3 ms·

> "Stable Diffusion is going to destroy the art industry;" While there is of course a bit of hyperbole in that statement, I do think it has a lot of truth in i

by p-e-w 4y ago

> "Stable Diffusion is going to destroy the art industry;" While there is of course a bit of hyperbole in that statement, I do think it has a lot of truth in it as well. Stable Diffusion isn't going to destroy art since art is fundamentally a human endeavor. But many of the creative professions commonly called "[something] artist", whose day-to-day work consists of drawing pictures to illustrate a point, making things "look good" etc. are absolutely going to be wiped out. Logo designs, cover illustrations for books and music albums, pictures for marketing releases and so on. No one is going to keep paying people to do those when AIs can do it faster, better, and at no cost. I wouldn't be surprised if already in 2023, AI had a noticeable financial impact on those professions.

rib3ye 4y ago
Totally. We commonly employ "tech artists" to do fairly tedious things in avatar asset creation (we build roblox games for brands). This is slowly going away thanks to ML tools being built internally by roblox.
aardvarkr 4y ago
Idk if it’s going to replace the “artists that make logos” industry, for example. I’d wager that the venn diagram of people with businesses that want logos and people who know how to use stable diffusion to get what they want is going to be exceedingly small. SD is just going to become a new tool in the artist’s tool belt that levels the playing field for geeks and allows them to encroach into the world of art. It’s just a new kind of artist.
jeffreyrogers 4y ago
You pay an artist to make decisions for you that you have no expertise to make yourself. Stable Diffusion and similar things don't help with that because ultimately what it requires is taste. The job might change and different people might be better at it than current artists, but you still need a human making that decision.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  That isn't how commercial art works in practice. Executives rarely turn art decisions over to artists. What happens is that artists come up with multiple proposals, and executives pick the one they like best, usually after several iterations of suggestions from the same executives have already been implemented. Generative AI fits that process like a glove.
  - jeffreyrogers 4y ago
    Yes, I know that, but where we disagree is that I think the social process of involving the artist is important and can't be replaced by having an app just show a bunch of options.
    - p-e-w 4y ago
      Lots of corporate art is already being created via outsourcing platforms that tightly control communication between customer and artist, who in many cases never even speak on the phone, much less face-to-face. That process is not very different from what a well-implemented iterative AI prompt could offer. I understand that when a company like Coca-Cola is looking to reinvent their brand identity or similar, things are a lot more involved. But 99% of commercial art projects aren't anywhere near as complicated as that.
mjr00 4y ago
> Stable Diffusion isn't going to destroy art since art is fundamentally a human endeavor. But many of the creative professions commonly called "[something] artist", whose day-to-day work consists of drawing pictures to illustrate a point, making things "look good" etc. are absolutely going to be wiped out. Logo designs, cover illustrations for books and music albums, pictures for marketing releases and so on. Logo designs are absolutely critical for companies that want a consistent marketing, advertising and branding (so, like, all of them). AI is also notoriously bad at making legible text. Saying Stable Diffusion can design company logos is the marketing equivalent of saying you can use ChatGPT to design your company's backend database schema; only true in the most reductive and simple of cases. I would look into the current process for cover designs for books and albums. Either the commissioner is requesting a drawn illustration in the artists' style specifically, in which case AI doesn't help; or, if they're requesting generic cover art, the process is already very optimized. Illustrators heavily use stock images, do postprocessing in Photoshop, put text on as appropriate, and call it a day. These illustrators will start using SD as part of their workflow; if anyone is a potential casualty of SD, it's going to be Gettyimages and their ilk. Again, this is buying way too much into the hype, and is a typical perspective of someone with little direct experience in paid artwork. The comparison to blockchain is apt; many people were talking about how blockchain would solve problems with "supply chain", "voter fraud", etc because they thought about the problem for 10 minutes and it seemed good. Of course, none of those people had ever worked in those areas, but it didn't stop them from talking about how disruptive blockchain would be! edit: To put it in perspective, Tropicana's infamous rebrand cost them $55 million[0]. That's how much of an investment companies put into branding exercises. You really think they're going to be satisfied with a "good enough" AI logo at that scale? [0] https://www.mashed.com/923840/the-ill-fated-move-that-cost-tropicana-more-than-50-million/ https://www.mashed.com/923840/the-ill-fated-move-that-cost-t...
omnimus 4y ago
Its already happening. People here are just not in the industry. Of course its not replacing everyone but its replacing certain subset of that work. The way forward its gonna be about specialized datasets like midjourney that stole all work from artstation and now does tedious commercial art really well (and gets better all the time). Artists will be forced to use these tools. Whats more they are also gonna be always in competition with them. This will bring their wages way down and over time they’ll loose any agency they had. From valued professionals that spent decades honing their skills to being run of the mill AI photobashers. Not great if this is future of knowledge work professions.
dorkwood 4y ago
I often contract with companies who pitch creative work, and one of the trends I’ve noticed is that creative directors are no longer getting their employees to create concept art for pitches. It’s all Midjourney now. My sample size so far is three companies, but I suspect it’s an industry-wide trend.

by p-e-w 4y ago

rib3ye 4y ago

Totally. We commonly employ "tech artists" to do fairly tedious things in avatar asset creation (we build roblox games for brands). This is slowly going away thanks to ML tools being built internally by roblox.

aardvarkr 4y ago

Idk if it’s going to replace the “artists that make logos” industry, for example. I’d wager that the venn diagram of people with businesses that want logos and people who know how to use stable diffusion to get what they want is going to be exceedingly small. SD is just going to become a new tool in the artist’s tool belt that levels the playing field for geeks and allows them to encroach into the world of art. It’s just a new kind of artist.

jeffreyrogers 4y ago

You pay an artist to make decisions for you that you have no expertise to make yourself. Stable Diffusion and similar things don't help with that because ultimately what it requires is taste. The job might change and different people might be better at it than current artists, but you still need a human making that decision.

p-e-w 4y ago
That isn't how commercial art works in practice. Executives rarely turn art decisions over to artists. What happens is that artists come up with multiple proposals, and executives pick the one they like best, usually after several iterations of suggestions from the same executives have already been implemented. Generative AI fits that process like a glove.
- jeffreyrogers 4y ago
  Yes, I know that, but where we disagree is that I think the social process of involving the artist is important and can't be replaced by having an app just show a bunch of options.
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    Lots of corporate art is already being created via outsourcing platforms that tightly control communication between customer and artist, who in many cases never even speak on the phone, much less face-to-face. That process is not very different from what a well-implemented iterative AI prompt could offer. I understand that when a company like Coca-Cola is looking to reinvent their brand identity or similar, things are a lot more involved. But 99% of commercial art projects aren't anywhere near as complicated as that.

mjr00 4y ago

> Stable Diffusion isn't going to destroy art since art is fundamentally a human endeavor. But many of the creative professions commonly called "[something] artist", whose day-to-day work consists of drawing pictures to illustrate a point, making things "look good" etc. are absolutely going to be wiped out. Logo designs, cover illustrations for books and music albums, pictures for marketing releases and so on. Logo designs are absolutely critical for companies that want a consistent marketing, advertising and branding (so, like, all of them). AI is also notoriously bad at making legible text. Saying Stable Diffusion can design company logos is the marketing equivalent of saying you can use ChatGPT to design your company's backend database schema; only true in the most reductive and simple of cases. I would look into the current process for cover designs for books and albums. Either the commissioner is requesting a drawn illustration in the artists' style specifically, in which case AI doesn't help; or, if they're requesting generic cover art, the process is already very optimized. Illustrators heavily use stock images, do postprocessing in Photoshop, put text on as appropriate, and call it a day. These illustrators will start using SD as part of their workflow; if anyone is a potential casualty of SD, it's going to be Gettyimages and their ilk. Again, this is buying way too much into the hype, and is a typical perspective of someone with little direct experience in paid artwork. The comparison to blockchain is apt; many people were talking about how blockchain would solve problems with "supply chain", "voter fraud", etc because they thought about the problem for 10 minutes and it seemed good. Of course, none of those people had ever worked in those areas, but it didn't stop them from talking about how disruptive blockchain would be! edit: To put it in perspective, Tropicana's infamous rebrand cost them $55 million[0]. That's how much of an investment companies put into branding exercises. You really think they're going to be satisfied with a "good enough" AI logo at that scale? [0] https://www.mashed.com/923840/the-ill-fated-move-that-cost-tropicana-more-than-50-million/ https://www.mashed.com/923840/the-ill-fated-move-that-cost-t...

omnimus 4y ago

Its already happening. People here are just not in the industry. Of course its not replacing everyone but its replacing certain subset of that work. The way forward its gonna be about specialized datasets like midjourney that stole all work from artstation and now does tedious commercial art really well (and gets better all the time). Artists will be forced to use these tools. Whats more they are also gonna be always in competition with them. This will bring their wages way down and over time they’ll loose any agency they had. From valued professionals that spent decades honing their skills to being run of the mill AI photobashers. Not great if this is future of knowledge work professions.

dorkwood 4y ago

I often contract with companies who pitch creative work, and one of the trends I’ve noticed is that creative directors are no longer getting their employees to create concept art for pitches. It’s all Midjourney now. My sample size so far is three companies, but I suspect it’s an industry-wide trend.