So, I feel like I have to clarify that I'm barely an artist. I'm still learning the basics and I haven't even developed a style yet. Plus, I'm still working with paper. Every time I've tried to use digital art programs, it's gone horribly.
With that being said, I hope I never ever have to resort to using an art generator.
I love art. Not just paintings and drawings, but the entire spectrum of it. I love movies, video games, and music with all my heart. You could say most people do, but most people I've come across tend to have a very passive relationship with them. I strongly believe that art is what elevates us from regular animals and makes us truly human. Just trying to understand out emotions and express them into something tangible truly speaks volumes about species' self-enlightenment.
That's why watching art be thrown aside by the hands of Capitalism has been so distressing for me.
I don't want to pretend that the modern internet ruined art. It's definitely connected a lot of people and given many an artistic voice that they couldn't have otherwise. And it's not like corporate greed conflicting with art is a new thing at all.
However, I feel like the centralization of the internet and the rise of streaming have played a huge role in us treating art disposably. With streaming services, movies and TV shows are no longer carefully crafted labors of love. There are many artists and creators that treat them as such, but in the eyes of Netflix or Amazon, they're used as padding. Just more fluff to fill up their website catalogues and have a dick measuring contest for who has the most "content". But what's worse is the way people use them totally validates their cynical tactics. Apparently, most people use Netflix just something to put on and not really engage with. Something to binge for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon and then immediately forget about before moving on to whatever's next. I apologize if I seem presumptuous, but this has definitely what I've experienced.
Social media has barely helped as well. Both Twitter and Tumblr (but MAINLY Twitter) have made sharing and archiving your art a needless challenge. Censorship, poor tagging systems, and algorithms have made it increasingly difficult to share what you've made and have it be seen by the world. But even when it is seen by the world, it's still treated as "content". It gets shared for about a week, then buried and forgotten about. No matter how time-consuming or meaningful a work of art was to you, it's still gonna get smothered underneath an avalanche of newer content. People are gonna find your art, like it, and then scroll past it. It's just another post to observe, than forget about.
You might be wondering what any of this has to do with A.I art, but I believe all of this has created the perform storm that's allowed it to thrive. The internet has basically become a replacement for our lives and with it, it's commodified art and made it interchangeable with other social media fodder. The process, meaning, or relevancy of art is barely on the common person's mind anymore, so from their perspective, what could possibly be wrong with A.I art? Art isn't a manifestation of the human soul, it's a fun little distraction to mass produce! Who cares if it lacks a soul? What matters is that it's made quickly and I can have lots of it!
That's why I talked a bit about movies and other forms of art. I doubt A.I generators are gonna stop at illustrations. They've already begun using A.I in animation and video games (fuck High on Life), so where are they gonna stop? Are we gonna have generated screenplays? Cartoons? Songs? I hate fucking thinking about it.
Anyways, sorry for that. And I'm sorry if what I've sound really pretentious. This is just something I've been feeling for a very long time and I had to spit it all out in one sitting. I deeply apologize if I've assumed some things (cause like I said, I'm not an artist. I'm just friends with plenty who are and have expressed their own anxieties to me).
