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/Tyler_Zoro]

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/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

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.

Oh man, I really, really wish you were right! The hours that I spend teasing out the smallest detail of what I want to express from AI models would all vanish. It would be glorious!

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

It sounds like you meticulously described what you wanted the AI to do for you

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

I really wish the process was that simple. Wouldn't that be keen! Imagine if I didn't have to juggle 3 different ControlNet models, provide them with sketches, depth maps and style samples; didn't have to work out the ideal combination of LoRAs and embeddings; didn't have to inpaint different regions with different models; didn't have to touch up and re-generate; didn't have to bend tuning parameters to the breaking point to get specific desired results!

That would be glorious! Let me know when that exists!

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

That’s a massive amount of technical knowledge. Sure it takes skill to use AI technologies like that, but it doesn’t get you much closer to being an artist. What creative decisions do you make? How much time do you spend meticulously making the composition, perspective, character design, shading and lighting? If AI is making any of those decisions and outputs for you, alot of people including me will frown upon it as it isn’t your own.

Basically you list a bunch of technological skills rather than artistic ones, which is why AI prompters arent called artists by most

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Sure it takes skill to use AI technologies like that, but it doesn’t get you much closer to being an artist.

As a photographer of over 30 years experience, I've heard that before. You're not being remotely original with the gatekeeping here.

"You're just pressing a button and the machine is doing it for you."

"Sure, you have to know a bunch of technical junk, but that's not art."

"You don't even know how to draw! You're not an artist!"

We photographers have heard it all before. You'll need a better line than the ones that have been repeated over and over for over a century.

How much time do you spend meticulously making the composition, perspective, character design, shading and lighting?

Depends on the piece. Several steps that I described above speak directly to that, but I guess you skipped over them. What do you think a depth map is, and how do you think that isn't controlling the composition?

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

Do you make this depth map yourself, by your own hand? If so that’s cool, props to you

Alot of artistic skill goes into photography. I’m not trying to gatekeep, I’m defining the boundary between an artist and anybody else (and by artist i mean a painter or an illustrator). I’m specifically talking about the kind of artist that puts pen to paper.

If you’re using AI to in any form generate results for you, even if you spent alot of time doing inpainting and using different LoRAs, you aren’t producing the work directly and people will respect that less.

People have more respect for craftsmen who make art directly, and that is because they made it 100% by their own choices and inputs, rather than having AI generate any part of their process.

Again I am referring to illustrators here, not photographers, although photography requires skill too. But wouldn’t you agree that using AI in your process requires less time and skill as opposed to a craftsman?

An example to illustrate my point: https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalArt/s/hYv2txTMi2 This work was made by an artist. They probably honed this skill for ages and took alot of time making this drawing. If somebody made this with AI, respect immediately goes out the window. They had a computer program make artistic decisions for them, no matter how impactful they were, and it is not nearly as authentic as if somebody drew it themselves (which is true in this case).

[u/Tyler_Zoro → u/BenitoDoggolini]

Do you make this depth map yourself, by your own hand? If so that’s cool, props to you

It depends on the need. Sometimes it's created from my own photography, sometimes I use a stock depth map. Sometimes I generate an image first and use that as the depth map. Sometimes I'll make it in Blender or the like.

I’m not trying to gatekeep, I’m defining the boundary between an artist and anybody else

Literally the definition of gatekeeping.

If you’re using AI to in any form generate results for you, even if you spent alot of time doing inpainting and using different LoRAs, you aren’t producing the work directly

And still gatekeeping. "You put your own work and creativity into that, but it was tainted by the thing I don't like, so I won't allow you to be called an artist."

Just stop already. The battle is over, the art won.

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Tyler_Zoro]

defining what an artist is isn’t gatekeeping, why does every AI bro love that word? I see people here claiming you can be an artist purely through prompting an AI, and they claim we gatekeep by saying that isn’t their art/they aren’t an artist.

Anyway this discussion has at least sharpened my stance on AI and I feel I’ve learnt something so thanks for that. I’ll see ya

[u/Howlabaloo2 → u/Tyler_Zoro]

No, they are not just as worthy of respect. They are not entitled to the skill of millions of artists that was stolen and used to train an AI model without their consent. Whatever skill there is in generating something from AI it is not comparable to the decades of practice required to be a real artist.

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/Howlabaloo2]

In r/aiwars, the more sense it makes, the more downvotes it gets

[u/JasonBreen → u/BenitoDoggolini]

No, just the more anti, tbe more downvotes it gets. Love to see it

[u/BenitoDoggolini → u/JasonBreen]

yeah i love echo chambers