Hey dude I’m too. I’m just gonna wait and see. 
Will people still hire trad artists? Sure!
Will many big companies go with AI to save a buck? SURE!
Will it damage some peoples careers because of this? I really do think so.
Will there be a growing return appreciation for clients wanting hand drawn/painted work?
The more I think about it this very could be the case. And learning trad skills is important moving forward,
This "AI is just copying other things" well.... um...
We as humans are effectively copying everything from our environment, what we see, what we hear and what we experience to create.
AI is indeed in that early stage where it creates something from something else
But..
We do this. We just are not always aware we do this. But we do.
AI will advance. How it effects you personally is another matter. If creating makes you happier then create regardless of technical advancements. AI isn't going to stop you. It might prevent you from making a career at certain companies who choose the AI route, But would you really want to work for a company that does not appreciate your art?
But yes...my comic is hand drawn gimme all the money! XD
Interesting insight. Yes! It could be cool if I did that. I mean I only did these too imagine what my characters could look like as real people.
my thoughts exactly. I bet when cameras were first invented, artists thought they would be out of work but they're still here and kicking.
I have strong feelings towards paywalling, it creates a sense of bitterness. People will find a way to share and experience your work if they want it enough, it's impossible to prevent that. But I think art should be free to enjoy regardless. Ai generated images have no bearing on whether real artwork should be free.
Simple fact tho is that the audience don't care.
For them a comic isn't a piece of art to be studied or admired. It's a passing distraction while they're on the toilet or bus. Something they scroll through at breakneck speed. And if an AI delivers that distraction as well or better than you or me, they'll roll with it.
Since writing for popular media is as formulaic as can be (have you seen a Marvel movie?), and the public has shown a great willingness to throw huge piles of money at formulaic, AI generated scripts won't matter either once the hiccups are coded out.
And they've been conditioned to not pay for content, so we're not surviving that way.
Plus every company's goal is to make all of the money on the planet regardless of how they do it. Naver Webtoon, for example, is pretty naked in its exploitation of its content creators and you can be guaranteed that once Robot Artist can pump out its own version of All Of Us Are Dead to sell to Netflix, their flesh and blood creators will be shown the door. A harddrive on a shelf in Seoul will be far more profitable for them than Joo Dong-geun.
tl;dr- You're right to be worried about replacement because we all will be ASAP. And we'll be the only ones shedding a tear over it cuz "capitalism".
I gotta say, if there is an agreement in the future to make all hand drawn webtoons paywalled, I'm going to betray the shit out of you and keep posting my stuff for free anyway. My #1 priority is making my work accessible to as many people as possible; I AM going to be selfish about this.
This is the problem with commodifying passion-based work in general; capitalism is pretty much a game of hard-to-get, but if you're passionate about something, everyone knows you're 'easy to get' and I'd rather just admit that instead of playing the game. I feel like in an ideal world, we'd focus on maximizing everyone's free time (which should be the purpose of automation) and only treat as 'work' the logistically helpful stuff that keep us going and operate more efficiently (food, internet etc), and stuff like art would be stuff people do in their free time if they want to.
I don’t get the fear over ai Art replacing hand drawn art, because it seems like a copyright NIGHTMARE.
This is the first time I've ever seen someone put that into words...and I agree. I think when you live in this world as an artist, at some point you have to choose between chaining your passion to capitalistic standards, or allowing it to run free even if it may never be 'profitable'.
And that's why I decided to go to the engineering school instead of the art school. =T There are a lot of things upon which I don't mind basing my ability to eat, but MY art is not one of them. And not having that limitation is one thing that allows me to be relatively chill with possibilities like AI art taking over the market.
'Cause even if it happens, I'm still gonna draw comics. =/ I'm already competing with thousands of full-time harem/villainess/isekai comic artists that I have no chance of 'winning' against; if all those artists are replaced by AI copy-pasters nothing really changes for me.
And in a losing environment like that, charging the few people who might still come to see your work for the simple privilege of looking at something made by a human being doesn't sound like the smart play. In fact it sounds kind of greedy and desperate, and personally it's a rabbit hole I would rather not go down.
If it gets so tough out there that the only way for me to exist as a creative person is to just make things for free and hope people will like them as much or more than what advertisers push at them, then I'd rather just let it happen. It's...what I'm already doing... ^^;
I'll still be sad for all the working artists who will no longer be able to do what they love on the same scale, but at the same time I'm probably not going to join anyone in attempting to squeeze money out of whatever's left. If society decides that art isn't worth anything to them, fine. I'll just do it anyway.
I totally agree, also i would like to add: what many people don't understand (unfortunately also due to clickbait titles like "look what this ai drew") is that the ai don't draw the images from scratch but it takes illustrations and images already made by someone else and mix them.
what AI does is still incredible from a technological point of view but it is very misunderstood.
Well, I can expect then a lot of issues regarding copyright and intellectual property infractions.
AI is not generated out of nothing, is a miss and match from images taken from the internet, so you may get sued if someone's work is identified and the author hasn't provided any rights or permission to let other individuals to use their work in a certain way, as well, several webcomic platforms demand that your work is yours and should not infringe another person's copyright, trademark or intellectual property.
So I can imagine several webcomics generated with AI trying to make their way in Webtoon, Tapas and other platforms, just to get taken down by constant reports and emails from fellow creators within the platforms or legal action from the original artists.
We as content creators are going to always be fighting against the new entertainment, no matter it's shape, if it's human, human-made, etc. Maybe I'm too dead inside, maybe I'm just vibing and living a well deserved chill life, I don't know. But to me this ain't the end of the world
I agree. I have tried out AI a bit and I still can't the style of art I want for the look of my characters completely. Although, my art skills aren't the best; at least I am able to get the characters that I look okay at times. With that said, I would still eventually put the budget in for commissioning an artist.
Just because an AI art is there doesn't mean you may get art style that you want that will fit for your work. Plus, AI art only seem to be a good idea to get a concept, not making a full blown comic at this point. But only time will tell.
Exactly. I made realistic versions of my characters but it possibly could never replace real people. Unless if I somehow find a way to computer generate them or something to make a “live action”. My knowledge and skills on this sort of thing are beyond my scope. I mean Disney has done it, but Disney is Disney and they have obviously more resources and more talent than I can imagine.
It’s fun but I have no idea what I’d do with these.
Honestly.. I feel alot of people's ( as seen by some posts in this thread) got thier ideas on how AI as work as a whole from tv and movies.
Never actual studies or tried learn about it on a fundamental computer science level. Just read one article from a non scientific source and go "ooooooj"
Like.... no ai as it currantly stand is a calculator not a brain. The human equivalent is find a bunch of diffrent art pieces and randomly copying and pasting parts and pieces to them to form an image. But...even more sketchy
Yes on surface level its impressive but once you get down it. It can not create it can only guesstimate with dubious legal implications.
Until we can 100% figure out the human brain and human psychology (good god we are far from that) for the field of computer science to integrate, then ai can never truely replicate it.
But hey stating that in an article doesnt get clicks or people screeching.
Hmmm... I think I'd still keep them 'free'. You can argue that AI develops well enough to create convincing illustrations of characters at some point when they work out the kinks. Maybe even illustrations of multiple characters in one picture.
However, a comic is a whole different beast. You got panelling to think about and visual storytelling. And if you do action, you also think about motion and impact and the like, to really sell it to your audience. Which in my opinion is much harder to draw as a flesh and blood artist, let alone for an AI to adapt to with machine learning.
I think comics might be fine for now to be honest. It's mostly illustrators that are competing against the AI.
you're absolutely right, and even if it were (even if it isn't) that an ai would succeed in creating art, it would just be one more tool to work with, and those who know how to make the most of it would benefit. there's really no need to panic.
It used to be that people would pay a stagecoach to get a ride, now you pay a cab....
Yet the one who takes you is paid in both cases right?
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closed Dec 18, '22