midjourney (v4) - “AI Art, where do we go from here”
Four months ago, I wrote the third part of my “AI Magic” series of posts, launching this small blog
primarily focused on the growing power (and threat?) of AI art algorithms. I closed with the following passage….
"… there is a healthy debate that needs to be had and a legal precedence that needs to be produced on the ‘ownership’ of AI-generated art, the usage of particular artist styles and even the copyright and/or ownership of a great prompt. No easy answers here but this discussion is happening right now.”
I vastly underestimated the public backlash and vigorous debates that would be spawned in the four (4) short months since. An energetic, lively, sometimes toxic debate across all media platforms, regarding the awe-inducing power of these creative AI algorithms… the legitimate fear and anxiety of millions of creatives, who were blessed with or harnessed a digital artistic skill, that many others could not replicate easily, enabled them to differentiate themselves in social and economic circles — replaced with a Prompt !??!
midjourney (v4) - “AI Art, where do we go from here”
Where do we go from here? Is Stability in our Future
During the last three (3) months, there have been nothing less than jaw dropping enhancements to Midjourney’s image generation platform (currently v4 AI model) and new entrants have democratized the field - enter Stability.ai
Led by an interesting fellow named Emad, developed the open source StableDiffusion AI model, made it completely public and open to the world, and with one small publish to the Hugging Face AI model repository, ensured that a tiny number of trillion dollar companies don’t monopolize the AI-based media generation market for decades to come… seemed like a great gesture, at the time.
Well, this enabled thousands of individuals to download the AI model, generate new images in seconds, thats right… SECONDS ! and enabled early experimenters to saturate the social media sphere with millions of AI generated images that drowned out legions of digital artists on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ArtStation, YouTube, even LinkedIn…. stock photo and illustration websites were disrupted overnight, and this overnight convergence of MidJourney and StableDiffusion fertilized the breeding ground for a grass-roots led AI Art backlash. Artists and others quickly realized, this wasn’t an isolated technology that only a few can use and leverage, this was something else…. an absolute tidal wave of technology that was nearing our shores… and everyone was still in their basements messing around with Adobe editors and drawing tablets.
ArtStation Protest - image credt: https://www.reddit.com/user/miciy5/
If you’re interested in learning more about Emad or Stability.AI, a prior post.
Where do we go from here? Is a Revolution in our Future?
As in all great debates and grass roots social movements, there’s been wildly interesting perspectives, arguments for and against…. and there’s been unfortunate behavior and threats to AI artists, AI children book authors and others. The fear is real and displacement is real, humans will fight when they perceive they’re being unfairly displaced…. and lets be honest, AI is so powerful it kind of seems unfair.
When you hear the arguments pro and con, they all seem to neutralize each other, there’s a ton of strong points and counterpoints to this debate and no obvious moral high ground…
CON: Not Fair ! I worked all my life to learn tools and hone my craft, you shouldn’t be able to steal that with a prompt !
PRO: Not Fair ! I have a ton of creative ideas but have not been able to represent them digitally, due to ableist biases — but now I can.
CON: AI algorithms are merging everything they consume in their datasets to generate these high fidelity images ! They shouldn’t be able to do that.
PRO: Didn’t you learn how to hone your craft this way? Shading styles from one artist, tracing techniques from others, YouTube videos on tool usage? What’s the difference between you learning that way and a computer? Aren’t computers supposed to automate things and make them faster?
CON: AI algorithms are STEALING other artists work illegally. These works are copyrighted and they’re using them to generate their images.
PRO: Did you upload those artworks on social media platforms? Did you read the fine print on those platforms? Many of them allow the platforms to train models based on your images.
PRO: If artists are allowed to opt out their images from these datasets, do you still have this concern?
CON: Displacement is real, AI will be just another tool that younger, richer individuals will be able to harness more efficiently than those of lesser means. Is this fair? I’ve lost the only skill / ability I had that allowed me to differentiate myself from others.
PRO: You will need to retrain, learn the new tools, most have free plans, you need to go faster than the competition !!
CON: *sigh* - I love(d) art because I DIDN’T need to do those things, and it enabled me to support myself. I guess the capitalist hamster wheel it is….
midjourney (v4) - “An artist standing in front of an art canvas debates an AI computer scientist about AI algorithmic art”
Where do we go from here? A Pragmatic Approach
🫶🏽 Empathy - for those who are scared, angry, and fearful of the potential impact of AI. Displacement is real with real consequences, organizations, like ours, need to listen and understand how we can mitigate loss and provide new opportunities.
🎗️ Awareness - Current debates are understandably centered on the digital artist, but AI reminds me of a technology tsunami, which will have impacts along a wide cross-section of previously untouchable roles, including software developers and engineers, architects, lawyers, psychiatrists and much more.
🌱 Capacity to Grow & Change - Difficult, maddening and always scary, change is definitely upon us, I've been around 50 years on this earth and have witnessed that change is not just inevitable, its also somewhat amoral. We're all going to need to enhance our capacity to learn, grow and align with change (where it makes sense). We can (and should), help those disproportionately impacted make transitions into roles that are more aligned with the current landscape.
💪🏽 Strength & Stretch - Whatever your craft is, I would strongly encourage you to incorporate some of the new, into some of the old. There are some incredible artists I follow today, that are masterful at this, no way in the world I can craft a 'prompt' that challenges their masterwork. We and the things we build, can grow, evolve, and become so much stronger when we weave the wisdom of the old with the energy of the new.
🌊The AI tsunami is real... and so is the promise. Let's all reach the higher ground so we can have the proper perspective to navigate this with compassion and strength.
Where do “I” go from here? Jumping in with Empathy
I love artists, they inspired me when I was young, they inspired me in high school and college and they inspired me daily, throughout my life. Urban street art, prose, the written word, the spoken word, music, classical art, contemporary art, cinematic art, game art, fantasy art - I love it all. I married an abstract artist. I also love technology, algorithms and specifically creative algorithms, they have been my life for the past 30+ years.
I’m jumping in and participating in the convergence of the two, responsibly and with empathy to those impacted.
SmartAI Systems, started as a consultancy but will convert a majority of its operations into a startup developing new software platforms and capabilities of Generative AI across a spectrum of media, starting in 2023. I promise to work hard to include, integrate and expand the opportunities of artists, traditional and digital and also, the new legion of AI artists entering the diaspora.
I have always been drawn to Jason Silva’s wordplay regarding artistic expression. Here’s my favorite ShotsOfAwe video regarding Art, followed by a recent video exploring the AI Art debate.
AI Art related Artists & Links
AIArtists.org - Website
ARTIST - Sofia Crespo - Instagram
ARTIST - April Bey - Instagram
AI/Generative Artist - Katherine Crowson - Github
#Synthography Instagram tag - #aiart Instagram tag
MYMODERNMET ARTICLE - https://mymodernmet.com/ai-art-2022/
THE GUARDIAN ARTICLE - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/dec/01/six-leading-british-artists-making-art-with-ai
WIRED ARTICLE - https://www.wired.com/story/art-history-photography-painting-dalle-ai/
VULTURE ARTICLE - https://www.vulture.com/2022/12/ai-art-midjourney-chatgpt-phenaki-movies-hollywood.html