How do you feel about AI creating “art”? Is it something you’d want to explore, or have already? Or would you prefer to completely extricate it from the halls of the artistic world, never to cast it’s algorithmic shadow on us again?
In this rollercoaster of an episode we explore AI from multiple angles. Bringing my good friend, author and game designer Jim Brown, along for the ride, we explore the process of creating AI imagery, how it’s presently being used, the possible advantages of AI for artists, and, of course, the potential issues and ramifications of this new technology for artists, clients, and the public in general.
If you haven’t delved deep into the AI issues and advances, I can guarantee that you’ll be surprised by the potential ally it can be for artists and the actual problems it could create. Come along with us for this deep dive and find out just where you stand on AI in Art
Contact Jim Brown (aka Layman Kingsford):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laymankingsford/inquirys-aria-an-ungendered-scifi-novel
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CREDITS:
Cover design by Sage; Illustration by Olga Kostenko
Music by Playsound
For Transcript click on the episode here: https://rss.com/podcasts/thesagearts/
Transcription (AI transcribed, unedited. Please excuse the copious errors. When we have a more robust budget, we’ll get these cleaned up!)
Jim Brown –
“You have to teach the AI is to keep going through cycles and cycles. If you’re going for something very specific, it can take you hours to come up with something that even approximates what you have in your head.“
Sage –
Hello all my amazing creative friends. Thank you for joining me today on the Sage Arts Podcast. I’m sage, your host getting settled here in my closet like podcast studio. So I’ve got a bright sunny day outside. I’ve eaten my Wheaties. For those of you that remember that ad campaign. Although I don’t eat wheat, I actually had some homemade granola with fresh strawberries this morning, and I made a matcha and Raspberry tea because today we’re going. To need a. Boost of energy for this one. So if you’re ready to go on this roller coaster of a subject. Come on in. Have a seat. Settle in with your choice of beverages and goodies. Maybe get yourself set up with the artistic materials of joining in your studio space. Or if driving. Or operating heavy machinery. Just keep your eyes on. Task and stay so. We’ll be joining. Today by a good friend of mine has some interesting and very perceptive views on today’s subject of AI art, as it’s called now. In crafting this podcast concept, I didn’t think I’d spend a lot of time on current issues in the news kinds of things, but the subject of AI and how we as artists will be affected by a technology that could. Seemingly take our jobs or create artwork and minutes that would normally take us days or weeks or months has been everywhere I turn. Every other friend or. Colleague I talk to has thoughts and there’s. An article about AI every other day and. News, but I wasn’t seeing a lot of deep dives into what this means for independent artists, and I knew there were going to be other viewpoints and considerations beyond the debate of is AI art really art? So I did start looking into this and man talk. About rabbit holes. There’s a ton of information out there about a myriad of. Aspects on the subject. I also put out the question on social media and got amazing and incredibly insightful answers. There are a lot. Of considerations about this technology that I had not been exposed to, and so I was thinking many listeners may also not have had the opportunity to delve into this and understand what this means. As independent fine artists or even freelance or commercial artists. So this brings up several questions. What will separate what AI does from what working creatives do? It also gives us an opportunity to talk more about the ever ongoing discussion of what makes something. Art, if you’re a. Long time follower of mine. You probably know that I believe that story and intention are at the root of what makes something art. So where does that put AI and more importantly for working artists? How will this impact potential income, sales and Commission work? Well, I think you’re going to be surprised by the answers. The possibilities and the real concerns that AI brings to the art. World I was originally thinking I would interview a number of people from various areas of the art world, but then I got talking to this longtime friend of mine who hires, supports, promotes artists as well as being a creative himself and a user of AI technology. And after talking to him, I realized if I talk to more than one person. This podcast is going to be 3 or 4 hours long, so I have just the one very special guest who is going to give us the viewpoint of a person who commissions artists and uses AI art. While I will be the counterpoint, as a working artist with a Fine Arts background and no AI expert. I’ll also be sharing some of the very thoughtful and insightful comments I got on social media on this subject, but I’m going to save that for after the interview because the discussion you’re about to hear should give us all a stronger basis from which to understand our fellow creatives and their comments. I also came up with a few more I think very necessary points to throw into the mix as you contemplate. How you feel about AI? So don’t hit stop after the interview. I think you’ll find the additional views afterwards really in. But before we go there, I’d like to quickly give a few shout outs for the shows. First, a huge thank you to Lynn Vale not just for her generous support, but her immensely kind word, she said. You are so. Appreciated in our our community. Thank you for always finding another way to sneak through to get your thoughts out into the universe and yes. I will do that. I have a rather unquenchable passion for creatives and doing whatever I can to boost your skills, love and success in your artistic endeavors. Thanks a ton. Also, thank you to Julie. Picarello for your support. Some of you might recognize the name. Julie is a well known artist, author and teacher known for her gorgeous Mccombie Palmer jewelry. Look her up if. You don’t know the name. It’s PICARELLO. Julie picarello. It was quite a compliment to get support from the artist whose work I’ve admired. For years and years, and Carl Stengel dropped me a note over on Instagram, she. I am loving your podcasts. I always take notes and appreciate your insights. I love that she takes notes. We really remember things much better when we write them down. And if what you’re writing down includes goals or ideas, you want to work on, then you’re more likely to do them because they’re now concrete and and black and white, and you’re going to feel more obligated to their. Tangible existence, really. So thank you for that reminder. Coral, if you get jazzed or have an aha moment or three while listening to this podcast, consider giving back as well. You can toss me a little love via the buy me a coffee or PayPal donation buttons down halfway down the homepage of the show site at www.sagearts.com, or check the show notes for links. If you give back and you don’t want. Shout out. Be sure to let me know in the notes section of your donation. Page you can also. Support this podcast by sharing it with friends, family and on social media. Yeah, hit the share button on Facebook or put the podcast posts in your Instagram stories. In both cases, you can find the podcast social media pages under the Sage Arts Podcast. You can even steal any and all images I post with podcast graphics on it to share wherever you like. Just spread the love, right. So let’s set you up for this information. Let’s talk today. Let’s start with asking yourself, how do you feel about AI creating, quote UN quote art? Is it something you’d want to explore or have you already, or would you prefer to extricate it from the halls of the artistic world, never to cast its algorithmic shadow on us again? Regardless of where you stand now, keep an open mind. If you hate the idea of AI, weigh the possibilities it offers for yourself and for others. And if you are all on board and gung ho take a moment to weigh the potential detriment and consider how best we can support the advance of this technology while minimizing its possible harm. With those heavier than usual questions and thoughts on your mind, let’s get into the interview. So joining me today is Jim Brown. He’s a game designer and publisher, a performer, an event organizer, a national champion ballroom dancer, and a writer with the first novel. Honestly, the publication right now, so he’s no stranger to the arts and creative endeavors and more to the point of today’s conversation, he has been using AI to help create art. For his games and. Projects, and I think he can give us a really unique perspective as a creative and a supporter of artists, and he’s also a company owner who is employed AI. So I was thinking you could tell us what you know about the use of AI and the potential uses and abuses of the technology as someone who can see it from a couple different sides of the issue. So thank you for joining us. First of all, Jim.
Jim Brown –
You know, it’s OK, sage. I don’t mind chatting. With you every once in a while. I mean, you’re. Like OK person. So we’re all dear friends, I love seeing so much and she’s so wise and talented and embracing of other peoples creative efforts and everything. So I am more than happy to be here.
Sage –
That’s OK.
Jim Brown –
So thank you for having me.
Sage –
Oh, thank you so much. That’s really sweet. Yeah, same to you. Jim, we’ve we’ve exchanged stuff a lot through the years, especially ideas. We’re both idea generators like. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you. On was I find that. You know a. Lot of the artists do want to understand what the other side is, what their buyers are thinking, and especially somebody who’s in business, who would employ an illustrator or even fine artists to do work for them. So can you, first of all tell us what you do. Relevant to the conversation, but also just some background on on how you got there and whatnot.
Jim Brown –
Well, the two things that are most relevant to today’s conversation, one is for my board game, your board games, card games, tabletop game design. I do employ artists to do specific pieces of work of, you know, characters, landscapes, that sort of. I could draw stick figures that slightly resembled stick figures, but I do graphic design, logos and iconography and typesetting and layout and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to tabletop gaming, you look at the dozens, if not hundreds, of cards. Modern board game might have. Each with its own discrete piece of artwork, plus artwork for the box. Cover for the. Rulebook for the board itself, if it has one, you can be looking at dozens to hundreds of individual art pieces for any single modern board game, and that it costs.
Sage –
Yeah, yeah.
Jim Brown –
But to do that, I can only imagine. And not just in money, but in time. So if you happen to have a board game that’s designed you, it’s playable, whether in prototype form or otherwise, and it’s kind of ready to go. But then you have to sit around and wait six months to a year to two years for. One or more. Artists to do all of this, ever all of a sudden, your six month project turns into a two or three-year project. During those times you can be play testing and refining the game itself more. But art is time-consuming.
Sage –
Yeah, yeah.
Jim Brown –
Human generated art is time consuming and costly from the producers side.
Speaker
Right.
Jim Brown –
It’s not cheap, nor should it be in my opinion. The other thing I currently am using stuff for is like with my drag troop and the glam daddy of house all night here in Denver, there’s fourteen of us now. We’re doing a big superhero. You know coming. Up this spring. So another thing I could jam into. I use mid journey for those of you who are listening for visual. I don’t have any experience with stable diffusion or any of the others, but so we needed promo material for the venue needed that from me today. But well, a we. Don’t have time to do a photo shoot, let alone none of us really have our costumes ready for a show that’s coming up in a couple of months, so we can’t do photo shoots relevant to the thing.
Sage –
Right.
Jim Brown –
That has yet. To happen so. Mid journey deals some replica superhero characters facing each other with Marvel versus DC. This sort of thing, and its representative of the thing, and it’s original, and we didn’t have to spend all the time to go do a photo shoot. Somebody had to make sure their customers then all these months ahead of time we can have some promotional graphics ready to go and it took me 5 minutes to throw that together versus 5 days of trying to get.
Sage –
All little things lands.
Speaker
That’s that’s amazing.
Jim Brown –
Everybody schedules lined up, presuming somebody has it cost you and get the photographer lined up, find the right place to do it and then editing the photos. 5 minutes versus 5 days. Yes please.
Sage –
I remember doing all. That stuff.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, exactly. OK.
Sage –
But yeah, yeah, getting the original artwork done, whether you’re just asking the singular artist to do something or something like what you’re trying to do, the AI mockups that, that aspect of it seems to be primary conversation that we ended up with online with some people that used it as lock up material, which is great. Would you mind kind of like quickly telling us how a? I works from a perspective of someone who’s trying to employ it in that way. Like what is the process is, I think, a lot of people think that you just put in a word or an idea and the computer goes out on the Internet and takes a couple of sample images and put it together. And my understanding it’s a lot more than that.
Jim Brown –
Well, it is that, but underneath. So yeah, you plug in some words, but there’s a there’s something of a learning curve on the users point too. You put in the words, you know blue cow on the moon and in your head you’re picturing a blue cow on what we know as Earth’s moon. You haven’t specified any of that to the AI, so chances are it’s going to make the. Moon blue the cow blue. It didn’t differentiate where. You wanted the appellate blue. So you find a lot of ways of you know, where you place commas or semicolons, and I can’t keep track of punctuation that’s used to help do that. But you have to teach the AI used to keep going through cycles and cycles. If you’re going for something very specific, it can take you hours to come up with something that even approximates what you have in your head.
Sage –
Yeah, I’ve read something where someone spent two weeks doing it right to get the images that they wanted, yeah.
Jim Brown –
So it’s not that AI is going to read your mind and specifically come up with whatever is in your. You have to learn how to coax it. So like what? I’m doing this in the novel as a living Starship. Novels that which have board games that accompany them, there are specific characters that are in specific. If if you will. These are like Star Trek, like uniforms, I can’t get an AI to replicate those uniforms with the specificity that I need to. Represent the cars, let alone the specific you know, horn patterns of a specific character. You can train the AI by keep feeding it the images it generates. Then oh, I like image one that it gave me and tell it to use image one again to see. Need the next set of parameters you give it, but it’s still going to have variations every time, so sometimes your character has curly hair, then the next one has got straight hair and so then you can spend hours or weeks trying to get an image of.
Sage –
Wow. Caption.
Jim Brown –
I need this character punching somebody, but it still needs to have the same color, hair, the same hair pattern, same clothing. So the AI stuff isn’t there yet that’s going to create specificity for you, not without a whole lot of work and a whole lot of churning through sample after sample after sample after sample changing the words you’re using, changing the order of the words, you’re. Using it can be quite laborious, but if you’re an artist yourself and you’re just kind of, I don’t know what to draw, what you know, how could I make these characters look? Or that landscape? Look, you throw some words into the AI, see what it costs out. I’ve been reading about a lot of artists. Ohh yeah, they didn’t inspires me to. Then go paint the blue Moon Carol world. But I was trying to get it to depict and then it’s never going to capture what’s in your head, but it gives them some ideas cause oh if the mountains in the background look square instead of round it. Oh, that’s a cool thing.
Sage –
Right, it pushes your idea of things and you kind of leave your vacuum of ideas that you have your little isolated ideas in your. Mind and your. Experience and really pushes it, which is like usually why you? Go and look at other artwork. But it is interesting that you. Could put in your. Own basic ideas that you’re after and then. Get really pushed in in very specific directions.
Jim Brown –
You said in your own. And there’s a whole language style to doing that in order to get it to even approximate what it is you’re going for. And so you you have to learn that so much like any other artist who’s learning to paint with wide brushes and thin brushes and little one hair brushes, there’s practice. You have to do in order to do it. Same thing with feeding word text. Prompts into an AI to make it spit out something even approximating what it is you’re going. For so, there’s one argument to be made that even though that the prompter the person typing in the prompts isn’t physically making the art happen with brush strokes or with a digital pen on an iPad or sculpting clay, they are still artistically sort of funneling. This program to make something you know that’s similar to whatever is their image.
Sage –
And and artistic choice and references and whatnot.
Jim Brown –
Right.
Sage –
And I’ve seen it over and over again that this is similar to like when photography came out and all the painters were like, it’s going to take a place of painters. This may be the same kind of thing right where we’re looking at another medium rather than something is taking over.
Jim Brown –
I think so. I remember some of you, the days when Photoshop started becoming affordable and be widely available. How many you know, physical arts, whether they’re doing with, you know, pen and pencil or paint or whatever, like Photoshop, anybody who does digital manipulation of anything, whether it’s photos or other art, that’s not art, you’re not being an artist if you’re not actually picking up a pen and and pressing onto the paper or onto the canvas or using actual paint. And so we’ve seen this cycle through that as well and now sort of part and parcel I feel for many if not most artists, unless they choose to never touch the digital realm of art. Most I encounter will at least acknowledge that no digital art is legit art too. Using digital tools, I mean it’s just another medium. It’s no different than crayons or colored pencils or ink or oils.
Sage –
So yeah, so from. Your perspective as a business owner using AI is both a budget friendly. And time friendly option to artists. Now, do you see this replacing your? Use of artists, or do you? Just see it as as a tool early on. And then you will replace that. Work with artists work.
Jim Brown –
I have a suspicion it’s going to be a companion methodology. So what I’m looking at right now is last December a game concept came to me. Lightning fast human flavor. So it has got, you know, angels and demons and werewolves and fairies, and you’re competing to consume humans in the city and and consume might mean physically eat them like the werewolves do. But it might be the angels who are consuming the humans faith until they’re empty vessels of. You know mindlessness. And so this was a our intensive project and the game. You kind of came. Forth, like in teenage form. So it was close to a really playable and nearly sellable game, right from the get go. And I was able to jam through hundreds of pieces of art using mid journey to make it look appealing. And I’ve been doing a bunch of play testing of it since the middle of December. And these first both online whenever displaying graphics sort of advertising it or when people are in person playing the game. That’s the first feedback and. Go. Oh my God. This is so cute because I use cute versions of these characters. Is ends one thing that mid journey I think maybe all the AI’s struggle with is making hands and fingers properly. They’re they’re getting better and better, but sometimes you’ll have like 16 fingers on a fist, like ah. So well on. The demon ones like. Oh, you know what it looks like they’ve got a bunch of tentacle fingers. I’m actually going to leave. That the angels are like, no, that doesn’t that. Doesn’t go well. We’re in. The werewolf, you know? So I have to go into in Photoshop and edits a bunch of that stuff out so there’s still can be some after work and some post production work. You have to go in and to edit out all the little bits and pieces that don’t need to be there or extra fingers or stray strands of material that pop up in it. So there still is post production work, but you know it’s nothing about the time it would take one to five artists to pump out all that art for it. Now what I’m thinking is in the future, do I? Approach a project knowing that I’m only going to use AI art. No, because I would always personally prefer to have human produced art cause I want to, you know, help support my fellow creatives. But like right now, I have literally $0.00 in the budget for this game. Viewed 4th out of my head.
Sage –
And yet, in six weeks or seven weeks, you’ve gone from idea concept to.
Jim Brown –
Through something that’s virtually sellable, and even sending to production. So what I’m thinking may happen certainly for me and maybe for other creatives to you using this AI produced art as a way to prototype stuff that looks better. Like, if you’re making a superhero board game, for instance, just going and cutting and pasting images from online of your Wonder Woman and Batman. And Spiderman and stuff. And people go. Oh, that’s cute. I see what you did there, but your game can’t be that because you don’t have those rights. Well, I know, but. I don’t have an artist who can draw me unique superheroes right now because people, when it comes to play testing of a board game, you gotta play test the game and you work out all the kinks and stuff and all of us are influenced by what things look like.
Sage –
Right.
Jim Brown –
So if something looks pretty or enticing or evocative, they’re going to respond. To it much differently, and usually more positively if it looks cool. So there’s advantages for prototyping, and then when you’re pitching to publishers and stuff, not many of them probably aren’t gonna care what your artwork looks like as they’re looking past. That they’re looking at what the game itself is, because they know even if you present a zombie game to them, the mechanics of your game are super cool and super sellable. So we want your game, but we’re going to strip the zombie stuff off it and make it into something about potted plants. I don’t know. Like, so the other work is not what’s going to sell it to a publisher. But it’s just going to sell it to your play testers and if you’re self-publishing, that’s very well could sell it to your audience in the end. What I’m hoping to do with this game is that maybe do an initial print run that has the AI art on it, and if people are liking it, there’s enough positive response and enough backing. Maybe we raise enough money. To simultaneously or at some point down the road Commission, all the replacement parts for all of that. So you get your game produced and it gets shipped. To you 6. Later, but people get their game. They can start playing it. It’s all chock full of AI art, but they also know their money is currently funding eventual replacement art for all those cards done by actual humans, because enough people supported the project to then also turn around and support live human artists. And that’s where I’m kind of hoping we can go with things is that. They can get a product to market sooner. Creating a revenue stream which then that revenue stream can then help funds human art.
Sage –
Right.
Jim Brown –
I suspect we’re gonna see sort of mixed methodologies. Surely some people are gonna just flat out use AI art and never want to interact with the human again. And others are gonna refuse to actually ever use anything AI produced. They think there’s a happy middle. There is a middle ground to be utilized somewhere.
Sage –
Or talk about the emotional aspect.
Jim Brown –
Right, yeah.
Sage –
Well, it sounds like it has the potential. Yes, to take jobs away from working illustrators when we can’t say that’s not going to happen. But at the same time, it sounds like there’s the potential for more artwork to be available as as contract work if people are able to put things together because budget wise, yeah, there’s a lot of things, a lot of creatives. Whether you’re doing games or books or whatnot that you don’t have the budget and or time to make it happen, but with AI you can do what needs to be done in order to get it going and to get it funded. And at that point you would be able to hire more artists, so it could potentially balance out the amount of work that artists would have.
Jim Brown –
So we’re just, you know, in the midst of growing stages of sort of toddler years and and it’s growing up fast all the same cause there’s AI chat stuff. There’s AI programs that are doing video work, doing computer coding, doing articles, writing novels, maybe even designing board games, video games, and. As a as a novelist and a board game designer and I, I don’t currently feel threatened by these AI’s that are producing science fiction and fantasy novels or short stories or whatever it is they’re doing. So. I have faith that what I’m going to produce is going to be better is subjective, I suppose, but at some point we may not be able to tell the difference between a script written by an AI or visual artwork done by an AI. I know I’ve. Been reading about artists who are saying, you know, I’ve got clients that want me to create a whole bunch of character. Designs or landscapes? I don’t physically have the time to produce the amount of art that they want or need in the time frame that they have cause production companies. Well, we’ve gotta get our final bits off to the manufacturer in China to get proof spec because published deadline is gonna be next December. So you cannot afford to hire flaky artists who can’t meet deadlines, even artists who are not flaky and do meet deadlines. There’s a human maximum as to what they can produce.
Sage –
They can manage your house.
Jim Brown –
Ohh, so let artists like hey, if I can have this AI creating elements of my own artwork in my style. That might save them days worth of time. They can really focus on the elements that the AI isn’t good at, like the aforementioned hand.
Speaker
Right.
Jim Brown –
You whatever element. It is have it design the background for you and your laying your characters on top of it. I think for the artists who are afraid of it, many of them will, much like those who are afraid of Photoshop and Illustrator, eventually may have to come to terms with learning to deal with it because they might get more work. Make themselves more hirable say, hey, you’re the client that wants me to produce 50 pieces of art in three months. Well, normally that would take me six months, but if it was AI for 50% of that, I can maybe meet that deadline for you.
Speaker
Right.
Jim Brown –
Well, hey, so they’re not artists all of a sudden makes a much bigger job. It’s the same thing with drawing, you know. How much time has illustrator and Photoshop saved all of this? Because we work in layers and you go oh, I got screwed up something. Well, you just. It don’t start. Yeah, you delete that layer like. But if you were painting or drawing. If you make. A big old ink stroke across, you know, so.
Sage –
Your entire campus.
Jim Brown –
No, you gotta draw the whole thing all over again. If it was the wrong thing. So I think it’s a useful tool for both creatives, your people who feel threatened because it’s impinging on their realm of creativity. But it’s a tool they can learn to embrace and use.
Sage –
If it becomes more widely used like that, it’s also going to be a competitive thing because like as a freelance writer, I was competing a lot of times with people overseas who could do things they were like groups of people writing stuff, you know, and they could just whip through things in a time frame that I couldn’t.
Jim Brown –
Oh, sure.
Sage –
So I farmed out some of my freelance work just so I could get my freelance jobs done. So you have to look at what’s the competition and if people are using AI as a shortcut to get things done in a faster time frame for clients who are always looking to get things done faster to beat the next person out to the market, it may be a thing that anybody who works in that realm. If that’s part of your income that you’re going to really have to look at that as something. That to take on to be competitive.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, exactly. But then one artist loses out on a job because they say, well, I can’t do your 50 pieces in the time frame you need. But meanwhile, that company, if it’s a company. Well, they’ve got 2. Paid employees, maybe their interns or something hopefully paid. People, well, their job is to then sit on mid journey for four hours a day and try to make it cough out the images that the company needs so they’re still employing two people on the macro scale of things, just like what people working on the assembly line started losing their jobs as the robots came in and could do a lot of those. Packaging and folding and. Hammering of car doors or whatever. But then so much more machinery is being built and utilized. They break down, so guess what industries started needing more people to give jobs to the repair people who could repair the machines?
Sage –
Skills shift. Yeah, exactly.
Jim Brown –
So I think that that we’re just going to see something like that here too, is that artists are going to have to adjust their skills to shift. Along with what the market has available, what they’re competing against and can they utilize those tools to be relevant?
Sage –
To help their career or yeah.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, yeah.
Sage –
Well, I think it’s. Not going to be quite as streamlined as maybe that part of that conversation was saying.
Jim Brown –
A lot of stuff.
Sage –
I was reading about one of the big hurdles that we’ll probably be seeing is the question of copyright, and you brought up the idea that I can’t just go in there and make a collage of superheroes in order to have a piece with superheroes for my my mock up. Because you’re on the right. And so this. Become the question with AI is AI basically doing that? Is it going out there and taking bits and pieces of other people’s work and putting it together? And can they do that and be put out there as artwork without either payment or recognition of the artists who would have been involved? If you can even tell, I don’t know, sometimes you could. Even tell where they got the information from.
Jim Brown –
Well, and that’s The thing is because it’s sampling from hundreds of thousands, if not millions of samples. So good luck citing what sources and let alone thousands, if not millions of sources. The AI pull mid journey pulled from in order to make my distinct little Chibi vampire character and a top hat and king. Yes, yes, you can go and basically copy and paste somebody else’s artwork and plug it into mid journey and tell it to use that as the seed to build some of its inspiration from. You can also give it part of the of your descriptive text phrase in the style of Sage, Gray, right and. It will go and. Presumably it goes and tries to find examples of that artist’s work. And replicate elements of it. So in the case of the art I have for human flavor, nobody holds a copyright on the concept of chibi, just it’s no different than anime, you know, unless what you’re doing is explicitly derivative of a particular artist’s style or copyright images.
Sage –
It’s a style.
Jim Brown –
But then who’s to say that the Aries process is any different than any artist who takes their five favorite artists and those styles creep into their own personal style?
Sage –
That was my thought too. I mean, in a lot of ways. And I’m not a copyright lawyer or specialist or anything whatsoever, so I’m not sure, you know legally what the ramifications actually are. And as you mentioned, depending on what kind of AI machine is being used in a journey or Dolly too or what not, they may be using them differently, but. It almost feels like the issue of copyright might be a defensive like you know, need your reaction to regards to stuff is coming. Is it going to steal from other people’s artwork? But the fact? Is is art is steal all the time. If you put it that way in a very similar way, we’ve taken all this artwork and it ends up in a brain and marinates, you know, for days or weeks or. So we’re not, but a lot of times that stuff does come out in what we actually create. So how is that different than what the AI is really doing?
Jim Brown –
Right. I think that’s something can be done with AI too, as if people like your style of stuff, well, somebody comes along. I see you draw really cool Dragons and really cool landscapes, but can you? Do you know, like My Little Pony things, but in the same style of your Dragons? Well, maybe you don’t at the moment have time to sit down and. To your full satisfaction, crank out at My Little Pony version of your style of Dragons, but you can go jam your style into one of these AI things, and it’s going to cough up something similar enough. You can give that to the client, say. Is this kind of what you have in mind? If I were to draw my little ponies, but in my Dragon style. Is that what you’re thinking? Ohh, yeah, so you just create a sample for a potential customer in minutes versus hours or days, whatever it might take you to produce.
Speaker
Right, right.
Jim Brown –
That and my brother is a advertising executive. And I know some like theater production people are, you know, set design people too that are using this to mock up for clients, whether it’s a client that wants to be doing an Audi commercial like what my brother has done or somebody in a theater and go, we kind of want a techno version of your midsummer’s night dream. What could the sets look like? Well, you could describe it all you want, but. Every person you describe it to is gonna picture it differently, but it’s you as the set design. Dinner or the advertising your person can jam a bunch of samples or get an AI to cough out a whole bunch of samples that you take that to the pitch meeting or the production meeting and show it to everybody go. So you said. Techno mid summer’s night dream what if it looks kind of like this? No, we did used to be. More oranges and. Ohh, here’s one that had a lot more oranges and Blues. That’s the color that we like the style of the buildings or the plants in that third one. So when you start taking bits and pieces from each one, cobble them together, and then you as the production designer, the artist. Then go spend your valuable time producing in much more specific thing that the client wants that is going to much more closely meet their needs, all because you saved yourself a whole bunch of time and your client a whole bunch of money because they didn’t have to pay you for three weeks of work. They paid you for one day of work even though your day spent on an AI program. Coughing up a bunch of samples and now they can pay you the next three weeks worth of work to do. The actual thing they want, rather than concepts of what they make potential.
Sage –
So it’s really a potential additional way of. Communicating and visual. Communication for things that were often discussed, just verbally and of course everybody have a different image in their head of what’s being discussed. When you talking about a visual thing. And you’re only using words, so it. Does give a kind of a? Bridge, a visual communication between concept. And the actual creation. So it yeah, in companies I can see where that would be tremendously helpful. And having been a freelance, I think mostly writing, but I also did the graphic work and stuff like you did as well. And yeah, having to do mockups of stuff for people is tremendously time consuming. When you were actually using, you know, whatever your regular tools were. Usually, of course, it was usually Photoshop or not, it’s still time consuming to do those things. And then they want this tree to not treat and this tree. And yeah, if you can have something. Spit out a bunch of. Samples for you, man, I. Probably would have been on that back.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, yeah.
Sage –
In the day, because you know it’s all about how. Much time you have when you’re freelancing.
Jim Brown –
So you can even be in the initial pitch meeting that the Creator can sit there in the meeting, say, hey, we’ve got a, a one hour meeting. So you know it takes, you know, a couple of minutes to create all these images, they. Sit there working. With the client.
Speaker
No cheese now.
Jim Brown –
Typing these things in it’s spitting stuff out and they come to an agreement as to what needs to be made that much more quickly rather than weeks of back and forth. Oh, does your. Logo need to be round. Well when we meant round we meant Oval. OK, so you. Have to go back and.
Sage –
We didn’t know around then. Well, it’s true, clients don’t. Yeah, they don’t have the terminology.
Jim Brown –
Or the words they use, you don’t interpret them in the way they meant them, and so then you produce something different and you’ve gone down the wrong alley. I can see this AI stuff being a huge time saver for a lot of those things.
Sage –
Yeah, absolutely. Like, yeah, that. Would be very supportive of artists. Who, freelancer, contractor or whatnot and need to be able to visually communicate to people who aren’t visual people to start with. So yeah, definitely to see the advantage. To that I. Think a lot of the big uh I’m afraid of AI conversations comes from the fine. Art communities, you.
Jim Brown –
I’m sure.
Sage –
Know where the like. How am I as a? Artists like, are they going to start making fine art, like the gentleman who won the Colorado? Fairs art contest. And there is an AI piece. And people are all up in arms about that because they’re like, it’s not art. He you know, he did a computer, generated AI piece and it won the 1st place, right?
Jim Brown –
Right.
Sage –
Was that fair? Was that cheating? And you know all these things? And I think it isn’t so much of whether that was artistically appreciated like it has value aesthetically. But the fact that there’s something out there that could potentially replace all the hard. Work of an. Individual artist.
Jim Brown –
Well, OK. So that artist who created. But he said, I don’t remember now it was a number of weeks. I want to say it was like at least three or four weeks or something. He spent churning images in, then taking a final render and going into Photoshop, fixing the details, putting it back in, getting it to churn. Another variation on Photoshop so that specific artist spent weeks. Working on that one piece from what I read.
Sage –
Trying to control like you do your art materials trying to control.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, you control the outcome and then he used Photoshop. Whatever to go and manipulate the bits in and out that he didn’t want or weren’t there that he did want. So yeah, the end result was. I’m just gonna make up some numbers. Let’s call it, you know, 80% AI generated and 20% tweaking, revamping. Post production work. So just like these days, somebody could in Illustrator or Photoshop create things, then print them out, have them printed out on canvas or something, and then somebody who actually painted with oils or acrylics or something. But that’s not. They did that with digital manipulation and then just printed it out and entered in the same contest. My personal opinion is anything that’s. Substantially AI generated art goes in its own art category and is not up against anybody who’s painting in watercolors and acrylics who are also not up against people who are doing digital stuff solely through Photoshop or. Greater is simply another category, so I can see the Fine Arts people being defensive about that, but I would agree that the AR stuff should not be in the same category, but it should not devalue it as art.
Sage –
So really the measurement should be. Our little opinion here is that it really. Depends on how much human interaction there is. To whether it. Would end up being fine art or not. If there is no human interaction, it’s. Just throw a bunch of words. AI spits out something and you call it. Point are. You know, is that where the Gray area is?
Jim Brown –
I would say so. Because it might. Look really similar to stuff that was done through the traditional fine art process. It might very well look very similar.
Sage –
But The thing is, and here’s here’s where I stand with it and why I think we don’t need to worry about it as fine artists is that no matter what the AI makes and people say they’re gonna be able to do anything that people can do. But there’s one thing it will never be able to do. It will never be able to have the story behind the artwork that will make us feel connected to that art and the artist. I mean, obviously it’s a machine and we could feel connected to the person who manipulated the algorithms to get that particular thing, and we could have their story, but we will never take. Something that and then I. Just spit out and be like. OK, it looks visually. Interesting, but it doesn’t have any of that history.
Jim Brown –
Right.
Sage –
It doesn’t have any of that background. It doesn’t have the personal experiences. That add to it. Because once you know something about the artist or something about the history of the work, it becomes multi. Intentional, you know, beyond what it is that you’re seeing in front of you in that initial visual impact, which of course is important, and I could do something very well that has a great initial visual impact. You’re seeing that in what you’re doing for your games, but it will never be able to replace the human behind the artwork. That gives us a story that makes us feel connected to the work, so I don’t think that the fears. That we’re having about. That taking over, especially to Fine Arts perspective, is something that is going to be a concern after we understand what it is that it’s doing and that more people become familiar with the process and and what it can do and how it can helps.
Jim Brown –
Right. And I think that’s the difference between fine art and mass art, because I sit back and take a macro look at the. Painting of the sculpture. Like do I like? It or not? I as the end user and potential consumer, I don’t care how it was made. I don’t have the experience or education and those things to understand the difference between good brush strokes or bad brush. I don’t even have the terminology to use for it, but I look at it go. I like that. Then you look at the price tag and oh, it’s $57,000. I still like it. I don’t seem to have the $57,000 to get that, but guess what’s in the gift shop? A print of it, maybe a big posting size print of it. And I really liked. Artwork. I’m gonna go buy that print for 10 or $15 or whatever the print is. OK now a fine artist purist. But there is the photo. Reproduction of it. That’s not real art in my opinion. Yes it. Is because it looks. To me exactly like what I just appreciated on the wall, but it’s on some paper and I can roll it up. And go put it in my dorm room. Or you what? So me as the end user, I got to appreciate that art and I got to buy that art, but I didn’t need the fine art version of it. Now to somebody else with the education and or appreciation of that. Now to them, those brush strokes are important to the history. That’s story behind what was the artist feeling? What, what inspired them to. Make this particular painting. Those are things that are going to help add value to that $57,000 in that buyers mind, both in my opinion, are equally valid.
Sage –
Right. Do you see that? Because AI doesn’t have the history and stuff. Still going to be a market for people who? Don’t care about. The humans behind it.
Jim Brown –
Well, yeah, because that goes back to my game, then people I’ve encountered so.
Sage –
Is that something?
Jim Brown –
Far who are? Enjoying my game, appreciating the art, and really loving the experience and asking to play the game again is some part of that because of the art. Maybe, but apparently I’ve made a fun game that they want to play again. The art enhances that experience. For tabletop game, is that the defining aspects for it? For most people I don’t know, probably not. So mostly don’t care who’s your artist. Is it alright? I fed all that into an AI. Ohh really. That’s cool. Alright, what do I do on my next turn? They they do not care where it comes from. They are enjoying the experience. The AI produced art is obviously helping to produce joy for their experience. They don’t care where it’s from. Now some of them might.
Speaker
Right.
Jim Brown –
Are they going to appreciate the game differently, knowing that some artists who went and spent two weeks on each and every one of those? Single little character. It’s not going to change their appreciation of the game, are they? Everything that bothered to learn the story behind what that artist was feeling at the time they created my little top hat and cane vampire. They’re just gonna look at it. Oh, that’s a cute little vampire card with with. A top hat, the cane. I hope I. Get to play that in my next game that. Was never in my hand to this game.
Sage –
And that’s why I think we need like maybe better language around what art is, you know, like maybe it should be called AI art.
Jim Brown –
Yes, yes.
Sage –
Maybe it just be called AI imagery. You know, AI digital imagery that I can call. It Addy so I just. Made a name. I coined it right?
Jim Brown –
Going it right there, copyright.
Sage –
I right? Yeah, I don’t care. I just want I would just like there to be better language. I I have for a long time felt that our language around what is art has been really stunted because we only.
Speaker
Have one word.
Sage –
The problem is that when we have these conversations, we don’t have a way to differentiate it in a concise manner. So if I’m going to. Tell you I have this piece of art. You have no idea, you know. I have a piece of art. I have a piece of what I have a sculpture. I have a card from a game I have a. Fine oil painting on my wall.
Jim Brown –
Right.
Sage –
Know you don’t know and obviously. A lot of words are generalized, and then we use them to get through. The ideas very quickly. But in art, when we are worrying about what is our in, in terms of is AI making something that’s art and is it threatening, fine artists and and should when it’s brought to a art showing an art contest like at the fair, should it be considered art and those kinds of things. So I think maybe having better language around.
Jim Brown –
I would agree absolutely.
Sage –
That would be helpful. And that’s actually, honestly it’s true with a lot of things these days, we’re really broadening things out to. Where we’re like. Well, someone can call it whatever they want. To call it. You know, like you can call it art. If you want to call. It art you can be.
Jim Brown –
It’s just there.
Sage –
Whatever you want to call yourself, which is, I think it’s wonderful that we’re opening things up the way. We are, but we have diluted our potential for concise conversation, so. And I think that’s really what it comes down to, because if you look at the question of whether AI is art, I think it really comes down to its purpose, how it’s being used and what it’s going to be used for is really what. Everyone is concerned. With right. Because if it’s going to be used to replace fine artists, it’s if it’s going to be used to replace human made. Art, then. Sure, artists are going to have a concern, you know. But if we say what this really is is another tool, it’s another medium. It’s another way of doing things faster or communicate better or whatnot, and if we can talk about it in terms of its purpose instead of its general label that we might have. Maybe more productive conversations and less fear around it, because honestly, some of the conversations with artists out there are like really, really kind of angry, you know?
Jim Brown –
Well, and I can understand and respect the emotions behind that because they’ve worked really hard to get wherever it is they. And they see this thing come along that in their minds and you know how accurate they’re picturing. The future of this to be. But let’s take a beat. Let’s breathe. Maybe there is to your point, and maybe that’s the right, or me too. Is that the big thing about nomenclature, about language that can help alleviate these fears? So like, again. Should that AI generated thing have been submitted, you know in the same art competition with people who physically painted stuff. Probably not, but did they have an option? I would imagine no. I would bet there was not an AI category at the Colorado State Fair.
Sage –
Right, exactly. Yeah.
Jim Brown –
You know, there might be next year at some State Fair AI category.
Speaker
Right.
Jim Brown –
So therefore then all the fine artists were physically painting and drawing and whatever.
Sage –
Can have their own spotlight now.
Jim Brown –
They keep the authenticity and the sanctity of their style and it’s not. Rating or taking away from this other methodology. Then it’s up to the end. You know, consumer, if they don’t respect AI produce stuff as art, they’re not gonna go look at that section of the art contest. They’re gonna go look at all the paintings and sculptures. Right. Right.
Sage –
There there will be a differentiation in value, just like the people who go to an actual gallery to buy a piece of art versus people who go. To target to get something to put me with.
Jim Brown –
Yes, yes. And that’s exactly what this will all be. So that the stuff you’re buying from target might be replicas of somebody’s actual painting and you would hope that they’re getting royalties off of all those prints. Or am I just, you know, a bunch of AI pretty? Stuff. Who cares if somebody’s enjoying that piece on their wall and they spent $15 on a poster versus $15,000 on a canvas they got from a gallery? Both they’re equally valid, I think.
Sage –
And I think the other thing that is not being discussed well, it’s it is, it is being discussed here. And there when we’re. Talking about AI is the value for. The artists in what they’re doing. I spend hours, weeks, years making this painting or this sculpture or whatnot, and then there’s something online that will make a similar thing for, you know, and it’s and it’s just seems so horrible. But the fact is, is we as artists don’t. Really do this because we’re trying to. Make money most of the time. You know I. Mean the reason we usually get into this is because we have a passion for the process of creating, and if we can keep our eye on the fact that we will still get to have that experience as artists to go through the process of creating whether it’s a painting or a composition musically or whatever. We have the creative process to experience.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, because that’s. Part of the fulfillment we we get as creatives.
Sage –
Yeah, to keep doing this, if you can’t find the value in the process itself, whether it takes years or weeks or not, I don’t think that’s an argument against AI.
Speaker
You should be.
Sage –
Doing it I would hope because you love the process, you understand the value of the process in your life. Being able to go through have that kind of creative time that the flow state, which is so wonderful and. To be proud of something that you. Yourself, made wholly from your your mind, your hands and.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, yeah.
Sage –
Whatnot and that will add. Value to the artwork that’s put out there for those. People who appreciate that aspect.
Jim Brown –
Yes, exactly. So I I don’t think it’s as. Doom and gloom, as many fear it will be.
Sage –
New new things are always scary.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, back to my human flavor game. My budget was zero for art, so gave me one artist that’s lost out on paying work because my game is using AI, not a single artist has lost any money because I had no money to begin with to pay an. Artist for it.
Sage –
Yeah, because it had this idea come up without this option. It wouldn’t be at the point it is. Right now it would just be. In a holding pattern somewhere.
Jim Brown –
I mean, people should be enjoying the mechanics of the game, and I would have been using, you know, cut and paste art from, you know, whatever. So it would not be the unique product that it currently is. If I didn’t have that option and not what artist lost a single penny on this whole process. But there’s here’s another game. That is, it is now entering into the world because I had this tool at my disposal. Should I be denied my ability to do that because somebody thinks, well, I do. Chibi art. So I just lost money on that. No, you didn’t cause. A I don’t. Know you and BI had the money to give you anyway, so you did not lose a penny. But my game is able to live.
Sage –
Yeah, that goes to the point that a lot of artists it, it’s just frustrating being an artist as far as like just trying to survive as an artist if you’re. Doing it for. A living, even just to be appreciated as. An artist you go through so much trying to build yourselves and always trying to get yourself out there trying to be heard trying to sell. Never all the steps are very difficult beyond the actual creation of the work, and that just seems like this could be another another hurdle in the road, and I think that’s what the. Reactions are really pointing towards.
Jim Brown –
And it’s not that it’s not a hurdle.
Sage –
Yeah, it could be for some people, for sure.
Jim Brown –
First, I mean, well certainly is. So we can’t deny that either, but it’s either her, you acknowledge and learn how to navigate around or in many cases with. I think for many, if not most, artists, just like Photoshop for visual artists was a tool that even the ones that didn’t want to embrace it early on. I would imagine many now do.
Sage –
Many, many people do right. And if you don’t, you. But you learn where your market is. And where your. Avenues of potential success and income are outside of that, but being aware of it is going to be better than. Just rallying against it, right?
Jim Brown –
Yes, exactly.
Sage –
All right. Well, I think we covered everything more than that. I was thinking we might talk about. So this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for your insight and your input and your view. Some of it’s been really eye opening for me and I think this would be great for the audience. So Glen, she gives you links to your reading, buy your games, and how does one reach out to you if they need to?
Jim Brown –
My website ischeekydingo.com so cheeky isn’t. Oh, that’s so cheeky. CHEKY Dingo is in the dog like the dingo ate my baby cheekyzingo.com. And currently on Kickstarter is funding for my first novel for your print of my novel, where you can actually have one of the crew members of the Starship. Named after you if you want.
Sage –
Yeah, that’s the inquiries Aria book if. People want to. Search Kickstarter, but I’ll put. The the links for that in the show notes, so you could jump in the show notes for the podcast and I get that too.
Jim Brown –
Oh, cool. Thanks and thank you for having me. I I love spending time with you or in this case, sort of at you. Generally, prepositions matter. That’s pronouns.
Sage –
They all matter. It’s like if you.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, right.
Sage –
Need this.
Jim Brown –
But I was spending time with, I think with all the research you dug into this stuff. I had already come across and then you brought up even more things that I had not come across and you you’ve expanded.
Sage –
It’s a pretty deep. Well, out.
Jim Brown –
Yeah, my understanding of you know, this broad umbrella of of AI art as well. So thank you for having me.
Sage –
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Jim.
So what do you think? Is AI what you thought it was? Is it maybe a touch less threatening or do you see the value in it or at least how it might play a role in the artistic roles of our future or? Did you just get affirmation? Of your views of it well. Hold on a. Few more minutes. I have the viewpoints. Of your fellow. Creatives to share and a few additional concerns that might. Yet again, shift your view of AI. Let’s start with a peek at the conversations I had on social. Media Julia Koehler wrote. I’ve been using it and participating in the mid journey community since last August 1. AI art is opening an entirely new creative world to people with disabilities. Two, it can take the entire collective of human art and learn what makes a good composition far faster than a human 3IN turn. We can learn and absorb from the AI. Grow our own technique, style and. So, yeah, great points, Julia. I know I hadn’t considered that there’s a range of accessibility in AI for those not able to use traditional mediums. So those who don’t have the use of their hands or diminished motor skills could access 2 dimensional visual arts in ways they haven’t before. The second point is probably a bit objective. Good composition. Is a matter of opinion and sure, I imagine AI could assess and make a quick study of whatever aspect one wanted to learn, and if it can’t do it now, I’m sure someday it will. And Third Point, Jim? Kind of touched on that. AI could be a legitimate jumping. Off point for artists. Pushing their imaginations in new direction so as a source of in. So thanks, Julia, Ian Hawkins said. I think that AI art tools can be used in ways that add to creativity and make it possible for more people to engage in creative work. It has also been said that AI R will only replace those of lower skill levels, as it will never be able to match the work of truly skilled artists, writers and performers. But if there is no room for those who have not yet become excellent at their craft or art, then there is no space for them to learn in a professional environment. As designers, graphic designers, voice actors and copy. Operators now I thought about this comment a lot. Right now I think it’s going to be hard to predict how things will shuffle out. For instance, the less experienced may end up finding jobs as AI prompters and touch up artists. But yeah, for anyone wanting to take that traditional path, there may need to be adjustments or at least patients and perseverance if appropriate. Props are filled by AI. Nonetheless, a missing bridge in the development of our creative is this something we should probably be wary of and look out for? So thanks for bringing that to our attention. In and then John Rose wrote AI is not art in the same sense that a brush and paint are. Not art. They are all. Tools with which a skilled practitioner can create art. Likewise, just because a particular tool is used, i.e. Brush paint AI, the result is not automatically art. The term AI art is a mix. Boomer, John, I couldn’t agree more. As you heard in the interview, the terminology is, I think problematic. We need another name. So, Addie, if you will artificially intelligent digital imagery or artificially intelligent derived imagery AID I, that’s my vote. I don’t know who could make such changes. But let’s push for that and to John’s first point, people are unfortunately often Speaking of AI as if it’s going to replace the artist and it’s not. It can’t create anything without a human making decisions. It’s really an alternative medium, as John illustrates, and that’s a really important point to keep in mind. So thanks, John. And in a similar vein, but slightly different perspective, cure McCoy wrote, AI art is still created by human it is directed with words which are very subjective to the human using the words. The computer is not sitting there and making visuals by itself. Therefore, whether or not it’s art is certainly in the eye of the Creator, the human. Right. Yeah, we have to remember that there is a human being behind all of this AI stuff and whether or not it is art or will be art or could be art, there is subjectivity, decision making and artistic judgment that is needed for any piece to make it out of the generator and out into the world. Thanks a lot for that. Keira and lastly, here’s one from a non visual creative Seth Wageman is a therapist and writer with a take on this that reflects his professions. He wrote the bottom line here seems. To be that. The reaction to AI art is about our. Human response to it. There has got to be a deep seated fear for some artists that they’re worth in value. Perhaps their very identities. May soon be diminished, which is a reasonable fear for creatives themselves. We must find the meaning in our own making to the degree that artists create for the sake of creating AI. Art is no existential threat at all. Seth, I wholly agree. It’s a fear of the unknown or worst case scenarios that threaten us. I think mostly because we don’t know or understand the full potential yet, but we will always have the experience and joy of creating, and no machine can take that from us. So well, says Seth. I want to thank everyone who chimed in on the subject online. I really enjoyed the conversation and I hope to get another one going on another hot topic soon. I have some ideas, but if there’s something you’d like to have discussed, use the contact form on the website at the sagearts.com and let. Even after all of that, there are two more huge aspects that I realized as I edited hadn’t yet been brought up, so I’m going to briefly summarize these, and if they interest you, go out and read more about them. For one, AI processing isn’t an easy and free alternative to do things by human hand. There’s a price to pay for this powerful technology, and it comes primarily in the form of environmental. Impact the amount of energy it takes to run these AI generators is immense. Some of the data centers, like the kinds that will be needed to run AI generators more widely, can use the same amount of energy that it would take to run 80,000 US. Not only do they use a lot of energy, many data centers use millions of gallons of water for evaporative cooling of the server rooms and the water that isn’t evaporated or recaptured can become polluted in the process. So it’s not all. Clean and green out there. Mind you, AI is not the only technology that is pushing this kind of high energy use. That’s part of the argument against technology like Bitcoin and NFTS, which are huge consumers of energy due to the ultra high encryption process, servers have to run basically from what I’ve been reading, any technology that depends on high server usage is environmentally damaging. So if you’re trying to minimize your carbon footprint, AI may not be for you. There are also a ton of great articles out there addressing what I think is one of the bigger issues with AI technology, and that’s the potential for AI to magnify our historical biases. Most AI is being developed in English, So what most AI? ‘s pull will. Be from an English speaking and largely western. View, in other words, the visual history the AI’s have access to will lean heavily towards a white male straight capitalistic representation of the world, among other things. The underrepresented and oppressed are going to continue to be underrepresented because the AI is limited to a snapshot of our history and our history and art reveals some severe problems in our cult. Sure, there is both good. News and bad news in this arena. The bad news is kind of obvious. If AI becomes the. Widely used tool, we think it. Will be. It could be a set back in the fights to stamp out prejudice and bias and sexism, etcetera. The good news? Is that the creators know this and companies like open AI are working to minimize this in their Dolly 2. Generator through filters, but where they try to filter out, say, objectification of women, the filter may reduce the statistical possibility of women being in the images created, and so it’s not wholly helpful. Definitely some opinions I read additionally thought that filters and fixes may also result in a forced homogeneity, a sameness in the results stripping AI of the potential for any substantial originality. So these known issues are going to slow down the progress of AI development and highlight its shortcomings, which might give us. All a bit of time to adjust our jobs and workflows as artists and for the ramifications of AI to be brought up in. Don, maybe I’m at least happy that the bias and historical representation issues are being addressed already. It’s just a question of whether the players in the AI industry are going to put our social progress as a society before the fortune or the winning of the race that we know they’re after well. That’s some heavy stuff. This is just such a complex subject, but I hope this information has helped mitigate your fears to some extent, as well as keep your eyes open to the potential downfalls as this technology progresses and expands its. So where do we all stand? My present position or viewpoint isn’t static. I don’t think not right now for sure. My position on this issue is going to constantly shift the more I learn about it and the more people explore it and eke out its possibilities and its potential harm. What I am sure of is that we. Are facing a shift a change in the way things can be done? But I don’t. Think it spells the end of any one thing of any particular craft or avenue of artistry. Will replace some jobs. Yeah, I’m sure it will. There are always casualties when there’s advancement. Will it create other jobs? But whether that is a healthy shift in the workforce or if it takes away or adds to the number of artistic jobs is yet to be seen. Will it dilute the creativity of the human? Race, of course not. It might increase the amount of mediocre work that. We’ll be exposed to. But that happens whenever access to a tool increases, no matter the tool. And I think the bulk of the bell curve on mediocrity in the arts has probably already hit its peak. I mean, we have all. These cheap, easy digital. Tools available to everyone, and the popularity of social media drives people to create whatever gets them more likes and followers out of a desire to be seen or grab some semblance of popularity. But it doesn’t urge people to draw from any artistic passion within themselves. So yeah, I think we’re. Already flooded to the point of near saturation with mediocrity and visual arts, so that aspect I don’t think is something to be feared. In fact, well made, passion art may very well have a perceived increase in value as it becomes more rare relative to the imagery created with all these shortcut tools. And that brings me to the main point. I think we all, as creatives, need to take to heart. There is one thing that a I can’t and never will be able to do, and that is to root the work in stories and experiences that drive the artist to create and allows the viewers and buyers of your art to see you and connect to you and experience your work. As an extension of you. AI in the end seems to be just a tool, one that is being embraced far more readily willingly than some might have supposed and more than others might be comfortable with. But regardless, we are left with the most important of human connections, the ability and desire to understand each other, and marvel at our accomplishments, including the feat of making a machine that mimics the human imagination. Now keep in mind, Jim and I are no AI experts. We are just offering the experience and the information we’ve gathered and we could be off the mark on our opinions and outlook. So if this subject has you fired up, go out and read more about it. It’s a very complicated issue that is receiving a huge share of the limelight in all kinds of industries, many of them creative. If the idea of AI art is enraging or depressing or even scary, remember, the more you know, the better you will come to understand and be able to navigate the ramifications and possibilities of this new technology. I know that’s a lot to take in. Today, if you. Have thoughts and I know you do jump in on the conversation on social media. I’ll post the episode cover on Facebook and Instagram and ask for your thoughts there. But you are welcome to send thoughts, questions, concerns, whatever you need to me through the website at www.thesagearts.com. Just go to the. Contact page and use the form or the voice message button. And as mentioned at the beginning, if you’re enjoying these episodes and find value in what I’m doing here, do consider giving back. You can do that by going to the sagearts.com website, where halfway down the homepage you’ll find the buy me a coffee and PayPal dot. Buttons. You can also follow the podcast on social media on facebook.com or instagram.com. Both are under the Sage Arts Podcast and if you want to spread the word, hit the share button or you’re welcome to grab the images I post and. Repost them. I will not object in the least. OK, I’m all done. We probably all are now that I’ve filled your brains with all this information. Maybe it’s time to set. It all aside. Let the mind marinate on these many, many thoughts and just go create add beauty to the world, inspire, and revel in the joy of taking the ideas in your imagination. And making them a reality. In the meantime, as always, keep your news well fed. Stay true to your weirdness and we’ll see you next time on the Sage Arts podcast.
