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Last week at a birthday party, I met a 74-year-old career visual artist who still creates with various media: paint, colored pencils, sculpture, etc. Curious f

Last week at a birthday party, I met a 74-year-old career visual artist who still creates with various media: paint, colored pencils, sculpture, etc. Curious for her thoughts on DALL-E, I pulled out my phone and invited her to generate some imagery. (I have early access via a family member at OpenAI.) She didn't skip a beat, and immediately started getting creative with it. We even did a "collaborative piece" à la Mad Lib. I asked her if she felt threatened by DALL-E. Surprised by the question, she said: "No! I could see this really accelerating my process. Sometimes I'm blocked on an idea and I could see this being a great tool for finding inspiration. Can I get access to this?" My take-away was that art is not zero-sum: someone's art isn't "less" because more entities are creating art. If computers can do it too — even if they're arguably more mechanical in the recombination of existing ideas (note: humans do the same) — nothing stops human art from being art.

izzygonzalez 4y ago
Arguably, the biggest barrier to any creative domain is technical capability. An immediate thought is that locked-in people who can only communicate by text would be able to share their thoughts more expressively. In terms of the creation loop, anyone can create a bunch of AI-generated images. Wombo is huge right now. The differentiating factors will be prompt design, commitment to iteration, aesthetic-driven curation of generated works and presentation. Photographers take and process thousands of photos to create just one masterpiece.
andreilys 4y ago
My take-away was that art is not zero-sum: Art is zero sum in that there are a limited number of artist residencies, exhibitions and funds available. In this case, we will likely see further contraction in the number of artists able to support themselves. There will ofc always be the super stars and hobbyists.
- rictic 4y ago
  The amount of art that people want in their lives is much larger than the amount that's there now. Artists who are willing to direct their talents towards satisfying others' desires for art will find the world is very positive sum. Those that vie for a limited number of spots in a prestige game may find that it's zero or even negative sum, but those are not good games to play anyways.
  - andreilys 4y ago
    There is limited discretionary income available, why would I use $100 in funds to purchase digital art, when I can spend $0.10 to generate one and use the remaining $99.90 on a scuba diving experience?

izzygonzalez 4y ago

Arguably, the biggest barrier to any creative domain is technical capability. An immediate thought is that locked-in people who can only communicate by text would be able to share their thoughts more expressively. In terms of the creation loop, anyone can create a bunch of AI-generated images. Wombo is huge right now. The differentiating factors will be prompt design, commitment to iteration, aesthetic-driven curation of generated works and presentation. Photographers take and process thousands of photos to create just one masterpiece.

andreilys 4y ago

My take-away was that art is not zero-sum: Art is zero sum in that there are a limited number of artist residencies, exhibitions and funds available. In this case, we will likely see further contraction in the number of artists able to support themselves. There will ofc always be the super stars and hobbyists.

rictic 4y ago
The amount of art that people want in their lives is much larger than the amount that's there now. Artists who are willing to direct their talents towards satisfying others' desires for art will find the world is very positive sum. Those that vie for a limited number of spots in a prestige game may find that it's zero or even negative sum, but those are not good games to play anyways.
- andreilys 4y ago
  There is limited discretionary income available, why would I use $100 in funds to purchase digital art, when I can spend $0.10 to generate one and use the remaining $99.90 on a scuba diving experience?