[torginus]

I wonder what happened to actual artists though - they seem to be doing fine. I'm sure many people as consumers dabbled in AI art, and reached the conclusion after hours that what they made never looked quite right.

Then they found they could commission an actual artist to draw what they wanted for tens or hundreds of dollars, which is a very good price for getting exactly what you want without having to waste your time playing the token slot machine.

[mrWiz]

How'd you conclude that artists are doing fine? That doesn't match my experience or observations at all.

[torginus]

I know some pro artists (ppl doing work for big name companies, games, US film studios), either on a contract or employed basis.

They've always told me the same thing - the job is to hit the minimum acceptable level of quality (which to my untrained eye often looks high, but they reassure me, their work is in fact sloppy garbage), using whatever means necessary, even if that means AI.

They don't even hate AI mostly the way art Twitter does, they hate is because it gives unrealistic expectations to what costs how much, and its often not really possible to get useful results - at least that was the case a couple years ago, things might have evolved.

If AI were good enough, they would certainly use it.

As for Twitter people doing commissions, I dont have firsthand experience, but imo their biggest issue is that there are tons of artists from places like Latam or the Philippines who do high quality work and charge very little, and the people who commission don't care - this was the case well before AI.