roseminuet

It happened suddenly, like an explosion, when I was seeing all these pictures around, that were beautiful in a special, completely new way. When I first heard that there was a thing able to turn your ideas into images, I was quite excited. I got myself an AI app too, and started to learn and practice. It was a whole new world of infinite possibilities where I was finally able to express myself through digital painting, not only my usual pencil drawing.

Too soon though, the internet got flooded with a flurry of images of at least dubious quality, if not outright horrible, made by so-called artists. But there are also many outstanding, eye catching AI artworks out there. The bad part is that many don't even admit their art was generated by an artificial intelligence. The worse part is that groups and communities dedicated to painting and photography mislead their audience by promoting such works without specifying the means used for creating them. And the worst part is seeing people marveling at an AI image genuinely believing it is a real photograph, or complimenting someone who have never held a paintbrush in their entire life for their artistic skills. I find the latter sad and outrageous.

The thing about AI art is that people don't know when to stop, because it's just too easy to use. I had no choice but to stop following some accounts because they were posting dozens of pictures a day, endless variations of the same thing. Too much is bad, and AI art is one of those things that is good in smaller doses. I like to play around in AI from time to time, and sometimes I even post my creations online, but rarely, and only after I've made sure the image is worth showcasing. Because AI fails more often than not. If I make portraits, I always, always have to repaint the eyes myself, and do a lot of overall fixing to the generated painting to make it look pleasant.

One might say it's normal for something new to be controversial. There were actually similar concerns years ago, when photo manipulations and composites were all the rave. Then, some voices claimed that an altered photo was no longer a photo. Yet both are now accepted without a problem. AI is a different matter entirely, because the process and result are completely devoid of human intervention. You just say what you want to see, and AI generates it for you in the form of a painting or a photograph, drawing inspiration from what it finds on the world wide web. For AI is a copycat, it has no style of its own (altough, after a while you learn to discern AI touch from afar). You can even tell it to generate the painting in the style of a known painter, like Rembrandt for example, or even a contemporary artist. No wonder that some of them don't agree with their names to be used by AI platforms. I applaud deviantART for prohibiting this practice, by the way.

I used to really enjoy seeing AI artworks around. But the fact that people abused it in such a short time and in so many ways made me a lot more reserved towards it.

What do you think about AI art?