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I don't know what to think of this
Back from vacation and I discover this app MidJourney. A AI image generator. It generates images. from prompts. Like working with computers before windowing.
I asked for a caricature of an old man. It gave me these 4 options. In about 3 minutes. Note how beautiful the colors are. The one in the lower left is stunning.
Is this an idea factory? Or should I just go fishing. I'm so intrigued on one hand yet horrified on the other.
In the days before stock photos I made a decent living inventing chapters and scenes for comps. Often mimicking other artist or photographers styles. Basically toss away art. This is so imaginative that can hardly believe it.
It disturbs me. How about you?
I asked for a caricature of an old man. It gave me these 4 options. In about 3 minutes. Note how beautiful the colors are. The one in the lower left is stunning.
Is this an idea factory? Or should I just go fishing. I'm so intrigued on one hand yet horrified on the other.
In the days before stock photos I made a decent living inventing chapters and scenes for comps. Often mimicking other artist or photographers styles. Basically toss away art. This is so imaginative that can hardly believe it.
It disturbs me. How about you?
Comments
I can't deny that they are good.
Spooky. I have to admire the quality of the characters pictured. But when you think that the graphics generator has access to lots of keyword tagged images. The result is probably a montage of typical old men.
A bit too realistic for a caricature though. The images are neither comic or grotesque. The AI machine needs to polish up the concept of caricature.
Denis
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9qb_4nsHcHU&t=326s
AI is great at pattern matching and assembling multiple similar patterns from multiple sources.
It does not really operate conceptually although it works well with patterns etc that have been categorized.
It cannot truly create it can only recombine images it has processed.
That is not to say that the human eye is not easily fooled by these images.
There is no art added in the process of AI making these images. A blind algorithm has no experience, cannot value, cannot find meaning, joy, sadness, in anything. Any life in any image AI creates is in the original works which it recycled… and they are myriad and disjointed … they do form a cohesive whole.
Art is individual and Human.
IMHO this is no more disturbing than a 35mm camera.
Though I have a bit of a love hate relationship with regards to technology. I purposefully left my mobile phone behind when I went away on a ten day trip, bliss.
Marks video was a surprise and just makes me a little more concerned regarding the future. When there will be no need to get off your arse and go and meet friends, go to a gallery or the cinema. Just pop those specs on and and you are there. In fact there will be no need for your to eat or go to the toilet as you will be on a commode and have feeding tubes inserted.
Its the future. Ha ha
The meta_verse is not for me. I get sea sick with those headsets. The meta_verse is a different animal from AI though they may be in the genus.
I worked on Madison Avenue when digital changed everything. I was lucky in that I had embraced digital 'desktop' production early. Later I worked in Financial news when the first digital events changed our lives and the lives of many on Wall Street. I was the guy who 'invented' digital charting for the WSJ. It changed the look of the old gray paper. I was told at every step that what we were doing could not be done. We proved 'them' wrong. I don't know that this AI stuff can't take over the conceptual image making 'market'. Even though the artist's doesn't lift a brush!
I saw this today. Four or five descriptive prompts created this. Sure it's wonky but impressively wonky. Again lighting and color. Detail not so much.
@CBG I agree with you that AI cannot “create” art at this time but it does make me wonder a lot about the entire creative process, both technically and “sentiently”.
@MichaelD I do find it odd that during this Anthropocene period we are destroying, the ecology and some are looking for ways to escape via rockets to Mars and giggles to a digital virtual reality.
If this issue remains unsolved liability insurance will likely nix the whole idea once a death or two occurs.
AI won't affect me too much except as a curiosity. I'm getting kinda old. But I can't help wonder how it will affect contemporary art. And if it gets smart enough even realism. Will it be a tool for inspiration when planning paintings. It's happening faster than I thought it would.
@GTO, good luck pursuing justice after the inevitable consequences of that expectation in today’s world.
I don't think that copyright comes into play. The AI simply creates archetypes of styles and genres. Learning along the way. If you feed it an image it doesn't mimic the image.
So far I see it only as an inspirational tool. If I were still in the editorial art biz it would be my right hand. This is just the beginning of this stuff. SkyNet.
I just had Mid Journey make an image. skynet from terminator, surrealism, 4K, --ar 16:9
click on the image and view in a separate window to see the detail.
jeez... the future is scary haha...
Don’t expect that to happen either.
I find these images impressive yet highly flawed. Too many oddities to use out of the digital box.
I think it's a good thing though.
Look at the color in this image. The shadows in the face are magnificent. The garment! The impact. All sparked by a 23 word description!
Just a thought experiment.
That said the ideas are challenging. The abstracts I've made are road maps. I have been trapped but repetitive subject matter for some years now. I have no problem with execution but unique ideas. I mean how many landscapes and pears can you paint.
The color understanding of MidJourney astounds me. Compositional cues are brilliant. But the images are highly flawed. The fresh concepts aren't. It's visual thinking.
We seem to evolve to that which makes things easier and more profitable for corporations, which we operate. If we are on the side of winning, getting positive recognition from our peers, creating wealth for our families, we feel that it's part of the necessary evolution and justify what we do. Win at all cost, we teach this in the best universities. Corporations look for the CEO that is capable and willing to 'make those tough decisions' to increase profits exponentially for their shareholders, which we are part of.
Can we compare this conversation about AI generated art and fine art with fast food and home cooking? To cook a meal at home for a family takes time, money, knowledge, energy, and hopefully passion. And most families eat multiple times every day. It used to be that you had to cook to eat.
Top food corporations hired top chefs for R & D to develop 'fast food' products. The need to cook has been eliminated but of course there are many who still do for reasons of quality in many areas such as nutrition. There is also a cost factor, it cost significantly more to cook from scratch than eating 'fast food'.
The same holds true with art, I do not think that AI will be able to create quality art to the level of humans because it will never have human emotions. But that is not to say that the majority of people will care about the difference enough especially when you factor in cost.
I wish art and artist's had a higher level of respect in society and more would be in positions of leadership. In general, the human qualities that everyone admires the most such as compassion and empathy seem to be greater among artists. Wouldn't we all be better off if decisions that had great societal effect be made from a perspective that included more of those distinctly human qualities.
I can tell you how to eat well, much less expensively, and far more efficiently than the fast food route though if you are interested in learning a few simple things. There is no reason to participate in enriching fast food companies unless you choose to ‘seem to evolve’ that way.
When do you think it will be ready to take on your full pallette selection method?
After Photography, then Digital Art, I see AI as the next era in images.
https://youtu.be/h0yKcyWHf1I
I’ll sit back and watch what unfolds. No. No. No. Not going to participate.
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2018/10/ai-creativity/
Weird times. Glad I didn't go into graphics program as a kid.
A lesson from art school.
We used Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis as our textbook. In the abstraction process of creating an image we were supposed to make abstract light and dark shapes the might capture the reader. This image is nothing but abstractions cloaked as real. Created from this phrase 'criminal abank robber hides in an alley, smoking a ciggarette, hd, detailed,'.
Not my creation or phrase
Classical composition exercise. Amazing color choices. Really bad hand. No feet. Sooo much to work from.
Comments on this image only please.
Great colour and values. The smoking trash can (?) is amazing. The abstraction works very well. The overall feeling is dark, sinister, seedy ... But it's a successful image, whoever created it. I think it's great.
The color is fantastic.
Here's some more: