I believe it's just a tool that's here to stay. You can use it ethically or unethically. A knife can cut someone or make a delicious meal. Will I use it to create art based from other people and pass it off as my own? No.
But will I use it when I'm tasked finishing a 5-page storyboard and was just given 20 minutes to finish it? Hell yes.
Corporate doesn't really care if something is AI generated for internal materials. Peg/Mood/Inspiration boards, storyboards, mockups, and starting templates are usually done as fast as possible with ever-shortening deadlines. They aren't released to the public most of the time anyway. Of course, the final output is still done as before manually with their best artists and given the proper time to finish. But a lot of the previous assistants are reduced now.
It's not a fad. Already had artists, writers, and programmer friends that had their company restructured in one way or another because of AI. In-house creative teams are already downsizing all over.
The truth is, for preliminary/ planning materials like these, most companies would pick the fastest that's 'good enough'. That's just how capitalism works, unfortunately. And because of that, I'd rather be the employee who knows how to use it than those who don't. Even programmer friends admit to using them now for debugging.
Am not that much of a hypocrite that will say I'll never use AI, when a lot of the web services we're using right now already have background processes run by them. Same goes for banking and other industries. Don't be surprised to learn that your credit rating is already evaluated by AI to some degree. Or an app you use every day, having their code and updates written partially by AI... why did you think there were mass firings in the tech sector recently? It's just incredibly naive to think you can avoid all forms of AI when you're probably already using it in one form or another, you just aren't aware of it yet. Sorry to break it to you, but if you have been using any social media or any of the majority of websites on the web powered by Microsoft Azure servers or AWS, you HAVE been using AI.
When your boss gives you unreasonable deadlines for internal materials, it's literally your job to use all available tools they allow to finish on time.
Besides, with regards to art; no matter what you'll do, you'll end up getting criticized by a lot of people anyway. Since by its very nature, it's highly subjective and it's value will differ with everyone.
Still remember the times when amazing artist friends would get criticized for using photo references for hands. Or how some would shout that a grid system is tantamount to 'tracing'. Some friends would get ridiculed for using 3d models to help with posing (you just traced the pose over them!). Or even the story of how an artist was witch-hunted because their style looked like AI, when it was their style to begin with.
Old enough to remember people mocking some mangas with photo-manipulated backgrounds to speed up their process, or how a lot of manwhas nowadays use the same 3d castle asset from clip studio paint in their backgrounds.
A lot of people also don't seem to realize that you CAN train your own model based ONLY on your works. You don't even need an uber online server anymore, and you can do it locally on your own PC. They're even free and open-source. Outputs are actually much more consistent that way, since the only inputs are your own artworks.
There was once a poll that asked readers if what they would think if their favorite manga artists would use AI (trained with their own mangas) to help them finish their works. Since they all knew that the schedules of mangakas were debilitating, and many were having multiple hiatuses due to health reasons. The majority were positive about the use as long as it would help their favorite artist. It was recognized as a tool, which is something you can't gatekeep for one set of people and not the other. It's something opened from a Pandora's box; either it exists for all or not, with all of its pros and cons.
Also, a lot of new art 'functions' have been slapped on with 'AI' recently since it's the new buzzword, when they're closer to automated processes. Let's say you're using an art app on your tablet. Still remember when people would decry artists who would use the distort/skew/warp tool on mistakes on their line layer or whatnotā¦ Something about being 'not genuine' and they 'preferred' digital artworks done 'traditionally'. Am seeing the same thing happening right now with pose editors. You have your own existing artwork, then by automatically adding code bones to it, you can change the pose of the artwork as if you're moving a paper doll. Essentially, they're just a more advanced and automated version of that.
As a tool, you can use it when it's allowed (Tapas is very clear that it's not allowed), or not. The choice is yours.
Let me be very clear that I do NOT condone using other people's artworks for training your 'own' model. Especially passing it off as your own. But using it for your own artworks, speeding up iterative processes, have at it.
Don't fret too much about what other people might say since people have been scrutinizing artists for references photos, grid techniques, tracing, 3d posing, copying a particular style, using photos for backgrounds, using 3d for backgrounds, whatever since time immemorial. People will like what they like and dislike what they dislike. Don't lose your sanity trying to convince entrenched people otherwise.
A lot of the tools we use today comes from ābad thingsā. That's just how it is with any new technology: they're often abused first, that's the nature of our species. Even more started out for less benevolent purposes, like war and the military. Nuclear power, GPS, jet engines, canned food, knives, even this very internet we're using to discuss. But now they're just ubiquitous things that most don't even bat an eye about.
People always seem to forget that a large part of 'Art' throughout history is started from copying something else. And that's how most learned how to improve their own art as well. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal"
- Steve Jobs
That's capitalism for you.
