What do you think of AI art generators like Dall-E?

[darthmongoose]

I'm fairly certain we'll see a scandal break soon that a lot of these "Dall-E" created images are actually fakes, or that a lot of the truly impressive seeming results actually came about because it found an image of pretty much exactly that thing somebody had made on Google and just put it up pretty much unedited.

My reasoning is that some of the really amazing looking results go way beyond a computer's ability to understand reality, never mind to understand abstract drawn representations of it. Think about how we can barely make a chatbot yet that can pass the Turing Test and come across like a real human in a typed conversation... you want me to believe a computer can't handle a basic conversation in English, but it can produce a perfect cartoon image of a "panda mad scientist" understanding how 2D lines are a symbolic representation of boundaries of space, and stylistic shorthand like cel shading, and that "panda mad scientist" means "a panda who dressed as the fictional archetype of a scientist who has gone mad with power" and not "a scientist who is mad about pandas" or "a scientist panda who is angry"? Nah, I'm calling bullcrap. Computers can't even reliably translate Japanese to English or tell the difference between peaches and bums, so any of these that look a little too good and like the computer understood the prompt a little too well or seemed to understand human perception of space and light, composition or aesthetics in a way a computer just doesn't, I'm highly skeptical of.

It's like those "WE FED A COMPUTER EVERY EPISODE OF FRIENDS AND HAD IT WRITE A SCRIPT" memes... those are mostly fake too. You can tell the ones that are fake because they're just a little too funny or random in a way that's pleasing to a human rather than how randomness actually occurs.

[NickRowler]

I'm fairly certain we'll see a scandal break soon that a lot of these "Dall-E" created images are actually fakes, or that a lot of the truly impressive seeming results actually came about because it found an image of pretty much exactly that thing somebody had made on Google and just put it up pretty much unedited.

Oh, honestly I thought the eventual scandal would be data mining.

I guess this also goes into why people like using it for memes. It's good at recreating images of things that there are already a lot of examples of. That is why it is more efficient at recreating characters from Star Wars or Homer Simpson than things like signs for business like Waffle House. While there is a good number of reference for Waffle House signs, there are not really enough consistent images for machine learning to develop a pattern.

[MartaTod]

This doesn't worry me. Until someone comes up with an AI that can execute every whim of a client while having the ability to read what it is that they are actually asking for plus process what they're asking for through artistic terms to give them what they actually need - no human is getting replaced.

If what I just wrote sounds confusing, here's an example. There are logo generators out there. And yet, clients like to hire designers to make logos. Because:

1. Clients ultimately don't know what to do with generators. And generators can't say "the client commented they want this bolder but my skill, knowledge and experience tells me that will be crap so instead of bolding it I will accent it by making it a different color".

2. To the clients, the art they are paying for matters. Their logo matters. Their OC matters. The comic they're hiring you to draw matters. And so they want to know that there is another person there, giving their best to create this thing that matters to them.

[darthmongoose]

I guess this also goes into why people like using it for memes. It's good at recreating images of things that there are already a lot of examples of. That is why it is more efficient at recreating characters from Star Wars or Homer Simpson than things like signs for business like Waffle House. While there is a good number of reference for Waffle House signs, there are not really enough consistent images for machine learning to develop a pattern.

Oh yeah, it's a lot of fun for making memes and stuff! Like this one where I had Dave from Homestuck face off against Darth Vader!

This is roughly what I'd expect. It's still impressive, but you can see how the computer can't... quite... do it? Like you can see how it's understood:

• Darth Vader
• Dave Strider
• Fight

So get pictures of Darth Vader fighting. Okay, plenty of images of Darth Vader fighting and Dave Strider fighting, I made it easy here. Now you just need to paste in Dave as the person fighting, which it's made a solid attempt at!

Anything that looks too perfect, like where it understands context to too human a level, assume it's faked. For example, if you write "cat wearing panties" and you get a picture of an anthropomorphic cat wearing underwear, it's definitely just found a drawing of that off google, because a computer will probably give you "woman in knickers with head of cat in place of her head" or "picture of a cat with knickers on top". The computer just doesn't have enough capacity for abstract thought for anything else right now.

[DualDragons]

Yes

[rajillustration]

I'm fairly certain we'll see a scandal break soon that a lot of these "Dall-E" created images are actually fakes,

for reals, the stuff we see actually coming off of Dall-E on twitter vs the stuff advertised is hugely different. Like one will look like wads of clay and the other will be somehow a perfect illustration? hmmmmmm

That and if they are using artists work to make Dall-E, they're gonna have to pay for that copyright down the line youknow, you can't just use whatever art you want. And like even classical art that you'd assume is copyright free is often owned by like different inheretors. It would be a mess of legal work.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Although writing and art are disconnected, I see whether a creator has taken the time to learn the craft or not as a litmus test of how good their work is. If you actively don't want to learn to draw, then a drawing based medium like comics isn't for you. There are plenty of great writing-based ones: novels, webnovels, web serials, scripts, etc.

And if you really are a great comic writer but have no aptitude for art - e.g. the original One Punch Man comic - you should start by publishing your writing, then try to find an artist to work with later once you've practiced and built a following. Which One did, and the result speaks for itself. Nothing against you personally, but if someone's motivation for having an AI generate a whole comic for them was that they're too lazy to learn art, I wouldn't be super inclined to trust their writing either.

...I think the point of their statement wasn't that they're "too lazy" to learn to draw, it's just that drawing comics is a task they'd rather delegate than do for themselves. You're making way too many assumptions...

And anyway, it is completely, totally normal to want someone or something else to perform a task for you when you don't want to do it. The fact that you aren't interested (or even just LESS interested) in one area of creativity doesn't imply that you can't be trusted in others.

I'm willing to bet that there are tons of professional comic writers out there who are literally too lazy to learn art and hire other people to do it for them, only they don't get criticized for it because that's just called collaboration. o_O Happens all the time; an entire industry was built off the concept.

[VibrantFox]

given theyre only generating images based on whatever data their being fed as opposed to having full grasp of concepts and the ability to create with intent im not concerned

plus an ai is only as skilled or as smart as the person or people who program them and since they (the ai) lack true sentience its never gonna match up to a human the way some people think they might. it could come close maybe but i highly doubt it'll ever be 1:1

[TheLemmaLlama]

I see whether a creator has taken the time to learn the craft or not as an early indicator of how good their work is.

Well yeah, if you say "I want to make X" but never actually get out there and learn how to make X, you're not really a creator. But a dislike of doing things is not an unwillingness to do things. Honestly, I don't like writing either, so I guess I should just give up on creating altogether XD But I learn to write AND draw despite how tedious I find it, because I'm really excited about my ideas and want to make them exist. (Well okay, I do like the learning process when I take it at my own pace, it's more the rote execution of stuff I already know which I find tedious :P)

What if a comic artist does digital art instead of traditional because they're too lazy to color in a large area with a brush, or draw a similar panel from scratch twice when they can just copy-paste and make minor edits? Does that also make you less inclined to trust their writing than a traditional comic artist? :]

And if you really are a great comic writer but have no aptitude for art - e.g. the original One Punch Man comic - you should start by publishing your writing, then try to find an artist to work with later once you've practiced and built a following.

So delegating to people is okay but delegating to machines isn't? I assume what you're getting at is "if humans are willing to execute your vision, that proves your vision is good, but if you get a machine to do it, it's going to do what you say even if your writing sucks".

I get the logic behind that, at least. But also, it's easier to communicate your vision with visuals than without it, especially if you're envisioning a project with a visual component. Did the creator of the original One Punch Man comic publish a piece of pure writing first, or did they only gain traction after communicating their vision with their own attempt at the comic?

[CSJones]

I assume what you're getting at is "if humans are willing to execute your vision, that proves your vision is good, but if you get a machine to do it, it's going to do what you say even if your writing sucks".

Yeah, that's a better phrasing than I came up with, actually. I know it's not that straightforward since hiring artists is expensive, but yeah, overall I think if you can find real people to work with, it means your vision has at least reached the level of professionalism where you're willing to present it to other people and they'll agree to spend hours drawing it. Granted, it could just mean you have enough money to get artists to keep working with you no matter how bad your writing is, which is admittedly a really unfair advantage, but least it helps human artists earn a living instead of outsourcing yet another job to machines.

What I'm afraid of is if it ever reaches the point where it's impossible to tell a comic (or whatever medium) that the artist put years of work into learning to execute, from one someone dashed off a script for on their lunch break then hit "generate," by appearance. It'd be the same problem writers face: there's no barrier to entry and it's hard to tell a good novel from a bad one at first glance, so the market is flooded with an overwhelming amount of low-quality content and people tend to just ignore books by default unless it's popular or they're specifically given a recommendation.

Re: One Punch Man, I guess a better phrasing for this would be "publish what you have," not just "publish your writing by iteslf." If someone's bad at drawing and wants to do a comic themself, that's totally fine, and it might still find an audience on the story's strength - as he did - but the price is that it won't look as good as you want to. If you want a professional-looking result, you have to earn it by either learning drawing (or 3d modeling, rendered comics are valid) to a professional level, or hire one, which is how it should be, because that's how you get good at visual storytelling as well as writing. Maybe this is a reactionary standpoint, but the idea of there being a shortcut so powerful it takes away your having to earn it entirely boils my piss. It would be like if an MMO suddenly switched from starting new players off at Level 1 to 80.

[LouisWinter]

Jeez! I want these Dall E memes but there's"too much traffic".

[LouisWinter]

Nevermind. Nightmare Fuel bro. I'm done.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Cool, I'm glad I haven't misunderstood you! I guess I'm just one of those people who think as automation increases, we should give the robots' wages to the people they're replacing. Something something politics, I'm sure you've heard enough about this everywhere else on the internet XD

What I'm afraid of is if it ever reaches the point where it's impossible to tell a comic (or whatever medium) that the artist put years of work into learning to execute, from one someone dashed off a script for on their lunch break then hit "generate," by appearance. It'd be the same problem writers face: there's no barrier to entry and it's hard to tell a good novel from a bad one at first glance, so the market is flooded with an overwhelming amount of low-quality content and people tend to just ignore books by default unless it's popular or they're specifically given a recommendation.

The market is already flooded, imo; it's not unique to novels. Even among comics that look excellent, there are very few that hold my attention with its writing, and I've seen many others express similar sentiments.

We still find stuff to read by focusing on the subset of content that caters to our interests. Interests are so diverse that if a work has a clear and unique identity and is labelled in an easily searchable way, people who want to find it will find it. Even with the sheer amount of content these days, I still sometimes feel starved for content because only a tiny fraction of it fall within my fields of interest; definitely few enough for me to sort through them all and find the good ones.

the idea of there being a shortcut so powerful it takes away your having to earn it entirely boils my piss. It would be like if an MMO suddenly switched from starting new players off at Level 1 to 80.

MMOs starting players off at level 80 would be bad because people play games to be challenged, but people choose to seek out that challenge, whereas people don't choose to be born in the real world, and people don't always choose to do art for the challenge. Making things hard for people who aren't looking for the satisfaction of overcoming something hard is kind of pointless imo.

I guess this is just a fundamental difference in our values. I think good things are good, all the time, regardless of whether people 'earned' it or 'deserve' it. That's just irrelevant to me. Hence I think lowering barriers to entry is always a positive thing. Probably nothing much to do here but agree to disagree XD

I really am curious about what you think wrt my question about digital art though:

What if a comic artist does digital art instead of traditional because they're too lazy to color in a large area with a brush, or draw a similar panel from scratch twice when they can just copy-paste and make minor edits? Does that also make you less inclined to trust their writing than a traditional comic artist? :]

This wasn't intended to be rhetorical. In your opinion, how much automation is too much? At what point does the person using the automation technology stop 'earning' their results?

[CSJones]

This wasn't intended to be rhetorical. In your opinion, how much automation is too much? At what point does the person using the automation technology stop 'earning' their results?

When the piece's quality is more because of the tool than the artist. There isn't a definite line, but I think it's like sampling in music. It's common sense that taking a loop from a song is using it for transformative art, but playing the whole thing front-to-back, singing over it, and claiming it as your own work is just stealing.

I guess this is just a fundamental difference in our values. I think good things are good, all the time, regardless of whether people 'earned' it or 'deserve' it. That's just irrelevant to me. Hence I think lowering barriers to entry is always a positive thing. Probably nothing much to do here but agree to disagree XD

Actually, if there was some clear way to tell this theoretical super-advanced AI art from real paintings, I might be fine with it. Like how Picrew isn't taking jobs away from artists because it's obvious it's a Picrew.

[miniscule]

I just think they look really funny.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Ah, so I guess it's also somewhat of an intellectual honesty thing then? Like you're afraid people will use the Super Advanced Art Generator 3000 to make pictures and claim they drew it themselves by hand, so no-one will believe people who really did draw it themselves? You don't like the idea of people putting out awesome comics and the audience being impressed because they assume the creator drew it themselves, when they did no such thing?

I'm sure lots of people who would use the technology have no interest in impressing people with their drawing skills and just want their vision to be executed, so they'll be honest about how the pictures were made and if the audience is unimpressed with their work as a result, so be it, I guess that's a sign we need to git gud at writing.

As for people who do pride themselves on their craftsmanship in particular, they can perform. Actually show people their drawing process. There's a reason why music concerts are still a thing when people can just download a music file and send it through the speakers at home!

[ahogemon]

I've been thinking about this lately, one day AI will take over the creative industry, from novels, music, video games, movies, and comics. AI generates music, photorealistic background (landscape), 3D models or props, and recently I've watched a music video where the video is generated by AI, they look weird by at the same time look amazing.
We can't stop this, instead, I'm thinking we make use of the available technology to assist our creativity, to enhance and produce the content more efficiently., and go with the flow.

[TAMAnnoying]

Feels like mostly a fad like most of this ai generated stuff, the real question is how good is it a making OC furries cause if the answer is : not at all , then artist will be fine... At least financially

[hakei]

akdfakd this is true — honestly whenever there's a new internet/art technology fad, we just need to look at the furry community to see what their stance is.

[system]

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