Does my (a.i.)art look big in This?

[The Legendary Shark]

[Trooper McFad]

Very good and I'm assuming that you punched in the parameters for the desired image - it will be interesting if others take up the challenge and what images are produced.

[Jim_Campbell]

I'd just like to note that there are still ethical concerns with Bing's image generator. Artists can ask to have their work excluded from the AI's image scraping, but they have to 1) know it's happening, and 2) actually submit a request to be excluded.

Of course, it's not clear how MS can tell their AI to exclude the work of specific artists with complete reliability, nor how they can prevent unattributed/stolen examples of an artist's work getting scraped anyway.

At this time, I don't believe there is any way to use a general purpose image generator without serious ethical problems. The only ethical use of an AI image generator that I've come across so far is the handful of artists who've started with a 'clean' version of an image generation application and trained it exclusively on their own art. All the general purpose ones are hoovering up copyrighted material from across the web and regurgitating mash-ups of that material in response to user prompts.

I'd also like to note that this stuff is very upsetting to a significant number of artists, some of whom may visit this forum.

[IndigoPrime]

Adobe went about things in a better way, training its system only on the content it already owned. The thing is, that also tends to produce better results. I'm hearing about LLMs trained only on a single publication's copyrighted work, and the resulting automated copy is more likely to have the 'voice' down, rather than sounding like a generic and bored low-level US marketing account manager.

[Jim_Campbell]

Adobe went about things in a better way, training its system only on the content it already owned. The thing is, that also tends to produce better results. I'm hearing about LLMs trained only on a single publication's copyrighted work, and the resulting automated copy is more likely to have the 'voice' down, rather than sounding like a generic and bored low-level US marketing account manager.

Not so sure about Adobe, TBH — people sold their work to Adobe pre-AI and had no idea that Adobe would then be training AI on it... which is still pretty iffy, IMO.

Like I said, the only ethical use of AI image generation I've come across is artists who've trained the generator solely using their own art.

[The Legendary Shark]

In the long ago, before the interweb, I was a member of a local Star Trek fan club run by a lady in Southport. It was great, we held Trek-themed garden parties and gathered together to watch All Good Things. There was a monthly newsletter and I wrote stories and drew pictures for it. My first artistic submission was a fineliner drawing of the Enterprise from Wrath of Khan crashed into the Moon. The saucer section was about 1/3 buried in the ground with the body and nacelles pointing straight up and a few panels and shuttlecraft scattered about.The caption was the same as in the image above. It was probably only the second time I'd ever had anything "published"* and it actually graced the cover instead of the usual grainy photocopy of something Trekky. I wish I still had a copy, or the original.

I'm sure that from my description above you can all imagine the image and, fundamentally poor humour notwithstanding, get the joke. The a.i. didn't and, no matter how I tweaked the prompt, the above was the best it came up with out of around thirty attempts.

I understand the ethical and economic concerns, but my views on copyright and patents (which I have described elsewhere) differ from the received wisdom. The printing press put countless artists out of work as the demand for hand-produced documents waned, but now artists love the printing press as a means of publishing their work. I remember a time when "proper artists" eschewed the upstart Photoshop, now they see it as just another medium. This is how I regard a.i. In time, artists will figure out how to best use this medium in their own work - and that is just what I am trying to do. The results so far have been primitive but I intend to continue until I can find a way to bend this new medium to my will. I'm going to start by trying to reproduce a few of my old one panel "Trektoons" to see how they come out. As to what's next, who knows?

It is not my intention to upset anyone - especially artists. I write comic scripts, which are nothing without collaborators. My dream is to form a loose collaboration of amateurs to produce comic strips just for the love of it. A kind of Spirit of Zarjaz thing just for the forum. In these divisive times, anything that brings us together is vital, and the collaborative nature of comics makes it an ideal vehicle for that - as does the friendly nature of this forum and our shared love for 2000AD. But I need to convince people to climb aboard, and maybe I can get my ideas across better with a.i., even if it's only to say, "this is the idea, but you can do better." Sign up now! 

The ethics of the a.i. situation will evolve over time but at present I intend to explore its capabilities to see how I can use it to help me on my own artistic journey. You're welcome to explore with me.





*The first being a picture shown on Rainbow, for which I won a badge. This is the point where it all started to go wrong...

[Jim_Campbell]

It is not my intention to upset anyone - especially artists.

Whether it's your intention or not, I'm telling you that many artists are very upset by it. What you choose to do with that information is up to you.

[Funt Solo]

I write comic scripts, which are nothing without collaborators.

Ah, now. If you're going to use AI for your art needs (thus eliminating human art from the equation) it would hardly be fair for you to write anything when an AI could do it for you. Jump in with *both* feet.

(Or - and this may be controversial - write it yourself and then draw it yourself. Or come to an arrangement with a human artist. Jump *up* with both feet.)

[The real message: a comic's message board is probably not the place to engage in a human-art-replacement experiment. For details, re-read the Kenny Who? tales.]

[The Legendary Shark]

The a.i. is more of a helper, really. The pictures to draw people in and the LLM for other stuff. For example, I asked for a list of Russian names, male and female, with a wide regional mix for some characters I'm writing. It gave me back some perfectly sound names and a few corkers, such as the wonderful Elvira Gorbacheva. For such things as this, and creating colourful Russian expletives, it's a fast alternative to trawling through duckduckgo.com or finding a list of Russians somewhere.

On the other hand, I have another story in mind set on a moon with a specific orbital dynamic. I spent the better part of a day trying to explain the orbital set-up to the machine in order to generate a basic calendar but it just couldn't grasp what I was after - although it sometimes came tantalisingly close.

I can't draw. Oh, I can a bit, but everyone can draw a bit. Comic illustration is an art all on its own with all the panel arrangements, angles, accurately rendered hands and characters who have the same face all the way through. I can't do that without a lot of study and practice - and I'm still studying and practising writing, which is my preferred medium. For me to illustrate my own stuff would be futile, woeful, and arrogant - though I'm not above providing the odd concept sketch (as can be seen in the recent Bludd & Xandi book, a few copies of which Mr. Candlish may have remaining...), I think my aphantasia prevents me from ever getting the idea properly into an image but a.i. affords me the opportunity to more accurately express concepts I cannot myself envision.

I would never replace a human artist with a.i. In an unlikely dream scenario, Colin MacNeil might pop into the forum and decide he'd like to draw Zanda Claws & Mrs. Snow. No more a.i. required. Any of the amateurs on this board, some of whom I've collaborated with in the past, who have a go at anything I've written automatically kicks a.i. into touch.

[The Legendary Shark]

[Funt Solo]

Gene Loganberry turns in his grave.

[M.I.K.]

The a.i. is more of a helper, really. The pictures to draw people in

No gonnae happen. The AI will put off the majority of genuinely artistic types from having anything to do with you whatsoever.

The printing press put countless artists out of work as the demand for hand-produced documents waned, but now artists love the printing press as a means of publishing their work. I remember a time when "proper artists" eschewed the upstart Photoshop, now they see it as just another medium. This is how I regard a.i. In time, artists will figure out how to best use this medium in their own work - and that is just what I am trying to do.

I would suggest that photoshop is more of a tool than a medium and there was nothing approaching the, (absolutely effin' justified in my opinion), levels of hatred for the far more obviously morally questionable AI "art". Also, were that many actual artists put out of work by the printing press? I would've thought scribes were the main ones done out of a job there. Citation needed.

Regardless, AI is unlike the printing press or photoshop as it produces a "finished" piece of work in literal seconds, negating any need for an artist/photographer altogether. There are already countless examples of large companies using it instead of employing an actual person, in spite of the glaring aberrations in scale and anatomy and architecture and real world effin' physics, and social media would suggest that the majority of the general public are completely incapable of telling the difference between the crap it produces and genuine art and photography, no matter how rubbery the face of the granny who's knitted a giant cat is, or how terrifyingly elongated her Rob Bottiny fingers are.

There may be something to be said for using generated images as references/inspiration for your own work if your end results differ enough from them, but non-generated images are just as good, (or better), for that purpose

[IndigoPrime]

Most tech revolutions are met with some degree of suspicion and some do put people out of work, or at least cut people out of the chain. Think about music creation. This is now hugely accessible, with people being able to create an entire album right through to mastering, all on a single piece of hardware. But that didn't erode creativity. That for me is the threat of AI. It's that it is primed to do everything, rather than just streamline a process.

Mind you, I'll admit to prizing immediacy and convenience myself elsewhere. I use transcription software often. Although that hasn't in my case robbed anyone of work (I never used transcription services), it has more broadly. And the thing is, in this case the automation actually is as good as a typical transcription service (as per when I used to work for a corporate that sent recordings to be dealt with in 24 hours).

[Daveycandlish]

For me to illustrate my own stuff would be futile, woeful, and arrogant - though I'm not above providing the odd concept sketch (as can be seen in the recent Bludd & Xandi book, a few copies of which Mr. Candlish may have remaining...)

Only a few copies left. Without wanting to spoil the plot, here's a few pages by artdroid Tom Newell - no A.I. art in this book, I promise you!







BUY A COPY

More details can be found on the BLOGSPOT

[The Legendary Shark]