{"id":56670,"date":"2022-09-28T08:46:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T15:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/?p=56670"},"modified":"2022-09-28T08:46:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T15:46:04","slug":"ai-can-now-make-art-what-does-that-mean-for-creatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creativecircle.com\/blog\/ai-can-now-make-art-what-does-that-mean-for-creatives\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Can Now Make Art. What Does That Mean for Creatives?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are in<\/span> an<\/span> age of <\/span>breakneck <\/span>progress in artificial intelligence<\/span> \u2014<\/span> the chatbots<\/span> have given way to AI tools that can create <\/span>impressive, highly detailed images. Is it time to worry or rejoice?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Say hello to an emerging and fast-evolving genre of AI known as text-to-image generation.<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating new front in artificial intelligence, where anyone can generate hyper-realistic images from a written text description.<\/p>\n

While most users have generated work that leans toward the weird and absurd<\/a>, like the Mona Lisa painting a portrait of Da Vinci<\/a>, many are also experimenting with possible commercial applications. As you might imagine, this tech has stirred up deep existential and ethical questions about art, creating, and more. Who is the artist behind the creations \u2014 AI or its human user? Can machines be creative? <\/em>And perhaps most germane for creatives \u2014 Will this new technology make certain creative industry jobs go<\/em> *poof*?<\/em><\/p>\n

Just this past midsummer 2022, a select few people in and adjacent to the tech industry were granted access to these text-to-image AI tools during initial beta testing. The two most prominent are Dall-E<\/a> \u2014derived from the name of the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and Pixar\u2019s lovable animated robot Wall-E<\/a> \u2014and Midjourney<\/a>. Dall-E was launched last year by OpenAI, a nonprofit research lab founded by Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, among others. Midjourney entered open beta in mid-July 2022 and comes from a self-funded AI research lab founded by David Holz.<\/p>\n

These AI text-to-image tools are simple to use \u2014 but rife with controversy.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can open the doors to a dazzling cornucopia of visual creation in seconds with just a few words or simple phrases. Here\u2019s how these AI tools work: Users type in a text prompt like \u201ca frog on a united states quarter<\/a>” or \u201cchickens gathered to watch human wrestling<\/a>,” for example, and the results are wild<\/em>. These programs can translate text into award-winning art that has roiled the art and design community.<\/p>\n

The New York Times recently published an article, \u201c<\/em>An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren\u2019t Happy<\/em><\/a>,” chronicling the brouhaha around the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition awarding Jason M. Allen, of Pueblo West, CO, with the blue-ribbon prize in Digital Art for a piece he had created with Midjourney (he won $300).<\/p>\n

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via Jason Allen<\/p><\/div>\n

Allen\u2019s work, \u201cTh\u00e9\u00e2tre D\u2019op\u00e9ra Spatial,\u201d won the fair\u2019s contest for emerging digital artists, making it one of the first AI-generated pieces to win such a prize, provoking fierce criticism from artists who accused him of \u201ccheating.\u201d Allen defended his work, which in submission he had explicitly labeled \u201cJason M. Allen via Midjourney.\u201d After winning, Allen posted a photo of his prize piece to the Midjourney Discord chat, which made its way to Twitter, where it ignited heated debate and backlash<\/a>. Here are some excerpts from the online m\u00eal\u00e9e.<\/p>\n