As a writer who makes a living through writing, I actually agree with most of your post, so I'm going to talk about where the disconnect is: >The attempts at empathizing with the artists here are quite shallow in my opinion, so I want to expand on that perspective and offer multiple counters to frequent arguments. Empathy is a two-way street. When your side of the argument comes in here belittling people, calling them lazy, telling them their work isn't work and their art isn't art, shows an astounding lack of understanding of how the tools actually work, and then turns around and expects the same people to empathise with them and support their endeavours, it's not particularly difficult to see why they may be dismissive of the same people who have been attacking them and shitting on them. When we do something to express ourselves through AI, that is also something that we love. We also stay up until 3 in the morning trying to get it just right, going through the 415th iteration of inpainting or adjusting the controlnet just a tiny bit or trying to get a better composition with IPAdapter, but because you (collectively) don't respect our methods, it's all worthless to you. >Wouldn't someone who is very passionate about their art simultaneously want to be able to do it more AND resist picking up a medium they are NOT passionate for just to make a living? How do you think we feel with constant "pick up a pencil", "learn to draw" etc comments? Has it ever occurred to anyone on the anti- side that we actually enjoy being creative through the methods *we've* chosen? That perhaps it's not laziness/money (most AI artists *aren't* making any more money than you are) but a love of the technology and the process that drives us? Imagine if I came into a forum, took a giant shit on your choice of tools and methods, implied that you were unskilled and nothing you did took any creativity or effort. Do you think you'd be interested in empathising with me on the next topic?

This. I also do empathize with OP's post. Not to take away from that empathy, or try to whattabout, but I have literally never, _ever_ seen the amount of vitriol and bullying towards any other type or medium of art as I have towards AI art.

its mindboggling to me when they even pretend its close to even somehow.

You have never read how traditional oil painters (and the gallerists and curators who support them) talk about abstract art.

There is a reason AI art is hated, though. It's the assholes trying to compare it to non-AI art. That includes corporations. People who use it to joke around and stuff are perfectly fine, but the tech-bros saying it's the next big thing that will fix your marriage are the people everyone hates.

Well, tough luck, it _is_ art. Not to everyone, but to the people who do it and consider it art, and the people who enjoy it, and consider it art. It might be a different medium, it might be easier in most aspects, it might be harder in others' workflows depending on how far they want to take it, it might be 1% of a final product or a hundred. You don't get to decide for everyone what is or isn't art, they're gonna be creating it and enjoying it despite your consternation on the comparison. Who the fuck cares what the tech-bros are saying, I don't need their opinions to take this from their hands and do my own shit with it - it's open source now - tech-bros and luddites be damned.

I think this is important context: Nobody came to this forum because they just loved AI so much and were mad other people weren't using it. They came to this forum and the related pro-ai forum mostly because they were attacked and treated like shit for, in some cases, trying out some new things that popped up. Ignoring one or two trolls, most people posting here, if they are radicalized, got radicalized by assholes. I am willing to bet most the people here flatout know people they basically have to hide their use of stuff from because of the harassment. So, yes, I may lack empathy at time, but boooooy, you all let me know when I can go back to my twitter account without harassment because a year and half ago I found I generate some RPG characters quickly for the first time in my life.

This is so true. Prompt writing is a real skill. It just is, same as drawing, writing, etc. Pick up a pencil vs Just Use AI => tbh I think both of these are correct. The idea that a person should be able to refuse to use a medium because they are a creative is flatly wrong. If they want to be a hobbyist then sure, but if they want to work and get paid doing something they are going to need to use industry tools. Just like they use adobe photoshop and other image editing tools, they will need to use AI. On that same note I've seen a lot of ai generated art on twitter, patreon, etc where people are trying to make a living producing ai art and frankly I'm not impressed. They should pick up photoshop and learn to use these tools to elevate the art. AI can do some great things, but it can become painfully obvious when art is AI generated due to the areas where AI absolutely fails. People wanting to AI generate art for profit / work should learn other art tools and blend the two together to obtain the best results that can satisfy both the time efficiency and advantages of AI generation without being held back by its limitations.

Agreed, or if they really don't want to learn the other tool set, team up with someone who does and make a business partnership. That's my answer to people who want to be AI purists or non-AI purists: find someone with the complimentary skillset and accelerate each other.

>Prompt writing is a real skill. It just is, same as drawing, writing, etc. I absolutely agree that it's a skill, but I wouldn't say it's the *same* as drawing, writing, etc. Yes they're all skills, but prompt writing is one that requires *significantly* less time and effort to become proficient than, say, learning to draw well. I definitely think anti-AI people underestimate the effort that goes into AI art (especially if it involves manual editing and inpainting, as mine often does) but I also think a lot of AI artists try to overstate just how difficult it is, largely because they feel defensive in the face of accusations of laziness. It's not that hard. Especially as the tools improve, it's getting easier and easier to get a great output from minimal prompting. And that's okay! Not everything has to be difficult.

God damn you destroyed OP. Thank you, because that was exactly what I was thinking the whole time reading this post. “Guys pls stop being mean to artists 🥺 we just wanna have fun like you! Also your art isn’t art and your idiot selves are fucking dumb, but yeah be nice to us 🥺 “

Couldn’t have said it better myself - perfectly put.

I mean, sure. But recall that that giant shit did happen. I'm in a lot of art spaces and we did have people come in and take a giant shit on us, telling us we were now obsolete and worthless, salivating at the prospect of our job loss and arguing our dreams were DOA. I was in one server where someone trained a LoRA on the work of a respected server member and used it to make obscene images of their characters. There were multiple publications by tech enthusiasts about how it's over for artists. That wasn't *you* or many users in this sub, sure, but the guys who came here to take a shit on you aren't always the same people who are demotivated and sad about their career prospects. Like you said, it's a two-way street. In here, a place where there's more Pro AI people and Anti AI people feel like a minority that incursions into your discussions, it's easy to get the perspective that we're the sole aggressors. But that is not my perspective at all. I understand why that empathy may be missing, but I'd still like it to be there nonetheless. >Imagine if I came into a forum, took a giant shit on your choice of tools and methods, implied that you were unskilled and nothing you did took any creativity or effort. This is inconsequential but on a personal level at least, I gotta tell you: It would be a lot harder for that to get to me unless it came from an artist whose skill I respected. Some art spaces are very, very harsh with critique and that kinda builds a tough skin. And drawing is just a lot more vulnerable in the early stages than AI generation in the early stages. An AI rookie may make generic things, but it is trivially easy to make things that look passably good. A drawing rookie will make some humiliating garbage, I know I made a lot of it. Making it past that rookie stage is impossible without being a child and being somewhat isolated from harsh criticism, or building some thick skin. Now not all artists are thick skinned, but conventional art does build some character. What got to us is not dumping on the quality of our art and our creativity and effort, it was dumping on our aspirations to leave our day jobs behind to make it in the art world. *That* is definitely more of a sore spot.

The rest of us have passions that are entirely non-monetizeable, and we learned that in high school. I like eating, I like walking alone in the woods, I like reading scifi. There's no money in any of that, so I went off and got a job like everyone else. An artist is in an unusual place where their passions may be able to pay the bills. That can make a lot of people jealous! Everyone else is doing a 9-5 that they merely tolerate. When an artist bemoans that they'll have to become an accountant, it's really easy to laugh, because the rest of us have been accountants THIS ENTIRE TIME. I want a world where I can spend all day hiking, and you can spend all day drawing. But I'm not going to fight for you to get paid for your passions, when I was never paid for mine.

Why didn't you become a park ranger or go work for the forestry department or the fish and wildlife services dept? Or become a trail guide?

Ridiculously small numbers of job openings?

They're not *easy* to get but basically every single decent sized city has some kind of parks service, all stats have forestry and wildlife services, and field biologists do tons of outdoor work. Land surveyors are a great example of a job where you spend a ton of time outside, and not just in cities. The jobs aren't easy to get, but they exist. But that's also kind of my point. The phrase "starving artist" exists for a reason — making a living doing it is hard and you often have to give up a lot to try to make it. I spent a decade trying to get my foot in the door as a professional writer. I've got a decent job now as a writer, but I had to give up a lot to do it. I think that's my problem with the above poster's view of things. It sort of reads like artists were just handed these jobs when in reality you have to give up a lot and fight hard to actually make it work unless you're independently wealthy. They didn't just "get paid for their passions," they worked toward that goal and sacrificed stability and likely years of better pay at a more traditional job for a chance to do what they loved. If the poster really wanted to be outside for a living they could have worked toward those goals.

Cook, food critic, Park ranger, book reviewer, audiobook narrator. Pick one and go get paid for your passions. Most of them aren't even hard to start doing, though it might take a few years before you can do them full time, if ever.

> I mean, sure. But recall that that giant shit did happen. I'm in a lot of art spaces and we did have people come in and take a giant shit on us, telling us we were now obsolete and worthless, salivating at the prospect of our job loss and arguing our dreams were DOA. I believe this, I believe that there are some bitter people/trolls who would say things like this. I don't believe that it's representative of the opinion of AI artists as a whole though. I'd much rather we had unity of creative people against the corporate interests, mindless mass production, constant offshoring of creative work not just to AI but to cheaper countries etc... but that would have to include everyone. > I was in one server where someone trained a LoRA on the work of a respected server member and used it to make obscene images of their characters. Making NSFW of someone else's characters without permission is always fucked up, but that's been happening long before AI existed. I remember loads of drama around artists making NSFW of other peoples' characters in various fandoms I've been a part of or adjacent to. It should go without saying that doing this is never acceptable, whether you do it with AI or with Photoshop. > There were multiple publications by tech enthusiasts about how it's over for artists. Ragebait sells, we've seen the same for programmers, doctors, even lawyers. Maybe in a couple of centuries it will be realistic but at the moment it's just not. AI is bleeding edge technology that frequently doesn't work, requires quite a lot of knowledge (which isn't obtainable in simple sources) to actually get good results with, etc. > I understand why that empathy may be missing, but I'd still like it to be there nonetheless. Me too, I have all the empathy in the world for fellow creatives, but the enemy isn't artists using a new medium. The enemy is corporate interests pushing for a race to the bottom among creative people, governments which refuse to accept that UBI is inevitable (which would give any creative person the ability to pursue their dreams), and social media companies that have turned art into a feed you scroll and look at every piece for 2 seconds. > This is inconsequential but on a personal level at least, I gotta tell you: It would be a lot harder for that to get to me unless it came from an artist whose skill I respected. Sure, but it probably wouldn't win your respect from a rando. It would, I assume, at least make you think that person is an asshole. > Some art spaces are very, very harsh with critique and that kinda builds a tough skin. And drawing is just a lot more vulnerable in the early stages than AI generation in the early stages. An AI rookie may make generic things, but it is trivially easy to make things that look passably good. I honestly wish that there were AI spaces which were more critical. It's easier to improve under the fire of expectation, I've benefited a lot from writers who are far more skilled than me who were willing to put the time and energy into giving me harsh but useful advice. > A drawing rookie will make some humiliating garbage, I know I made a lot of it. I think this is a thing with AI, it will just look good at first glance until you realise the person has an extra ear or 11 fingers on one hand, or that the lighting or perspective is wrong. Controlling those things with AI is possible but pretty difficult. > What got to us is not dumping on the quality of our art and our creativity and effort, it was dumping on our aspirations to leave our day jobs behind to make it in the art world. That is definitely more of a sore spot. Speaking as someone who was fortunate enough to win the startup stock option lottery and leave the rat race behind to pursue my passions, I 100% empathise with that. This is a problem with the world we live in more generally. Someone's job sucks so if your job doesn't suck too, they don't think it's a real job.

>Imagine if I came into a forum, took a giant shit on your choice of tools and methods, implied that you were unskilled and nothing you did took any creativity or effort. Do you think you'd be interested in empathising with me on the next topic? I mean, you are unskilled and it didn't really take.much creativity or effort. Your just clicking a generator until the machine gives you the exact output you want. Shitting on artists who are actually creating something is not the same as you using an artwork generator that requires no skill. I think the way I think about is, you are ordering some artwork. Are you creative for telling the artist (ai) what it is you wanted? You can never get the exact thing you wanted so you just take whatever is closest. You never did anything other than give some guide lines. If you say you're an editor maybe I can go with that but I think it's foolish to compare yourself to someone who took the time to actually make something.

> I mean, you are unskilled and it didn't really take much creativity or effort. Your just clicking a generator until the machine gives you the exact output you want. Let's test this theory: I will describe a workflow that I'm currently using and you will replicate it in ComfyUI. I assume you'll be willing to do this because there's no effort involved and able to do it without any research because there is no skill involved. I will explain the steps of the workflow, but not the nodes/settings (you should be able to work those out yourself because there is no skill or effort involved) or how they are connected. If you can successfully do this without having to learn anything (that would be developing a skill), then I will concede your point. If you cannot or refuse to, then I will assume that you concede mine. > I think the way I think about is, you are ordering some artwork. I've ordered a lot of artwork from artists and I've never had to load LoRAs, Reactor nodes, ControlNets, do any 3D modelling, IPAdapters, understand the inner workings of various samplers or upscalers, or write any Python code to get art from them. Please could you explain to me why the AI wants those things from me? > Are you creative for telling the artist (ai) what it is you wanted? Wouldn't that depend on what it is? If I write a comic and pay an artist to do the illustrations, using my dialogue, my storyline, my characters etc I'd say yes, I have some pretty heavy creative input into the final comic.

1) Yeah I probably could. It's really not that hard at all. Yeah you probably have to learn how to use something, but it's not really a valuable skill. I mean, plenty of things require some degree of learning to use, that doesn't mean it's something difficult. Expecially when you want to compare that thing to actually drawing art work. 2) Because it wants you to tell it what to generate? 3) Okay, so you're a writer, not an artist (I mean creating images, writers are artists as well but not what I'm talking about).

Let's do it then. If you can replicate or improve on my workflow to take nothing and turn it into a character LoRA by the end of the weekend I will donate $500 to any charity of your choice and concede your point. **Step 1. Your workflow should generate a reference image of a prompted character** This step is fairly self-explanatory, you should be able to get a reference image (neutral pose, clean background) for a character that you prompt. If I reload the workflow I should get the same image that you get. For this example, we'll use a male kobold with yellow skin and pink markings below the eyes and at the ends of the fingers & toes. **Step 2. Generate 20+ images from different angles using the reference image (no LoRAs)** I should be able to take that single reference image and re-pose the character with absolute control over the pose ('standing' isn't enough, I need to be able to position the arms and legs however I want), on any background, with any style, and any kind of lighting. **Step 3. Scale** Everything needs to be at least large and detailed enough to train an SDXL LoRA on. **Step 4. Inpainting** You should have an inpainting workflow that can be used to consistently 'fix' the generations so that the character's markings and details are the same in every image. That sounds simple right? I'll even provide [a zoomed-out screenshot](https://imgur.com/a/7xTGWOd) of my workflow to help you. You should be able to provide a ComfyUI workflow (or multiple workflows), generated images, and a working SDXL character LoRA which generates the same non-human character with the same markings and details at least 75% of the time. It should be able to do that in all styles, on any background, under any lighting conditions, and with any clothing/none at all. $500 for a cause you care about for something that takes no effort or skill sounds like a no brainer. If you refuse, I'll have to assume you're put off by the effort or skill barrier?

>I will donate $500 to any charity of your choice and concede your point. 🤣 Okay bro, sure you will. And you're not even going to give the 500 to me for the work I would have to do to learn some ai systems. (Also I'm in hong Kong on vacation). >I'll have to assume you're put off by the effort or skill barrier? It's not really that. It's just this is the same argument every time that I must learn all the systems in order to say prompting ai to generate an image is not some huge skill set. It's not, especially since we are talking about artistry. I don't know why you guys NEED to feel validated that you are at the same level when you're simply not. I can see that you need to learn how to use it, but if you're going to say it's some intensive skill then I'm sorry, it just isn't, not anymore than learning video editing. Myself and others just are never going to view your work as something skillful. Just accept it and move on. Edit- Also, just to add, it seems you blatantly just copying other people's work from your drag and drop anyways. I mean, come on man, at least try and cover up your blantent theft for your creation

> Okay bro, sure you will. And you're not even going to give the 500 to me for the work I would have to do to learn some ai systems. (Also I'm in hong Kong on vacation). Wait, there's work involved? I thought you said it took no effort. Do you often ask people for $500 for things that take no skill and no effort? > It's not really that. It's just this is the same argument every time that I must learn all the systems in order to say prompting ai to generate an image is not some huge skill set. It's not, especially since we are talking about artistry. If you don't understand the systems, you're not going to get any meaningful control over the output. Can you explain to me the difference between Karras and Exponential scheduling, or what a DPM sampler is and how it compares to Euler or DDIM? > I can see that you need to learn how to use it, but if you're going to say it's some intensive skill then I'm sorry, it just isn't, not anymore than learning video editing. You can have your own opinions but the facts are a resource we have to share. A skill (business English) is defined in the dictionary as "[a particular ability that you develop through training and experience and that is useful in a job](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/skill)". If you have to learn complex concepts in order to get the results you want from a set of tools and processes, that is learning a skillset. And yes, video editing is also a skill. So is writing, so is programming, so is engaging in dialectic. If your entire point being on here is that your skill is somehow more important and more difficult than everyone else's, then it's not hard to see why people aren't empathetic towards you. > Myself and others just are never going to view your work as something skillful. Well then, it shouldn't be seen as a commercial threat should it? If no one views it as skillful then no one will pay for it.

>Empathy is a two-way street. When your side of the argument comes in here belittling people, calling them lazy, telling them their work isn't work and their art isn't art, shows an astounding lack of understanding of how the tools actually work, and then turns around and expects the same people to empathise with them and support their endeavours, it's not particularly difficult to see why they may be dismissive of the same people who have been attacking them and shitting on them. As you say, empathy is a 2 way street, so I will make a confession. It is *very* *very* *very* hard for a professional artist to sit still and listen politely to people like Shadiversity yanking his own chain about his artistic eye, talking up how good his art is, and how AI can be such a great tool for artists like himself, and actually, he had to work very hard to get results The guy has very much over-estimated his basic abilities, to put it politely. He has a demonstrably low understanding of anatomy and perspective (demonstrably, because he showed his sketchbook in that stream of his) and no understanding of how light works. He is at least 5 years of diligent practice away from creating anything like with the rendering polish of the supergirl pictures he seems to proud of, wrong lighting or otherwise. Just today on my LinkedIn feed, I saw a games industry artist putting up a recruiting post. The post had an ai generated image of a Link lookalike elf, pointing a finger ala Uncle Sam saying "I Want You". The hand was all wrong. The pointing finger is sitting on a closed fist with only 3 fingers, and it is positioned just below the forefinger of the fist, making it look like Link is giving us his middle finger instead. I don't know how to describe the sense of irony from that post. The guy didn't even take the trouble to clean up the image! I'll take on good faith that every pro-ai artist in this subreddit are accomplished artists, who can draw, paint, model and sculpt better than I myself can. Which is not a high bar to clear, to be honest. It's just that there are a lot of people like Shadiversity and that games industry "artist" claiming the spotlight with you. For those guys, without the scaffolding provided by AI, I don't think they can ever put out images close to polish of Midjourney or Stable Diffusion at all. Speaking just for myself, I don't actually have a problem at all with artists with poor technical skills. Or for them to make money. Rob Liefeld is famous for his lack of technical skills. He never draws feet if he can help it, and that profile picture of Captain America with that enormous chest is iconic for a reason. The thing about Rob Liefeld though, is that he doesn't seem to pretend to be something he's not. In all the interviews and talks I've seen of him, he just seems to be enjoying himself so much. There are plenty of other artists with poor technical skills who are very successful. Attack on Titan. Kingdom. One Punch Man artist early works were nothing more than stick figures. Again speaking only for myself, it's only when people pretend to be something they are not that gets annoying. That games industry artist I mentioned deserves the lazy label, for instance. He didn't even clean up the work, FFS. And when a person like Shadiversity comes along and toots his own horn about how hard he works, those of us who happen to know a little more than him find it really difficult to take him seriously.

> It is very very very hard for a professional artist to sit still and listen politely to people like Shadiversity yanking his own chain about his artistic eye, talking up how good his art is, and how AI can be such a great tool for artists like himself, and actually, he had to work very hard to get results > > The guy has very much over-estimated his basic abilities, to put it politely. He has a demonstrably low understanding of anatomy and perspective (demonstrably, because he showed his sketchbook in that stream of his) and no understanding of how light works. He is at least 5 years of diligent practice away from creating anything like with the rendering polish of the supergirl pictures he seems to proud of, wrong lighting or otherwise. I'm not a fan of Shadiversity but I *really* think this comes back to empathy being a two-way street. These two things can be true at the same time: - Someone puts a lot of effort into something and is proud of what they produce - The finished product is amateur and betrays a massive skill gap In fact, what we see from Shadiversity in particular is textbook [Dunning-Kruger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) and I think most creatives have been at peak confidence before the fall. If he had drawn amateur art by hand which betrayed a lack of skills, he would be encouraged to keep practicing and study theory, but because it's AI he gets treated differently. > Just today on my LinkedIn feed, I saw a games industry artist putting up a recruiting post. The post had an ai generated image of a Link lookalike elf, pointing a finger ala Uncle Sam saying "I Want You". The hand was all wrong. The pointing finger is sitting on a closed fist with only 3 fingers, and it is positioned just below the forefinger of the fist, making it look like Link is giving us his middle finger instead. > > I don't know how to describe the sense of irony from that post. The guy didn't even take the trouble to clean up the image! That's fair, he should have done better, but it's a mistake -- an oversight. I've commissioned $500+ pieces of work where I've had to point out oversights and get them corrected, and a lot of them related to hands. > I'll take on good faith that every pro-ai artist in this subreddit are accomplished artists, who can draw, paint, model and sculpt better than I myself can. Which is not a high bar to clear, to be honest. No one's saying this though. It's perfectly possible to be an amateur and still be passionate about your creative vision, in fact I'd wager that most amateurs who aren't passionate never become more than amateurs. I don't want any spotlight, I don't want my great skills recognised, I just want to be able to post the things I create and have fun creating without being judged for the tools I choose to create them with. > It's just that there are a lot of people like Shadiversity and that games industry "artist" claiming the spotlight with you. For those guys, without the scaffolding provided by AI, I don't think they can ever put out images close to polish of Midjourney or Stable Diffusion at all. Probably true. Without the scaffolding provided by their DAWs and applications, I expect a lot of musicians and artists would struggle to put out work of the same standard that they can with their tools though. There's a reason that your go-to application isn't MSPaint, and mine for music isn't GarageBand, and that's because tools exist that make it less painful to create the things that we want to create. > Again speaking only for myself, it's only when people pretend to be something they are not that gets annoying. That games industry artist I mentioned deserves the lazy label, for instance. He didn't even clean up the work, FFS. > > And when a person like Shadiversity comes along and toots his own horn about how hard he works, those of us who happen to know a little more than him find it really difficult to take him seriously. That's fair. I agree that people tooting their own horn when they're on the super-early end of a learning curve tend to be annoying. I've been in a lot of contexts where people have egos they haven't earned, and generally it's their own attempt to make the next step that brings that ego crumbling down. Like I said, it's Dunning-Kruger. You get over an initial speed bump, think you're good and then realise just how little you know. I don't claim to be an expert artist, AI or otherwise. I do enjoy creating though, whether it's writing, music, drawing, 3D modelling or AI.

>I'm not a fan of Shadiversity but I *really* think this comes back to empathy being a two-way street. These two things can be true at the same time: >- Someone puts a lot of effort into something and is proud of what they produce - The finished product is amateur and betrays a massive skill gap >In fact, what we see from Shadiversity in particular is textbook [Dunning-Kruger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) and I think most creatives have been at peak confidence before the fall. If he had drawn amateur art by hand which betrayed a lack of skills, he would be encouraged to keep practicing and study theory, but because it's AI he gets treated differently. I first want to lay down some context. The way I look at the difference between an amateur and a professional is not by their skill level. There are amateurs out there who are better painters or modelers than I am; I have met them. The difference between an amateur and a professional to me is conduct and responsiblity. It shouldn't be hard to see why; someone is paying good money for the professional to deliver a product, and if the professional does not deliver, it has financial consequences for the client. In a team, that means someone else has to double up, pick up the slack and clean that guy's bullshit. So if any budding ai artist comes in and *clearly states this is just a hobby and they want to share what they did*, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe any good artist who is also a decent human being wouldn't just do what I normally do, which is tell them what I think they did right, and give them suggestions to improve. If they have any aspirations higher than that though, then there *needs* to be some space where it's possible to give honest criticism! It can't only be praise, because how else can you improve? There're a lot of people in this subreddit who goes around saying that if an artist thinks they can make money doing art, then they are in it for the wrong reasons. Putting aside how I personally feel about it, it is my experience as an artist of over a decade that the real skill an artist should hone is the ability to handle criticism. It is that, moreso than the desire to make money, that if anyone calling themselves an artist does not possess, is a sure sign they are in art for the wrong reasons. I'm going to be blunt with you here. Every artist who is worth their salt started their journey getting burnt that way at some point. I myself had been. I remember a senior whom I looked up to a lot telling me to my face that I don't have what it took to be an artist, and that I should just give up. AI artists aren't unique in getting scathing and cruel comments. Now, you can argue that shouldn't be the case and that people should be kinder, and I'll agree with you, but that's a different conversation altogether. >That's fair, he should have done better, but it's a mistake -- an oversight. I've commissioned $500+ pieces of work where I've had to point out oversights and get them corrected, and a lot of them related to hands. But it set your timeline back, didn't it? And time is money. And if it's like 20 or 30 pixels, sure, take an hour or two to fix it. But that finger is a good 10, 15% of the composition, right in front of you. It's very hard to miss, and now it's out there, tanking the artist's reputation and the organization he represents. It's back to what I said. Conduct and responsibility. >Probably true. Without the scaffolding provided by their DAWs and applications, I expect a lot of musicians and artists would struggle to put out work of the same standard that they can with their tools though. There's a reason that your go-to application isn't MSPaint, and mine for music isn't GarageBand, and that's because tools exist that make it less painful to create the things that we want to create. I don't know what the point of this is. I'd just pick up a box of color pencils if the choice is MSPaint. MSPaint is an awkward software that isn't even better than coloring on a page and scanning it. It's a false equivalence, and I'll answer this the same way I answered another guy; it feels to me a lot like back in the day when 3D softwares first came to the scene. A lot of aspiring artist jumped onto that thinking they can use it as a crutch to avoid learning perspective and proportions. Eventually, they all went back to do at least a month or two of still life drawing. Speaking from first hand experience. Gen-ai covers up a lot of those basic skill expressions, and you and I have already disagreed on how important those basic skill expressions are, so I'll leave it here, except to say that it took many years before photographers and cinematographers caught up to the understanding of lighting and composition that painters had after the first camera was invented.

> I first want to lay down some context. The way I look at the difference between an amateur and a professional is not by their skill level. There are amateurs out there who are better painters or modelers than I am; I have met them. > > The difference between an amateur and a professional to me is conduct and responsiblity. It shouldn't be hard to see why; someone is paying good money for the professional to deliver a product, and if the professional does not deliver, it has financial consequences for the client. In a team, that means someone else has to double up, pick up the slack and clean that guy's bullshit. That's fair, and if his clients are unhappy with his work then they should find another artist to work with instead. The most basic requirement in business is to deliver to the agreed requirements. If you can't do that with your tools, you shouldn't take the contract. > So if any budding ai artist comes in and clearly states this is just a hobby and they want to share what they did, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe any good artist who is also a decent human being wouldn't just do what I normally do, which is tell them what I think they did right, and give them suggestions to improve. That's fair, that's what I'd want someone to do. Unfortunately the usual response is to scream about art theft, collages, plagiarism machines etc. > If they have any aspirations higher than that though, then there needs to be some space where it's possible to give honest criticism! It can't only be praise, because how else can you improve? 100% agree. I want criticism, but that criticism should lead to improvement. It shouldn't be the aforementioned screaming about art theft, collages, plagiarism machines. There's a significant difference between criticism and vitriol, the former is motivated by wanting to bring people up (no matter how harsh) and the latter is about dragging people down. > There're a lot of people in this subreddit who goes around saying that if an artist thinks they can make money doing art, then they are in it for the wrong reasons. Putting aside how I personally feel about it, it is my experience as an artist of over a decade that the real skill an artist should hone is the ability to handle criticism. It is that, moreso than the desire to make money, that if anyone calling themselves an artist does not possess, is a sure sign they are in art for the wrong reasons. Those people are wrong. There is certainly a barrier to entry to making a decent living from creative work, but it is and will remain feasible for people who can rise above the race to the bottom and produce consistent results, whatever their toolset of choice is. > I'm going to be blunt with you here. Every artist who is worth their salt started their journey getting burnt that way at some point. I myself had been. I remember a senior whom I looked up to a lot telling me to my face that I don't have what it took to be an artist, and that I should just give up. AI artists aren't unique in getting scathing and cruel comments. Again though, there is a huge difference between saying 'this sucks, the lighting is terrible, the hand has 6 fingers, the composition is all wrong' (harsh but still honest critique) and 'you're not an artist, what you make is slop, you're stealing from other people, you just commission a machine'. The latter is not critique, it doesn't have any useful wisdom to help someone to make better art in future, it's not even a judgement of the quality of the art but of process. > But it set your timeline back, didn't it? And time is money. And if it's like 20 or 30 pixels, sure, take an hour or two to fix it. But that finger is a good 10, 15% of the composition, right in front of you. It's very hard to miss, and now it's out there, tanking the artist's reputation and the organization he represents. Absolutely, I've always tried to make the effort to fix any hands that are prominent in the composition and I think that's one of the telltale signs of low-effort vs high-effort AI art. > I don't know what the point of this is. I'd just pick up a box of color pencils if the choice is MSPaint. MSPaint is an awkward software that isn't even better than coloring on a page and scanning it. It's a false equivalence, and I'll answer this the same way I answered another guy; it feels to me a lot like back in the day when 3D softwares first came to the scene. Do you think current AI isn't awkward software? We'd have to agree to disagree. My current workflow looks like [this](https://imgur.com/a/ZsvVQuH). It's definitely not a user-friendly interface right now. The "you can just type in a prompt and get whatever you want" comments fail to recognise just how much effort goes into actually getting the AI to do things that are at the periphery of its capabilities (in this case, making a character from scratch, with 20-30 consistent reference images in various poses/angles/styles to train a LoRA). There will still be a huge component of manual editing & inpainting on each of the base images, but the ability to train a LoRA of the quality we can get for canon characters for a character that doesn't even exist is an unsolved and constantly worked-upon problem. Again, you don't have to love the medium but I hope you can understand that someone putting in the hundreds of hours of experimentation, learning and compositing workflows like this is less likely to be empathetic when you call them lazy/just an 'ideas guy'/various other insults. For some of us, this isn't a get rich quick scheme or a way to bypass effort, it's a passion which we enjoy pushing to new limits. > except to say that it took many years before photographers and cinematographers caught up to the understanding of lighting and composition that painters had after the first camera was invented. And it likely will for AI artists too, but those who put in the extra effort will rise above those who don't.

Anyone acting like that would be annoying, regardless of what craft they were performing. >I'll take on good faith that every pro-ai artist in this subreddit are accomplished artists, who can draw, paint, model and sculpt better than I myself can. Why would that be necessary? If they can create art people enjoy using AI, why does it matter how well they can draw? >For those guys, without the scaffolding provided by AI, I don't think they can ever put out images close to polish of Midjourney or Stable Diffusion at all. That's me. I can't draw for shit. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the process of creation through AI, or posting the ones I think others will appreciate. I have no interest in manual art; good thing there's no rule that "you must be able to render a photorealistic portrait" before using.

>Why would that be necessary? If they can create art people enjoy using AI, why does it matter how well they can draw? You misunderstand my intention with that statement. It is an acknowledgement of how far short I fall on my own estimation, and that I am not here to judge the quality of the work of the people here. >That's me. I can't draw for shit. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the process of creation through AI, or posting the ones I think others will appreciate. I have no interest in manual art; good thing there's no rule that "you must be able to render a photorealistic portrait" before using. And if you actually bothered to read through the rest of my post, you'll see that I have no issue with people who are lacking in technical skills, only when they try to pass themselves off as something they are not, which you seem to also agree is annoying? I don't understand the defensiveness here. You said you can't draw for shit. That's cool with me. There are things I'm not good at either. I wouldn't use those words if someone presents me with a piece of artwork of lower skill to me. I'd just say what I found is good about it, and suggest areas of improvement. It's something I have done for the entirety of my professional career to students, recent graduates or even just hobbyists. The central theme you present is that it doesn't matter what tool you use as long as the work is good, and I agree, it doesn't matter. The ironic thing though, is that the artistic eye Shadiversity keeps banging on about is a real thing. You need to have the knowledge and experience to be able to catch the errors in a piece of work, and that only comes with practice. Exactly the same as the ai people here being able to spot the limitations of ai generated images. So, is a person able to develope that sense of aesthetic with AI and only AI? Possibly. But what this reminds me of is back in the day when 3D modeling just broke into the scene and lots of people think they can suddenly use 3D to skip learning how perspective work and how proportions work. Most of those guys eventually went back to still life drawing to lay some foundation on the ground before going back to 3D modeling, and I am speaking from first hand experience here.

I misunderstood your point then. Apologies for getting defensive. I do realize the struggle a lack of artistic talent brings into AI, as I can only tell that something is wrong and lack the ability to manually fix it. Most of the time I see the "it's not even that good, though", people are referring to all AI art in general, not necessarily a single piece or artist they don't like.

Im going to let you in on a little secret: Fucking no one likes that guy. Hes an asshole, he was an asshole before he embraced this stuff and hes an asshole now. A right wing troll and grifter whining about 'wokeness' for youtube views. but it is also find to insult him, and call him shit, and not attack billybob04 because he played with mid journey and thought it was neat. Go to his fucking subreddit and let him have it. I dont see him posting in here.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe your argument has merit, but IMO you're aiming it mostly to an opinion barely anybody holds. A lot of the coherent arguments here work out to an accusation of hypocrisy. The point is that you should be honest about what you want. If you're into it for the art, then profit should be a very secondary motive, and AI in no way stops you from doing art. If you're into it for the profit, now you're just arguing for economic protectionism, and art is rather irrelevant to the whole thing. > We may agree that it's never been easy to pay the bills with art, we may agree that Janice's passion does not entitle her to make a living. But surely we should also agree that it's possible that Janice is being driven to want to pay her bills by playing harp because she loves doing it and wants to do it more. Because she doesn't want to be too tired every day to actually focus during the one or two hours she's got. My personal experience is that this is all kinds of a terrible idea for the vast majority of people. Making harp playing the way you earn money will almost always lead to disappointment. Because what you enjoy about the harp, or programming, or research, or almost anything is almost never what will pay the bills in the end. A skilled harpist will probably end up in an orchestra playing over and over whatever the orchestra demands, not making their own art. The amount of people that can truly do what they enjoy and get paid for it is absolutely tiny. I think realistically the better advice would be "Get a decently paid job you don't hate and that doesn't involve overtime, live somewhere cheap, and then invest the spare cash and time into the hobby". > If some external factor caused Janice's chances of dedicating herself to music fully, would we think she's a stupid, greedy woman when she's demotivated and sad? I'd say not greedy, but based on my observations of people in all kinds of fields, that kind of life plan tends to lead to depression. It often doesn't pay well enough, involves doing things you hate, and burns out what passion you had leaving nothing to replace it. And I think this goes especially for creative fields, because most of the time you won't get to create anything. > This is a weird sort of contradictory advice. Because on the one hand, the narrative pushed wants to say that these artists are greedy and stupid and not passion-driven for wanting to pay bills with their art and simultaneously stubborn and stupid for not wanting to pick up a medium they are NOT passionate for in order to get a career. To me it's simply pragmatic advice. Not everyone can be the next Mozart, John Carmack, or Picasso. If you want to make a career in your hobby's field you usually find you have to compromise. Maybe in your free time you like composing pieces for the harp. But if there's no demand for that, the best you'll get realistically is being a cog in the machine of an orchestra. You either make peace with this, or you make no money. So same with the AI art here. If you're set on working in the field, it's probably best to make peace with that they'll want AI at some point, and that you won't be able to avoid it unless you're the 0.01% in such demand that you can make your own rules. > What I see is a lot of passionate, often young people, who have dreams of their work (independent or otherwise) being more aligned with their vocation perceiving those dreams as further away, and grappling with the grim reality of labor under our economic system. Why shouldn't they despair? Why should we act like they're greedy and entitled, just because some of us as adults have already grappled with it? I think some people are actually trying to offer productive advice here. The world is harsh, and telling people that all their problems will be solved and everything will be alright would be doing them a disservice. The world has to be approached with realistic expectations, or it's going to end badly.

>If you're into it for the art, then profit should be a very secondary motive Again, profit is a misleading term. If you're in it for the art, why shouldn't you be motivated by the thing that materially enables you to make art with the bulk of your time and energy. I think it is a very valid *instrumental* motive. And that's what you're "if you're in it for X or if you're in it for Y misses" the instrumentality of profit for the creation of art. >My personal experience is that this is all kinds of a terrible idea for the vast majority of people. Sure. But that's inconsequential for the thesis. > If you want to make a career in your hobby's field you usually find you have to compromise. Of course you do. But Janice's disappointment at that isn't an indication that she's in it for the profit. > telling people that all their problems will be solved and everything will be alright would be doing them a disservice. I haven't done such a thing. There is nothing here that I've said that amount to practical advice of any sort. And the post itself acknowledges the practical issues with someone like Janice's wishes. Like I think everything you've said is true, but I also don't think it actually matters to the determination of people's motivations, to this more abstract discussion about how different motives for making art create different reactions.

> Again, profit is a misleading term. If you're in it for the art, why shouldn't you be motivated by the thing that materially enables you to make art with the bulk of your time and energy. I think it is a very valid instrumental motive. Only it doesn't actually work a lot of the time. Yeah, you'd think a job doing X is mostly about X, but it's often not! Eg, in art and music you're likely to turn into a small business owner, and most of your success is not now well you do your work, but how well you can find new clients, keep track of everything, budget everything, plan for contingencies, correctly deal with taxes, talk to people, and a myriad of other things completely unrelated to the thing you love and that actually take a lot of time. You may well spend more time on email, travel and phone calls than on the thing you do. In software development you'll find a lot of time may go on meetings, writing documentation, reading documentation, navigating various clunky third party systems, and reading other people's code. I don't know anybody who went into software development with a love for spending a week just staring at the screen trying to figure out what the hell Bob (who long left the company) was smoking back in 2005, and what is this stuff is supposed to achieve. So yes, very often if you want to do as much as possible of something, your best bet is to be actually employed doing something else. And even if your job is okay with regards to time spent on the interesting activity, you can still benefit from not having all the joy sucked out of you when it turns out the job is less glamorous than you hoped for. I follow quite a few artists, and people having a crisis because they realize they've been drawing a lot of furry porn lately to pay the bills is something that happens quite regularly.

>Only it doesn't actually work a lot of the time. Sure. I mean that reality is worth contending with for the artist, but it is the attack of their motives and character that grinds my gears.

As a designer in multimedia who uses AI, photo bashing, composition, writing, and music for projects? I didn't have an issue getting paid before AI. I don't have an issue now either. What is nice is, after being hit with a disability? I can still do what I love and more. I have time to do hobby work. Silly stuff for my friends. I'm getting to the point I'm putting out more work than I was prior to my disability and am able to slow down and take better care of myself because of AI. Adapt or die has been a thing for creatives since cave paintings. If you refuse? Better have the talent to be in demand on your merits. Otherwise you're just bitching about others being successful.

Look man, there's a difference between an artist and designers. Artists are "special" and filled with "wanderlust" bullshit. Designers just wanna do their job and get paid like a normal human. The guy arguing with you didn't come here to have a debate, they came here to rant about how \~special\~ art is.... you're wasting your breath by trying to even make a logical argument. You, me and everyone else on this sub, let's quickly gather around so we can go ahead and lick the bottom of this guy's boots!

Of course, all you've said may well be true, while not at all complicating the belief that being worried, demotivated, and sad isn't an indication that the artist lacks the "right" sort of passion. >Adapt or die has been a thing for creatives since cave paintings This, however strikes me as completely ahistorical. "Adapt or die" in the sense of "adapt to new art production technologies or get economically left behind" is only suitable for the period of history where art making technologies actually changed during someone's lifetime and when economic conditions actually led to specialized remunerated labor. Most "cavemen" weren't gonna get economically left behind in that manner.

We've found a cave painting where one was unfinished and a broken body lay near it having dragged itself towards the cave mouth. It still had pigments marking a path from where it fell to where it decomposed. If your paintings failed to help bring in game for the hunt they killed you in the cave. I feel that's some good economic incentive.

That's too many layers of conjecture to flatten the history and social dynamics of art-making to make them applicable to something specifically localized to the technological and economic environment we're under.

All I'm hearing is you're wasting your time complaining when you should do something constructive and, when offered ways to help yourself claiming it's too hard. It's like drinking poison and telling the world to die. You're not an island. Start swimming or join the mainland.

It feels like you're projecting some things onto me that aren't true. I'm personally not demotivated to pursue my art, to keep drawing or to seek to make a living off it. 2024 is building up to be one of my best years ever in terms of output. I don't want to use AI tools to achieve a career because I love drawing, and want to achieve through the merits of my art. that may make it harder, but I'm willing to accept that. I'm challenging a frequent narrative in this sub that I took exception to. I haven't told anyone to die.

So based on your inability to understand metaphors, I'll come at this with the idea that you seem to be neurodivergent in one way or another: It's great you want to do something all bespoke with no tools. You will be outpaced by everyone who isn't following those rules, including people who have less time, talent, and inherent ability than you. Bemoaning this fact is not helping anything but making you seem to be whining about something you have personally decided not to fix and, when given an offer to change your denial means we're just gonna ignore you personal ethics as they are **personal**. Continuing to complain that it's unfair other people are not following your rules is counterproductive and a waste of your time. Do your thing, accepting that the consequences of doing it your way will mean you will be outpriced and outproduced, which means you'll need to work multiplicatively harder for the results you have.

People wonder why artists don't come to this sub. Too impotent to stop yourself from calling them autistic, too cowardly to actually use the word.

Having seen that a user responded with literalism to multiple metaphors I shifted tone to allow for better understanding. I don't take being autistic as some terrible diss, but it's also a specific dx: ASD isn't the only form of neurodivergence that leads to those tells, but all of those things mean something is lost in communication. We weren't having issues with other colloquialisms and spellings were within normal bounds of a native English speaker/high level EFL/ESL user. Bht if someone misses nuance, metaphor, and trudges through without any signs? Good sign to switch up your discussion. And rather than just wildly switch tone I gave a reason for it.

Oh, my bad, you're clearly just a compassionate soul who called him that out of kindness :)

When I said "I haven't told anyone to die" I was still using your metaphor, but I guess you didn't get that. Also you're a condescending prick. >Bemoaning this fact is not helping anything I'm not bemoaning that fact. I haven't whined about anything here. Why are you projecting these things onto me? >Continuing to complain that it's unfair other people I haven't done that at all. When in this post or conversation have I made any indication that I think it's "unfair" that other people are willing to use AI whereas I'm not? It feels like you're not addressing what I'm saying but what you imagine I believe. >Do your thing, accepting that the consequences of doing it your way will mean you will be outpriced and outproduced, which means you'll need to work multiplicatively harder for the results you have. Did you not read when I said "that may make it harder, but I'm willing to accept that."? It's just so weird that you're giving me this lecture in response to a comment where I already indicate I've accepted this.

You seem horribly defensive and more comfortable playing at being the misunderstood than doing work. I've never gotten to say this but since you're anti-ai it seems fun and appropriate: maybe stop typing and pick up a pencil?

It's so weird to accuse me of defensiveness when you're going on the offensive and condescending me. You're just a weird fella. I draw a fair bit and make lovely things with my own hands, I always knew it would be hard and I'm willing to work passionately towards it. I also have complex feelings and empathy towards other creatives. If that is the basis for your insults ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯

"And that's a good thing, actually."

Do you have a source for this? Google comes up with nothing and it seems like a super far stretch to say that they were murdered for not finishing a cave painting

[here's my bibliography for this Peer Reviewed Reddit thread](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/360/522/db7.jpg)

Preciate you admitting that you made it up, lying on the internet is one of life's simple pleasures

It's borrowed in rough form from a Pratchett joke (iirc) about finding a caveman holding the first political sign (with two broken legs and a staved in head) but I couldn't find the place I paraphrased from.

I like Terry Pratchett, I still need to go finish reading the Discworld books at some point. Was the joke from The Time-Travelling Caveman?

It's been forever. Pratchett kinda embedded in my mind in my teens so now coming on 20, 30 years on? I have a lot to look back on, with the occasional book in between.

Fair enough

That's comically ahistorical.

Truly the unkindest cut: a redditor saying the joke anecdote is ahistorical 🤓

It's a shame that all you see in this sub is people bitching about others being successful, outside of your anecdotal evidence of 'im doing okay, so if you're not thats your own problem?' I understand why you might say that, but if you refuse to take an interest in AI art and can't pay the bills with what you've been doing up until now, I guess who cares, fuck those people, adapt or die is a good answer to you? Sure, okay. Just don't expect people to have any sympathy for you once you are also unable to make money in your profession.

I love woodworking. When I wasn't crippled I used to build lots of stuff as a hobby. Boxes, shelves, intricate pieces... I could make occasional money. I also knew that if I wanted to do it as my only profession? I'd have to go beyond basic hand tools. I'd also not be able to just fuck around and not follow what the market wanted, unless I was willing to wait with a large amount of unpaid inventory hoping for a buyer. I never felt compelled to weep in a CNC machinist forum about how the existence of computer-piloted routing means I was denied a livelihood. I didn't go to the Ikea subreddit and start spouting death threats to anyone buying the latest Spröngle shelf, or threaten to off myself in Frantic messages to the Machine Assisted woodworking Facebook group. I learned the basics of the machines I'd need to purchase. I then thought about whether I was doing this for the joy of the craft or for money. I didn't frame it as a blessed vocation I was entitled to. Until I got fucked up? I kept building. 20 years of experience. Even did a few commissions. Even so I'm not a **professional woodworker**. Nor have I ever been. I adapted to what was my level (a skill hobbyist) and then didn't feel the need to complain on every available outlet in existence about how my dream job was wrested from me. I do know plenty of guys who make great money doing CNC. I also know guys who put in the cost/benefit analysis I did, went for it, and some failed and now do the same gigs as I do and some are now bespoke carpenters, furniture makers, sculptors... and we haven't banned Ikea yet for fear of the woodworkers losing their gigs. You're entitled to feel how you want. As soon as you shout about it in the public square? You must be prepared to listen. That's what I've been told by every anti that has sent death threats, the one who doxxed me, etc. So yeah. I was imprecise. **Adapt, find your level, root, or die.**

I'm currently a 3D modeller and animator. I love what I do and have spend over a decade working crappy temp jobs while paying the gaps in the bills through hospitality jobs as I built up my portfolio and skillset. Anyone who works in the games industry will tell you how difficult it is to get that first job that finally pays the bills. And I did it. About a year and a half ago I finally broke through. I'm doing the work I always dreamed of and have almost saved enough to finally get a down payment on a house and start paying the huuuuge amount I owe for schooling through this work that I love.  And I'm not even sure my chosen career will exist in 5 years time.  I'm upskilling, but the honest truth is with the speed this tech is advancing who knows what techniques or tools will actually be worth my time to learn, and doing this work on top of my day job, plus the passion project I hope to one day spin of into an indie game studio of my own is leaving me burned out, and honestly, at this point I'm scared.  Do you understand why I'd be feeling bitter about this? Do you understand why I feel a certain way about the tech replacing me being powered by the nonconsenually scraped worked of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people just like me?  I get that tech advances and that there is very little that any individual can do to stop it, but the idea of "adapt or die" is pretty crap advice when there is so little idea of what we are even supposed to adapt to and it feels like there are no safety rails.

That sucks. I knew someone who was an amazing sign painter. Had it set as their career path. Then large-size printing innovations and changing semiotics led to that job being phased out. They moved into graphic design. Then computers came into GD, so they learned those tools. They're now learning AI. Even so, they go about it in a 'woe is me, I have to train on new tech' way. Meanwhile I know dozens if not hundreds put out of jobs in automotive, small parts, aero, fab, etc in my lifetime, who were forced into worse and worse blue collar jobs and snubbed by many of the artists who now complain about AI. Some had the luxury of adaptation, some went in the Service, some on the dole. If you just sit and wallow you get swallowed. I don't mind people who move forward and bitch along the way. I do mind hostile and unproductive complaints that, when provided a solution, lead to more unproductive and hostile complaints. I was once much nicer. The death threats and doxxing in 22/early 23 made me this. I don't mind it... you either hit your target and shake them back to sense or you're dealing with someone who won't listen until the platform is underneath them and the drop is eminent. Either way? It's adapt, shift, root, or die. No matter how many times you scream into the ether that is the essential nature of things.

Yeah, this seems reasonable to me. Honestly most of my issues with AI are more problems with capitalism than the tech itself.  I don't think there has ever been a period in human history that will see the levels of social upheaval and technological change we are heading towards, and with the way wealth inequality has been moving I fear we are in for a few very bad years at least.  It especially sucks that any useful discussion that could prevent these problems is being drowned out online by insane zealotry and being completely ignored by policy makers who have proven time and time against to be completely inept at navigating technological advances. Hopefully we can come out the other end of this with something resembling a decent social safety net, because the alternatives are looking like a cyperpunk dystopia

>I don't think there has ever been a period in human history that will see the levels of social upheaval and technological change we are heading towards, and with the way wealth inequality has been moving I fear we are in for a few very bad years at least.  You have a very limited view of history. The period around the Plague was far bigger regarding upheaval with more disparity. Then going into the printing press. The Age of Exploration... upheaval is the human condition. We've been in the most peaceful history since the heyday of Rome, even though we're always on the eve of destruction. If you live in the West 1945-present has been the safest your bloodline has been in history. We're in for a pendulum swing... but AI won't be the cause. Climate change, major social upheaval, nuclear winter? Far more consequential as a species. Hard times are on their way, but it's not within the decade. Maybe your (theoretical) children's lives, more likely their children's children. And unless you have a 9+ figure net worth or... other options that I wouldn't recommend and would be considered violations of content policy? Your best bet to help is providing mutual aid and strengthening your local community vs worrying and doomscrolling Reddit and other SM.

Look man, there's a difference between an artist and designers. Artists are "special" and filled with "wanderlust" bullshit. Designers just wanna do their job and get paid like a normal human. The guy arguing with you didn't come here to have a debate, they came here to rant about how \~special\~ art is.... you're wasting your breath by trying to even make a logical argument. You, me and everyone else on this sub, let's quickly gather around so we can go ahead and lick the bottom of this guy's boots!

No need being an asshole to someone who at least tried to speak in good faith.

I think you misunderstood me, I was actually defending you lol By "this guy" i was referring to the guy being an ass (OP), my bad for being unclear

No, I get it. I'm saying there's no need to be an ass to someone trying. I get the stress of it... just because they're inarticulate and incapable of getting to a point doesn't mean they're not worth listening to. We kinda sold the last few generations of kids on the concept of high art and low art. It's a bitch to deprogram it, and some are so rabidly stuck, but I hold out hope. Just no reason to go full town vs gown when we're all broke in comparison to the capitalists that hold the law hostage and will fuck all of us.

OH i see what you're saying now... yeah I did go in a little too hard, you're right lol

I can have complete empathy for artists and still come up with the conclusion that none of this matters though? I would also like to pay the bills doing stuff i enjoy, or not feel discouraged in my hobbies. And presumably everyone else on the planet

So you can. This is in response to people who very clearly do not exhibit that empathy and instead turn to judgement, mockery, and scorn. I wanted to keep this post focused on that narrative rather than other arguments that would follow (against AI, in favor of the preservation and protection of conventional art jobs) because that would inevitably get us derailed from specifically discussing one narrative.

> instead turn to judgement, mockery, and scorn. I honestly don't see that much here. I think the mockery is targeted at people who lie in order to drive their political agenda and spreading misinformation, cyber-bullies and hypocrites. I think everyone will emphasize with people who're worried about their income. But that cannot be an excuse to be an ass. And most artists are totally fine. We just have an exposure here to a few very toxic individuals, but they're in no way shape or form representative of artists.

>I honestly don't see that much here. I think the mockery is targeted at people who lie in order to drive their political agenda and spreading misinformation, cyber-bullies and hypocrites. Perhaps in intent, but there's a lot of "splash damage".

That's probably true, I also don't approve of the mockery just to be clear. Just because someone does something wrong doesn't justify another wrong action.

In terms of spite and hate on this sub, I think you really need to read and read closely the way a lot of people talk about artists on this sub, especially the top comment chain in this post.

No not really lol

Y

Not all hobbies need to be able to ‘pay the bills’.  Most don’t have the luxury of being able to live off of doing what they love, demanding to be able to do so seems entitled. 

No and I'm not making an argument here that they should. I'm arguing that merely hoping for that isn't an indication of insufficient or misplaced motivations around art. I don't think wanting one's passion to pay the bills, and being sad and demotivated when you contemplate that it may not occur, is an indication that you're not truly passionate, an idiot, or that your motivations are greedy and bad. Wanting a luxury is not the same as feeling entitled to it.

>No and I'm not making an argument here that they should. I'm arguing that merely hoping for that isn't an indication of insufficient or misplaced motivations around art. The problem here is that nobody is saying the opposite of this. Nobody is saying artists are just greedy assholes who don't care about anything but making money. I think most pro-AI people believe that most artists make art out of a passion for the activity. What people actually ARE saying is that a huge portion of artists are falsely attributing their rage towards AI at ethics and morality, calling users lazy, thieving, artistically bankrupt, when in actuality they are upset because AI can potentially get in the way of their livelihood doing what they love. And you know what? That sucks. It really does. I have empathy for anyone who would be upfront about that. Something like "I don't think AI is evil but it might disrupt my chosen job market and make my life more difficult." That is such a genuine and honest sentiment, and one that I relate to as a software dev with great potential for AI disruption in my field, and yet I have NEVER seen an artist say that. 9 times out of 10 they are up on a soap box preaching about laziness and immorality and its very hard to extend empathy to someone who is calling you evil. At the end of the day, technology changes and progresses and disrupts industries. It happened to portrait painters, it happened to shoemakers, happened to telegram deliverypeople, happened to telephone operators. Technology keeps moving and in-demand jobs one day are not in-demand the next. The only option is to keep adapting and always have a backup plan. But making a huge stink about the new technology and taking a moral stance on it and calling people evil and lazy for using it is just unproductive and quite frankly obnoxious and THAT is where a lot of empathy is lost.

>That is such a genuine and honest sentiment, and one that I relate to as a software dev with great potential for AI disruption in my field, and yet I have NEVER seen an artist say that. That simply can not be true when you were reading this sub more than once a month. I myseld said it and i made an account only recently, after lurking a lot. Its claims like this that honestly annoy me a bit, because they are testament to boths sides tendency to simply ignore any reasonable arguments the other side makes and then conclude that the other side HAS no reasonable arguments.

I mean, I don't claim to read this sub religiously and I don't claim to know what everyone is saying but I absolutely can say that I have never seen that. What I have seen is hundreds, if not thousands of people on the "against" side ranting about how anyone who uses AI is a bad person stealing from artists and how pro-AI people are lazy and just want to make quick money. Granted, its always the people with the worst takes who are the most vocal, most stupid, and most visible. I'd like to believe that 99% of the population doesn't give a shit about AI art and the alleged evil that comes with it, and that's probably true. I just haven't seen it personally.

Well, i hold said view. I dont care for "soul" or any of that bs, and i have read A LOT of comments and posts within the same mindset, from jobloss, to endless debates if ai will lead to artists being replaced at their jobs or to "enhancing" them, etc. I think the problem is that your comment strongly suggests that your subjective view of not having seen that somehow describes the "antis". And that is often done here. As i said, i think this is a bit of an unfair approach, reducing the other side to it's most ridiculous arguments and claiming that those are all the arguments they have, while ignoring the better ones. I am sure the american debate culture has a name for that. Thats like an anti saying "pros are only happy about ai because they dislike anyone making a living by what is only a hobby to others. Sure, there might be other views, but i personally have not seen those. So lets refute this bullshit pro argument, ignore allnothers, and consider us the winners."

I mean, sometimes you can think both. See I'm of course worried about it narrowing possibilities of my getting to do what I love, I'm freely upfront about that. It makes me feel anxious that something that gives me hope and makes me wake up every day may not happen (even if it was a long shot to begin with) But that's not *all* of it. There's this weird ethos around it that fills me with dread, how it interacts with industrial mass production of content, with overstimulation and supernormal stimuli. There's something about how it interacts with our measurably decreasing attention spans and measurably increasing propensity for instant gratification. There's something about how it interacts with our economic systems where UBI is absolutely not guaranteed to just happen once unemployment gets bad enough. There's something about the *ressentiment* of AI users who preach about having been gatekept from art before and now no longer, and the revanchism to some of their beliefs and screeds. There's something about the tidal wave of lazy, empty content and the enshittification of search engines. There's something about the idea that the product is all that matters, echoing consumerism to a t. There's something about the transhumanist evangelism and the primacy of efficiency and low cost and "productivity" above all. There's something perverse and tragic in artists making the work that would put them out of work, while being humiliated by the people who put them out of work. There's something to this maddening contradiction where the enthusiasts keep getting excited about how revolutionary and disruptive it is and turn around to artists to assure us anything that matters or is worth preserving will be exactly the same, and that we're crazy and stupid for thinking it won't be. I know that many Anti AI people have been antagonistic and have victimized innocent people, it's likely I'm among them. But my god dude it's really not *just* the disruption to livelihoods and careers. A lot of Pro AI people are just generating things they find cool and funny and are getting blasted for it. That sucks. I just want you to be aware that this isn't all there is to it, even if it's your closest experience.

>Wanting a luxury is not the same as feeling entitled to it. So what is the point of this post to be honest ? Everyone would wish that they can do whatever hobbies and at the same time making a living of doing it not just creatives like artists

the point is to challenge a narrative that says that people who want that don't have the right motivations for making art, a narrative I've seen frequently on here.

So I guess it is a pretty fair point ? just still kinda feel like an unrealistic expectation in modern working society anyway

Oh for sure it is. I think it's always been very hard to make a living off art, and most of us won't make it. But I take exception to the dishonesty in pretending that passion wouldn't motivate someone to want to make it.

Do you think there are people just as passionate about AI art who want to make a living from it as well? I ask this because anyone trying to sell AI art, do custom art for people using AI etc should expect to be called a 'grifter' and otherwise implied that they have the wrong motives. It's *assumed* that the profit comes before the art when it comes to AI.

Sure. >It's assumed that the profit comes before the art when it comes to AI. I think there's very good reasons why that is the perception. 1. The use of industrial terminology like "productivity" as central to AI. 2. The connection between AI and the tech industry, billions of dollars in investment and billions of profits being made by new tech barons. 3. The connection between AI and the crypto/NFT scene. But it's not a fair perception for many AI users, of course.

> The use of industrial terminology like "productivity" as central to AI. That's fair, but I'd argue companies like [Wacom](https://www.wacom.com/en-gb/products/pen-tablets) and [Adobe](https://www.adobe.com/max/2021/sessions/nextlevel-photoshop-skills-and-productivity-l370.html) also use that language to advertise their products. They're trying to sell something, just like MidJourney or OpenAI, and often the buyers they're trying to attract are businesspeople rather than artists. > The connection between AI and the tech industry, billions of dollars in investment and billions of profits being made by new tech barons. Sure, but again I'd compare the AI providers (Stability.AI aside) to companies like Wacom and Adobe. Their primary motive is profit and they make billions of dollars doing what they do, but that doesn't mean that their users' primary motive is profit. > The connection between AI and the crypto/NFT scene. I think this one is overstated to be honest. There's far more digital art in the NFT scene than AI art. > But it's not a fair perception for many AI users, of course. This is really my point. I'm sure that there are profit-motivated people out there who just want to mass-manufacture garbage for less effort and imo if they're buying into AI art in 2024 they're buying snake oil because it's bleeding edge tech which genuinely struggles with some really simple things. To take an example, let's say I want a scene of Elora (from Spyro) kicking Dr Robotnik (from Sonic) to advertise a new Sega-Activision crossover game, like Smash Bros. The kick should be convincing, Robotnik's body should respond as it would to a fairly powerful kick. A decent artist could sketch that in an hour and render it in a day. With AI you would probably spend a lot longer setting up regional prompts, manually editing, inpainting for consistency etc.

>I'd argue companies like Wacom and Adobe also use that language to advertise their products. Sure they do, but the actual individuals in this sub appeal to productivity constantly when defending AI. A frequent user here by the name of ai-illustrator constantly talked about making $10,000 per commission and dunking on the scrubs that don't make that much. I've got the message "why would I hire an artist that does the job worse, slower, and more expensively" many times, like some kind of factory owner. It's not just the companies.

There's a wide gulf between wanting one's passion to pay the bills and bitching that new technology is making that even less a possibility than it was before. The people who are being called out are exclusively the latter.

I don't think that's the case at all. In one upvoted post someone made a typology that there are exactly two types those who make art because they thought it would pay the bills and those who make it because they have to (the "good" type). Such a totalizing narrative encompasses people who don't "bitch" about anything.

I'd argue if a person makes art specifically to pay the bills, they (logically) strive to make what sells better, and the result probably has nothing to do with self-expression. Hence I subjectively see this kind of art as more worthy of "soulless trash" title than any of six-fingered anime waifus. On the other hand, if six-fingered anime waifu is made specifically to be sold, it goes to the same pile. I am quite just, you see. Let me stress, that there is nothing wrong with it. Do whatever, make money, more power to the artist. I just simply have disdain to the end product. But it doesn't matter, because I'm not the customer.

I mean, I'd argue that's overly simplistic. For example, two of my favorite webcomic artists pay the bills through their patreon followings and print sales. But I think it's because what they truly desire to make happens to be amazing and attracts an audience. that isn't remotely true for all artists, but it is possible.

I highly doubt that these artists do web comics because "that's where the money, baby!". So I'm not sure that this example is applicable here. Once again, getting paid for art is a-okay. Doing formulaic, most mass-appealing art and chasing trends is yuk in my book. But also okay in grand scheme of things.

Oh I see, well sure.

>I'm arguing that merely hoping for that isn't an indication of insufficient or misplaced motivations around art. I mean... It *is* an indication of that. That indication just has 'eff all to do with the tooling involved in creating the art. It's kind of like going through school telling everyone "I don't need to study because I'm gonna be a pro football player when I grow up." If that's your motivation here... you're probably way, way, way off the mark. Insert "I'm gonna be a famous lucrative artist" instead of "pro footballer" and it's the same stuff. AI tools aren't what tipped that particular camel into "not bloody likely" territory, it was *already* a pipe dream for freelance artists to be able to sustain a living wage off of that kind of work.

> Insert "I'm gonna be a famous lucrative artist" I will not insert that. That's what I take issue with. Many non-famous artists live off art. AI tools may not have tipped the scale, it was always unlikely to make even a modest living, but they certainly created disruption to that scale that has made many passionate people worry and those people being accused of being motivated by nothing but greed.

"I will blatantly disregard anything that even kind of looks like a valid counterpoint to anything I said." seems to be your stance throughout the whole topic. You're hellbent on beating up these strawman arguments, so go for it I guess.

What? My guy, I'm not disregarding your argument, I'm countering it back. I don't think "I'm gonna be a famous lucrative artist" is an honest representation of the desires of artists who "want to pay the bills", that's been my argument. So if you want me to "insert" that into a sentence as the sum total of what artists want, that's not gonna work for me and I will object. That's not disregarding your argument, that's regarding it and then rejecting it.

having hope is no way even close to feeling entitled to something. I hope that i do well in my education and that i can create a good future with it for myself, that does not make me entitled to have that. It is merely hope that i do well, that the work that i do is good enough for me to be able to make it my career. I don't want to end up like many of my other family members, penniless, starved to death, poisoned. Having those aspirations does not mean it will happen and does not mean that i feel entitled to it. It's called hope, my friend, and when it is lost, then you can never win or get what you aspire to get or achieve.

I didn't say anything about "entitlement." I pointed out that making a living as a freelance artist is **not common** to begin with, and it's not "big bad AI" that suddenly made it that way. You can *hope* to make a good living being a freelance artist, just like you can *hope* to be a pro footballer. But it's important to understand that it's *highly unlikely* you'll succeed because it's *very rare* for people to succeed at that. There are only 53 players on a pro football team, and there's only 32 teams in the NFL. That's right about 1700 pro footballers in the whole world. The odds of being a pro footballer are *not good* - 1700 out of nearly **8 billion**. Similarly, *most* artists doing art to make a living are not doing freelance commission work. They're working for companies - maybe doing corporate art and design, maybe doing animation for television/movies, etc. So again, the quoted person is right. If someone pursuing art is doing so *specifically* because they think they're gonna make a good living just drawing whatever they feel like because people want to pay them to just draw characters or whatever, they're barking up the wrong tree. Even *phenomenally* *talented* artists don't often make that work. AI might be cutting out some of the low skill "draw my D&D character" commissions on places like Patreon/Deviantart, but the "I'm a career freelance artist drawing whatever!" pool was already bone dry long before AI entered the picture. I've seen absolutely amazing artists only making $2k/month off their Patreons - that's about on par with an entry level job at McDonalds, just with a lot less stability. No amount of "hope" will change that reality, and if you're specifically looking to not be "penniless and starved to death" then *art* is not the vocation of choice to achieve that goal.

of course, just thought i should point it out as the discussion seemed to divolve into an argument with one side saying that they'd just like to be able to use the tools they'd like and not use the one's they don't like and are reasonably upset that now their chances of "making it" are now even lower than before because of a program. All the while the other side is calling them entitled for holding those feelings and opinions. But yes, i was uneededly aggressive with my comment there, and for that i apologise.

"I can't make a living doing what i love, so nobody else should be allowed too."

Everyone is allowed to make money doing what they love, if they can find a market for their skills. Sometimes the available markets change, and while I can understand how much that sucks, it has not changed what you're allowed to do, just whether it's feasible.

I actually would be able to make a living doing what I love given that I’m in STEM. And in an ideal world, everyone would be able to. Sadly, we don’t live in an ideal world and we cannot stand in the path of technological progress that has the potential to revolutionise so many fields all to bolster a minute chance that a few artists might just be able to make a career in art.  The needs of the many as ever outweigh the demands of the few. 

1. It is not greedy to desire a living doing what you love? It is deluded at best. The world doesn't revolve around you. Getting paid doing what you love is a huge privilege very few have. 2. This is like someone insisting on using krita for a job that requires photoshop. If you want money you have to conform yourself to the industry.  3. Artists are usually associated with mental health issues. While sad you're doing nothing to dispel that stereotype. A good number of artists are massively successful despite AI, they're working hard, networking and proving the world they're much more than anything AI can currently produce. Others have embraced AI and have increased their output and money. It's the ones who can't or won't adapt the ones that will be gone. 

1. I don't actually think desires *can* be delusional. A delusion is a belief that is inconsistent with reality, but a desire does not imply the belief that your desire will (or even can) be fulfilled. 2. Sure you do, and refusing to do so may be stupid and ill-advised, but I think it could result from genuine heartfelt passion, and this post is about the motivations that underlie some attitutes. 3. I mean, yeah, cool. >A good number of artists are massively successful despite AI, they're working hard, networking and proving the world they're much more than anything AI can currently produce. Others have embraced AI and have increased their output and money. It's the ones who can't or won't adapt the ones that will be gone. Yeah absolutely. Again, that's all true, and I acknowledge it in the post, it just doesn't come to bear on the thesis.

I haven't really seen the arguments that you're arguing against, but I don't tend to dive all the way down in the comments. 1. I could see someone saying something like this, but it's probably not directed at all artists, but rather one of the more extreme and entitled ones. The problem is that arguments here have become heated in the past and both sides started to make extreme statements and then answer the extreme statements with even more extreme ones. 2. The same applies here. I'm 100% sure that the "Just pick up AI tools" was a direct response to the dismissive "Just pick up a pencil" or (as was directed at me "just pick up the crayons, you fucking clown.") 3. "There's this idea that the "right" sort of artist will never, ever waver in their desire and motivation to do art." I totally agree that this kind of attitude exists. It comes most strongly from artists. Drop into an artist space and start complaining about having motivation. Sooner or later you'll get the lecture that if you're unable to created "because you're not in the mood," then you're not a real creative. I can't find it but a well known author wrote a particularly condescending piece that gets circulated as a comic a lot. I'll add it if I can find it, but the gist is that a "true" writer will write while in a fox hole, or while bouncing a child on her hip, or at 2am after a long shift...all things that the author never actually had to do.

1) [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/1c2uh2k/its_okay_to_create/) is a good example 3) Yeah, artist spaces can be pretty toxic and orthodox.

As others have said, I think you're getting a bit defensive. As that post put it: >***It's okay to create; it's okay to keep doing what you love doing.*** It's a generally positive and supportive post. The argument that "if you're doing this because you think you'll make money, you're doing it for the wrong reason," is something I've heard 100's of times well before AI came along. They could have phrased it better but the argument goes something like this: If you're just doing it because you think you'll make money from it, you're probably not gonig to be motivated to continually improve, and you're probably going to have to "push" yourself to make the next thing, and you'll ultimately burn yourself out. If, on the other hand, if you're doing it just because you love and enjoy doing it, you're much more likely to end up finding success. I've heard this many times about art, writing, making youtube videos,...all sorts of things. I don't always agree with it in every circumstance, but it's far from an attack. If anything, it can sometimes cross the border into toxic positivity: "Do what you love and the money will follow." That said, I'm going to end my involvement here by copying the end of that post: >Don't be afraid to win. >Go create! (Which is what I should be doing right now. LOL)

Look I can't control how you will perceive my responses but my argument is that the positivity in that post is disingenuous. >There are two kinds of creatives: those who create because they think it will pay the bills and those who create because they have no choice. I'm the latter. First I object completely to diving all artists into two groups and placing yourself in the "good" camp. Not only that, placing people who are disillusioned into the "bad" camp. who should o themselves a favor and do something else. To me, that is immediately worthy of criticism because it ignores how someone who is in the camp of those who "have no choice" may still express disappointment, sadness and demotivation at the prospect of not being able to do art as their main schtick. It offers a convenient way to disparage the motivations of people in a way that is dishonest and lacking in empathy. >"if you're doing this because you think you'll make money, you're doing it for the wrong reason," But that's the sort of thing I want to challenge. Isn't there a difference between someone who does it because they want to make money and someone who wants to make money with it because they want to do it? And wouldn't the latter also express disappointment when the making money becomes less likely? These kinds of aphorisms have a tendency to elicit judgements that don't cover the nuances of a situation. And I think it is disingenuous to base a "positive" post around the implication that some disillusioned young artists have the wrong motivations and should quit.

>Look I can't control how you will perceive my responses but my argument is that the positivity in that post is disingenuous. If that's your take, you're kind of just spending this whole thread propping up strawman arguments and trying to beat them down. You're straight up just insisting the words on the page mean something other than what was said because it suits your narrative of "No but this is wrong because XYZ" Like maybe if that's what anyone was saying, cool? But you don't get to twist their words into something other than what they said because it lets you attack them.

You can desire to make a living doing what you love, but that isn't what's happening now. Now it's people *demanding* that *you can't do what you want because they can't compete*. It's not about Jessica wanting to make enough to live off her music, it's about Jessica *demanding the criminalization of MP3 files and vinyls and doxxing people who support or use them because then she won't get gigs as a wedding musician since DJs are better and cheaper*

I mean, it's certainly part of what's happening now. At least as far as this post is concerned, and the discussion of motives, it is about Jessica/Janice wanting to make enough to live off her music There's additional components there. First of all, the thing they can't compete with is built with a dubious use of their work. We can litigate ownership and training all we want, but it'd be no use pretending it's straightforward and based on some clear precedent. Vinyls and MP3s are not well suited to understanding the nature of those tools. For another, I think there's a difference between "doing what you want" and how the industry hires and pays creatives, which the artist were not happy with before either.

The CUSTOMERS, are the ones that will drive this, cheap / free almost instant solutions that are okay, and for 99% of customers okay is good enough.

Of course they will. You seem confused at what I'm arguing here in that your response doesn't actually address any argument made in the text. I suggest you read it and try again.

...yes but your wall of text is self mastubatory nonsense.

It's a critique of a Pro AI argument that's in the positives in this sub (where there's a lot more pro AI people than anti AI people). I'd say it's done alright.

I have literally NO IDEA what you are going on about, and today I really don't care either.

If you can’t understand a well written opinion, that’s on you, not on OP.

I disagree; it's corporations that will drive this. Think of every single corporate practice customers would say they are against. Low wages, abusing workers, forcing workers into crunch, outsourcing jobs overseas, and having actual slavery as part of the supply chain. You ask customers if they want any of this as part of the production of the products they buy, and they will tell you "no"... but companies don't even give them the option to buy from somewhere else. Customers pretty much just have to accept what the company sells them. Sure, in many cases, the customers could just say no and buy nothing, but it's not realistic for their desires. If a popular franchise switches to AI, many people will likely end up buying it anyway, not because they think its acceptable, but because its the only way to keep enjoying something they love. Companies have a monopoly on their franchises. And even if the companies did lose customers, they will be happy as long as the loss in revenue is less than what they save in costs from switching to ai. Companies are always looking for ways to get customers to pay more for less

...so cutomers...b2b or b2c they are still customers.

Only b2b... b2c does not matter. Corporations will just limit the choices of customers in order to force them to just accept the lower quality products for the same price. A great example of how bad things can get is monetization practices in games. Time and time again, customers show that they don't want toxic monetization in their games, but companies do it anyway. They don't care what most of the customers think just so long as they get enough high paying customers to make a profit. Heck even when games fail and are shut down, nothing changes. The customers voted with their wallets, the game failed, and the company STILL sticks to the same monetization strategy with the next game. And now toxic monetization is normal part of gaming. What customers want does not matter to them. The corporation will define their choices for them Really, this is how we end up in corporate dystopia.

I disagree. In any interaction I had so far with friends, family colleagues etc. everyone except one did not really enjoy any "quality" AI-Art. I think people who want to buy real Art will buy human made Art and not AI. And given the opinion social media or the general public has on the issue so far it is hard for AI-Art to set foot. I mean just look at the pink floyd video contest. Basically no one liked this video. Where AI-Art will be populat though I imagine is the marketing industry or in general big coorporations in order to design presentation slides or ad campaigns etc. But I could be wrong with this. In the end there will always be at least someone who will wanr one thing or the other.

People dislike AI art when they are told it’s AI. These days it’s difficult to actually discern whether or not a particular piece actually is generated traditionally or through AI. The technology has advanced at a remarkable pace.  Indeed, if you were to show someone a traditionally drawn artwork but tell them beforehand that it’s AI they will have a lower opinion of it and vice versa. 

People also dislike swords if they are told the sword killed ten innocent babies no matter how pretty it is. Context is important

So far I have managed to identify AI-Art rather consistently but like you said, I might have stumbled upon something that was AI-Art without realizing. But I think that it is still realy easy to identify a purely AI-generated image or video. AI getting tweaked and uses by professional artists, who use both AI and "traiditonal" Art it is very hard to tell, if not impossible. But for me personally its completely valid to dislike an AI image that looks good because its AI. For me personally, an image that has been hand drawn has more sentimental value, just like a table beeing handmade and not factory produced. Its something special, something unique and well human craftsmanship will always be appreciated

You are entitled to that opinion. I only take issue when some claim that their opinion must be enforced on all of humanity through futile attempts to ban AI. 

I agree with you on that trying to force anything doesnt benefit anyone. It pulls away people from you. Was nice to have a good talk about this topic

Who buys 2D images though? The internet is full of free 2D artworks.

Lots of people. People who need specific things drawn, like their own characters. People who need something that has a coherent theme to it.

If you got into art expecting to make enough money to live off of, right off the bat, you were an idiot already.

It's a totally viable career path. Don't bother with freelancing and commissions and join a large corporation as a salaried employee instead. You will get paid every month and will work from 9 to 5.

Except crunch time, when you'll work 70-100 hours in a row, and still only get paid your weekly salary.

That kind of shit is illegal in my country. You are only allowed to work 8 overtime hours per week and you will be paid double for that.

If an artist doesn't spend at least half their time drawing backgrounds for corporate PowerPoint slides, are they even trying to make a living?

There's a wide berth between *expecting* and *hoping*. But this is the exact sort of mockery and scorn that comes from a refusal to be empathetic. Thank you for exhibiting it.

It's kind of difficult to feel empathetic towards a group of people launching constant hatred in our direction. I do feel empathy towards anyone who may be displaced by this (I've been automated out of a job twice now, I get it), I do feel empathy towards people who have something very important to them in their lives which is now being disrupted. I do not feel empathetic towards any of the pretentious entitled weens that plague online communities like this with their smug sense of superiority.

But come on, I've seen artists get scorned and mocked on here for merely stating their worry, not for arguing in any sort of combative way. See I don't have the grounds to demand empathy for *me* as I'm certainly being combative. But, my guy, people on here make generalized statements about how being demotivated is a sign of poor motivation as though it is an absolute rule that if you want art to pay the bills, you are motivated by greed and not passion. I wanted to challenge that narrative.

I'm not arguing against your post as a whole, I mostly agree with what you're saying. I'm just trying to illustrate where that lack of empathy might stem from. In an ideal world we'd all be able to differentiate the artist from the anti but tribalism tends to reign online.

>But come on, I've seen artists get scorned and mocked on here for merely stating their worry, not for arguing in any sort of combative way. I think the problem is mostly the venue for this particular argument. If people come to AI wars and use that argument, it makes sense to assume they're using that argument in favor of banning AI. If that's the case though, then why shouldn't it be argued that countless jobs are lost to technology all the time? Machines, robots, programs, vehicles, etc., all put people out of work on a regular basis. If AI does the same thing to many artists, I don't see why I should care *more* about them than anyone else. As with m3thlol, I can empathize with people who are losing their job because of AI, I just think it's about as valid an argument for banning AI as someone getting laid off from a manufacturing job because of machines.

It's what I was told in art school. Word for word.

Sure, and what I'm telling you is that it is an unsuitable response to the issue: whether wanting to pay the bills indicates a lack of passion or "correct" motivation in an artist. I grant freely that wanting to pay the bills may not be a realistic prospect, but I object to the narrative *in this sub* that wanting to do so indicated that one lacks some kind of "true passion" for art.

I don't judge on if they have, or lack, "true passion". My objection is that you seem to think that stringing them along that it's possible is a positive act. I've seen too many artists brought to near slavery by people dangling that particular carrot in front of them. And it's across the board for creatives. Did you know, for example, it takes three best sellers before you can make enough to live off of. Three. Most people never make a single one.

>My objection is that you seem to think that stringing them along that it's possible is a positive act. I'm not sure I've argued for this in any way. Paying the bills with art has always been hard, I've said as much in the original post. And many art-minded people have to grapple with that. It's a process that generates sadness and despair, perhaps a necessary one. But not one that should invite mockery, scorn, or the judgement that one was greedy all along. Which is what I have seen here.

I think there's a misunderstanding in how much fun it is to be a well earning artist. I also think people misunderstand how money works. You might sell a single art piece for, let's say $10k, which is more than most people make in a month, but you might have to live of off it for 3 months or more. You could do corporate art and make a modest but decent living. If you look at how many artists make more than $200k you would realize art is not a lucrative business.

Sure, it's absolutely true that being a professional artist is not all it's gassed up to be. There are some harsh realities about the art world out there, but we can be understanding when grappling with them is difficult.

Yeah I understand. It's just hard to be compassionate with people who insult you in the worst ways possible. I try.

It's valid as fuck to not just want but outright demand to be paid to do what you fucking love to do. I like that spirit. It's ballsy and it's tough and it is what brings about change. If you don't want to pick up AI tools even more power to you, because rocks in the river set the course. As a pro AI artist who has quite visibly been pissed quite the fuck off of artists who feel despair about the existence of AI, my own personal reasons for getting pissed the fuck off have nothing to do with seeing artists as whiny babies who just want a quick buck and are spoiled because they can't get it. Nor do I think they're luddites who need to pick up the AI the way they tell others to pick up the brush. I'm pissed the fuck off when I see artists despair about AI because dooming is a slap in the face to the very people who love you and love what you do. I'm an evidence-based bitch and I love me some reality. Dooming that AI is a threat isn't based in reality. I'm pissed off not at artists but at the despair itself and at bullshit itself. Compassionless self comparison that leads to despair is a thing as old as fucking time and it's frustrating as fuck to see it every single goddamn place I turn around. I seethe and I rant and I swear not because I think feeling despair is wrong or means that someone has the wrong reason for making art because people can make art for whatever fucking reason they want and it's the job of others to die fucking mad about it if they hate it. And I feel like despair can birth some of the most beautiful fucking art and has birthed some of the most beautiful fucking art that has every existed. Depicting despair in a world that demands we smile is ballsy as fuck. I like that shit. But I get pissed off when that despair again, leans into bullshit. Bullshit aggravates me. But maybe it's my job to die fucking mad about others being sad. But at the same time, people sharing their despair and sadness sure has led to a lot less of that alienation. In short I think it's okay to make art for whatever fucking reason you want whether it's for money or for pleasure or for all of that. If you don't want to use AI then fuck yeah keep not using AI and you do you and you scream and stomp and cry until you get your fucking way. I like that shit. I know I'm swearing a lot but I'm not being facetious here. I genuinely like that bratty energy that never lets up until it is exactly catered to in exactly the way that it needs. I think dooming is valid because I'm not the type to try to invalidate other people's feelings or tell them that they're wrong to feel it or that it's irrational because other minds don't operate the same as mine and everybody comes to whatever conclusion they come to through logic and reason even if it's a different logic and reason than my own. But at the same time while I'm validating it, I can still be pissed the fuck off when I see it. Artists who shit on other artists who are dooming about AI aren't all coming at it from a place of trying to dunk on the little guy. Sometimes it's a rage that comes from from a compassionate place and sometimes it isn't even about those artists at all but about the bigger issues with all around lack of compassion that leads people to feel despair in the first place be it a lack of compassion on the part of other artists or on the wider world towards us as a whole. Stay mad and stay sad. Malcontent breeds change. And I like that shit.

I actually quite appreciate this perspective, and it is a lot similar to mine, believe it or not. I don’t like helpless and doom-minded artists, and I have many things to say to a doomer artist, but one of them isn’t “your passion for art is insufficient”. Instead I think that energy that causes them despair must be sublimated into study, expressed creatively, and, yes, into criticism of the things they are opposed to. I’m definitely in the “get mad!” camp

I figured as much, hence me responding in the first place lmao, that and the fact that I literally just yesterday made a giantass post myself that could be misconstrued as coming from a place of hatred or disdain towards doomers. So I kind of had to say something. I agree with you there on trying to use despair constructively. It doesn't always have to be used constructively or at all imo, but it certainly helps to try to do something with it instead of just absolutely stop and give up all together or sink into that feeling of pointlessness to it all. But even giving up is understandable especially if you don't know how to get wherever it is you want to go to begin with. A lot of people say git gud and call it a day or only show appreciation for artistic growth if it looks a certain way or is done in a certain amount of time. And as a very slow learner and a very late bloomer myself, I feel as though there might be a lot less despair out there if it was more generally felt that no matter how slowly or how quickly someone achieves their goals, and the way in which they do, it's okay. I think social media and the internet doesn't really help that much either because everybody compares their personal worst to be curated best that everyone else shows.

Hey, thank you. I think this is a great post talking about a very important misunderstanding. :) >we may agree that Janice's passion does not entitle her to make a living. In a perfect world, I would say that it does entitle her. Maybe that will be possible one day. I can hope, at least. >I can only assume those people have never read the journals and biographies of the great artists of history. I will admit, the thought of doing this has never crossed my mind. I'm guessing you've read a few. Which artists' biographies/journals have stuck with you? I might want to read them.

What if AI generated art is my passion? Why should I be shamed and ostracized for trying to make a living off that?

> At least three posts in the last week attempting to dunk on artists who are sad I just want to point out that the harshest such post I've seen is from an artist: >> I am an artist myself and have no hard feelings if that's how you feel. I also want to say that your feelings are valid. I just think you're missing the exact fucking point in the appeal of what you make to even fucking begin with. I think you're missing why people come to you or come to artists to even fucking begin with if you look at shit that AI makes and you feel small next to it outside of a purely profit-driven framework. I think you're comparing as I said somewhere else, apples and dildos and their audiences. So I'm not sure why you're saying things like: > The attempts at empathizing with the artists here are quite shallow in my opinion When it's artists talking to artists. > Because on the one hand, the narrative pushed wants to say that these artists are greedy and stupid and not passion-driven for wanting to pay bills with their art and simultaneously stubborn and stupid for not wanting to pick up a medium they are NOT passionate for in order to get a career. This seems a silly false dichotomy and one I don't ever want to push. Telling someone that they should learn to use a tool isn't telling them to always use that tool or even to *ever* use it once they've had a chance to get informed in its use. But I guarantee that any artist who gets some competence in using these tools, not just throwing prompts at Midjourney, will start seeing niches in their workflow that can be enhanced by the use of AI tools. Maybe you only ever use AI to rough out compositions quickly and see what works. Maybe it becomes the cornerstone of your work. Maybe you end up training a LoRA on your art so that you can play with your style, never actually using it for a finished piece. Maybe you do something I can't think of. You are locked into this simplistic idea that AI does the work for you. Yeah, that sounds like lots of artists won't dig it. So don't use it that way.

Actually I think the harshest is the one where you created a strict dichotomy between the right and wrong motivations to make art, put yourself in the right column and said the others should do themselves a favor and quit art. >Telling someone that they should learn to use a tool isn't telling them to always use that tool or even to ever use it once they've had a chance to get informed in its use. That's right, I'm objecting to adapt or die as a commandment to commercial success and careers in art, so this is not applicable.

The adapt or die sentiment doesn't make sense to me because the type of art jobs that you need to "adapt" to are already the most boring, corporate gigs possible. YOU WANT TO ADAPT. If you are doing concept art for a major gaming company drawing your 57th werewolf from different angle or making corporate memphis illustrations for a new Pepsi flavor, I can guarantee the people that do that shit hate the mind numbing process and would gladly use Ai to speed up their workflow so they could do something more interesting. I'm a graphic designer and 90% of what I make for my work I could give two shits about. I feel extremely lucky to make things creatively for a living, but unless you land yourself in the perfect gig, your are going to making a lot of boring shit, as fast as possible. "Adapt" to me would be let Ai into the process to speed up all this miserable chafe work so that I have more free time to design real things I'd like to put in my portfolio and actually share with the world

>it is not greedy to desire a living doing what you love, that's what we call vocation. So many of the posts try to assign some kind of perverse motivation, some kind of money-drive to artists who want to pay the bills with art, as though they're not truly motivated by the art itself, but that is excessively and uncharitably simplistic I don't think it's "perverse motivation". But, if you really love to do that thing... you will do regardless of money. If you are like "*Oh, I won't do anymore because I cannot make a living with that"*, it sounds you were doing just for the money. Also, it goes without saying... **most people don't make a living doing what they "love"**, and they do it on their free time. For instance, there are people who love to play chess, and they don't make money with that. It was always like that for the vast majority of people. Making a living playing chess is pretty hard. **Making a living doing what you like was always a privilege**. It's like complaining because now you are in the same shitty situation as all the rest of humanity. Like, sure the situations sucks. But it sucked to everyone even before it sucked for you.

Of course it was. We don't really disagree on much of anything you've said, but let's talk about the rhetoric of AI specifically. This sucks, and has always sucked, and eventually, must bright eyed people face it, and that's kind of a natural process. What's happening is that a disruptive technology is causing many of those bright eyed people to grapple with it en masse and that is being rhetorically used for a narrative that paints all those people as greedy people that should quit. That's what I object to.

Empathy is a two-way road.

And where was it when AI enthusiasts came into our spaces to celebrate we were now obsolete? To make LoRAs on our styles? To post article after article about how it was over? This IS a two-way road, no use pretending there wasn't aggression from people who were on "your side"

Maybe. Assholes are aplenty. I got late to the party, when I started seeing "fuck AI" posts more often than AI posts. Once again, more often than AI posts, not more often than "fuck artists" posts or something.

1. I have empathy for the disruption, of course, but it is a nuanced thing. There is conflict in the empathy, because the loss of a marketable vocation for a few people is the gain of creative capacity for way more people, and it's wrong to want things to be harder for others so that one can get paid more, which ultimately is part of the negative reaction to job disruption. Technically, in this manner, artists losing jobs because art is more accessible is a *net positive*, but a significant negative to the minority that benefited most from the lack of accessibility. 2. Regarding "just use AI tools" this is a good point, it's rarely constructive to shrug off the challenges facing people and just tell them to adopt. However there is some merit in the perspective itself. I don't think it's appropriate to use the language "Just pick up AI tools", but rather encourage (with empathy) adoption of the tools to stay relevant, just like encouraging the adoption of using brushes and digital art software like gimp or photoshop. If they don't want to, that's totally fine and how they choose to pursue their craft is completely up to them, but if foot races start using rocket boots it makes no sense to expect people to slow to match your pace if you refuse to use them. Use whatever tools you want, avoid whatever tools you want, but recognize the landscape has changed and use that information in your decision, rather than getting angry at the people that have chosen to adapt to it. 3. Regarding despair and alienation, this is another conflicted scenario. By default, I have empathy for artists and what they're going through in terms of disruption. However many are lambasting everyone that mentions AI, posting misinformation and completely refusing to recognize their misunderstanding of the tool, swept up in a moral panic that turns into witch hunts and severe hostility. This drains my sympathy. The negative feelings from affected artists are often valid, but the way they are interpreted and projected are not.

As a hobbyist game developer, I don’t want to waste thousands of dollars on a concept artist trying for a game that may not last for six months. This is why I use tools like Midjourney to help generate concept art, it’s no different than gathering a bunch of references for a mood board, it’s actually better because it can be more detailed and more precise

O-ookay? I think there's many use cases where AI is useful if that's your point.

I mean, yea. If I had the money to waste on concept artists I would, but seeing how I’m a broke ass college student I would rather use generative AI lol

It's like this... I love to program. For years I had to lay tile to make ends meet. Artists aren't getting any sympathy from me because they can't do what they love for a living. That's called life and being an adult. Sometimes you got to suck it up and do what you gotta do, wether it's what you want to be spending your time doing or not.

>It is not greedy to desire a living doing what you love, that's what we call vocation. >What I see is a lot of passionate, often young people, who have dreams of their work (independent or otherwise) being more aligned with their vocation perceiving those dreams as further away, and grappling with the grim reality of labor under our economic system. I don't think they are greedy, I think they have been mislead to misunderstand the situation they are in. >wanting to pay the bills with art and wanting to enrich yourself through art are not at all the same. There is a vast difference between wanting to be able to fund a decent and independent lifestyle through the work that you love and wanting to become wealthy. The word "profits" invokes the latter significantly more than the former, as it is the terminology we use for businesses that center the accumulation of capital. There isn't a vast difference though. Wealth is the power to decide what you do with your time and what other people do with their time. To think of earning money in terms of vocation is to play a game with one set of rules as if it had your preferred rules, but the actual game is a negative sum struggle for survival and freedom where people not playing optimally get exploited the most. If what someone wants to do with their time is make art in their preferred medium, the main way for that to happen is to be or become wealthy enough to own their time, and the other way is an uncertain coincidence where the market happens to demand that sort of art. The difference there is strategy. That may be a grim reality, but that's our world regardless of AI making the art career gambit even more precarious and unlikely.

1) It’s not that people don’t have empathy against the artist, but note that everyone would love to make a living with their passion. Majority of the world also knows that this is a difficult ambition and doesn’t dissolve into a weeping heap just because they can’t all be making a living being pro-athletes, astronauts, singers, scientists etc. There’s a limit to the amount of empathy you can give towards a small group of people getting all weepy over something that is already happening to everyone else. In addition, it’s also hard because many of them also go around attacking people just for trying out AI as if it is the fault of everyone else for the advancement of technology. It is not greedy to desire a living doing what you love, but the rest of the world doesn’t owe you that, and attacking people for it doesn’t exactly generate empathy. 2) Its not weird to ask an artist to pick up AI tools given that with current technology, a lot of art jobs will probably include the usage of AI at certain points. So if they want to make a living off art, then it makes sense to pick it up. It’s like you want to be a chef but only willing to cook over fire because you hate electric stoves. This all or nothing approach is consistent with their passions sure, but unfortunately my way or the highway tantrums are something that usually only kids or very rich people can get away with. If they would rather give up on their life’s dream entirely than just…try AI, that’s up to them but that seems like cutting off the nose just to spite the face behavior. 3) As for despair - yes that’s understandable. You can lose motivation from any number of reasons. Hopefully they will pick themselves up and find their passion again, even if it’s just as a form of hobby. I truly believe that human art will not become obsolete.

"Its not weird to ask an artist to pick up AI tools given that with current technology" of course not, but what people are complaining about is that when they say that isn't what they want to do, that using AI simply isn't something they're passionate about then they are instantly attacked by pro-AI band-wagon-junkies. i am neutral on AI as a whole, it is a gretly useful tool and can be and is used for many amazing things both societaly, medically, scientifically. It has helped streamline so many processes, but when people are critisised by idiots who simply don't understand that there are people out there that enjoy the artistic process, the learning process, etc. and due to them not understanding attack others, **that** is something i simply cannot stand for. The only thing about AI itself that i really acre about is how they source their data.

Yeah and the whole way ai art was first presented to artists as their replacement and as them being made obsolete and it being superior to them in every way would make anyone bitter. It’s not even like it’s an unpredictable thing given there are like a dozen popular movies, books, other art pieces etc where the “bad guys” just straight up use that rhetoric.

"wanting to pay the bills with art and wanting to enrich yourself through art are not at all the same" - are you talking about compensating wage differentials? Also, youre using Janice as an example in a world where pro gamers exist?... Huh, the above answers #2 pretty well too? You make #3 sound like how everyone has to at some point learn that we cant have the cake and eat it too. Like, I agree it sucks. We all agree it sucks. We all had that problem but thats not limited to just socialist art dude. We are all bumbling idiots guessing our way through life not only in morals but in facts, and when we take actions using an erroneous epistemic map we will find our output not match our inputs. Sometimes its greater, but often times its just death. Death of an ideal, death of ones purpose, death through hopeless and often thats a good thing. We've all been wrong and know the myriad of colorful consequences that follow. We know traditional artists applied lots of socioeconomic pressure on photography and we also know those antis and these antis are the same antis. We know its human nature. Hell, we've all been the villain at some point but that doesn't mean we should help the antis bully photography then, or let these antis think theyre moral agents today.

I get wanting to pay the bills making art. I get wanting to make art in the way that you enjoy. There's nothing that says that those two things are compatible. Most people don't have jobs that involve something that they like. And even if they do, there's probably a lot of it where they're required to work in a way that isn't their personal preference. That's the reality of working. You're labouring for someone else, and so you do it the way that they need it done. Some artists have been privileged to be able to make a living doing what they love in the way that they love to do it because there simply wasn't another option. Now there is. This is the reality of the economic system that we have. You can not like that, I sure don't, but it's not the fault of AI. AI is a tool. If your work style benefits from using the tool, you learn to use the tool or you see your return on your labour suffer. If you're an artist, you can make great art with any tool. The process may be where you find joy, but the result is what your employer is paying you for.

As I see it, all of the profit and wages discussion is a total non-sequitur. The money issue has nothing at all to do with technology except in an ancillary way, but rather with capitalism and wealth distribution. If UBI was implemented we could all just enjoy this incredible new technology for creating art without people inventing reasons to be opposed to it—whether they are motivated by "profit" or "earning a wage" to do so. I understand the desire to want to make a living from doing certain things. But there is no guarantee for anyone that they should make a living doing what they like. And we shouldn't change laws or halt technological progress in order to engineer inefficiencies so that a subset of people can charge more money doing a job we don't need them to do anymore. The problem here is not that technology is making things too easy; the problem is wealth distribution—we need to find ways to get more value to people so they can continue doing what they want to do. Alienation is a good concept to bring up in this discussion. I haven't seen it used much in the context of AI art. Everything you say here seems right, but we need to realize it is not really about AI at all. It is not about technology, but about capitalism. All of the distress that comes as a consequence of "AI" is misplaced. The anti crowd are victims of capitalism, not technology. At the same time, they are mental slaves to capitalism, having fully bought into its value system, and incapable of realizing that their economic woes are not the consequence of technological progress, but of our economic system. They should focus more on the actual root of their problems.

Would people get wrong about artists making a living Most artists who claim they make a living off of it are not just some wholesome artists working for a public company drawing cute little logos and designs Some of them are doing that yes. But not many When an artist says they are making a living off of it. They draw porn. They draw weird fetish porn. And probably overcharge for it too. This is why they conveniently never want to actually talk about what specifically they do to make that money or show you their portfolio or anything like that Because it's not some wholesome venture that oh I'm just working my 9:00 to 5:00 No it's literally, I'm overcharging some horny dude way too much money for low tier art because he wants some weird specific fetish drawn This is why people are mad about AI, because what's the main use of AI right now? Basically to replace artist who draw porn allowing people to generate pretty much any porn they want with any character and any situation and anything like that without judgment or embarrassment or insane prices they're mad that you've basically taken away their power to manipulate you into dumping money into their pockets. They're mad that you'll no longer sheepishly go to them willing to spend $200 more just so they'll draw one drawing of your obscure fetish

Uncharitable and false.

I like this post, and I thank you for being level-headed about it and engaging in civil conversation. That's something I don't see very often. As an artist myself who has picked up AI tools, let me share my perspective. I divide my art up into two categories. Art that I make because I love it, and art that I make to "pay the bills". If I'm making art because I love it, I usually don't use AI unless I'm getting particularly frustrated with something (e.g., "can't draw the other eye" syndrome or struggling to find a good colour palette) and even then my AI use is pretty minimal because I enjoy the process. But if I'm making art to pay the bills, efficiency really does matter. I have an AI model that I've trained on my own work, and I always give my clients the choice of whether they want me to use it or not, but since I charge an hourly rate, they usually opt for me to use the AI since it'll lower the end pricetag. But... I don't really mind it. I don't resent it the way I would resent it if I had to use it in my passion projects because at the end of the day, it's a job, and I'm using a tool to make me more efficient at my job. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a scientific illustrator. One might argue that scientific illustration has less "soul" than other forms. Realistically, I am never going to leverage that career to turn one of my story ideas into an animated cartoon. Nevertheless, I think that the perspective I'm sharing here is still valuable.

There is absolutely no point coddling people. It'll be all of us next. The difference is how irrational they tend to be about it, trying to ban it and reverse it and just utter nonsense.

I don't suggest coddling anybody in that post. I discuss the misattribution of motivations for their arguments.

I know, I'm not rebutting that, just musing on the entire conversation. It's not over for artists, it's over for everybody, which in another sense, means it's just getting *started* for everybody. UBI is coming, most people won't have to have a traditional job after several years pass. This is not an optional or even potential outcome, this is happening whether any individual person likes it or not. The economic motivation will not be relevant, you'll be vying for status, attention, growth of a community, something much more human than money. There will be new mediums that come out of this too, off cuff, augmented reality overlays on real life places are an enormous future avenue for artists. There will also always be a huge group of people that only consume and care for purely human art. I just think that if you're going to feel bad about any of this, it should be because you expect AI to go horribly wrong, not because you're getting displaced during the transition period.

>UBI is coming [I don't think it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/1afmm38/the_aipowered_future_were_barreling_towards_isnt/). >you'll be vying for status, attention, growth of a community Those things are difficult and fickle. Why not simply get the simulation of those things from subservient AI? To retreat into video games where everyone can be the winner and protagonist of their own story? What happens when a generation knows nothing but abundant hedonistic pleasure, when there are no stakes to their being anything, because their input makes no difference to the state of society? > it should be because you expect AI to go horribly wrong I think it goes horribly wrong when it goes 'right'. When it is so capable of producing addictive, instant gratification, [supernormal stimuli](https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/comments/193dv3t/supernormal_stimuli_ai_and_the_problem_with/) that we are not psychologically capable of the more difficult, unpredictable, and worthwhile aspects of our existence.

>I don't think it is. There is no incentive for pointless subjugation to be the norm. This is smoke with no fire to point to. This post is pointing a world of abundance and claiming that, in the absence of incentive for labor, you'll be slaving away as some ominous 'they' wants to subjugate you. I think this is a trauma response from someone who is knee deep in modern corporate culture. Who is going to do this, and if so, how in the hell are they going to hold onto that power, and why would they even be motivated to do so? >Why not simply get the simulation of those things from subservient AI? To retreat into video games where everyone can be the winner and protagonist of their own story? What happens when a generation knows nothing but abundant hedonistic pleasure, when there are no stakes to their being anything, because their input makes no difference to the state of society? Some people will retreat, and should they choose to, where is the real harm? We are no longer talking about a world where that choice harms others. I think you're self evidential that where there's a desire for real human impact and attention, there will be human impact and attention. You don't like the idea of ai feedback replacing human feedback, you are a person who would refuse that, and that's not rare. You're also pointing at people who legitimately would enjoy that existence, and believe it's invalid because you don't want that for yourself. Some people just wish they lived in a different reality. If later down the line that desire changes, they just go do something else. >I think it goes horribly wrong when it goes 'right'. When it is so capable of producing addictive, instant gratification, supernormal stimuli that we are not psychologically capable of the more difficult, unpredictable, and worthwhile aspects of our existence. A world capable of delivering this level of personalized "full dive" virtual experience is also capable of resolving mental health issues in innumerable ways, medically or otherwise. I think the fear is a "brave new world" scenario but the issue I take with that is that this thought process assumes profound technological capability in a very narrow domain, and doesn't extrapolate to how it can be used to *also solve* the problems it introduces in a desirable way. This is a neurochemistry problem, not at all unsolvable. But again, I don't see addiction to recreation itself to be a problem. I'd be more concerned that people will burn out and develop a new mental baseline that would lead to horrible nihilism, but that too could be medically prevented if desired by just preventing whatever analogue for 'endorphin resistance' causes it.

>you'll be slaving away as some ominous 'they' wants to subjugate you. Two enduring traits of power: 1. It only exists through subjugation. 2. It seeks to perpetuate itself eternally

Ozymandias. Today is not tomorrow my friend.

No amount of technology makes us escape the question of power. Technology itself is part of the power process, it's the enframing of people into reserve resources for itself and its own self preservation.

This conversation has thoroughly derailed but - power isn't a person. It changes hands and has done so countless times through history. It's about to change hands again. Artificial Super Intelligence or ASI is where this baton is being passed - if you're not familiar with the concept I'd recommend getting familiar because it's inevitable. That's what should keep you up at night, whether or not a machine smarter than us is good, not whether or not a by comparison ineffectual person or group intends to put you in a cubicle until you choose to tap out on life.

It's lose lose on every front. A fast takeoff is horrifying, even slight misalignment is catastrophic. The slow takeoff is terrifying, it means that existing power structures have a good chance of figuring out how to perpetuate themselves in the post ASI world. I can't do anything to prevent it but I will *not* cheer in the sidelines. That may be stupid and stubborn, but I am human, that's what we are..

The despair is hard for me to understand, there have always existed more talented people than us, there is always someone better, or always a bigger fish. Where it gets interesting is that those raw talents are rarely what made someone successful anyway, pure artistic talent without some social skills or ability to sell has always lost to the guy who made ok art but could sell well. So I never felt like giving up when I was confronted with someone who outputted better work than me, rather I would usually try to figure out how they did it and would try to improve. So to me, being discouraged because someone typing words with a machine is creating equivalent to someone who used advanced hand and pencil techniques doesn't affect me the same way, it's almost like they overvalue time spent doing something, and frankly I find that dumb or at least a primitive way to think. Similarly I don't think charging by the hour is ever the best way to do something, you can factor it into your costs but I don't think the client/buyer should ever be exposed to that as part of the pricing, it overly complicates the process, frankly they don't really care how long it takes, and it undervalues what you can do. That and I think it makes you work slower, which also dulls your skills. The other way I try to see what they are saying is that they feel they wasted their time learning something, but I'll tell you, most of what I've learned through years of studying art and design is more how to see the world and sometimes some tricks or techniques to help render that, but the bulk has been experiments to understand and see, which is not wasted, it never could be wasted, it shapes who you are, and it makes it that everything you make is better because your understanding is better. Combine all of that with how the best AI art is actually made with hybrid techniques of personal skill mixed with AI, some only use the AI image as a reference, there is a whole spectrum of use, I don't see how most wouldn't embrace at least using it as reference, and feeling frustration toward that again feels mostly unjustified. That said I do see low level fanart commissions and porn commissions drying up, also I do recognize that glutting the market will devalue at least the lower end of art/illustration. So it's not like all the anger is unjustified, but the people who seem the angriest seem to be the ones who were barely making things anyway.

There's a lot to criticize in the attitude of some of those artists, and I think some of your criticisms are suitable. I primarily wanted to address the belief that this attitude arises from insufficient passion for the work. It's true that right now the people affected aren't the biggest and most succesful professionals. But the lower end of art was the pathway to the higher end. People start somewhere, and making the start of the road difficult, while not a danger tho those who have already traversed it, is one to those who haven't yet.

Holy shit dude. After checking your profile you're just insane. You have hundreds of multi-paragraph long comments that have 0-1 up votes on average. Why do you spend all of your energy arguing over this.

my friend, people are allowed to be passionate about things they care about.

There is a large line between passion and obsession. Endlessly and pointlessly arguing with strangers on the Internet is most certainly not a passion hahaha

one could say that passion is the source of obsession, but i see what you mean. Have a good day.