Now on the other hand, I don't like where this is going. Because derivative work (of any kind - physical, technical, artistic, social...) has the capability to supplant a very large portion of the workforce. I would have no issue with it if we globally had a society where redistribution was a thing, but we don't. Being barred from gainful employment because there is someone, somewhere, that can do the same for one tenth of the wages is bad enough. But being barred from gainful employment because what you are doing is, not obsolete (it is still valuable since it is still in demand), but brought down to the initial cost of acquisition. AIs and robots are the ideal slaves: you buy them once, and then they have a marginal upkeep cost until you decide to upgrade. As long as we, as a society, don't have a solution for all those who will be put out of work, and merely shrug them off by saying "they can just find another job", we will have a major social problem with AI.
This is one of two pieces of the problem that I partially agree with, but have my doubts it'll really become a problem for professional artists. The digital camera is
almost comparable to what AI art is doing.
When digital cameras came out, and as cell phone cameras have improved, people have expressed concern that photographers would be put out of a job. They contended that, now that anyone with a cell phone (let alone a digital cameras of various capabilities) was going to be able to magically take just as good of photographs as professionals. A portion of the argument comes from the removal of the investment into film and film development. I took 10,000+ photos during a month long trip to the UK using the first Digital SLR camera. Today it would have cost me around $3750 to develop that much film. But all it cost me was my own time sifting through them and less time tweaking the good ones I wanted to keep with Photoshop (another thing some expressed the same concern over). I got a lot of really cool shots. I got way,
way,
way more that were not. The average person out there would think I have a lot of camera gear, but compared to a pro I do not. Yet, I'd likely be put in the 'amateur' category (probably even the lower half of that) and I'm not replacing a professional photographer anytime soon.
I've seen people state that they think AI art has no 'soul' as their argument. But that's just a sliding scale of what you think does. I could just as easily say that a print of a painting has no soul. That Parkinson's 'The North Watch' (probably one of my favorite fantasy pieces) doesn't inspire or move me because what I have was pumped out of a printer and not hand painted. Here's where the real money aspect comes into it if you ask me. We could then argue that only the rich have the ability to possess (buy) art with a 'soul'. Cause I'm sure even when Keith was alive I'd have to have paid $5,000 or more to buy that painting. So I don't swallow the 'soul' thing either. Those who make that claim need to prove to me that they can reliably tell the difference between human and AI created art. As soon as they say 'There! That piece speaks to me! It has a soul' about an AI piece they've proven to me they're full of crap.
AI doesn't remove the creative process at this point either. You don't just plug in a few words and get exactly what you want. I've played with AI art and you typically have to work at getting what you've envisioned, going through many iterations, tweaking it over and over, if you don't want mediocre results of if you want as close to what you envisioned as possible. In my view, one of the valid criticisms is that AI removes is the actual skill of physically drawing or painting. But, as I've said before, couldn't I say that about digital art created by a human to some degree? Couldn't I say that about post production photography programs like Photoshop? Couldn't I say that Hollywood 'rebooting' movies over and over is taking jobs away from writers?
I think AI art is more dangerous to beginner graphic designers that are coming up with logo's and non-artistic pieces. I mentioned over on Board Game Geek that I couldn't care less that Terraforming Mars used AI art for the cards in the game. I don't need a Mona Lisa on every piece of paper, I just need a halfway decent graphic representation. Now, the game Inis, I think they were going for true artistic value (Jim Fitzpatrick created that art) and it's one of the things that got me to buy the game. So using AI didn't stop me from buying Terraforming Mars, however a talented artist is part of what prompted me to buy Inis. So, a point I've made on other AI discussions (more on the writing side) is that it's going to impact people who aren't skilled far more. Is that bad? Eh... debatable. It means they have to learn and grow more in their medium, but wasn't that already true if they want to be dubbed a 'professional' artist or writer?
My concern with AI art isn't that it's scraping whatever database of art it's been fed to create new art and the, claimed, legal implications of that, it's that too many people (from the
general population) may not place enough value in creativity of truly talented artist for them to be able to make a living at it. It's not that the process has become cheaper, it's that there were too many people who weren't willing to pay for it in the first place. But even then, isn't there a danger that the less wealthy you are the less access you have to purchasing that art? I can say I'm okay with not being able to buy original paintings because I can buy prints, but there are those out there who don't even have the spare money to buy prints.
In the end, I don't see AI art replacing talented artists so long as there exist people who appreciate their efforts and not just 'Oh pretty colors!'
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