Post by Ponydragon in Do you think AI can replace game artists?

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No.

And AI is a misleading name for the thing. It likens it to human intelligence. But that is not what it does. I recreates a skill. Some "AI" Art exposes how little artistic value many of so called Art actually has. Ever seen one of those old Bob Ross painting lessons? How he squirts out a landscape in a few minutes? It is a skill, for sure, but is it Art in the sense most people nowadays understand Art? Nah. It is Art in the original sense. Masterful execution of a skill. And skills can be trained to machines to perfection. What did olde portrait painters do? They tried to copy what they saw. Masterfully with their available tools, an exhibit of understanding of perspective and lighting and color compositions, yadda, yadda, but a cheap copy compared to a good photograph.

As ridden as that horse is, but it is just a tool. It will put people out of work, for sure. But how many Artists went out of job, when animation movies were no longer hand drawn, but made with computers?

You still need a lead Artist that guides the grunt work, the AI can do. And from what I read, that grunt work has to be sorted out quite thoroghly, what with the missing arms and other mistakes.

If we scoff at AI usage, we should also scoff at people not drawing on paper and scanning it in. Or those heretics using 3d render software to create pictures for a vn, instead of using individually hand drawn pictures.

But to answer again, it can replace some work to some extent. But it is a long, long way, till we might have something like in StarTrek Holodecks where they order their Computer to create a programm with such and such. But if your work as an Artist is mindlessly drawing the same picture in different angles... tough.

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mid1 year ago (5 edits)

but a cheap copy compared to a good photograph.

If you ask me, it is a photograph that is cheap.

But how many Artists went out of job, when animation movies were no longer hand drawn, but made with computers?

This is the typical strawman you get when you falsely call AI “just a tool”. It’s like saying a tiger is “just a cat”. AI is arguably the single most advanced tool put out by people to date.

People who moved to digital art had their area of skill remain. They still have to wield the stylus just as they would wield their brush; they still need the ability to draw from memory, mind, knowledge on the laws of motion; little to no intellectual change has to occur. This is clearly not so with AI, which shifts the area and the level of skill necessary. The “lead artist” in your head I would rather call an “idea guy”, and I hate those for a reason – compared to the workers, they’re leeches.

And from what I read, that grunt work has to be sorted out quite thoroghly, what with the missing arms and other mistakes.

You said yourself that skill can be trained to perfection, so this is temporary and clearly not within their ideal. Why talk about this in the first place?

If we scoff at AI usage, we should also scoff at people not drawing on paper and scanning it in.

Again, this logic follows from the previous false equivalence. This is simply false. The jump between paper and digital is far greater than between digital and AI-based.

I would be willing to pay the extra money for a paper-made drawing, but I do not see that as a reason to scoff at digital artists. That does not extend towards AI, because users of AI do nothing artists do.

But if your work as an Artist is mindlessly drawing the same picture in different angles… tough.

Funny how you call art mindless, because I would instead say it is writing text into a cheap AI that is mindless. One is filled with passion, devotion and the determination to make yourself the best you can be; the other is based on greed and the desire to pump out meritless crap as quickly as possible.

There is no positive side to killing skill, because it turns us into slaves and degenerates. This is the road you head down each step you take towards post-scarcity.

There is nothing good about Star Trek’s world. The only reason it is interesting at all is because the writers went out of their way to impose limits on that post-scarcity, i.e. making it not post-scarcity at all. Imagine if that weren’t the case: “Computer, make a program to solve our problem.” Roll credits.

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Ponydragon1 year ago

If you ask me, it is a photograph that is cheap.

Of course it is. Quite literally. But the task in context was to have an acurate picture. If your task is to have a hand crafted unique piece done by a known artist ... well, there are famous photographers as well. Showing that the real Art is just application of skill. While both make images, they use different skillsets. An AI Artist, as in, someone who uses an AI tool to create stuff, would use a different skillset as well. And of course there are the evil cheaters that use the imagination of a reader to paint pictures, just by using words (yes, that was a joke, but the point stands, that even this is just another skillset to create pictures in the mind of the observer)

This is the typical strawman you get when you falsely call AI “just a tool”. It’s like saying a tiger is “just a cat”.

You should maybe look up, what a strawman is. The tiger is a cat fallacy only works if you want to treat a tiger like a cat because of some shared trait, that is not relevant for the discussion at hand. And that is not even a strawman, that is a false equivalency. Oh, and if the discussion at hand is about what they both have in common, like traits of felidae, it is not even a fallacy.

The AI discussion is the conflict of individual (traditional) work vs. mass production (with advanced tech). Should we condem it or should we embrace it, and why. If condemnation, why did we not condem other forms of mass production. If we embrace it, should there be constraints, other mass productions do not have. In the evolution of picture creation it is not the first tech jump. And no, there were times when painting a picture was not something anyone could do. You would not even have the colors to do so. Mixing paint was a trade secret. A few hundred years later, everyone can post a perfect picture on the net. In seconds. No hand mixed colors needed, no years long training, no canvas, just a button press and an activated filter or three. You can even order your picture printed on canvas and hang it on your wall.

You might be able to flesh out the not just a mere tool argument. That somehow this tech jump is so much different from other advances. Because on the outside it sure looks quite similar. Something previously hard to do and only with special training and experience is now available to the untrained to do for a fraction of the price.

And I even think, that some uses of AI should be forbidden. But even there, that would be bascially stuff that is forbidden for human artists as well. See the tracing vs. "reference material" discussions. Artists copy from each other without consent quite often and there is a thin line everyone has a different opion about, what is ok and what is not ok.

The jump between paper and digital is far greater than between digital and AI-based.

So? A difference in quantity changes the quality? I was being overly sarcastic, should you not have noticed.

Funny how you call art mindless

Funny how you try to misrepresent my points. That is an actual strawman, by the way. No, I did not call art mindless. Let me rephrase it, so you might understand it better. I said, if your actual job of "art" is to mindlessly creating the same pictures in different angles, that you will lose your job to a robot. As an example, the people drawing animation in the older animation movies. There were people drawing and animating each frame. They had an artist drawing the key frames and other artists drawing the in-between frames.

the other is based on greed and the desire to pump out meritless crap as quickly as possible

Are you talking about chinese sweatshops now, where they paint on canvas? Yes, that is a thing.

There is nothing good about Star Trek’s world.

Oh boy. That's a good one. Did I say StarTrek is good or interesting? No. Does it matter to the discussion? No.

What did matter, was the portraial of a working AI and how far away we currently are from that. What can currently be replaced with AI is stuff that is more on the mechanical and not the creative side of "Art".

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mid1 year ago (1 edit)

An AI Artist, as in, someone who uses an AI tool to create stuff, would use a different skillset as well.

“Skillset”. Please, an AI artist can only be the AI itself, because an AI user does not do what defines an artist.

The tiger is a cat fallacy only works if you want to treat a tiger like a cat because of some shared trait

Indeed, that’s what you did. You used the common trait that they are tools to place them on equal footing, despite the very clear differences between them that necessitate different approaches to both (which I explain a second time below).

If condemnation, why did we not condem other forms of mass production.

Other forms of mass production kept skill or introduced other areas where skill is necessary. Other forms of mass production kept jobs quality and fulfilling. AI does neither, because it is designed to kill jobs. And the few jobs which remain shall be completely inconsequential and minute compared to the work done by the AI itself.

As to what counts as a quality job, that is up to workers to decide. That drivers are revolting against self-driving cars is a good hint.

A few hundred years later, everyone can post a perfect picture on the net.

Again, misleading text. Everyone could have posted a picture online in seconds before. I also object to the word perfect.

The mass production of paper and other such tools did not decrease the skill necessary to draw. It simply allowed everyone to realize that skill.

With AI, there is little to no skill involved because you’re not even the one drawing, so it’s beyond a stretch to call the drawing “yours”.

No hand mixed colors needed, no years long training, no canvas, just a button press and an activated filter or three.

And what is the meaning of that painting? It makes you feel guud? How does it feel, having a painting worth as much as the few words you’ve typed on your keyboard? Have you expressed yourself and your feelings, or is it merely the AI’s interpretation of your words? At that point, just hang the words on the wall. Have fun showing off the meritless paintings on your wall to another dude with meritless paintings on his wall. I’m sure he’ll care. Christ, that sounds awful. That’s exactly what I mean by slaves and degenerates in my previous post.

Artists copy from each other without consent quite often and there is a thin line everyone has a different opion about, what is ok and what is not ok.

Is this not comparing AI to human intelligence? When a person copies they improve. Even with tracing a person improves their motor functions. When their AI superior copies, nothing happens to the person.

Something previously hard to do and only with special training and experience is now available to the untrained to do for a fraction of the price.

That something hard to do remains hard, because those untrained people still do nothing. They never drew and they never will; their AI will do it for them. So a better description would be “is now available to the untrained to order for a fraction of the price”. Very self-centered, when you consider the real artists.

Are you talking about chinese sweatshops now, where they paint on canvas? Yes, that is a thing.

I’m talking about AI-based drawings. These Chinese sweatshops may be a thing, but it means little; greed is greed.

Did I say StarTrek is good or interesting? No. Does it matter to the discussion? No.

I did not say you did, but I say it certainly matters, because half the reason people want this automation nonsense is because of naive visions like that of Star Trek. Your starry-eyed description of supposed drawing at near-zero price suggests you hold nothing against the idea.

Your mistake is in thinking automation will improve people. It will not. It might improve the quality of an end-product, but not people. They will stay as they were, and with near-zero work (near-infinite convenience) they will rot away. I value people more than I value machinery and end results.

Your approach lies in nitpicking minute details in my points, glossing over the rest and repeating the same things over. I do not intend to convince you – as far as I see, you are dead-set in all of your beliefs – I intend to showcase readers why your view isn’t so clear-cut. I think my points are clear, so I see no reason to continue.

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Ponydragon1 year ago

You seem to think that an AI is a person. It is an expert system that can do one thing and one thing only. It has no agency, no motivation. It is literally software. A thing we created to do a task. In other words: a tool. You hear AI and think about those robot science fiction movies, do you? There is even one that has that exact name, AI.

No one cared about keeping skill sets with mass production, job quality or whatever fulfilling means. You think AI is designed to kill jobs? Really? Would you make that same assumption about electric light? That it was designed to kill the jobs of the guys lighting the gaslamps at night? Because that is what happened. They were out of job overnight.

The tool of neural networks that can be trained how images "work" in relation to concepts and then be used to create an image is not designed to kill jobs, it is designed to do what I just wrote. It's early adaption will of course be to make things cheaper, like each and every other advance in technology. And that is, why this is to be treated the same, not only because it is a tool. Being a tool just emphazises that it is not a free agent, but used by other humans. If jobs are destroyed, they are not taken by "AI", they are taken by other humans that use more efficient tools or different methods. We need to discuss (not here), the limitations that should or should not imposed on that technology. Just because it might or will destroy jobs, is not enough. It never has been.

People get emotional, because they think that somehow "art" is any different from mundane tasks like painting a wall or mowing a lawn. And we do have lawn mowers with AI that were built so people would not have to do the work, because there is a market for that. Just like washing machines or how farming machines do the work of hundreds of field workers.

Just read your post. It reeks of emotional appeal. You even go so far as to appeal to the improvement of people. And I do not think you got my view on the matter.

My view is, that most "art" is not that different from boring mundane tasks. Like field work or preparing fast food. You create something that has no practical application other than being looked at. Maybe it is because of that? If you cook good, your art has a practical use. If you paint good, your art has to have meaning?

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Ponydragon1 year ago(+1)

I thought about the "not a tool" some more. Maybe people have problems with that, because this tool also changes the skill set significantly. As a painter and a photographer you have to know about lighting and poses, about scene composition and stuff. How to use an AI software requires other skills. Your previous painting skills, should you have them, might only be usefull to better sift through the output of your AI and find the good ones and discard the bad ones, like the example given in the thread of pictures where there is anatomy wrong.

So in a sense, it is not just a tool to make work faster, it is also a tool to have the work being done by someone trained differently or not at all. The analogy of Birtish Longbowman vs. Crossbows comes to mind. Any fool can aim and shoot a crossbow, but it takes years of practice with a bow.

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