‘It’s too powerful a technology’

  • thewitchofcalamari@bookwormstory.social
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    1 year ago

    do let me know if im coming off as combative and this isnt the place for it, i do admit i definitely am a pessimist

    Is something that only the rich have access to right now, enable creative expression beyond our wildest imagination for all of the people who don’t have 5 to 10 years of their life to dedicate to learning art.

    isnt this possible just by commissioning an artist from fiverr or deviantart with your own prompt of an image you want. for the amount of times a person wished they had spent time learning how to draw, we would let many more companies get away with not paying artists for every piece of art available in a board/card game so they could make more money

    Sure, but we quite enjoy having prerecorded music nowadays and we would never give that up in exchange for live artists.

    would we give that up instead for genAI created music? no one has the time for 5 to 10 years of vocal training too

    Because humans like to express themselves and share that expression is widely as they can for no other reason than the active sharing and having their works seen by many.

    when genAI models can learn from art faster than a human can, art becomes a working professional artist’s only competitive advantage if they wish to live off of their work. while it may be shared, but possibly only behind a glass screen in a private gallery with metal detectors prohibiting cameras at the front, considering how futile anti-AI art filters may end up

    Why do you doubt the most pure form of art? Art as a hobby. Art as a form of self-expression?

    because people are unwilling to spend 5 to 10 years learning art as a hobby to express themselves when they can still earn some money from it as their passion now

    • VoterFrog@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’d like to chime in the point out that the vast majority of employed artists aren’t making anything as creative as cover art for a hobbyist board game. If they’re lucky, they’re doing illustrations for Barbie Monopoly or working on some other uncreative cash grab. More likely, they’re doing incredibly bland corporate graphic design. And if you ask me, the less of humanity’s time we dedicate to bullshit like that, the better.

      Professionals will spend more of their time concerned with higher order functions like composition and direction. More indies and small businesses will be empowered to create things without the added expense. And consumers will be able to afford more stuff with higher quality visuals.

      • thewitchofcalamari@bookwormstory.social
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        1 year ago

        the vast majority of employed artists aren’t making anything as creative as cover art for a hobbyist board game.

        its not just the cover art for a hobbyist board game, it is art for every card in the game. for hobbyist card games, it can go to several hundred to thousand artworks each from an artist. for a game like Android Netrunner the art of each card works with the theme and mechanics of the game acting like a brief window into this futuristic society world you compete in. (also blatant shilling, this is a great game if anyone is into cyberpunk and card games, unlike anything Magic the Gathering can ever hope to achieve), there is also graphic design for games like Kanban EV (by Ian O’Toole) which is unlike anything ive seen. boardgame hobbyists can and do regularly buy these things with quality visuals

        maybe im too emotionally invested into games but i think these art, and the art for things like beloved character design for computer games, decorative tarot cards, novel artwork which take you to another world even if just for a brief moment, is worth encouraging, putting up with Barbie Monopoly and paying for

        the alternative i fear would be these people’s time being spent instead on working soulless jobs like labelling training data for genAI models, manual work which so far only humans are cheap enough for and figuring out how to squeeze more money out of consumers

        • VoterFrog@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I’d say that this kind of technology lowers the cost of production enough to see those kinds of quality visuals more widely. There’s a lot of rote technical effort that goes into even a single CCG card. Having a generative AI that can take care of those parts frees the artist up to focus on the parts of the art that really stand out to you. That means more quality art, for cheaper, which means more games will feature it.

          • thewitchofcalamari@bookwormstory.social
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            1 year ago

            i dont know much about how an artist work to say they would welcome genAI for such efforts

            but for boardgame costs, im doubtful because much of the price comes from the logistics of manufacturing, storing, shipping and markup compared to the art. games like Horseless Carriage (the design is intentional) and the above mentioned Kanban EV both great games in their own right (about $100 each), employ one artist for the project and cost more than the entire base set (252 cards) of un-randomized distributed model cardgame ($40 at release) featuring artwork from around a hundred artists (unlike many commonly known randomized CCG blind bags, for this one you know the exact cards you will get in all releases)

    • bioemerl@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      commissioning an artist from fiverr

      Not really. It’s still $5. This is a problem for two reasons. First is that no artist can make a living drawing art for $5 a pop, it’s just not sustainable and the only way for you to regularly do this is to take advantage of people who are learning.

      So you’re not going to get anything very good, and in the process you’re basically paying a human being with some minimum wage to do work for you.

      we would let many more companies get away with not paying artists for every piece of art available in a board/card game

      Well yeah, that’s the point. Art becomes free, easily accessed, and more widely spread. a big company right now is going to say what, a few percent of their budget?

      But small studios? Little groups? People without a large budget? All of a sudden they are able to create works that are competitive with these former large studios because they don’t have to hire an artist anymore. An independent creator can now do more than they ever had, and that makes them more competitive with the big studios.

      This isn’t the room for the big companies because they don’t have to pay the artist anymore. It’s actually a massive loss, because the more the barrier to entry goes down the worse off they are.

      And at the end of the day artists aren’t entitled to my money.

      we would let many more companies get away with not paying artists for every piece of art available in a board/card game

      Without a question we would. I would absolutely love to take my current library of music and feed it to an AI and say make me more stuff I like and have a constant stream of brand new music instead of listening to the same 200 or 300 songs that I’ve downloaded over the years.