[jstanley]

Sorry, I'm not seeing the downsides. That all sounds like a big improvement.

And regarding point 2: do you think human artists are as good as they are without already having seen lots of great artworks produced by others? Human artists don't create art from an empty vacuum of nothingness either.

[legutierr]

You don’t see a downside to there being fewer artists creating art?

Art benefits humanity not only because we consume it, but also because we produce it.

Making art is part of what makes us human.

[corysama]

I’ve used Midjourney for months now. Artists love it. It will lead to fewer people creating art the same way the cars led to less people traveling. It’s like having a pre-concept artist for for concept artist. Instant style boards to run by your client.

[legutierr]

Comparing artistic production to driving is a poor metaphor.

No doubt that AI-driven tools can be leveraged by artists to create interesting things, in the same way that visual artists have used tools like Photoshop.

But there is something much more profound happening with DALL-E, etc. As I mentioned above, these AI systems simultaneously depend on human artists to populate its training corpus, while making it much less likely that these artists will be able to make a living producing art.

Even if other artists working higher-up in the value chain benefit from these systems, you are likely to see fewer professional illustrators and visual artists because these systems exists.

Something will be lost. We can hope that what we gain in return will be of equal value.