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Artaygo's avatar

I think the truth is probably somewhere in between. We've found that each new generation of AI tool (basic GANs to StyleGan1/2/3 to CLIP+VQGAN to CLIP Diffusion ++++++) has dramatically improved the power we have to make cooler, better quality AI artwork (shameless plug - you can see some of our AI artwork at https://www.artaygo.com). But it's also increased the need for humans to be involved on our side to create good content because it's become less about copying the style of existing works, and more about the creative process that yields high quality new content.

With something like Stylegan for example, one would need to source all kinds of content and would be limited to producing art that looked the same. Now with the advent of language guided models, it really opens the doors to a human having to think of creative prompting to generate unique and original content. I think good artists will have some element of competitive advantage in that they will have a curated private set of prompts and techniques that only they know, which will result in a unique style. It won't all be "Unreal Engine / Artstation / James Gurney" for long.

Also don't forget that these models seem ridiculous in size and complexity, but it wasn't long ago that we thought 64kb was "all the RAM you need". Future generations of models will be enormously powerful but likely more accessible as computing power advances, driving a lot of new potential for digital artists. I'd also expect ease of use improves, where instead of hacking your own code, it may be a much more user-friendly tool. In the mean time though, I can see the concern of artists needing to learn a skill that is much, much different than the typical artist training regimen.

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Judah's avatar

I think you're underestimating the artisanal aspect of art. People like hand-knitted sweaters and impromptu sketches, live music and personal essays.

Sure, a bunch of graphic designers may lose their jobs (and self-esteem), and the Billboard 100 may be a bunch of pop-derivative GPT-x compositions, but there'll still be room for the humans.

The semantic apocalypse is disturbing as far as some of these creations seem...uncannily good. But I think the value of art has always been in it's artisanal nature, or distinctly original. The in-between stuff is just bland. To me, at least. And that's all the neural nets seem capable of...for now.

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