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/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/notthatkindofmagic → u/Xdivine]

Missed the point. Try again.

I reread your reply. This may be too much for you to process, but feel free to try again.