Quote from: jeff37923 on May 08, 2023, 07:18:34 PM
Yes, but they at least have the potential to learn while a computer program does not.

I can train an ai art program to draw in a certain style, let's say my own style, by feeding it reference images. It will then reliably produce images in that style. Is that not learning?

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 08, 2023, 08:18:18 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 08, 2023, 07:18:34 PM
Yes, but they at least have the potential to learn while a computer program does not.

I can train an ai art program to draw in a certain style, let's say my own style, by feeding it reference images. It will then reliably produce images in that style. Is that not learning?

LOL.

What I find funny is all the artist saying training AIs with art is stealing. But artists train themselves by copying other artists, to learn the technique, all the time. Some of the "masters" like Degas are renowned for learning by copying other's works. (Some "modern" schools eschew the copying thing, but it is a long standing method.)

Kind of a neat history of copying here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/10-questions-and-answers-about-old-master-copies

That's all nice, but what about asking the AI to draw Conan.  I think it nailed it.

Conan begins to slay.

Bart starts slaying.

Conan: "Sit perfectly still. Only I may slay."

I've noticed midjourny and leanardo both have real issues drawing bows on things.

Quote from: Tod13 on May 08, 2023, 08:25:14 PM

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 08, 2023, 08:18:18 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 08, 2023, 07:18:34 PM
Yes, but they at least have the potential to learn while a computer program does not.

I can train an ai art program to draw in a certain style, let's say my own style, by feeding it reference images. It will then reliably produce images in that style. Is that not learning?

LOL.

What I find funny is all the artist saying training AIs with art is stealing. But artists train themselves by copying other artists, to learn the technique, all the time. Some of the "masters" like Degas are renowned for learning by copying other's works. (Some "modern" schools eschew the copying thing, but it is a long standing method.)

Kind of a neat history of copying here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/10-questions-and-answers-about-old-master-copies

The thing is, AI is driving real artists out of business because it can instantly churn out loads of serviceable images. Human artists cannot do that, so artists aren't offended when other artists learn from them. AI is being used to create imitations that drive the original artist out of business and discourage people from ever picking up art as a skill.

Furthermore, AI is parasitic due to its lack of true intelligence. It will never invent new styles because it cannot think. It needs human artists to learn from, but if it drives them out of business then it will be left with nothing new to learn except for its own output, which will likely lead it into a garbage loop or other undesirable stagnation.

Becoming dependent on algorithms is a recipe for disaster. Multiple studies have already shown that overreliance on algorithms leads to users becoming less competent at their jobs.

Frank Herbert warned us about this in his books back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The danger of machines wasn't that they would arbitrarily decide to rebel and kill us, but that they would remove our thinking, allow other men with machines to enslave us, and ultimately destroy us because they were too good at the jobs they were designed for (one of the apocalypses Leto II averted was a paperclip maximizer before that was a thought experiment).

If you saw two books, and one had a sticker on it saying something like "No AI Inside" or something... would you buy that over a book with no declaration?

Well, AI art isn't copyrightable. That makes it poison to corpos. Of course, how exactly do you prove something was or wasn't made by an AI? You'd need to record the creative process as evidence to bring to court.

If I needed art fast and didn't have the budget for a human artist, then yes I'd resort to AI art as placeholders and I would label it as AI art.

The main problem with human artists is that there isn't any good service at the moment for finding artists with the precise parameters you require. If I need someone who can do... idk... Sugimori-style art for fake pokemon, then I have to spend hours trawling deviantart for artists who do Sugimori-style fakemon, do so at a particular skill level, have commission slots open, and are within my budget.

AI art generators massively cut down on the time necessary to find the kind of art you're looking for. The main limitation is that they lack precision. You can't ask the AI to do precise alterations or go through the concepting process that you can go through with a human artist. The AI isn't as creative as a human artist because it cannot think outside of what it's been trained on. It doesn't even understand what it's doing. It draws cars with four wheels because it's been trained to do that, not because it knows that a car with less wheels would tip over like a human being would know.

So if you ask an AI to do Beksinki or Giger art, then it vomits useless garbage that is utterly devoid of the qualities that make the real thing so compellingly freakish. Also, the AIs are censored by their creators when a key aspect of Beksinki and Giger art is that it's NSFW, involving copious amounts of death and sexuality. The AI doesn't understand reality or humanity, so it cannot subvert that like the surrealists can. You can tell that an AI doesn't really understand what it's doing, whereas Beksinski/Giger art only works because you can tell the artist understands reality and is deliberately twisting it for creative effect.

But AI can churn out legions of soulless interchangeable anime girl waifus like there's no tomorrow.

I'm guessing that some enterprising artist will train an AI to draw in his own style, make corrections as needed, and be able to churn out significantly more work than he was able to before.  I see a real benefit to this, especially in the RPG world where the ability to produce a large amount of consistent work is a real benefit. 

Quote from: Grognard GM on May 08, 2023, 10:09:29 PM
Conan begins to slay.

Bart starts slaying.

Conan: "Sit perfectly still. Only I may slay."

Look up Harry Spotter on youtube. it's quite amazing.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
It will never invent new styles

This ain't the butlerian jihad, it's an image manipulation program that uses processes that are very similar to Photoshop Actions. The most interesting things about AI art are the way that human artists can use these tools to do really cool stuff like this, I've linked the reddit post because the workflow is explained there in the comments. The good stuff doesn't come from a single button press.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/13cz4cq/from_a_simple_prompt_and_delayed_controllnet/

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM

Quote from: Tod13 on May 08, 2023, 08:25:14 PM

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 08, 2023, 08:18:18 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 08, 2023, 07:18:34 PM
Yes, but they at least have the potential to learn while a computer program does not.

I can train an ai art program to draw in a certain style, let's say my own style, by feeding it reference images. It will then reliably produce images in that style. Is that not learning?

LOL.

What I find funny is all the artist saying training AIs with art is stealing. But artists train themselves by copying other artists, to learn the technique, all the time. Some of the "masters" like Degas are renowned for learning by copying other's works. (Some "modern" schools eschew the copying thing, but it is a long standing method.)

Kind of a neat history of copying here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/10-questions-and-answers-about-old-master-copies

The thing is, AI is driving real artists out of business because it can instantly churn out loads of serviceable images. Human artists cannot do that, so artists aren't offended when other artists learn from them. AI is being used to create imitations that drive the original artist out of business and discourage people from ever picking up art as a skill.

Furthermore, AI is parasitic due to its lack of true intelligence. It will never invent new styles because it cannot think. It needs human artists to learn from, but if it drives them out of business then it will be left with nothing new to learn except for its own output, which will likely lead it into a garbage loop or other undesirable stagnation.

Becoming dependent on algorithms is a recipe for disaster. Multiple studies have already shown that overreliance on algorithms leads to users becoming less competent at their jobs.

Frank Herbert warned us about this in his books back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The danger of machines wasn't that they would arbitrarily decide to rebel and kill us, but that they would remove our thinking, allow other men with machines to enslave us, and ultimately destroy us because they were too good at the jobs they were designed for (one of the apocalypses Leto II averted was a paperclip maximizer before that was a thought experiment).

It's making artists upset. That's it. I've looked for real artists to use professionally. Most aren't interested - see my post earlier. (The really expensive ones have work, but we can't afford $5000-10,000 per piece.) You can't blame it on AI when people that want to hire can't find artists with a willingness to do business.

And cite needed on the supposed algorithms making you less competent statement. I can state, also without citing the studies, that I've heard the exact opposite for software developers. Basically, you use the GitHub AI to make searching for code that already exists more effective. I'd prefer something that gives me the code AND a link to StackOverflow that explains the code, since often the most used code is a hack or otherwise undesirable.

Eh... it is all fun and games for us writers until next year, when artists can replace us for ChatGTP version X.

Technology is inevitable, but I don't think we should be too quick to do away with artists, they add a lot to our hobby.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 09, 2023, 02:10:48 PM
Eh... it is all fun and games for us writers until next year, when artists can replace us for ChatGTP version X.
Technology is inevitable, but I don't think we should be too quick to do away with artists, they add a lot to our hobby.

We're writers. We see it, dispassionately, as something that may someday be an issue. But not insanely as a mortal threat or something that needs to be handled by legislation.

And we don't want to get rid of artists. We tried to find in vain to find one to hire. And could not. But if someone makes the barrier to hiring you so high as to be an issue, then they shouldn't blame other things when nobody hires them.

I'm actually hopeful that AI will disrupt publishing enough to create a better filtering and publication process. Right now, everything is stuck on Amazon or through the big 3-5 publishers. And finding decent product is excessively difficult. AI allows the scammers to leverage that market issue. Markets correct, if allowed to do so.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
The thing is, AI is driving real artists out of business because it can instantly churn out loads of serviceable images.

And? What is the basic principle here? That a piece of technology should be banned/controlled/restricted because it could put people out of work?

There was a time before the printing press that all books were copied by hand. The first printing press demolished that profession in a short amount of time.

Or more relevant requiring businesses and the phone companies to hire back all operators that they got rid of because they adopted ai based (previous generation) voice recognition and speech synthesis software.

Where is your criticism then when that happened a decade or so ago?

A better view is that artists could learn how to use the new technology to in order to become more versatile and productive. Because it is clear at this point that this technology zero ability to reason out proper context means that produce anything good or a tailored work that more than "good enough" requires a human artist in the loop.

Plus unlike operators, being an artist is a skill that can't be easily trained in a two week orientation. The same with writing. Because of this, the evolution of this technology will be towards keeping humans in the creative loop.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AMHuman artists cannot do that, so artists aren't offended when other artists learn from them. 

Oh? Artists from low-wage countries are used in sweatshops to produce copyrighted or more commonly knock-off works all the time.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
AI is being used to create imitations that drive the original artist out of business and discourage people from ever picking up art as a skill.

What about individuals who lack fine motor skills who have an excellent sense of composition and form. Or an artist who suffered a disease or accident that killed their fine motor coordination but left the rest of their skills intact?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
Furthermore, AI is parasitic due to its lack of true intelligence. It will never invent new styles because it cannot think. It needs human artists to learn from, but if it drives them out of business then it will be left with nothing new to learn except for its own output, which will likely lead it into a garbage loop or other undesirable stagnation.

It exposes how much of what we do as humans is repetitive repeatable patterns. But a key point of your thesis is true, that AI is only pattern recognition and thus like a RPG random table is incapable of creating something new.

This is why the ultimate use of this technology will be a tool to help skilled human do more with the time they have. And like the manuscript copyists of old those who do not learn this technology will be relegated to a niche of a greatly expanded creative field. However manuscript copying didn't die out. Instead it became a deliberate creative choice and continues to thrive to the present as a niche.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
Becoming dependent on algorithms is a recipe for disaster. Multiple studies have already shown that overreliance on algorithms leads to users becoming less competent at their jobs.

Having dealt with industrial automation for four decades, what those studies illustrate this the fact that these technologies doesn't replace the need for a skilled human but allow a skilled human to more with the time they have.

When I started out in the last 80s the metal cutting machines I created software and electronics for were not just better they were at least two orders of magnitude better. The software I wrote was for making metal patterns to be cut. By the late 90s when the older skill workers who used to make these pattern were retiring more than a few shop tried to replace them with a novice with no training who just punched in the numbers.

Well that didn't work out so well and by the 2010s that has become a rarity as my industry realized how stupid that was. Most shops have a skilled and trained operator using our software to create jobs to be cut. And they can do 100 times what the old generation could do.

Most shops when using our machine for the fire time, didn't fire their skilled employees, instead they took on more business and as the amount of work they could handle grew.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 09, 2023, 09:38:43 AM
Frank Herbert warned us about this in his books back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The danger of machines wasn't that they would arbitrarily decide to rebel and kill us, but that they would remove our thinking, allow other men with machines to enslave us, and ultimately destroy us because they were too good at the jobs they were designed for (one of the apocalypses Leto II averted was a paperclip maximizer before that was a thought experiment).

As much of a creative genius Frank Herbert was, he didn't work with this type of technology day in and day out. I have, and what happens is that people who are able to think for themselves and learn how to use this new technology are the one that come out ahead in the long run. That this is something that happens over a generation until the ramifications and limitations sink in. Then people quit trying to make the new stuff do things that it is not capable of.

Finally, this is not something that can be banned. Sure specific software can be banned/controlled like ChatGPT. But now that the basic process is well understood, anybody with enough time can put together a similar system using just public domain resources.