[thorum]

OpenAI published an article about some of the things people are using DALL-E for:

https://openai.com/blog/dall-e-2-extending-creativity/

I thought this quote was particularly insightful:

> “Conceptualizing one’s ideas is one of the most gatekept processes in the modern world,” Kamp says. “Everyone has ideas — not everyone has access to training or encouragement enough to confidently render them. I feel empowered by the ability to creatively iterate on a feeling or idea, and I deeply believe that all people deserve that sense of empowerment.”

Images of astronauts on horses may have questionable commercial use or artistic merit, but DALL-E excels at concept art. The true value here isn’t using those images directly, it’s using them to brainstorm and test out creative ideas that can later be turned into something real (a product, a movie, art, etc.) by a human.

[TaupeRanger]

I don't follow any of that. If I have an idea about a new type of toaster...how does DALL-E help me by giving me a bunch of computer generated toaster images? If I want to make a painting of a solar system floating in front of a nebula, I could ask DALL-E to do it, and maybe I'll get some ideas on composition/style, but is that really such a "gatekept" process? And does it even matter? Is my art better or more meaningful after DALL-E gives me some random references?

[thorum]

Toasters are probably not a great example, but concept art is a big deal in most product development / creative industries. Tech, cars, Hollywood, fashion, anime, etc.

The process usually involves finding and hiring an artist and working with them as they create lots and lots of designs until you find one you like, and then more sketches until the design is refined. So you either need to have a significant amount of money to hire artists for an extended project, or the artistic ability to do it yourself.

Using DALL-E instead, you get 4 high quality images in 20 seconds. If you don't like what it comes up with, you adjust your prompt, add more detailed instructions, and keep experimenting. And anyone can do this, regardless of artistic ability, and it's free (at least for now).

[TaupeRanger]

That's not how DALL-E works. It doesn't understand specifics enough to give you something useable in any of those fields. A car company is not going to use a DALL-E image as a car. It might have a professional designer, who themselves use DALL-E to look for something interesting, but that is not "disrupting" the car concept drawing market like the author claims. DALL-E isn't capable of that. Same with tech, Hollywood, etc. For fashion, I suppose you could just create whatever weird thing DALL-E throws up, but again this isn't any kind of disruption, it's just a novelty thing.