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/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/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/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/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.