I am a grass-roots small start-up company.
I cannot afford to hire a full time artist at a wage because I am not myself earning a full time wage.
I am trying to get off benefits. I have significantly less than average income.
Industry artists have more money than I do. The same people who are hating on me for disagreeing on an opinion about technological impact on culture.
I am in the situation they fear to be in. Please take a moment to consider that.
When I have been able to hire freelance illustrators and coders to boost my company and its assets, I have done so. I am an employer. As my company grows I intend to continue hiring in skills I do not myself have.
I am an artist myself. I do not always have TIME and FOCUS to achieve ticking all the boxes, largely because my passion is the written word. I recognise my own art style is not always the best solution for some projects.
The advent of AI art has meant I can very quickly diversify my range and increase my schedule exponentially. The end-of-the-tunnel for projects suddenly comes into view as actually being achievable in my own lifetime. The use of text and visual by use of keywords and prompts is perfect for my working method.
It costs me significantly less to use an AI art generator than to hire an artist.
As an artist myself my approach to AI is as an exciting design tool with which I want to make images which I feel are ‘mine’ in the same way I am not tracing or copying pictures made by other people when I use any other medium. I want to push the limits of the tech to find out what it’s capable of and what I’m capable of doing with it.
I most certainly do not want to create pictures which look like they are made by another artist in the style of another artist. Although the concession toward house styles is necessary: it is because of the viewer / consumer identifying it as something they want because they are familiar with it instead of rejecting it for being too alien. Within art history this happens a lot.
Artists whose work was initially rejected as being too alien includes Mozart, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Rothko, Pollock, even Rembrandt broke the mould, Poe, Lovecraft, Huxley, the Pistols… There are so many others across multiple of the creative fields. I am sure you can name half a dozen yourself if you’re above average intelligence.
These innovators are remembered by history as being culture-changing pioneers whose work is now considered as the classics and the masterpieces, not only because they were technically highly skilled but also because they did it their own way. Obviously they are the respected and inspirational figureheads from whom we should be learning.
AI is like any other tool. It can be used for good or bad purpose. It is the purpose to which it is put by Humans which discerns the difference.
I never intend to use AI to ‘rip anyone off’ the same as I have never ripped anyone off without using AI. Even were I of mind to do that, it would be the human at fault and not the tool.
It alarms me how other people cannot see that so clearly and continue to shift blame for fictional potential crimes onto the technology and then extend that onto anyone who positively, safely and legally uses the technology.
In terms of mental health the appropriate description for that behaviour is ‘delusional’ and also ‘a danger to others’. These are diagnostic criteria.
I am not saying people won’t use the technology antisocially, of course they will. That doesn’t mean I am bad for using the technology safely.
Does someone really have to state this? In 2022 the answer is yes, we have to defend our rights because delusional people are trying to take them away from us and are harassing us for exercising them. I have proof of that.
What AI means for my company is my projects can see the light of day instead of shelved until my death. It gives me an opportunity I never had before.
What AI means for my company budget is those scraps of coin with which I hired artists and coders can now be spent on marketing my product (and coders).
My opinion of this is secondary to the goal of achieving a marketable product to get me off benefits and launch my career.
I was told in Art School I am “an ideas man.” Ideas float through the air and are useless unless they are turned into something useful.
Does this mean I value traditional artists less or will stop making my own art? No of course it doesn’t. AI generated art has its place the same as everything has its place. This is the law of Dharma.
People who hate AI and hate those of us who do not hate AI would be happier to recognise that. There is still a healthy vibrant industry of people hiring artists with their skills.
With AI the cultural change is that previously unheard innovators have been give a chance to step forward.
That is how we avoid cultural stagnation. AI heralds a Renaissance, not a death toll.
LINKS
(related blog series)
ON AI ABC (art business culture)
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