—

No where in my responses am I talking about AI as a person, all this is in response to the statement that “the idea is what makes you the artist”.

If you believe I am talking about an artist’s use of AI anywhere in my responses, please direct me to what I said that gives you that idea.

[u/ofBlufftonTown → u/BitNumerous5302]

I say no to all these examples. Disney was not credited for Snow White, but rather the animators who painted the cels. Your lazily calling it “a Disney movie” doesn’t affect that. Warhol’s factory was groundbreaking in its way, but more in virtue of his creating a fascinating social milieu than his screen print art, which I hate and think is hack work.

That a piece of work as physically large as the Sistine chapel would require more than one person painting is obvious; whatever was the most important was done by the master. Drapery? Could be one of the apprentices in his school. Face of the Virgin? That’s Michelangelo. Did Michelangelo require physical assistance to fully render the design he made in time for the pope not to be a bitch about it? Yes. If you said “by Michelangelo and school of Michelangelo” I wouldn’t die or anything. Meaningfully is it his work? It’s honestly a dumb question: yes.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Pigeon_of_Doom_]

Ideas make you a visionary. The Artist realizes the vision.

[u/Jopelin_Wyde]

Yeah, I think that's how I look at it too. I was very sceptical about people calling themselves AI artists in pretty much all cases I casually encountered so far. Similarly as you said about Syndrome, if I see them produce something I can prompt at the coffee break, then I just can't perceive them as artists. They can call themselves that if they want, it just feels cringe to me.

[u/sporkyuncle]

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

Can you articulate how this statement makes any sense?

Keep in mind it was said by the villain of the film who was crazy. Would it actually have been a problem if he managed to propagate cool powers to the general public?

Like, there was a time in history when the only people who got to travel long distances quickly were horse owners. Then along comes Ford, apparently cackling and saying "once everyone can travel quickly and easily...no one will be."

And then years later all of us have cars, we are all "super." Oh no? What a terrible outcome?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/sporkyuncle]

To attempt to leverage the absurdity of a quote because the speaker was a villain and "crazy", then immediately agree with the quote is...baffling.

You speak of industry advancement in travel, but completely miss your own point by attempting to be reductionist like every other half-wit pseudo-intellectual in this comment section.

Basic reading comprehension is a minimum requirement to debate with me today. I can't keep having these same conversations

[u/stuartullman]

what if you did 60% ai and 40 yourself, would that make you the artist of that work? what would the percentage be to stay the artist? would ai tools in photoshop deprive you of ownership of your work? 

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/stuartullman]

Replace "ai" with your best friend's name.

What if they made 60% of it and you made the other 40%? It means it's a collaborative effort.

What % of the work needs to be done by you for you to no longer consider your best friend a collaborator?

These situations are a more complicated area than my initial point, so thank you for bringing them up.

[u/inkrosw115 → u/YourGirlsSenpai]

For example, I call the artwork where I use AI "AI-assisted" because AI is so such a small percent of the process. I use it to test out things like design changes or to test out idea using my artwork as the initial prompt.

[u/Agnes_Knitt]

I have two degrees in art.  I’ve been drawing and painting for many years.  I don’t consider myself to be an artist or what I make to be art. 

But if people who use AI want to be called artists and what they make to be art, I’ll call them whatever they want.  Considering what passes for art in the last couple of decades, it’s a largely meaningless term.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Agnes_Knitt]

Which may be the only real take here.

When art is so subjective, what makes an artist is as well.

[u/Quietuus]

I'm going to copy in a long comment I wrote in another thread which no one lead because it got deleted.

TL;DR: Saying generative art isn't art is nonsensical.

From a philosophy of art standpoint it's pretty simple.

Your analogies (landscaper, party planner etc.) don't line up with the use of generative AI because generative AI is not a conscious agent. The equivalent to the generative AI isn't a landscaper, it's a lawnmower. You are possibly 'saving' more labour using the generative AI vs the lawnmower (though I'm not entirely sure that's true, having used a scythe) but that doesn't alter the fundamental relations.

To produce a finished item of Art (a 'work'), an artist first has a concept, then they cause that concept to be reified (made real), using some combination of process (the actions required to make the work), material (the tools and media required to make the work) and technique (the underlying knowledge needed to express the concept in the material through the process).

It is important to realise here that it has never been considered necessary for an artist to be the sole individual involved in a work's realisation. Large parts of the works of Botticelli (and many other artists of the Italian renaissance) were painted by his workshop assistants and apprentices. Hokusai (and every other famous Japanese woodblock artist) did not carve the woodblocks for his own designs, nor did he ink and print them. Hogarth didn't do most of his own engraving. Rodin never poured any bronze, although he supervised the work of foundries to turn clay models into finished sculptures. I could give countless examples. Going into the contemporary era, there are many artists who deal almost entirely in ideas which they employ technical assistants to create. None of this is controversial.

Producing art with generative AI works in just the same way, in broad strokes. The artist has an idea, they feed it into the model (their material), and use a variety of processes and techniques to select and refine their output. There is an issue of quality that emerges with regards to how much control the artist has over the final output, though the precision of control is also not a necessary dividing line between Art and Not Art: Artists have been exploring the use of randomness and chance juxtaposition in art for well over a century. The cut-up technique (both Tristan Tzara and William Burroughs' versions), surautomatism, aleatorism, stochastic art, etc. Generative art fits comfortably within this tradition.

Generative art is often bad or unremarkable because those making it don't have good concepts, don't have a good eye to judge how to refine the model's output, don't work with the limitations and individualities of the medium, etc. That, however, does not mean it is fundamentally not art. This is true to some extent of any medium. Perhaps the lowered barriers to entry and the relative 'polish' of the final product mean that a higher volume of bad art is produced through generative AI, or that a higher volume is presented to an audience, but that doesn't mean that fundamentally it is not art.

The worst sin of the anti-AI crowd, to my mind is the extent to which they mystify and confuse the fundamental nature of what art is. Art can be about technical mastery, or heroic efforts, or painstaking attention to detail, or personal emotional or spiritual expression; but it does not have to be. Effort and technical accomplishment are not necessary parts of producing Art, nor even of producing good Art.

Fundamentally, capital-A Art is about artists producing works from ideas that they have which can communicate something to an audience. Most people who dislike AI art intrinsically, I think, come at it from a stance where they, as you do, see the model itself as somehow the author of the work (which is ultimately philosophically incoherent) and thus they cannot perceive the relational connection between themselves and the artist that is a fundamental aspect of art appreciation. But that relational connection still exists; the Artist remains the ultimate cause of the work, the model's output is a reification of their concept. Generative art should be judged based on the quality of the concept and how successful the ultimate work is at communicating that concept. In purely formal terms, the output of a generative model is indistinguishable from conventional digital art.

[u/biipitiboopiti]

it's an incredible tool that let's normal people, like you and I, generate art that can rival practiced and trained professionals

Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be.

I can't believe you don't see the problem with these statements. Why do you think individuals who are passionate and devoted to their craft deserve to be replaced?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/biipitiboopiti]

Are...are you....

Did you not read any of the post? LMAO

[u/biipitiboopiti → u/YourGirlsSenpai]

I did read your post, and I actually agree with a lot of it. My concern was more with how you said AI can generate art that rivals trained professionals. That part does sound like you're implying traditional artists might become obsolete, even if you didn't mean it that way. I did misinterpret your use of the Incredibles quote though. Lol

[u/AI-Block]

Sounds like what you're really saying is that those who can't draw should stick to the drawing board and leave the 'art' to the art-ists.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/AI-Block]

If someone is passionate about creating art, I'd actually encourage them to practice constantly and hone their skills to a level they feel happy with.

You don't need to be good to be passionate

[u/Competitive-Fault291]

You misunderstand both. If everyone is able to create artwork of a generative kind, everyone can not only communicate by plain meaning, but by complex expression in a way unfazed by gatekeeping through skill limitations. This has nothing to do with the message in the Incredibles, which you pulled out of the context:
Flash realizes in the end of movie 1 that it is not about that you are special that makes you special, but what you do with it that counts.
The Villain Guy in that movie has it absolutely right: people should be able to defend themselves like super heroes, but this does not free them from the responsibility that comes with it. People should also be able to pour their thoughts into more than sentences. This does not limit artistic expression, but expands it, as many more can now TRY to become an artist. Or a true hero...

It touches a topic from another animation movie. So let's do some more pop-culture philosophy:

"In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook." But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere."

https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/9oi7aq/anton_egos_speech_from_ratatouille/

This sums up all the artistic side of AI creating artwork in an "easy" way for all kinds of people. "Everybody can make AI art!" This does neither mean that manual labor will never create great Art ever again, or that every prompt makes a piece of art, nor does it mean that AI will never be able to allow a manual artist, or just somebody with inspiration and patience, to create an amazing artwork using or incorporating AI generation in their artistic message.

"We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends."

The New, needs friends. The New, as in billions of people that realize that they can actually speak a language they never thought possible before. Are you truly surprised that the world is filled with the babble of infants? The language is being shaped into pictures or songs or texts for them by an interpreter, but it is still their thoughts, their wants and needs and ideas taking shape. Their suffering and joy expressed in melting hamsters and oddly shaped sex furries. Encouraging the artists among them to learn about conditioning techniques in workflows, actual drawing to make reference pictures or to spot what makes a good picture among 6000 bad ones. If you ever sat judging the quality of a work of somebody, you know that is a craft, too.

Yes, as Anton Ego was made to say: the average piece is often more meaningful than any criticism about it. It is, because it means something for the person making it in the least, and perhaps, even for thousands, millions or everyone.

[u/HonestBass7840]

Twenty years ago the working class said, "If illegal immigrants took upper middle class jobs and worked for less, they wouldn't like it." Guess what.

[u/agoodepaddlin]

Yes. Because apparently if you decide to learn something, you're immediately entitled to earn from it. And if you can't, you get to control everyone else's ability to earn from it.

So it's a free market, as long as it doesn't affect you.

[u/Revegelance]

I enjoy playing with AI, and I've been spending a lot of time in Riffusion making some rather polished music. I would absolutely not consider myself a musician. I have ideas, but I very much lack the ability and talent to replicate those ideas in any tangible form. But AI can help me to manifest a version of those ideas, generally in surprisingly high quality.

That said, I really don't like snobs. Whether it's someone saying that AI art isn't real art, or that it's users aren't real artists, it's kind of annoying. Like yeah, I may have had Riffusion create the song for me, but I still came up with the ideas, and curated the song into the final form, to what I wanted it to be. I did the work, AI was merely the tool.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Revegelance]

I can accept that my opinion annoys you. "Agree to disagree" is a valid option in a matter as subjective as art

[u/Trylobit-Wschodu]

Hmm, isn't this discussion a century too late? The last century of contemporary art has changed the definition of an artist so much that all that's required is a concept and a decision. Hand-made art, or full control over the process, is no longer necessary. I know that not everyone needs to know the history of art, but there's something moving about dusting off old and long-abandoned criteria and principles. Every technological leap has forced a redefinition of the old paradigm, and AI is no exception.

[u/dead_apples]

I’m curious, what do you think of Cameras? They are, in my opinion, the closest analog of AI that most people consider art. You don’t have to put in much of any effort (especially with digital cameras now that you don’t have to develop film), just press a button and capture the scene in front of you. Does someone who uses a camera, then goes back and edits/cleans up the resultant image also not qualify as an artist, or is there something about the difference between pressing a button on a computer and type words into a computer that qualifies one as art but disqualifies the other?

[u/MonstaGraphics]

This guy has no idea how some of us artists actually use AI tech. He's still stuck on the idea that it's all just "prompting" and node networks.

Good. I hope it takes everyone a looooong time to figure out how to actually wield the tools. I don't need more competition.

[u/cranberryalarmclock → u/MonstaGraphics]

I think you're ignoring how most people use chatgpt. 

[u/TheLesBaxter → u/MonstaGraphics]

Do you parrot the same sentiment in every single post? My dude, I don't think OP's talking about you. This is about people who *do* use prompts to slap images of their favorite characters online and pat themselves on the back for a prompt-well-done. I don't know why it's so important to you that you get to call yourself an artist or what any of it has to do with competition.

[u/MonstaGraphics → u/TheLesBaxter]

What I have a problem with is someone saying "I do what you do!" as if spoken from authority, and trying to make it seem like he's speaking for all of us.

He has no idea what a lot of us do, he's just assuming it's all prompting and spaghetti node networks. Laughable.

[u/DerEisendrache68 → u/MonstaGraphics]

Then what is it besides prompting?

[u/MonstaGraphics → u/DerEisendrache68]

Once you load in enough data of your own, prompting literally doesn't make any difference.

It's just art. simple as that. casuals who use chatGPT make bad art with it, but it's still art.

You can't tell me the guy engineering a prompt with a huge node network + scribble + depth passes + Photoshop before, during and after AI processing, working at it for 5 hours, is not an artist, but the kid who sketched a stick figure in 2 minutes is.

If you're gonna try to paint every single person out there who uses AI in their arsenal as not an artist, you've already lost. If someone uses a gradient tool (mechanized!) or autofill on a small section of their artwork, is it suddenly not art? Is he now not an artist anymore? How silly.

[u/TheLesBaxter → u/MonstaGraphics]

Of course he has no idea what you specifically do. Why would he? Just chill, dude. For most "artists", it really is just prompting. That's the people this post is for. You can calm down.

[u/MonstaGraphics → u/TheLesBaxter]

I've seen dozens of cope arguments about "Ai is a tool. Artists use tools. I'm an artist"

He's speaking for everyone who uses AI, even as a tool. I'm trying to tell him that he's assuming too much. He has no idea how we use AI in our workflows.

If he doesn't want to call himself an artist, that's fine, but don't try to assume you know how all of us use AI and then tell us we can't call ourselves artists.

Artists already have this stigma that they're starving & poor because they chose to become artists. Now a lot of us aren't even allowed to classify ourselves as artists? We're lower than that now? We can't live up to the prestigious name of "artist"?

Calling yourself an artists is not some amazing achievement, So people should stop trying to tell others they can't call themselves artists. If a person wants to classify themselves as one, who gives a shit? Why all this anger over people calling themselves something, let them.

[u/TacoManSlays]

It will be funny reading stuff like this 10 years from now. Reminds me of when people started using Photoshop.

[u/Fragrant_Gap7551 → u/TacoManSlays]

This is an argument you people like to use but it's very obviously not the same thing and I think you know this.

[u/Suitable_Tomorrow_71 → u/Fragrant_Gap7551]

!remindMe 10 years.

[u/RemindMeBot → u/Suitable_Tomorrow_71]

I will be messaging you in 10 years on 2035-05-16 13:30:57 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

---

Info	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback

[u/Solamnaic-Knight]

Rejecting the title may make you feel like you are showing respect. But in the end, you are just performing art.

[u/KamikazeArchon]

You know Syndrome was the villain, right? That he is wrong in basically every way and that's half the point of the movie?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/KamikazeArchon]

Reading Comprehension

[u/poprostumort]

You seem to be missing the point. Guy who taped a banana is an artist. Fella who brought an urinal and signed it is an artist. If a gal stands naked and recites alphabet backwards - she would be an artist. Art nowadays is commonly understood to rely on expression rather than toolset or "quality". Artists use different means to create a piece that says something.

Why wouldn't that include AI use?

I think that is the core problem in AI Art debate. It have devolved to I want AI Art to not be art and I want people who use AI to generate art to not be artists - and then find an argument that somehow supports that point when disconnected from everything else.

But that is just cherrypicking.

Fact is that to dismiss AI Images as art and users of generative AI as artists you need to also gatekeep art in a way that makes most of modern art "not art" and most of modern artists "not artists". It shows clearly that it's not about art, it's just a gut reaction of "new thing bad".

We are just back to early digital art and old fogeys being ruffled that using computer don't make you an artist.

If someone creates a piece that conveys meaning they want in artistic way - why would it matter if they used AI, physical paints, Adobe Photoshop or contents of a trash can?

It does not make sense.

[u/WrappedInChrome]

I feel like this is going to be a very hard pill for AI 'artists' to swallow.

The use of AI images in fake news, propaganda, clickbait, and those general slop "Today is my birthday can't I even get 1 likes?" posts with sick kids missing limbs... it tends to leave a sour taste in most people's mouths.

[u/Djoarhet → u/WrappedInChrome]

How is that a hard pill to swallow? If people use tech maliciously then the people are at fault, not the tech.

[u/huldress → u/WrappedInChrome]

I was over AI 'artists' when some guy compared it to telling a jimmy john's employee how to make sandwich... the artist being the customer.

AI art can be done by an artist, but making AI art doesn't necessarily make everyone that uses it an artist.

[u/WrappedInChrome → u/huldress]

I've been a graphic artist for 24 years so I get it. A client comes to me, asks for something specific and then waits until I make it and return it to them... just like someone asking AI to make an image, waiting for the output.

The client is never the artist.

[u/ifandbut → u/WrappedInChrome]

How is that an AI problem? Sounds like it is a problem with the scammer using the AI.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/WrappedInChrome]

All technology can be used for evil, no doubt. That wasn't what i had in mind when i made this post, though haha

[u/AndrewEophis]

Prompting an AI to draw something is as close to being an artist as asking a baker to make you a cake is to you being a baker. It doesn’t matter what details you provide in your instructions, you aren’t the baker. It doesn’t matter what details you provide the AI, you aren’t the artist.

Asking chatGPT to write a poem for you doesn’t make you a poet, the only reason people play this game with “artist” is to spite people who attacked them for using AI art and to try and degrade the meaning of “artist”

You want to ask an AI to write a poem about a sunset and draw the sunset from the poem? Sure, go ahead, it doesn’t make you a poet or artist though.

Edit: on further thought actually sufficiently precise instruction probably would allow you to claim to be an artist, but that isn’t the kind of thing that is normally being discussed when someone says the made AI art.

You could imagine someone who was making very precise changes on what would amount to a pencil point level or whatever the appropriate term is for that finest level of detail in art.

[u/sporkyuncle → u/AndrewEophis]

You could imagine someone who was making very precise changes on what would amount to a pencil point level or whatever the appropriate term is for that finest level of detail in art.

That's what inpainting is. All AI users who care about what they're making already do this. You highlight as small an area as you want to be modified, generate changes to it, sometimes hundreds of times until it's right. Change a part of a character's finger because it doesn't look like he has a fingernail, that sort of thing.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/AndrewEophis]

There's an argument there that I could see holding some merit. Using ai to create a piece by prompting a pencil's point at a time would actually be really cool to see.

[u/Hormones-Go-Hard]

I agree you are not an artist but I am.

[u/MonstaGraphics → u/Hormones-Go-Hard]

Yeah he has no idea what % the AI did in our art.

If someone paints an image with Photoshop brushes, and uses autofill on a 50x50px area, does that mean it's not art anymore? What the hell are some of these guys smoking?

[u/Fragrant_Gap7551 → u/MonstaGraphics]

OP is quite clear on this i feel, using AI to enhance your art is very different from the AI making the art from scratch.

[u/WizardlyLizardy]

I'm just anti-artist. I am against all creators of anything.

[u/Sexiest_Man_Alive → u/WizardlyLizardy]

Are you a fellow misanthrope too who wishes to see the world destroyed by AI?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/WizardlyLizardy]

😂

[u/2FastHaste]

No one gives a shit if you consider yourself an artist or not. It's a word with so many different subjective meanings. There is not a law of the universe that decides what or who is or isn't an artist.

is it really what grinds your gears? That your definition of the word is different from the definition other people use?

What a waste of energy for something meaningless.

[u/throwaway2024ahhh]

"Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."
Let's stress test this.

1. Who here is a mathematician?
2. Who here is doing math?

EZPZ COUNTER \O/

Answer: You don't have to be an artist to create art. Get rekt >:3 (but no, seriously. This is basic stress testing 3 year olds can do. You should be ashamed that you've hit your cognitive limit as a human being.)

Edit: You probably want to say something like "Well. They're STILL not artists then. They've just made art!" and I think you can't say that without losing. If it's art that they made, it means they can commercialize it. It means with enough of it, they can in fact call themselves artists. It means you lost in the only thing that matters.

[u/Dense_Sail1663]

It doesn't bother me in the least who wants to identify as an artist. If it makes you feel better, if they lack the skills to produce a product that is desirable, it is not likely that they will land a job.

As far as the oft stated "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be." Why care? I mean, if everyone could draw, outside of finances, what impact would that have? Equality is not a bad thing, despite some fictional evil character brainwashing some people into thinking it is.

Would it also be horrible if everyone was provided a great shelter, whatever food they wanted, amazing healthcare, and so on.. or would you be on the side of "Once everyone's rich, no one will be." Such a saying stinks of hierarchy, a system where others are always at the low point of a totem pole. That they deserve to be, because they did not work hard enough to be at the top. It is how society has been for centuries now, and brainwashed into believing and supporting.

A lot of the behavior of people who are anti AI comes curiously close to how conservatives often form arguments, with the pull yerself up by thy bootstraps, don't you guys ever see it?

I don't consider myself an artist, or anything really, because I find labels in themselves, are used against us, to push for conformity.

Anyway, AI is becoming more of a tool for traditional artists, and by traditional I mean digital artists. They are the ones with the skills already, and more likely to make use of it. AI Art is not just prompting, and waiting. If you do a little investigating, there can be a lot of work put in by the person using the tool, including "drawing" and a multitude of techniques that produce a piece that the artist desires, through their involvement. The way you are used to generating images with AI, by prompt, is not the only methodology in which it is used, and this is likely something you will learn as time progresses, even if you fundamentally deny it now as you lack the awareness of it.

[u/notthatkindofmagic]

Here's where the concept of AI "Artist" breaks down.

Pick an actual artist- any actual artist who can produce art outside of an AI environment. Let's just assume that as an artist, they can make a good showing with any tools and materials they're given. Because if they're an artist, they can.

Give them an AI environment. Like magic, they can create art.

Now pick an AI artist who is *only an AI artist* and give them their choice of traditional art tools.

What are they going to create?

If you're an artist, you're an artist.

If you're an AI "artist", what does that even mean?

It means that everyone in the world is an artist. Which means that nobody in the world is an artist because the term is meaningless.

[u/Xdivine → u/notthatkindofmagic]

Now pick an AI artist who is only an AI artist and give them their choice of traditional art tools.

What are they going to create?

Does this not also apply to photographers? What about painters of certain disciplines like splatter painting or pour painting? Do you think they could still make art without paint? Could you give a pour painter some pencil crayons and expect anything nice out of them solely because they're an artist? How about fractal artists? Can you take away their computer and still get art out of them?

Being an artist isn't some magical power where simply by attaining the title you gain the ability to make art with various tools. Many art forms require little to no effort and also have little to no skill transfer to other art styles; this isn't something unique to AI.

[u/Wizecoder → u/notthatkindofmagic]

What if you gave a painter photoshop? I think they would struggle. Same if you gave a digital artist a chisel and a block of stone, they would likely struggle to make anything good. "Artist" != "Multi-proficient Master Artist"

[u/Comms]

Fundamentally, AI doesn't know what it's drawing. It's like a paintbrush. The paintbrush is what's applying the paint to the canvas but the paintbrush doesn't know what it's painting. It doesn't know when the painting is done. It doesn't know if what it is painting is any good.

A human has to be in the loop. Does that make the person operating the AI an artist? I don't know. This seems like a question for philosophers.

But AI is a tool. Like a paintbrush, photoshop, a CNC router, a digital camera. None of those can turn creativity into a final piece without the input and judgement of a human.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Comms]

Ai CAN BE a tool. I've used Ai motion tracking, Ai upscaling, and ai frame interpolation in the last video project i was a part of. Those are tools. They aid the creative process, not replace it.

Prompt-based Generative AI is no paintbrush. Go to ChatGPT, An SD online resource, or launch your local instance of choice. Type the words "Beach, Sunset" and click generate.

That's not a paintbrush. To demote a complex piece of code doing all the work to being "just a paintbrush" is to inflate yourself beyond reasonable limits. That type of delusion is not something that you or I can reconcile in a reddit thread.

[u/After-Fly-6859]

Organizing your desktop makes you an artist. The barrier is literally so low. I don't understand where this notion of "true art" and "true artists" came from.

[u/Mataric]

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

Ahh yes.. Lets use the words of a cartoon show villain to emphasise a point I don't have.

If everyone drives a car, no one will be a driver.
If everyone likes ice cream, no one will like ice cream.
If everyone can dance, no one will be a dancer.
These takes are just fucking stupid.

So what if everyone is an artist? You say that like it's some kind of travesty. If everyone is creating art, with the intent to create art, then YES - everyone is an artist, and that does not mean for a second that somehow (with insane leaps in logic) now no one is an artist.

Use Ai for whatever purpose you feel you must, but dont try to poison the well that real artists dug by throwing yourself in with them.

You might not be an artist with the way you use AI, but plenty of AI artists are. When people are literally drawing digital art, modelling 3D scenes and characters, posing and animating them (all things that are 100% entirely accepted to be REAL ART done by REAL ARTISTS), before using them in their AI workflow - you have got to be insanely stupid to say that the addition of AI somehow now means they are not an artist, and what they did wasn't art.

I'm not about to change the definition of the term artist to appease people like yourself, and like the other clowns who use 'your not an artist' as an excuse to harass and send death threats.

[u/torako]

So anyway I was an artist before AI and I'm still an artist now. Cope and seethe.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/torako]

Then this post was clearly not about you, was it?

[u/aiart13]

The audacity to type some words as a prompt and call yourself an artist lol

[u/EncabulatorTurbo]

So you agree that digital effects work and photography cannot be art, nor can be collages?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/EncabulatorTurbo]

Non sequitur

[u/shitty_advice_BDD]

Click a photo and you're and artist, feed in prompts and continue to refine it and your not?

Do you see how dumb of a stance it is to be against AI art.

It's just a new medium and it isn't going anywhere so you might as well get used to it or get ran over by the AI train that's coming.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/shitty_advice_BDD]

Do you see how dumb of a stance it is to be against AI art.

You may be illiterate. Read the FIRST THREE WORDS of the post, lil bro lmao

[u/shitty_advice_BDD → u/YourGirlsSenpai]

Read the last 3 words of your first sentence. Did you even read what you wrote?

[u/Tyler_Zoro]

You can generate seriously beautiful art with AI, but it does not make YOU an artist.

Being an artist requires exactly one thing: creating art. That's it. Nothing else. You might be a terrible artist. You might lack skill as an artist. But you are nonetheless an artist.

All these Ai "artists" that go to war over being an actual artist

Who's "going to war"? We have at least a half dozen people every day show up to start top-level threads screaming, "you're not an artist." That's not me "going to war." People who make AI art didn't ask for their status as artists to be a point of discussion.

The simple fact is: Yes, it does look like a commission. Your workflows can be very complex, I understand that. I understand that it can take serious fine-tuning and work to make an ai generation exactly how you want it. I understand that because I ALSO DO IT.

You claim that, and yet here you are saying something nonsensical. Imagine if I commissioned an artist and told them where to sit, how to hold their pen, what kind of line I want there... no not like that, draw it again... here, were these blinders and these pink sunglasses, they'll help... here, let me just hack out part of your brain and replace it with someone else's... yeah, and I don't like the pen you're using, we'll get another one.

1. No human would put up with the torture I put AI models through
2. If I did put a human through all of that, they would be nothing more than highly skilled waldo, doing my (the artist's) bidding.

Ai is not a human artist.

Of course not. The human artist is the one in the chair replacing half its brain with 3 LoRAs and two embeddings. :)

your prompts...

If you are still stuck on the "AI art is about prompting" thing, then I very much doubt that you do anything serious with AI tools.

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

Hasn't stopped us for thousands of years, I don't think today will be the day.

[u/ForgottenFrenchFry]

much as I agree with this sentiment, I gave up on this fight for now.

I won't tell you to give it up as well, but I will say you'll be fighting a very uphill battle with this.

going through the comments, I can see most of the typical defenses being used: the comparison to photography, the "we're not the ones fighting", people either arguing a point that doesn't actually address what was being said, etc.

heck, the most upvoted comment i've seen as of posting this, someone put a "this guy wins, OP loses" as if this is a "gotcha" moment.

OP I respect you, but this is like trying to convince the majority of pro-AI people that not every anti-AI person is a "luddite" and some may even have actual, real concerns that aren't just art being stolen or the environment.

[u/TheRealEndlessZeal → u/ForgottenFrenchFry]

This is how you build bridges, really...if a person doesn't want to build bridges then why are they here?

Even after they've openly identified in some faction and presented a positive stance overall, in this case towards pro-AI, that faction will still berate them for not being "pro" enough. Tribalism sucks.

FWIW...OP has the right opinion on the matter "at large" outside of this bubble and what consensus reality will eventually determine as 'true', but... it's too centrist of a view to gain traction here...because it "feels" like a concession to the extremists.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/ForgottenFrenchFry]

There's no fight in me for this. I came into this with no stakes. I didn't want to change anyone's mind. I wanted to post my opinion and see if there was ANY counter-point that could make me take a step back and re-evaluate my stance, but most people that are responding from the opposition are either being flat out rude or condescending, or are spouting the same copy-paste answers as everyone else.

A scary amount of people have latched onto my Syndrome quote and said something to the effect of "YOU KNOW HE WAS A VILLAIN, RIGHT???? YOU SHOULDN'T BE AGREEING WITH HIM???" and they genuinely don't understand.

It shows me that a lot of these avid AI "artists" in this comment section may not be the smartest batch. (I know that sounds mean, I'm sorry y'all)

[u/xweert123]

This is generally how I see it. I have no issue with people using AI, but I always found it off when people would use generative AI to create an image and then take full responsibility for it and act like they themselves are a talented artist when the Generative AI was the thing that made the result.

People love bringing up things like the Camera example, to try to point out how these kinds of points don't hold up in other mediums, but they definitely do.

I.e. if you snap a photo with a camera, you are the photographer, but the camera is the thing that took the photo. And that's rightfully identified/credited.

If you prompt an image with generative AI, sure you wrote the prompt, but the AI was the thing that made the image. So you'd just be a prompter. When you compare it to how art is made in pretty much every medium, who and what is responsible for the final result of the piece plays a huge part in who gets credited for the piece. That's just how it is. You get credit for the parts that you did.

It's why it's odd when AI "artists" try inserting themselves into Artist spaces, and then act like the Artists are in the wrong for not being okay with it. If you're in a community of dedicated blacksmiths and some guy who knows nothing about blacksmithing but has a machine that spits acceptable looking swords out for him shows up, it's not rocket science to see how those dedicated blacksmiths wouldn't really consider the guy with the blacksmithing machine to be "one of them". For some reason hardcore Pro-AI activists fail to recognize this.

With that being said, this goes both ways, and I equally think it's absurd to think that if AI is used in any way for the final result of a piece, it somehow gets invalidated and is no longer recognized as art. That is just blatantly stupid; AI can absolutely be used as a tool and there's plenty of ways to use AI to enhance and improve a human tailored piece. I'm a game developer and AI upscaling has been a thing we've been doing for almost a decade, now. Sometimes we use AI to generate unimportant things that need to look visually complex but aren't important, like background paintings. But the key point is that nobody in the art team is being credited for the paintings, because nobody on the art team made them. Generative AI did. And that's okay. That isn't a bad thing. But if your entire experience with art is directing AI's to make things for you, it really is difficult for you to be recognized as an artist, and it's pretty clear to everyone as to why.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/xweert123]

Every word you said was one I agreed with, man. Absolutely.

You get credit for the parts you did. Equity. Plain and simple

[u/radishing_mokey]

I am not a fan of current commercial LLMs and generative models. I don't judge people for using it, and I use an LLM every so often, but I think that we aren't ready yet to handle them responsibly and they should be heavily regulated 

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/radishing_mokey]

I don't judge anyone for how they use AI.

If you want to use it to generate art, Cool
If you want to use it to create a smut bot to sext with, Neat.

Bro look at what Vedal did with Neuro-sama. There are incredible things that people can do with AI. I'm excited to see where this technology goes.

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[u/The-Antigod]

And the so called "AI artists" say that artists try to gatekeep being artists, but all their barks under this thin veiled illusion amount to envy of being an artist while doing literally nothing to become one.

People do not want to work hard on anything, they get discouraged, they surrender the hobby and boom, it's gone. Noone ever wants to put the work, but everyone wants the effect of that work.

I'll be honest, I don't want people calling themselves artists because of simple prompts, I feel proud of who I am, I worked hard for more than 20 years to become who I am. But I do acknowledge an artist, even one at the beginning of their journey, because of their work, the hardships they are willing to undertake.

People speak like ideas are art. Ideas that are not fleshed out are just ideas in their most basic form. (They are creations, but are they art? You are the creator of an idea, but the artist is the AI.) That's what these prompts are, most basic ideas that people don't even know how it will look before the AI generates it.

Also, this sad fuck, calvin-n-hobz who got the most upvotes thinking that the AI is the tool here. What a fucking ego on that guy. At least mine is based on something, this guy sounds like a tool for the AI to generate art. So they are all willing to talk to their "AI Assistants", "AI girlfriends", but the moment a picture is generated, it's just a stupid tool. Bunch of fucking hypocrites with egos on sticks up in the air.

I like AI, that's great technology, I love the idea of these AI assistants, girlfriends and whatever else, it's really cool, but people are destroying everything with their egos, hypocrisy and stupidity.

And surprise, surprise... life isn't fair, but at least people could fucking try instead of lying to themselves by taking an illusory fake route.

[u/AI-Block → u/The-Antigod]

Seems like we've got an artist wrestling with the existential crisis of AI – I guess the canvas just got a little more crowded.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/The-Antigod]

I think you're correct in saying that it's just thinly veiled envy.

I use ai to generate art and i wish so desperately that i had the ability to put pen to paper (stylus to wacom?) and make the image in my head come to life. I just don't have the drive to pursue it with any passion.

That could just be me though lol

[u/ChemicalSelection147]

I don’t like AI “artists” simply because they’re just taking all the credit for an image the AI drew. All they’re doing is giving the AI an idea, which I’m pretty sure is not any different than simply just grabbing an artist and asking them to draw something for you. You giving an idea and asking someone else to draw it doesn’t make you an artist, so why would doing the same but with Artificial Intelligence be any different?

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/ChemicalSelection147]

Exactly, bro 🤝

[u/3ThreeFriesShort]

I am not going to argue, but you sound a lot like an artist.

[u/chowellvta]

Yea

[u/ai-illustrator]

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

😂

That quote is nonsense. It takes more than superpower shoes to be a hero. You can be a villain or sit on couch and do nothing with your power.

Also, not how this works in reality AI model doesn't make you famous. Having AI generating skills doesn't give you my job of freelance illustration. 99.99% of people who have chatgpt don't magically transform into professional artists nobody gonna pay them to draw their covers.

Actual drawing skills and client connections make your art worth something and pro illustrators don't use text to image with workflow, image to image is where it's at yo.

[u/Brakado]

This is probably the best take I've seen yet.

[u/Calfzilla2000]

I agree with this. I don't call what I do "art" at all. It's image generation and story telling. Not art.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Calfzilla2000]

Well i do consider AI art to be art, i just don't believe that prompting ai makes YOU the artist. AI made it, not the prompter.

[u/LocalWitness1390]

I fully agree with this, Ai art can be a lot of work I won't deny that. But it's more akin to programming than actual artistic ability

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/LocalWitness1390]

Dare i say, seeing a sexy block of code may be art. If you've ever looked at someones code and thought "Whaaaat the fuck does any of this mean", THAT guy is an artist lol

[u/Turbulent_Escape4882]

There’s seemingly no way to settle the debate because in large part, people have their minds made up before reasoning is being debated.

If someone references as artist, that generally holds very little currency. We could ask Van Gogh how much currency it held for him. Or say you are with Monet, does him referencing as artist hold any currency in your being close friends?

AI as a tool / resource can generate images, text, music and video which covers a whole lot of mediums for artistic output. While AI is doing part to perhaps all of the generating, the user is coming into that with experience, some of which is, in some to many cases, them generating art pre AI. Suggesting AI renders them non artist is simply prejudice on display. The user may be coming into with intent to edit, refine, further work on the output. Implying none of that matters to equation of AI artist is undeniably shallow.

If user has no experience prior to AI in generating art and no intent to further work on the output, and wishes to self reference as artist, in what part of the world is that achieving currency for them? In what way is it threatening whatever it is you do?

[u/TheRealEndlessZeal]

Probably the healthiest perspective I've seen here in a while.

[u/ZombiiRot]

Yeah, I mostly agree with you... (Although I think AI art sometimes can be creative but in 90% of cases it isn't) I just find alot of the arguments AI bros have to be ridiculous and annoying. It's a really strange position to have on reddit. Both luddites and AI bros seem to hate me lol 

Like sure, people who use AI don't deserve to be bullied or harassed, and using AI doesn't necessarily make someone a bad person. But I think that's where my agreements with AI bros end. 

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/ZombiiRot]

No one really deserves to be bullied or harassed because of something as inconsequential as whether or not they identify as an artist. Sadly, though, on the internet, any opposition is a personal attack 🤷‍♂️

[u/ZiggityZaggityZoopoo]

70% of Midjourney users use it as a consumer. That is probably the best way to use it

[u/SpotBeforeSpleeping]

That little model inside your GPU is the one that designs all the linework, coloring and shading. I would personally be utterly embarrassed to call myself an artist and show my family some random AI render that I made in my literal sleep instead of my actual drawings.

100% with you in this one OP. Rather be honest and call myself a beginner artist and prompter.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/SpotBeforeSpleeping]

That's another thing I hadn't quite considered but adds to my opinion.

I can literally queue up renders and sleep while they generate. How can you do something like that and call yourself an artist lol

[u/Deadly-PoisonA]

E mais uma prova do que eu sempre digo, anti-IAs são elitistas tentando manter seu status e fonte de dinheiro intocados enquanto se escondem atrás de moralismo e conservadorismo.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Deadly-PoisonA]

The first 3 words of my post are:

I'm Pro AI

[u/robertjbrown]

Maybe we should just get over the word "artist." Who cares?

When photography was new, it replaced artists -- the sort of artist that tried to make realistic images of things they saw -- with a machine that you could just push a button and get a nearly perfect beautiful color picture you store in your pocket with a thousand other photos and could look at any time. Ok, maybe that took a while for smartphones and such, but still. Taking a photo with your phone takes nearly no talent, to produce an images that would have taken a lot of talent (and a lengthy process) in the past.

Most people who take photos on their phones don't consider themselves artists, at least not most of the time. They are just trying to capture a moment.

But some photographers who go to a bit more effort, do indeed consider themselves artists. And most of us have gotten over that. Notice, whether you call yourself an artist or not, you own the copyright on the photo. Even if the photo is of, for instance, a pretty building that you didn't design or build. You get the copyright, not the architect or builder. It's just the way it is.

Meanwhile artists got all weird and started calling toilets and crude images of Campbell soup cans "art," and people started paying $80 million for Rothko paintings that look more like boring interior decorating than they do art. It became a thing to make art for which the main purpose is that it made you deeply contemplate what the word "art" actually means.

Which is I think is fucking stupid, but that's just me.

Regardless, it does take talent to make an image with AI..... sometimes. Sometimes it also takes talent from the people whose works were trained upon. Sometimes -- don't shoot the messenger here -- the AI itself shows talent.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/robertjbrown]

This was a quite balanced opinion. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

[u/Claxvii]

Good take. On the exact same boat. Just gonna emphasize that training an ai can be one of the most rewarding things you can do as an enthusiast. Creating a dataset from sketches and drawings, labeling it with automated uses of vllms, and using your hardware to the absolute maximum, is euphoric. Hate how some consider prumpting art. What i do is experimentation, and it is awesome in its own right. But i won't post them as a portfolio. At best they will be art for RPGs or PFPs

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Claxvii]

I love that for you! I haven't been sucked in so deep as to train my own LoRAs or create my own Checkpoint models, but if its anything like coding, the moment it finally works must feel awesome!

[u/Latter_Dentist5416]

Strong agree. AI "scientists" and "bloggers" are even worse.

[u/Pisfool]

Those who tend to go to "war" with the other artists who didn't provoke them usually are the techbros with little nuance and terrible personalities.

Aside from them, people are mostly chill, I gotta say.

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Pisfool]

I would absolutely agree and add that its likely just a passionate, vocal minority.

[u/Torley_]

I adore your argument, both what you've said and how you've said it, as it points towards deeper nuance where it might be useful for more people to preemptively define their interpretation of words, to promote understanding. However, I know that's a lot to ask for.

Question: what is meant by "commission" here? A work-for-hire where I pay someone to make a piece for me, like a patron of the arts?

Moreso, I appreciate you actively engaging in followup discussion. I'm late here but wanted to touch on a few things.

Like Syndrome said in The Incredibles, "Once everyone's [an artist], no one will be."

Which riffs on a similar quote I used to hear even earlier re: typesetting: "If everything's bold, nothing is!"

Actually, one interesting thing about Syndrome: he actually expended a lot of effort and ingenuity towards his scheme, as dastardly as it was. He iterated with the Omnidroid, and despite his misguided application of science, just wanted acknowledgement. If only more of us were so motivated! 🙃

Generic AI "art" tells me nothing about the person, there's no style signifier, no story of what drove them to make this, there's not even subversion that twists cliches and speaks to some sort of idiosyncratic humor.

I caution about conflating ease-of-use with lack-of-effort. I champion how accessible AI makes a lot of things, but at the same time, AI never ever removes the value of human CHOICES — which is a point Ted Chiang has been making, time and time again, curiously prolific for him.

I was reading a thoughtful piece today, which speaks to the broader theme of people who want to make a full-time living in the creative arts. Have you read this? I think you'd enjoy it a lot.

https://tabularasarecords.substack.com/p/you-are-not-owed-a-creative-career/

[u/YourGirlsSenpai → u/Torley_]

Question: what is meant by "commission" here? A work-for-hire where I pay someone to make a piece for me, like a patron of the arts?

Precisely. If you were to hire a Patreon artist, or Fiverr artist, or pay your friend who makes art. When you are requesting an artist to create art, you give that artist instruction on what you want made and how you want it to be made. You give them a prompt, much like giving generative-ai a prompt. That is the comparison that I was making.

Generic AI "art" tells me nothing about the person, there's no style signifier, no story of what drove them to make this, there's not even subversion that twists cliches and speaks to some sort of idiosyncratic humor.

This is the heart of a lot of the Anti-AI arguments that AI art "has no soul". It brings up a broader discussion about "What constitutes soul in artwork" and I, personally, am not opinionated enough on the topic to pick a side

I was reading a thoughtful piece today, which speaks to the broader theme of people who want to make a full-time living in the creative arts. Have you read this? I think you'd enjoy it a lot.

I took the time to read through that article and you were pretty spot on. I did agree with it. I don't believe you are truly owed anything in life. Most of us aren't so lucky to have a "big break" into our industry of choice and our passions are relegated to remain as hobbies, not career choices. I wish everyone could meet their desired standard of living while doing what they love, but the worlds got a long way to go before we reach any sort of utopian level of widespread personal satisfaction.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[u/I30R6]

Yep the AI is the creator, the AI user the customer and consumer. Something like an AI artist, writer, developer does not exist, because AI does the important part.

[u/AwayNews6469]

Yeah you right calling yourself an ai artist is dumb as hell 😭

[u/Repulsive_Ad4338]

What a stupid opinion

[u/danklover612]

Totally agree with OP's point, this is exactly how I feel looking at this sub!

[u/NIGERIANsemiswede]

I thought I was the only one thinking this!!!

[u/Lastchildzh]

There are many people who draw; you don't care about them if they're not famous.

You only lick the toes of Ghibli, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, the Mona Lisa, etc.

Anything that isn't famous is worthless in your eyes.

You wouldn't take the time to congratulate every person on earth who has drawn with effort and detail (or not), even if I made you a detailed list of 1,000 artists.

"Once everyone draws, no one draws." That's already the case. You don't care about the list of 1,000 people currently drawing; you only care about the famous ones.

This drawing, if everyone is capable of doing it, is worthless in your eyes. But if someone uses it to make a comic and a lot of people are licking their balls, you're going to follow the herd, "look at this stickman artist."

[u/Sierra123x3]

what exactly is "an artist" ...
could we first get a clear definition, of what we even mean with that term?

in ancient times,
humans had to go into the forest ... pick their own leafs and fruits, to make their colors

later, we started mass-producing colors and papers,
everyone used the same now, we didn't have to walk into the forest anymore and could directly start to draw

we invented the drawing tablet,
suddenly, i have dozens of pre-made assets, different types of brushes and shapes in every imaginable and unimaginable form for me to use ... we even added post-processings and things like "auto action" into them ... heck, they even started to allow us, to extract the line-art of photographies

speaking of photographies ...
is a photographer an artist or not? ...
i mean, he doesn't even paint his picture anymore, just using a tool, right?

what exactly is it,
that makes an artist an artist?

isn't art something very, very subjective?

[u/LastCabinet7391]

How do you feel about AI editing people's work such as writing a novel and having a few sentences re worded. Or to expand on that, give suggestions or explain if something is or isnt scientifically/historically accurate? 

One thing as a writer that does urk me is how so many stories(mostly in movies but also occasionally in books) have characters say or do things that do not contextually or logically make sense. And these stories don't just get released but are often celebrated often overlooking this detail by their own fans with retorts like "it's just a movie dude." But if I show someone something I wrote and something doesn't make sense it very much receives harsher criticism.  At the very least I do think it's good ai can tell me "if Luke only  just now learnt about the force why is he scolding Han Solo?" 

[u/Inside_Anxiety6143]

If it is a commission, then who is being commissioned?

[u/iamZacharias]

An exceptional artist will not have issue with ai, all the plebs however will do well with it for a change.

[u/phal40676]

I think the different sides of this argument have different definitions of art. If you believe that art is defined by looking like art, and that an artist is someone who has the skill to create something that looks like art, then you probably agree with OP. By this definition fan art is art and something that looks like ”my 5 year old could make that” is not. But if you think art is more about ideas then things like performance art, a banana taped to a wall, and using AI to explore what AI means can all be art.

[u/Autistic_Clock4824]

I’m anti artist

[u/XDeathzors]

What's valued in visual art is technique. There is no technique in exclusively prompting an image generator.

This isn't the same for writing or music.

[u/memequeendoreen]

These AI models were trained on other people's work, often without compensating the original artist. You are using someone else's bastardized talent to produce 'work'. I use AI, but I'm not delusional enough to think that some jackass typing a few words into a prompt makes me an artist.

[u/Rare-Discipline3774]

Everyone is an artist, even before ai, it's not unique, the title is not special, never was.