Good Artists Steal, Great Artists Use AI

I finally got some time to try one of the new text-to-image generators. Most people know about GPT-3 for text of course. Just give it at subject some context and GPT-3 will start writing entire articles, job adds or greeting cards for you. However writing meaningful copy competing with humans isn’t easy and while there are many areas where it’s going to be useful it’s still have some way to go.

Our visual perception is much more forgiving, most likely because it’s much more advanced as it’s been around with us for much longer and so I was excited to try out Midjourney via their Discord channel.

I have to say it did not disappoint one bit. Here are some initial thoughts.

It’s groundbreaking…

Using plain language to create completely unique visuals feels empowering in ways I have never really experienced before.

I mean 5 minutes to create unique schematics of the universe like these and all done from a Discord prompt.

It’s commodifying…

You have to be completely in denial if you think this won’t affect the livelihood of editorial illustrators, bookcover designers, and other creatives.

Here is my attempt at doing fun landscapes for a children’s book.

And here is my attempt at creating an editorial illustration about someone writing an article about the future of ai generated art.

It’s contagious…

And don’t think this is just going to affect illustrators. Many other industries like ex. fashion designers and product designers are going to feel the heat too.

What do you think about my new sneaker shoe series?

Or this new hoodie collection I’ve been working on?

It will increase productivity manifold…

The sheer amount of output possible is staggering.

You can literally just brainstorm ideas with the AI and then if you see something you like, start working more seriously in that direction.

App store icons anyone?

Opportunity filled

Just as bad as this is for many creatives, it’s also filled with opportunities cause one thing the AI is not, is creative; It can’t solve problems. It can however help you explore solutions and it’s the problem solving the client pays you to deliver and that’s where it’s really going to be used.

Creating visuals is one thing. The same will happen to other areas currently considered creative and impossible to properly replace. But any engineer, musician, developer, architect armed with this kind of tools will be a force multiplier.

Because it can be controlled by text it means it can be controlled through chat, voice, API’s, plugins, website prompts and I could go on and this is just for 2D visuals. Imagine what happens when this is used for 3d applications like Blender or AutoDesk or Visual Studio Code.

This is going to up the ante of what is considered acceptable output and force everyone to implement it into their way of approaching visual design one way or another.

Of course there are still many issues and shortcomings. One is to make sure the rendering isn’t looking the same which it kind of does. But that will be solved down the line.

As always. Technology is always pushing the overton window and challenging what we previously considered outside of its domain. Not taking it seriously will be a mistake. Giving up would be a mistake too.

Change before you have to.

Thanks for reading this far hope you enjoyed it!

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