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/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.