54:47 this is exactly what made me so upset about Artstation AI policy - the fact that we, the art community, literally built that platform for them. Our art is literally what's bringing traffic to their website and made them one of the most visited websites in the internet. We've paid pro subs, advertised in their platform, sold in their marketplace, to the point where they were valuable enough for Epic to show interest in acquiring them. In the end, they just disregarded us when we most needed them. Instead we have individual artists trying to represent the art community on AI debates over at the US senate, going the extra mile and dedicating their whole time to this, when we couldve have a bigger entity like Artstation backing us up on such matters. Sadly they just made really poor decisions and stayed pretty silent about it all.
Been paying Pro subscription for years. When I saw their utter betrayal I removed my paid subscription. Even when I buy tutorials I look for other platform alternatives. They will never get money from me again. WIll be moving to Cara soon and deleting acc altogether.
Now AI, which is our proud student and creation will take over and bring Artstation forward. Evil bigoted artists will not be allowed to destroy AI artist.
Until now if you still support Artstation by anymean, then you've just digging your own grave as an artist. I once support Arstation but I quickly realize their true color as soon as AI images get feature in there. So I stop support them right away.
@@nsevvThe outcome in Artstation is already decided, the one who own Arstation already show support sign for AI in his twitter. There're nothing left to protect in there. I move to Cara because they forbid AI images in there.
Great to see you guys take a firm stance on this. I think you guys should consider expanding Flipped Normals or making a sister site for artist portfolios, so that people who want to navigate away from Artstation (aka EPIC) have somewhere to go. I think you guys have a big enough community and following to encourage a large portion of artists over. I certainly would happily migrate my artstation portfolio over to one run by you two! Keep fighting the good fight! edit: I made this comment about 80% into the podcast and you addressed the portfolio thing at the end! I hope you guys can figure out the funding aspect of it.
these people are stupid, it's a GREAT thing that AI can produce 3D assets, this means faster development times and lower prices for our products and thus lower prices for customers.
What sucks is that so many different fields are threatened by AI. As someone who just started working in 3D this year, I don't even know where else to pivot when everything I could possibly do is unclear. It's not like I could be a brain surgeon. It's very disheartening.
Its not all studios guys just some of them. And probably the ones you wouldnt want to work for. Theres hundreds of studios between games and film. Work hard and network your butt off and you will be fine. Dont get discourgaed if you do you have already lost the battle. Nothing worth having is gonna fome easy
@@beepbeep-m6m Do we want a world that benefits giant companies maximizing profits by replacing humans? Or do we want a world that people actually want to live and is friendly to human flourishing? The people need to demand heavy restrictions to AI
@@UnknownUser69698 Absolutely, but good luck trying to explain this to your postman or the baker around the block or the cashier at the grocery shop. Most people don't care because their jobs are boring and are secured because of that. AI is here to replace highly technical jobs in all fields in life, but the bad news is most people DON'T have this kind of jobs.
The only selling point of generators and "ai" is: look at how many people you can fire. Look at how much knowledge and skill you can steal without paying.
It's like being in class again where you're one of the few wanting to put effort in your craft and everyone else is just there waiting to grab your finished work, to deliver it to the teacher to not only get same grade as yours but also getting praises for having done it so much faster than "that idiot over there who enjoys the process who still works hard". Congratulations to this world for turning any form of love into own work into "idiots who deserves to be exploited by companies as well as the masses".
Well, this is a "side effect" of worship money, and have capitalism as a "religion". We should focus on the well being of other people(us included). A better world. Instead, we allow some people to have too much and use other people and us as well.
for those who made it to around 56:00, the reason why i think nicki namaj (or however you spell it) is cool with ai stuff is because she's not an artist, she's a product. she always doesn't make most of her music, lyrics, etc etc. she's a asset that gets pushed around and used to make pop music. she isn't an artist anymore
I disagree. Nicki Minaj is an artist, she writes all of her own lyrics and all that sort of stuff. But for her, AI image generation tools are a great way for her to interact with her fan base and promote herself as well as her music, because everyone can get involved since its so easy. I'm not saying it's a positive thing, but for marketing, it is very effective
It was pretty disheartening to see. I'm not a fan of her but I could still respect her creativity and skills. When she doubled down on people slamming her for using AI, it really soured my view on her. I don't care if she's an artist or not anymore, what she is is arrogant and greedy.
Honestly, I started a mural painting business as a side hustle & now have more clients than I can handle. I’m even in the concept artist union so technically I’m ok with big studio work, but most of us see the writing on the wall. Plus I just can’t stand an AD sending me some Midjourney monstrosity & asking if I can use it as a starting point. Like no, that’s not my role 😂
As you said at the beggining, as professionals we should aim for tools that aid artists rather than be a botched replacement of them. You guys should check the efforts of collectives like EGAIR in Europe and Concept Art Assosiation in the US, as well as the current dozen of lawsuits running against most companies out there. What is needed is an ethical approach - a legal framework - which incentivizes true progress than mass copyright infringement commited by a few tech companies labeled as "progress". There are efforts out there from lots of people to push for such frameworks, and it's not impossible, and imo way better thing than any sort of doom spiraling all day.
So let's replace the ability to write or use the keyboard, it's not my problem that you are mentally mediocre and that your imaginary girlfriend writes your books, is that the future you want to live? where the lazy are rewarded and talent is devalued? @@ed61730
Your technology does not advance, it only steals other people's work, liquefies it, vomits it in your face and sells it to you as something new, it is because this technology was made for mediocre people with people who have no use for thinking. @@verigumetin4291
I'm surprised that you are literally the first 3d-related marketplace that take a strong stance in favour of artist here. Not surprised that you do, but surprised that you are the first. And now even Blender Market works with some AI company to deliver batch order of models for gen. ai training...
Where did you find this out? I was thinking about selling some stuff on BM (I have an add-on that's almost ready for release) but I'm reconsidering now. Edit: dang I found a thread on Reddit talking about it. I'm going to try selling on Flipped Normals instead.
@@swordofkings128 yea, probably the same thread on reddit. I will try to put a link to it on separate answer, but I doubt it will come through as YT is very aggressively marking them as spam. The thread was titled "Is this the end?"
thats messed up. all of that fine print we never read on every site we signed up for, uploaded anything to, etc, is now coming back to bite us with ai. all of our data and assets are being sold to train ai and theres nothing we can do about it. the world sucks man
Aside from taking a stand, I think having a policy that prevents full AI generated content to be on the platform helps customers too. Artstation and CGtrader have become painful to browse, no matter what you look for there are always 100s of post of AI made garbage so instead of me looking for the model I need I am spending time trying to filter all the useless AI stuff.
When restricting AI art to keep artists employed, we'll have to consider our own uses of helper ais, like GPT as a copywriter/content producer, a coder, etc. Those are jobs too, and it raises a fair question: if a struggling copywriter can't use an image generator, can struggling artists use gpt to write copy?
Won't happen. Also, If you as an artist thinks you can be replaced, then you're replaceble. You have already lost before even starting. Wow, artists nowdays... Thinking they are gears in the machine. The sad state of artists... I thought artists were "ahead of their time" as they say. Guess you guys are just cogs in the machine and not true artists. A delusion of you claiming that title? I'm glad AI is taking over.
Although I have seen some people complain that AI art sucks just because it's AI, most of the time it's because they (especially artists) look closely and start seeing big anatomy, colour, light/shadow and even perspective flaws, nonsensical design choices that instead of adding to the piece oftentimes just distract you, because it's starting to look very samey and unoriginal, or because it looks very fake and ultra-polished in a soulless kind of way. Also for me the saddest part is the fact that some have trained AIs and create AI art, with the intention to hurt artists, I mean you can be indiferent to artists and what they do, but I don't understand why they have so much hate towards them.
I don't necessarily agree with the following sentiment, but I have heard it: "Because a vast majority of artists are arrogant, conceited and egotistical about their skill or artistry."
@@andrewcaminiti2186 Yeah, but that's like saying "most people are stupid therefore let's treat everyone like they are useless", not the best example but you get what I mean.
I'm curious how educational institutions like Gnomon workshop are going to navigate what's ahead. Like, what are they going to teach? How to prompt? Yep, scrap the whole library guys...just make tutorials on how to prompt. It's over my dudes. What a sad, depressing fucking clusterfuck of a world we live in.
Great talk. And as someone who studied actual economics (not business economics), I gotta confess, the point made about "who is going to buy stuff if people are unemployed" is what worries me the most. Why? Because on one hand, the rules of the game arel made by entrepreneurs and business people, who have more influence than they had ever before in human history, since everything happens on a global level now. And those very people aim for their own profits first, while rarely ever caring about general welfare implications, as long as there are still people left who are willing (or have to) to work for them, and others who are able to afford their product. And if either number shrinks, prices just go up. On the other hand, everyone relies on "free markets", that supposedly fix all those problems, because invisible hand magic. This mechanism however requires actual competition, that hasn't existed for quite some time now - and that is more and more unlikely to ever exist again, because the oligopolists are already lightyears ahead of everyone who even thinks about entering the market. So, to a certain degree, there is no need for the big companies to change their business approach in the foreseeable future. If anything, it makes sense for them to be even more ruthless in the short term, so they can gain market share (or even eliminate the competition) just in time before politics steps in and starts regulating markets, or - their individual best case scenario - before the whole system changes because they themselves are the ones able to change it.
There needs to be a new business model for 3D artists going forward. The old model where an artist breaks his/her back for a studio, gives up their personal life in favor of a deadline only to then be replaced by AI is not going to sustainable. I feel this is a crucial time for 3D Artists to seek a secondary passive income by selling on online market places or finding their own clients. No one can fire you if you work for yourself.
@@AstroSquid While I agree, I feel it doesn't have to affect everyone within the 3D industry to the same degree and an artist can take pre-emptive steps to minimize the negative effects.
@@RappinAcoustic As far as I can tell, this will be affecting all industries, as AI is new. The investments happening on wall street are focused on AI in tech. Though I think it's good for AI to not have copywrites. I do think people should force AI to be accountable for it sources, as that's how industry has always worked to protect copywrites.. I don't believe AI people when they say AI can't account for it sources. I think they don't want to make it.
@@applepie9806 you are brilliant. Lies hidden in plain sight. I would imagine that data is proprietary. Here's what AI thinks about this. "The issue you're raising is indeed a significant ethical concern in the field of AI. When AI models are trained on datasets that include copyrighted material without proper attribution or permission, there is a risk of potential infringement or misuse of intellectual property rights. The inability of AI systems to directly account for the sources of their training data, or to provide proper attribution, can be seen as a limitation or ethical shortfall of current AI technology. This lack of transparency can lead to situations where AI-generated outputs may inadvertently or intentionally reproduce copyrighted material without proper acknowledgment or authorization. Addressing this challenge requires a multifaceted approach that involves both technical and policy solutions. Technically, efforts can be made to develop AI systems that are more transparent and accountable, allowing them to provide information about the sources of their training data and any copyrighted material used. From a policy perspective, there may be a need for clearer guidelines and regulations regarding the use of copyrighted material in AI training datasets, as well as mechanisms for ensuring that creators are appropriately credited and compensated for their contributions. This could involve updating copyright laws to better address the unique challenges posed by AI technology and ensuring that existing intellectual property rights are effectively enforced in the digital age. Ultimately, addressing issues of attribution and intellectual property rights in the context of AI requires collaboration between technologists, policymakers, legal experts, and other stakeholders to develop solutions that uphold ethical standards and promote innovation while respecting the rights of creators."
I've been doing art my whole life and it might just be because im entering my 30s but I'm really reconsidering how and why I make art... I've been feeling really discouraged by the amount of policies, discussions and general opinions that are NOT in favor of actual artists. It's less common but i've also seen a lot of pure animosity from tech-bros towards artists who are HAPPY about artists being replaced or advocates who say that its just the future. It's insane to go from a world where AI was a vague idea to a world where AI is beginning to infect every inch of our lives. Honestly I feel like the general public doesn't even have a good grasp on what AI even is or how it works and it's 100% intentional - training models with stolen images, data, etc was not a mistake. It's kind of like a pandoras box effect where once its been introduced there's no way to ever go back. I feel like we could have lived in a world where AI was used as a tool BY artists to make their lives easier and improve their workflows to be faster. We could have made it so that people didn't HAVE to work. But instead we're still living in a world where peoples lifelong passions get put on a chopping block and profits for few people come first.
do not allow the hype to influence you, if you knew how many real people and artists are really required in real production for games and animated movies you'd be able to see it as just what it's a tool, and as it's new and I have been fully supported by investors that need to cash back on it, of course, it's hype like this, it's up to us.
@@Lathspell_ agreed, it was hype 6 months ago, now it has real impact. Question is, should you change your career, or integrate quickly it in your workflow as a creative tool? it’s a hard call, and I understand why people are worried.
@@Fralibers The only ppl that are going to integrate AI in their workflow are gonna be ppl with years of experience. Companies wont be taking risks with new employees anymore. But ofc it wont be that extreme yet. You could go for an unpaid internship and get experience there and hope that after some years a company will read your application
My big issue with AI is that it just removes meaning and purpose from everything thus making the entire society hostile to human existence unless you are a weirdo who just loves to lie down and spit to the roof for the rest of your life. Most people want to have a reason to do things. Doing things for the hell of it is hardly motivating or meaningful if there exists a supernaturally good intelligence that is available to everybody and outperforms you at everything all the time.
I understand your point but the AI doesn't create art on its own accord. Regardless of your opinion on prompting and data scraping, there is a person behind it always. Personally making art for me was about the idea and the result, the process of moving my hand around is just how I got from idea to result. Just like the best part of travelling is thinking of where to go, and arriving there, not the plane ride or waiting at the airport.
@@dp2791 For me, an idea is just an excuse to get to do something. Without the doing part it becomes hollow and meaningless. Stripped of all excitement, growth and action.
The mere thought of ending up like the fat blobs on Wall-E and dare call that "progress" is spine chilling to me. Living meaningless lives because there will be nothing worth bothering about. But that will be an issue for the upper castes, a la Huxley - the lower ones will still get their backs broken in the name of capitalism.
@@dp2791 Learning and doing art is all about journey. With AI it's like taking helicopter ride to Mont Everest and then doing selfie on top in alpine climber gear.
I really appreciate that you brought up the hypocrisy of big music artists using AI art. I saw a Foo Fighters concert late last year, and they had a few songs agree they used AI video visuals in the stage display, and I felt sick to my stomach. I was having a great time until then. And Toto is releasing new songs on TH-cam with AI art for visuals. I was a long time fan... I'm so disappointed. They really don't understand until they're victims in this, do they? I also just appreciate you remaining on the right side of history. It's disheartening when the companies we worked closely with, and the people that once rooted for us turned around and basically backstabbed us and robbed us, and figuratively took our wallets... Our identity, our income -- they're taking everything...
guys.. i was one of the OG 3d designers on PCs. 1980s/ Its never been about us, Apple has always used us. SV and Hollywood never cared about us. Adobe couldn't wait to claim ownership of work done in their tools/ servers. They tried going back to 2001. True. The 3d model warehouse sites / built on Star Wars models;) also goes back 25 years. AI doing the thinking creative work is the death of everyone. The VFX "industry" that folk like me pioneered 30 years ago didnt think much sadly. Most had bad biz models that led directly to their own demise today. They saw the Printing industry die via tech, and couldn't see that as them 30 years later. anyhow. best of luck.
I truly believe that art is an engine for shaping culture, any form of art, and I'm not talking about any creation. I consider art to be decoded symbolism that leads to reflection. Starting from this, it is difficult to understand what AI generates, or rather what people who do not understand art can generate with AI. I don't think people who dedicate themselves to art will stop doing so because the trendy tool gains more followers on social media. Nor do I believe that the general public will avoid and marginalize artists, replacing them with AI creations. In theory, the idea that an Artificial Intelligence based on transformers reaches singularity is virtually impossible. This is a current topic, but it is also linked to the fact that the computing power required to continue improving the systems is reaching its limit. I don't think AI by itself is capable of creating culture. I also don't see artists wanting to create culture using AI, although there may be some who develop AI games, like the highly talked-about Palworld, with lots of influencers playing it and making it go viral. But these are things that, to a certain extent, will not become the norm, as the final product reflects our current society, rejected, recycled, soulless, an amorphous mix of what the gaming market might be feeling lost in at the moment. There is no more innovation because everything is games as a service... I say this because the vast majority of companies are heading in this direction, but they are not memorable things; they are just reflections of our society. Here, we need to talk about Larian and Baldur's Gate, which appear as a breath of fresh air. Memorable game, culture. History. Art generates culture, and AI is just a reflection of the state of our society. Art can change society; AI is a tool that lacks the ability to encode symbolism that leads to reflection. Even if those significances can be encoded using AI, in art, aesthetics are not everything. However, in comparison, the aesthetics of AI do not exist; it is just a pompous product with a generic finish. Great podcast Guys, as always.
However, if I'm remembering correctly, enrollment in art schools and programs is down across the board. There's already a considerable amount of damage being done. AI has the potential to be a wonderful tool for humanity, but it can also cause us to spiral into some really dark spaces if we don't check it now. Across the board.
AI art is the the ultimate engine for shaping ALL cultures. It ability to digest and generate new art from the hearts of and emotions of all creation ever created is what makes the AI artist the best artist ever. human artist are narrow and shallow.
How about we wait for another year for them to release gpt5 and then make assumptions like whether it is impossible for AGI to emerge or not at 10,50 or 100 trillion parameters level. Of course it lacks certain features like agency, autonomy, planning ahead, memory, flexible real time learning etc and improvement and introduction to new algos, but the point is, it may not really take as long to solve these issues as we used to think, especially when unprecedented research backed by tones of money is backing it. If you know anything about the cellular automata and how complexity emmerges, you will most likely be proven wrong this decade itself.
They should have done a long time ago but they were mostly too selfish to do so because of the kinds of money they were getting compared to the physical arts, it was considered you get what you deserve. The wildwest of arts related industry!
They shouldn't ask companies not to replace them with AI. Companies who exploit AI will inevitably be more efficient and cost effective putting companies who still use human creators out of business. They need to target politicians and get legislation passed to restrict AI and punish companies who use it
@@UnknownUser69698 I do not disagree, but that is like asking companies not to use machines to take the job from those who did it by hand/manual labor. Those with the money (often) always wins, and they will here too.
At 50, I was just scraping by, no idea what I can do if it all dries out in the future? I have the option to move to Italy and live in my small remote farm, cheaply. I am not good at anything else apart from design!
I got get this take... if you're good at design you must be good at creative programs. Why not learn how to add ai into your workflow to offer more for your clients? Learn 3d, all of these things will always be relevant.
Who could have seen this coming? Totally unexpected that companies would choose cutting down costs on artist salaries. Brave new world we have created for ourselves. Can't wait until all white collar jobs are rationalized away by this BS
it's been expected for 25 years if you had ever learnt Artificial Intelligence. but many think their gravy train is going to last longer than other peoples, every non physical job can be removed by technology over time, the problem has always been how quickly can you get ahead of it, or how else can we deal with social problems using economic fallacy!
@@GaryParris not just non physical jobs can be automated away. And calling being an artist a gravytrain is insane and laughable. Since when is it a well paid job anyways? Such a scummy answer with zero empathy for the hardship and unemployment it will cause. AI is a much faster accelerating field than other technologies that came before and causing a much bigger loss of work in society that will cause major instability and uproar. Just telling people "uhm actually you should have learned AI 25 years ago 🤓" is not a solution and shows that you don't understand how a basic society is supposed to function. I will not further engage with sociopaths
i think we will need way more nurses and janitors and less artists and it workers in the future. i mean we already do, just look at how insanely fast we import third worlders into europe and the US to fill those jobs since they are more willing to be exploited and enslaved and treated poorly. great shift is coming
@@rickysargulesh1053Losers lose winners win . Art and music industries always have been a gamble due to is subjective value. Arranging pixels in different order does not contribute to civilisation in any way .
I honestly think its time for a union in this industry. Its a shame that studios really think an AI can do the work a person can. Its truly a shame the state of this industry games and film studios closing and being bought out by other studios, strikes, mistreatement of employees due to lomg working hours, walk outs. The industry needs fixing asap.
I worked for an Asian gaming studio (early last year) as a 3D Environment Artist. They are transitioning to scrapping many of the concept artists and just use AI to generate multiple concepts and provide those to the 3d artist to use as reference.
I think it's important to remember that the danger of job loss is not unique to artists. As productivity goes up, less workers will be necessary for nearly every job industry. I kinda feel like only the top 10 to 20% of positions in each field will remain.
I think the opposite. The top fields will be replaced first. 1)This is not like other tech revolutions that replaced primarily muscle power. This is replacing brain power. 2) The return from purchasing an expensive AI system is greater when used to replace an expensive high salary manager, than a low salary worker. In fact, it may be cheaper to continue to pay for the low salary worker with his low cost and high versatility, than to use AI. This tech revolution is not like the others.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🎙️ *Discussion on AI policies for the flip normals Marketplace, emphasizing the platform's artist-centric approach.* 02:14 🤖 *Concerns about AI use on other platforms and Flip Normals' commitment to being artist-centric.* 03:23 🚫 *Policy against AI-generated promotional images to maintain authenticity.* 06:50 🌐 *Decision-making process for AI products involves evaluating alignment with values and community feedback.* 09:39 🤝 *Emphasis on artist-friendly approach, avoiding the creation of AI models from user data.* 11:02 ❓ *Community involvement in reporting AI products lacking automated detection tools.* 14:09 🌟 *Team's thoughts on AI, its excitements, concerns, and potential impacts.* 16:13 🔄 *Use of AI tools like ChatGPT for efficient task automation with a small team.* 17:51 🚀 *Acknowledgment of AI's potential to aid in concept generation and workflow acceleration.* 19:37 📚 *AI tools, like transcription in Premiere Pro and ChatGPT, accelerate tasks such as creating help PDFs.* 21:38 💡 *AI tools, such as regex and ChatGPT, save time for data manipulation and code-related queries.* 23:15 ⚖️ *Ethical considerations of AI in creative industries and potential job impact.* 30:11 💻 *Challenges with overreliance on AI in workflows, especially during failures.* 32:58 🔄 *Shift from human interactions to AI assistance on platforms, impacting community collaboration.* 38:14 🖼️ *AI's ability to scrape and synthesize data raises authenticity concerns.* 39:37 🤖 *AI models inheriting biases and ethical issues, like gender bias in credit card algorithms.* 41:14 🌍 *Global impact concerns of biased AI models, especially in widely used platforms.* 42:47 🎨 *Ease of using AI tools for artistic creation raises concerns about skill development.* 46:21 🧐 *Difficulty in distinguishing AI-generated content poses challenges for portfolios and marketing.* 51:21 👀 *Concerns about deepfake technology and its potential for misinformation and manipulation.* 54:47 💼 *The negative perception of an AI-driven world in art and technology industries, impacting artists.* 57:48 🖼️ *Concerns about AI's ability to restore images and potentially create fake history.* 59:45 😢 *AI's rise discouraging people from pursuing or continuing traditional art careers.* 01:00:55 🌐 *Speculation about a future shift towards smaller art companies and fewer traditional jobs.* 01:02:58 🌍 *Concerns about a potential future where AI dominates industries, leading to unemployment.* 01:04:52 🤖 *Emphasis on maintaining a platform prioritizing artists and human-centric content.* 01:06:01 🤝 *Advocacy for supporting artists, encouraging the creator economy, and focusing on human-driven content.*
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We need more people and artists to take stances right now. The more people that let it just happen and accept it as an inevitability, the worse it is going to be when it settles in its final state. Right now is the time we need to be fighting for how things are being used. Set the precedent of what should be allowed. If everyone just rolls over and continues to let AI users and companies walk all over the artistic community, they are going to take us for all we are worth. I've already announced to my company that if it comes down to us using AI for work, at least in the way it currently functions, I am gone. If the future of my career requires me to step over the corpses of other artists and their careers, I want no part of it.
As a semi-pro 3d artist, I prefer AI to be used as a tool to help artist for their works. I really wish someone could make an AI to help retopologies a high detail object. But sadly people use it to replace the workforce. We just need technologies that make our work more effective, not to replace us!
great that you guys are in support of artists, but just note it is hypocritical to still use generative AI that takes other peoples jobs: the regex example. Just like in art, code-based AI is pulled from git repos both private and public, so is learning off copyrighted code the same way as art-based AI's. It's taking coders jobs the same as art AI is taking artists jobs. I understand its a great tool for non-techical users, but you can't say this one is ok at the same time as saying the art one is not ok, because non-artists can then just use your same logic to say the art one is ok as just a tool for non-artists.
You bring up a very good point, as he said in the video however this is more of a "tool" to speed things up rather than replace someone. "I spend 10 minutes with chatgpt instead of 3 hours in stack overflow". I have a friend that works in the programming industry and even he uses chatgpt. For programmers it's definitely a tricky subject because programmers are always looking for ways to automatize their own tasks. From the little bit I know, programmers more so work as debuggers and code managers rather than actual programmers... but I would like to hear more of your thoughts on this, are you a programmer? has this impacted you negatively?
I think where AI may have a flaw is in the problem of 'convergence'. The way things seem to work with software is that one tool often dominates a given space- like photoshop in image editing- or Zbrush in 3D sculpting. If this happens with AI Image Generation- where one tool, like Midjourney for example, becomes the industry standard- this may be a big problem because unlike other tools Midjourney has a massive impact on the final product it creates- the degree of user input is somewhat limited. Now consider the interface of Midjourney- how is it controlled? Mostly by text prompts combined perhaps with sample images. But here's the thing- in any given case if I want to write a precise prompt I need to use a narrow selection of words. For example, if I want Midjourney to make me an image of a Dragon I will need to use the word 'Dragon' in my prompt- and the same thing applies to everyone else- so we end up with a scenario in which the same tool-Midjourney- is fed very similar text prompts. The result is likely to be that in any given genre the outputs will converge- my image of a dragon will likely look a bit like your image of a dragon because we both used the same software and we both had to use similar words in our text prompts in order to get our Dragon image. So as more and more people use the same tool and the same small lexicon of words to prompt that tool it seems inevitable that the resulting images will share some overlapping features. There is a tendancy to assume that AI image generators are completely unbiased in their operation and somehow magically interpret the intent of their user without introducing artefacts of their own into the process. This is literally magical thinking. AI Art machines do not in reality read the minds of their users- what they actually do is create images using the correlations they have learned between a given set of words and a given set of pixel patterns- so in the case of the word 'Dragon' the AI has learned that this word is associated with a given type of pixel pattern and will reproduce iterations of that pattern in response to that word. This introduces a third kind of convergence, which arises from the fact that in response to the prompt 'Dragon' the AI must synthesize a single coherent image from the vast number of Dragon images it has been exposed to- this means that there is a degree of 'averaging out' involved- a statistical process whereby more weight is given to those aspects of the 'Dragon pattern' that are shared by the largest number of Dragon images it has seen- again we see that the software is likely to converge on some features of Dragon images more than on others- resulting in a somewhat generic Dragon 'type'. In summary then as the use of AI image generators becomes ubiquitous- and especially if a single model-like Midjouney- comes to dominate the image generation space- the result will be that in any given genre where these tools are used the resulting outputs will display a degree of similarity. In isolation this may not be apparent to the users- but seen 'en masse' it will become noticeable that everyone's outputs look similar. From a Marketing perspective this is not good, since often the entire point of using images is to establish brand or product identity. So it may well be that the very speed and convenience of AI Images will lead to them becoming 'overexposed' in the sense that people start to see any product with AI images as being related to other similar products that also use AI images- say, for example, two computer games in which the dragons appear oddly similar in design because the designers used Midjourney to make their game assets. Over a long enough time span I suspect that the 'AI look' will become it's own cliche', one that will be actively avoided by anyone who wants their product to seem unique and stand out from the crowd.
this is an interesting viewpoint but in reality you can train your generator with specific images to create a very tailored output. so you can create a quite stylized and specific output. you can do this now in midjourney. also the -style command can control the output look and feel. you can also train your own lora with specific images in Stable Diffusion which again can create a quite tailored output. this kinda negates your argument that everything will end up being samey. if you use the AIs on default vanilla settings then yes i’d agree with you but they are highly customizable
@@feralmode What you say is true of course- just as a human artist might work in different styles and mediums AI's can be trained to do something analogous. But I would argue that you are falling into the trap of assuming that AI's are entirely transparent in the way they operate- that their own internal processes leave no trace on the images they produce- to me this idea seems unlikely. For example if you look at a collection of AI images from Midjourney and a collection from Dall-e the two sets of images can be seen to be different to each other- no matter what the subject matter or style applied may be- Midjourney images tend to be more artistic or cinematic while Dall-e images tend to be a little more literal and less dramatic. This is surely a non controversial claim- after all the two models are products of different algorithms and training regimes. Indeed it would genuinely strange if they did not display a degree of individual bias in their outputs. There is no such thing as an unbiased AI because each model must be the result of the specific programming and training used to create it. So my point really is that just as human artists cannot help but develop individual styles that make their works identifiable, no matter what subject or medium they choose to work in, the same must be true of AI Art models- each will exhibit consistancies and identifiable visual markers that will persist no matter what style or subject they are trained to produce. That being so- if a given model is very widely used- it's outputs will be seen to converege toward these visual markers. Humans are themselves very good at pattern recognition and in time will learn to notice when an image is a Midjourney image or a Dall-e image or an image created by a well known human artist. It's interesting that while the arguement is often made that AI's learn from their training data in a manner similar human artists, the logical extension of this arguement is seldom pointed out- which is that human artists then go on to develop unique personal styles that make their work identifiable. That being so why is it not also true that AI Art Generators have unique individual styles that make their outputs identifiable? The AI Art community seem to find this idea uncomfortable- perhaps because it challenges the myth that the images they create with AI are pure and unbiased expressions of their own intent- which is a quasi mystical idea that ignores the reality that the more powerful the tool, the larger an imprint it will leave on the things created by it. From a commercial perspective it would be a mistake to hire the same artist that your competitors used if you want your product to have a distinct visual identity. So using Midjourney when everyone else also uses Midjourney might not make sense if it proves true that the images Midjourney creates exhibit distinct and consistent patterns in it's outputs that are-like a human artist's personal style- impossible to entirely eradicate because they are derivations of it's basic algorithmic and training methodologies.
@@paulhiggins5165 again you are making the point that the AI converges stylistically. my point is you can be very granular in your stylistic requirements to the degree that this fine tuning can be its own unique style. have you spent much time using midjourney or stable diffusion? i get the feeling you are coming from a hypothetical viewpoint. if you’ve spent a long time using the AI’s and develop a little experience you can see how customizable they are in terms of visual output. stable diffusion more so than midjourney but MJ is working on being more customizable while still trying to be user friendly.
@@feralmode Style is not really relevant here at all. A human artist can work in different styles but they cannot escape the many influences both biological and learned that lead their outputs to exhibit discernable qualities and charecteristics that make their works recognisably their own. At root the question is a simple one- can it be claimed that any given AI model is free from bias in it's outputs? If the answer to this question is no then it's inevitable that any given AI Art Generator will display a distinct visual bias in it's outputs- no matter what particular style it has been trained to emulate. And if a population is exposed to a large enough number of examples it will eventually become sensitized to that bias. I think we can agree that Midjouney and Dall-e- for example- do display distinct bias in their outputs- these models are not the same and neither could be swapped out for the other without this impacting on the results obtained. My point is simply that if a large number of people and organisations use the same tool and that tool inevitably leaves an indelible impact on it's outputs then those outputs will begin to converge in the perception of the public. The result being that products intended to possess unique visual identities may instead seem to be related to each other in unintended and undesireable ways.
'visual bias', 'visual identities' are these not essentially similar to styles? you're getting into semantics here. and my point is, again, for the third time that this 'convergence' you talk about is not necessarily a fixed or inevitable attribute. you can control it. but i'm repeating myself here and you don't seem to be listening to my point. have you even used midjourney? @@paulhiggins5165
AI is a complex topic, because its very hard to have a complete overview. Fx. you say it would be bad to loose all entry level artist jobs, but are fine with using AI to make small scripts for processing data or create useful regular expressions (regex). Aren't those small scripts and regex in the area that an entry level programmer could do? I am not saying you are wrong in automating the boring tasks, I am saying that many parts of the AI topic are complex. Who will define what is ok to automate and what isn't?
Thank you for your work guys. The time has come for generations of artists to be heard, to discuss and educate people about what we look for In arts. Emotions, human efforts. We need tool that make our effort more efficients, and give us more control. Not technologies that replace our creative thinking and make us loose power over our work. Let's strive as artists, and not become users.
AI is not only replacing the 3D artist (albeit slowly right now), it is impacting a ton of different jobs. Be prepared to fight to even land a job in a convenience store. I think I am going to hang it up and find another hobby, perhaps knitting!
nah, i still don't even see the "2D artist replacement" that everyone was talking about few years ago. AI is having the same isues that it have at the beggining, every work of "art" still looks AI and microwaved
this is just me being optimistic here, but could it be that artists will remain and all ai will just be kind of irrelevant noise on the outside? Does ai have to "eliminate" all artists? Do people still value that it's human made? Will there be a big push to elevate human made over computer made?
But, but... 3D AI-generated meshes are pure garbage. It's almost impossible to use that crap in any commercial project because of the horrendous quality. I'd love to use some for my personal projects, but it's not even good enough for that right now. It's not denial, it's fact.
Which is a sick reversal of responsibilities. AI platforms should have to ask for permission from the original creator if they intend to use 3rd party work.
By now if an art platform allow AI image to co-exist along with real artwork, that mean they're feeding your artwork to their AI generator, there's no other reason for that kind of co-exist at all. So if you exclude all content created by AI, the artist still suffer from AI thief even if you want so see AI image or not.
Not the point. The idea of a portfolio website for artists is for artists to showcase their own art amongst peers, create a community of professionals. AI art is taking the attention away from the actual professionals using stolen art, the existing community is being spammed and their reputation besmirched by low effort AI art and complete newbies. It isn't a good gallery to showcase art that artists are proud of anymore, just by putting your art there you're just going to be judged by recruiters and other professionals like "oh you're another AI prompt generator, not an actual artist. I'm moving on."
@@applepie9806 True, Artstation is not a good soil to grow anything anymore, you're etheir move to Cara art platfrom or stay in artstation to be eaten by AI worm and rot away day by day.
AI is certainly a huge challenge to adapt to. As someone in their (early!!) 40s I can remember when some studios were like "they're using photos in their texturing? HA! True 3D artists hand paint all their own textures for each surface property." I took a break from 3D for about 6 years and when I came back to it, I couldn't believe how many asset packs people were using, and auto-painting or detailing tools in Substance Painter etc. The industry has seen constant huge shifts in technology and what people will still consider artistry or not. HDRIs for lighting? Trash for n00bs who don't understand the art!! It will be interesting to see where the balance ends up with AI.
In the near future, AI's impact on the visual arts business can be likened to the transformation seen in the music industry with the tools used by contemporary "rappers" and DJs. Numerous artists, likely the majority, might not have emerged in the art scene without the assistance of digital algorithms for music production and voice modification for synchronization. Some have become multimillionaires in the digital transformation without learning to sing.
I think photography raised these same issues with artist in the past. As it replaced things artists did.. I think AI will evolve to support the talents artist have, because a talented artist is still a talented artist with or without AI.
@@colbyr.adamson4427 you guys are so naive, maybe it will be true for some projects. But I believe that big companies are juste gonna do the same quality as before if not worse but with higher release frenquency. It's just about money at the end, dont be fooled by the "helping artists work faster" argument.
@mathisrodriguez3461 The reason is because of competition, with ai a dude could make what we're making now. Multi million dollar company could always make better.
I was at the bookstore yesterday and I saw a series of books, that to my eyes, totally looked like AI art. It wasn't, at least I think i wasn't made with AI. It was probably just illustrated in a style that AI likes to copy. But I find myself questioning the art I see now, and I don't like that.
Wow, I knew you had a small team, but didn't think it was just 3 people! Really makes me happy to hear how much you guys care about the art community. I'm all for whatever you have planned in the future
20:24 ChatGPT "stole" idea, job, from anther writer, keep your writer's jobs. Yes, safe you time, as 2:44 had addressed nicely, automation take other jobs, safe time for "your" other creative task, it can take other's idea. AI "sample" other writing, coding too. When technology comes, artisans go out of job. May be, "real" artist survive are those who use real pen, brush, ink colors. Note: I'm not being satire here, back when digital "artist" take over pen&ink for art we have been there, done that. The "art" create "manually" by artisan will become luxury items. Commodity picture will be come consumable goods by automation.
Inevitably AI will continue to expand exponentially in the next decades, I think in the future AI will be the norm in many fields, and manmade 3D models will be a sought out and very valorated niche. As in mass produced, cheap wood furniture vs Craftsmans woodwork. Sadly but realistically, the market likes big profits and quick mass production (who doesn't like making money?). Hopefully, as some jobs declined many new ones will appear.
Mad respect to you guys for taking the human and artist focus. Would love to see a future FlippedNormals portfolio site if funding ever came along for it. 💪
I'm not sure of the scale of it but companies are def gonna fire some or a lot of people in exchange for AI workers. There is a company in my home city of Gothenburg (Sweden) called MindArk, they develop Entropia Universe, they layed off about 25 people last year (about 40% of all their employees) to instead implement more AI apparently. It feels so so... I am not against AI as a type of help but artists and other losing theirs jobs like this is just sad...
Ya, I have industry xp as a wrangler - that's my entry job. The plan was to skip any film or art school since I already have a BA and a comp sci diploma - but I feel herded into an IT role as opposed to an artist role in fear of losing my job to AI. Roto gone, matchmove - eventually, FX? probably. But I don't have the artistic chops to model or DMP either.
Remember to set your robots.txt file to deny scrappers (google up the details; it's an official standard). At least will help with scrappers that are ethically programmed (if the coder is aware of the standard, of course).
Finally a breath of normality. I think one of the only good applications of AI generators so far has been how many respected people turned out to be either absolutely shallow and ignorant of the broader picture, or complete sociopaths.
I'm a graphic designer. The invention of Adobe in the early 90s took peoples' jobs (type-setter, film-runner, film-checker, design assistant, art director, designer, and more) and combined them into one role, the modern-day, entry-level graphic designer. Graphic designers used to be more senior staff members, so this created an opportunity for talent to skip to mid-level opportunities. That being said, technology-savviness used to be an advantage, but modern tech is easier to use, so when you erase entry-level, you're also turning mid-level work into entry-level work. (and you're cramming dozens of more tasks onto a mid-level person's plate to compensate). So these entry-level jobs won't go away, they'll just complete more tasks in the same position. You'll be able to experiment more.
Bro but how do you work with ai art? It's not like you have access to its layers, its not like you can edit the fingers in it flawlessly. Ai doesnt use brushes or adobe tools, it simply caluclates pixels. This is literally ruin for concept artists, background artists etc. There's no adaptability, companies just prompt concepts and backgrounds until it looks good, and voila. Please stop with these stupid past examples. Adobe products were always meant to be a tool, generative ai is not meant to be a tool, its not hard to use it, its a replacement, there's nothing hard in typing words. The quality is astounding, many companies use it now. Adobe products were very hard, you still have to learn drawing concepts,photography concepts tools, filters, VFX etc. but what is hard about prompting that will make companies want to pay you? 3 people gather and prompt until they hit something good, then prompt some more, and think which prompt looks the best for their project.
@@piotrek7633 If you're a savvy Photoshop user with a background in traditional art, then you can work magic with object select tool in no-time regardless of #of layers. So there's a place for traditional tools alongside Ai and it saves you some time on semi-custom works. The adobe illustrator has a generative art feature that actually has editable vectors too.
I see lots of complaints/comments from non-artists about ai generated art on social media. I think big companies see ai as a way to save big money, but many of the the actual consumers are tuned off by consuming content that was robot-made. Yes, many ai gen art looks cool or surreal, but ultimately humans don't want to be consuming media that is all robot-made.
There was a new paper on 3D model generation using some kind of refining voxels noise (where in 2D we have pixels). It's crude and still unusable, but shockingly advanced for a first draft. They're already working on it, so you guys are right to think ahead. What I want, is the option for an artist to choose. Artist and client can choose to use an AI trained on their OWN art, and only their own art, if they wanted to deliver a prototype fast, or they can choose the old fashioned way. That's what I thought AI tools should have been for artists
As a 3D sculptor I can't count the amount of times in the last year the concepts I have been presented are AI directed or 100% AI. What can I do? Turn away work? I'm not in a position where I can say no to work.
Now is the time to focus on fundamentals. There will be loads of people wasting their time trying to make "random seed" everything software do what they want, while neglecting the fundimentals - story telling, composition, piepline, a personal vision, experience. oh but multimodality and control net... If you work with a client, you will always need access to every part of the pipeline that AI doesn't give. Remember, your brand or studio clients are packed to the brim with middle managers whos only purpose is to make changes - they need to do it to stay relevant. So now you have to change the hair color, I can go back to 3d or I can do it in post with mattes, oh but AI... and its not 32bit liner workflow. Its not in acesce and I have no idea what the format or sensor that's supposed to be... In a few years we'll look back at the absolue BS that is the latest venture capitalist junk. Self driving cars, coworking space, dtc medical, digital money, and the list goes on and on.
Hit the nail on the head, fundamentals matter, i can confidently say that there will be loads of eye candy trash out there but the fundamental will be missing
This was an amazing and insightful talk, I am glad to see other artist standing up against the corporations trying to phase us out. They need our minds and ideas or their tech doesn't work. I think this needs to be at the forefront of our minds these next few years. We need to come together and create our ideas to fight against these AI bots or corporations.
Good on you guys highlighting things like data scraping that can't be fully controlled by good policy. It can be hard for hard work to thrive in such a suddenly unethical environment without help from the platform and community
Im delighted with this important conversation getting out to so many people.. too many truly dont understand how destructive this mess is and thoughtfully discussing these issues helps immensely
well what if the trends will shift, like soon digital art stuff or ai generated art will become mainstream and not cool anymore. And cool market will shift to manual traditional art ? handmade 3D scanned clay sculpture or charcoal paintings will be the grail in art world.
My thoughts exactly. Traditional arts are not only immune to AI, but it will get a recognition boost when everything digital will become suspicious. It's easy to detect AI generated stuff nowadays, give it a few more years and it will be very hard to spot the difference for untrained eyes. A traditional painting however, can't be made with a machine yet.
@@axl87 yes. things that are not factory made more like sewn, cuts, basically crafted by human are more precius these days. It can be incorporated for commercial art like games and animation as well. I bet some perfect imperfections will highly appreciated in the future.
People who are artist are going to hate AI image creators and those who can't draw are going to love it. AI cuts down on time, money and gives those who don't have the skill "The ability". In the long run this is the world we are in now and those who are against AI and trying to fight it are going to lose in the long run. There are probably more people without skills as an artist than those who have skills. We better find our way away from money and quickly. We need another system because this one isn't going to work for much longer.
It's totally fine to make the choices you think work best for Flipped Normals. But I think its really important to clarify that allowing utility tools does indeed do everything that image generative tools also do. It uses people's underlying code as a basis to generate new code to make tools. that is in fact ultimately replacing technical artist's jobs and replacing software developer's jobs. So it is not different. The reality is artists feel more ok threatening the work of developers/technical artists than they do about threatening other artists. ai is here to stay. but this common mindset to me feels a bit more of protecting our own mindset, then it is caring about the fundamental issues. eitherway Flipped Normals is only one place out there and can't fundamentally change the entire internet's usage of ai, so i place no particular blame on you guys. I just prefer to view things with a great deal of honesty. (for perspective, i divide my time about half/half between art and technical/coding in the vfx space )
Dont be a luddite. AI is already here. If you refuse to get with the times and use this as a new tool, you will fall behind those that are not afraid to use it. The more you resist, the more you suffer. If you choose to stick to your current expertise, you may be happy for the personal independence, but your art is more now niche than ever. You may distignish between the handmade and AI, but the consumers will not care.
@@carultch Then farming was our biggest mistake. We should all still be hunter gatherers. They have grievances but they weren't legitimate; they were worried about their own jobs and lives, not for humanity as a whole. Human progress will always optimize and most careers in history have gone extinct thanks to technology. You can want your clothes made by hand, but there are 8 billion people here that don't want to be naked.
Finally, a thoughtful intelligent conversation on this subject from the perspective of artists. I really appreciate your perspective guys! And I’m relieved and hopeful that someone with some heft in the industry has defined some boundaries.
It’s gonna be tough, but we’re going to have to lean into the human aspect of our work as a rare commodity, or start more collectives with the mindset of, ‘well, that’s not how we do things around here.’
I think photography raised these same issues with artist in the past. As it replaced things artists did.. I think AI will evolve to support the talents artist have, because a talented artist is still a talented artist with or without AI.
@@Dewfie Yep, I lost a job, not sure if you due to ai but something is wrong in the industry atm , I'm guessing lots of factors, but we dont give up, and study harder, work harder, so that your pay - even with ai assistance wont get devalued, although, I dont disagree with you, you might be right to some degree, maybe coders will work less on the code, and also test their own code themselves, but I dont see that it will replace us, there is no chance.. I use AI (bard) for lots of analysis when i study, and i find it makes mistakes, and it leads to discussion.. i dont know i find benefits in this, fuel your fury to better your workflow, thats what im trying to do .. its such a complex topic! I just think that turning away and refusing it entirely is not going to stop it, know your enemy, and make it your ally.. let's hope for the best
so if the ruling on ai is it cant be copywritten does that mean we can just take from these companies and remarket it at a lower price just to bite in to them? If it gets ruled that they need to start over with ethically sourced materials and everything currently out is illegal does that mean there will be a lot of class action lawsuits? Can you embed enforceable contracts into metadata of images so if they get scraped the contract in the metadata is now enforceable?
What will happen: One day someone will "steal" their "copyrights" and sell without their permission, making a lot of money. Company X with said "rights" would sue. Will obviously lose in court. Then this will start an industry and perhaps legal precedent.
copyright is not representative of generated value by a company. they can still sue for loss of their value if you use their content if its involved in a product. people focus too much on copyright to see the reality of industry lawyer tactics. source : a lawyer talking to me. I take no responsibility in this information.
Just my 2 cents( as they say). I would also like an AI that I could give it some concept and ask it to create a variation based on some prompt. In work I've been asked to use Midjourney to generate ideas, which is fine, but I find it wastes more of my time to fiddle with prompts to get it even remotely close to what I want. And then it just gives me 4 really silly versions. So I have to be fiddling with the prompts to get me anything interesting. So...to me AI is a big waste of my time. But I do use it when I get stuck with ideas and I know I can't find it with some google search. But it would be nice to have an AI where the process is simply "here is the image, generate variations based on this and this, and this prompt" But on the other side, you guys mentioned how fast you solved one of the problems that required regex. Honestly...yeah you did your job faster than learning regex, but next time you need regex you would again go and prompt the AI to get you a working regex, instead of you learning it. And regex isn't that hard at all. It would take you like 10-15min video tutorial to get the basics you most likely needed.
at 46:00 that's what I always try to say to the people who started to rely on the output of AI instead of the output of their skills and dedication. Thought that everything had a shortcut and once that degenerative tool shutdown, they just started drooling in the corner of the room.
There weren't a whole heaps of jobs beforehand, especially for junior modellers. I know vets say not to give up, but it's even harder to secure a living now.. I had to return to ft IT work and freelance here and there when I am not exhausted..
Artists might feel a bit worried when they see what AI can do, maybe because they don't fully get what it is. Really, AI is like a big, detailed map of everything creative that people have done so far. It means artists don't have to wander around in the dark anymore, accidentally finding the same old stuff again and again. With AI, artists can see where they are and head straight for the edges, ready to explore new places that no one's seen before. So instead of being scary, AI can be like a helpful guide, showing artists where they can go to make totally new and exciting things.
That sounds great, on paper. But in reality, artists who depend on their art for a living will be forced to take lower wages and/commissions. We're not just talking about some recreational activity here. People's livelihoods are at stake.
@@meremortal979 I don't think that will be the case. The thing that gives art it's appeal is it's uniqueness. The thing that sets it apart and makes you notice it. AI generations all have the same sense of familiarity, like you've seen it before. It undoubtably looks fantastic but at the same time you know it already, it feels like it's pushing buttons that have already been pressed.
@@PaulBrunt I appreciate your perspective bud'. But working in the industry has proved to me that creativity and 'uniqueness' only matters if corporate can profit off of it.
@@meremortal979 Why do you think uniqueness doesn't matter? Don't companies still spend $$$ on photoshoots despites the fact that stock photos will often do. Working in marketing I can say we're just spent many thousands on such a shoot, when we could have just used stock. Artists are cheep; when running a campaign, the spend on creative pales in comparison to the cost everything else, yet has a disproportionate effect on results. Companies spend the extra 2/3/4x for a professional instead of a student, yet it doesn't results in something that looks 2/3/4x better! The fact is if skimping on the creative paid then companies would be doing it, and many artists would already be out of a job. I've found artists more often then not undervalue their work and have no idea how much money they make companies.
Amazing conversation. Hit a lot of important nerves, I have fed a lot of my previous rendered models and scene renders into Ai programs like Magnifique and it is really mind-blowing... the level of detail is mind blowing and also feels like I should obey and make these modifications to my real models in order to improve my final output to compete with ai. 😢😢 I have also already created some music with Ai... pretty decent quality, not always perfect, but surprisingly good vocals, beat and melodies.
Appreciate this discussion. I am a little bit frustrated with artists saying don't panic. Maybe it is good advice in general, and maybe we shouldn't panic per se, but we have to be pragmatic, this will definitely result in job loss. It is an inevitability of technological development. The difference with AI is that it might lead to a complete societal shift where human beings as a whole no longer work, save for a handful of people that direct what the AI needs to accomplish.
Scripts: are created by machines. Houdini, VFX, Generators, and Nodes: are already generated by machines, and codes, and will be dominated by AI Models. Coding, Scripting, it's just the start. Artists in the industry will use those tools because they need to work faster, and more efficiently. Procedural material creation, procedural texture creation. Designer nodes, will be generated by machines. Besides, where do you draw a line? When an artist is using plugins, addons, scripts, procedural "machine applications". Those Artists are all of a sudden banned? It's tech. It will always evolve and no one can stop it. On top of it is the consumer that doesn't really care how things have been made. Did you ever hear a kid asking the question, ohh.. wow, how was that animated movie made? It was an army of artists, that modeled, textured, animated, etc.? Consumers do not really care, they want to consume. Not to blame them, it's just how it is. How you will create digital assets will not matter anymore for the mass-market. Does it matter for individuals, and artists, doing their own thing? Of course. For me it will always matter if a human artist will paint a picture. But that's a different chapter. Also, differentiate digital art from "physical" art. When and where did AI or tech start? 30 years ago, a 3D Artist didn't exist. A 3D Artist today, doesn't even need to know how to paint, or how to draw. He uses digital tools, code written for applications, to use an application. Does this make now an artist a true artist? You see, it's all relative. The "banning" happened also 30 years ago, where every real painting artist that went to art school said: What you want with Photoshop? And a digital pen? You are not an artist, you are a cheater. Then, the digital market evolved, because of digital film, internet and social media. There was a need for digital artists, even so, every digital artist is just the bottom line from any production, getting paid the lowest possible, to maximize profit from the studios, pr producers. How do you want to ban AI? Guys, sorry to disappoint you. But you don't have the funds to ban the big tech and the progress. The artists are always the poor folks, being used for their traditioanl talents and work, to produce some crazy bs. lol; If you want to bann AI, you should also bann Digital Art. Just go back to the roots, create a club for the "starving artists", sell real art, real physical paintings, sculptures, or create physical art in many other ways, like installations, initiatives, build real stuff, produce real products. Images, image sequences (also known as film lol;) it's already dead. 3D Artists will be vaporized soon. Why would an ad agency spend 100xtimes more money on a short commericial, being created via an Agency, 3d Artists, doing crazy 3d modeling, motion capture, vfx, modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, animation, compositing, and and and.. if you can just prompt your damm video or film? You see, 2d images at the end, that's the final product. And end consumers, don't really care. But you still have some niches, where 3d artists will be needed for some time. Like VR, AR, 3D Environments, also games. Models, materials, shaders in run-time, still needed. But even that, is just a matter of time. So when artists ask, what they should do. Become a real artist, physical artist, paint walls, create real sculptures, real painitngs, become extrodinary good at it. Make physical products. But digital products, like images, and even 3D models, will be dominated by machines. If we like it, or not. Then, there is one question left: Why do you even want to ban AI Art or fight the machines? Skynet can't be stopped, Arnold showed us already years ago, right? Best career advice: Leave the digital art space, find something else in your life. Or stay, and you'll be hit. cheers
Yo, Stop throwing the word "Terrified/Terrifying" around when talking about Ai. It makes you and people sound weak and helpless. We're better than Ai. The only difference is their brains are connected to the Web
The only artists crying about ai are either uncreative people recycling old formulas, or people who only care about money. All of the smart artists are learning to take AI, train models on their own unique portfolios, and using them to expedite their productivity. It's not going anywhere. Its only going to get better, more accurate, better images, better VIDEO, BETTER ANIMATIONS, and eventually perfect text to 3d, and within the coming decade, text / voice to videogame. Fighting it is only holding yourself back. There will also be a lot of things that ai cannot do, at least for now and for a while, and while basic b**** art jobs will likely be condensed into teams that can use these tools, there will be high level high paying and highly valued positions for people who can actually do it by hand. BTW: using photoshop with layers and ctrl z etc etc etc is to do your illustrating, or procreate, whatever, is already cheating. Moving around mistakes, skewing, transforming, undoing... its all cheating already.
love the video from the beginning to end I do agree if art dies then everything dies. we artist must not give up we must stand together and keep creating
How do you think about ai generated textures? I am constantly on the search for textures to use for my models. I usally do Roughness Bump and high maps etc. out of them. Basic PBR-Material workflow. Despite I have my camera with me all the time you can imagine I can not photograph all textures by myself. You know, I don't have the ressources to travel to egypt for photoshoot the walls of a pyramide every second month. 🤷🏻♂️ So mostly I rely on stock images. Stock photos like that are more and more ai generated anyways. Often not even easy to distinguish. And I still would have to search my ass out for content, what slows down any productivity. Why not take the shortcut and generate some source material for textures or brushes with midjourney or stable diffusion by myself and keep on doing my art with it. Instead of everyone wasting so much time with searching a certain photo.
i don't think AI is a buzzword that will fade eventually dude. i mean i guess if some sort of apocalyptic scenario happens, like the sun frying all technology? even then humans would just rebuild everything and AI would become an objective again. it's inevitable
There's nothing you can do, it's over. I'm just training my body instead so I have a chance to be a contruction worker when I'll be an old man. If the Tesla bots aren't released by then.
Yeah clearly, a lot of people are now preparing themselves to THE transition (for now AI isnt a risk, but it will be in next 5/10 years). "AI humans" robots are too complicated and too expansive so clearly all jobs that required movement with hands or legs and all jobs that aren't behind a PC is safe. So not only the clichés of constructions workers or plumbers, but for example computer repairers (everybody in the world and in their house have techs machines and they're all fragiles)
Fabulous conversation, thank you. The AI genie is well out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in (just like the internet - could you really imagine the world without it?). It'll be enormously disruptive for the job market in all sectors. But governments aren't on the ball about the solution. I think it will eventually mean the need for universal basic income.
Thinking of switching to oil painting and sculpting and when AI is good enough to start my own game or movie company , with just a small team using AI to lighten the work load. Honestly with AI us artist having jobs is the lest of my concerns , it could get bad and fast. or it might end up like Star Trek where we are so civilised all that is left to do is explore space.
I am not afraid of AI because it is not capable of producing anything useful in 3D. The unfortunate aspect is that clients and even companies comes to artists with fully AI-generated references, but the details and proportions are unrealistic and impractical for realistic execution. Also if you don't do it in the same way as it looks the reference because it wont be usable, they think you are not good artist-it happened to me. Sometimes we have to say No.
54:47 this is exactly what made me so upset about Artstation AI policy - the fact that we, the art community, literally built that platform for them. Our art is literally what's bringing traffic to their website and made them one of the most visited websites in the internet. We've paid pro subs, advertised in their platform, sold in their marketplace, to the point where they were valuable enough for Epic to show interest in acquiring them. In the end, they just disregarded us when we most needed them. Instead we have individual artists trying to represent the art community on AI debates over at the US senate, going the extra mile and dedicating their whole time to this, when we couldve have a bigger entity like Artstation backing us up on such matters. Sadly they just made really poor decisions and stayed pretty silent about it all.
yup, thats why i deleted acc, and move to Cara. Best decision ever.
Been paying Pro subscription for years. When I saw their utter betrayal I removed my paid subscription. Even when I buy tutorials I look for other platform alternatives. They will never get money from me again. WIll be moving to Cara soon and deleting acc altogether.
Now AI, which is our proud student and creation will take over and bring Artstation forward. Evil bigoted artists will not be allowed to destroy AI artist.
Until now if you still support Artstation by anymean, then you've just digging your own grave as an artist. I once support Arstation but I quickly realize their true color as soon as AI images get feature in there. So I stop support them right away.
@@nsevvThe outcome in Artstation is already decided, the one who own Arstation already show support sign for AI in his twitter. There're nothing left to protect in there. I move to Cara because they forbid AI images in there.
Great to see you guys take a firm stance on this.
I think you guys should consider expanding Flipped Normals or making a sister site for artist portfolios, so that people who want to navigate away from Artstation (aka EPIC) have somewhere to go. I think you guys have a big enough community and following to encourage a large portion of artists over. I certainly would happily migrate my artstation portfolio over to one run by you two!
Keep fighting the good fight!
edit: I made this comment about 80% into the podcast and you addressed the portfolio thing at the end! I hope you guys can figure out the funding aspect of it.
really cool idea
I would definitely move to their site if they do that.
I'm in
these people are stupid, it's a GREAT thing that AI can produce 3D assets, this means faster development times and lower prices for our products and thus lower prices for customers.
There is Cara, which has anti-AI politics and there are a plenty of artists and other professionals already.
I used to work hard… I modeled and studied vfx for 15+ hours a day. I’m not sure what to do anymore…
What sucks is that so many different fields are threatened by AI. As someone who just started working in 3D this year, I don't even know where else to pivot when everything I could possibly do is unclear. It's not like I could be a brain surgeon. It's very disheartening.
Its not all studios guys just some of them. And probably the ones you wouldnt want to work for. Theres hundreds of studios between games and film.
Work hard and network your butt off and you will be fine. Dont get discourgaed if you do you have already lost the battle.
Nothing worth having is gonna fome easy
So you just basically working and sleeping? No time for eat. Ballsy.
@@beepbeep-m6m Do we want a world that benefits giant companies maximizing profits by replacing humans? Or do we want a world that people actually want to live and is friendly to human flourishing? The people need to demand heavy restrictions to AI
@@UnknownUser69698 Absolutely, but good luck trying to explain this to your postman or the baker around the block or the cashier at the grocery shop. Most people don't care because their jobs are boring and are secured because of that. AI is here to replace highly technical jobs in all fields in life, but the bad news is most people DON'T have this kind of jobs.
The only selling point of generators and "ai" is: look at how many people you can fire. Look at how much knowledge and skill you can steal without paying.
It's like being in class again where you're one of the few wanting to put effort in your craft and everyone else is just there waiting to grab your finished work, to deliver it to the teacher to not only get same grade as yours but also getting praises for having done it so much faster than "that idiot over there who enjoys the process who still works hard". Congratulations to this world for turning any form of love into own work into "idiots who deserves to be exploited by companies as well as the masses".
im sorry to tell you but always has been like that and not just for artists
Kafkaesque 😂
Well, this is a "side effect" of worship money, and have capitalism as a "religion". We should focus on the well being of other people(us included). A better world. Instead, we allow some people to have too much and use other people and us as well.
Artists use reference.... from life, from photography, from other artist..
@@AstroSquid Comparing machines to humans is crazy.
for those who made it to around 56:00,
the reason why i think nicki namaj (or however you spell it) is cool with ai stuff is because she's not an artist, she's a product.
she always doesn't make most of her music, lyrics, etc etc.
she's a asset that gets pushed around and used to make pop music.
she isn't an artist anymore
she is the best artist.
I disagree. Nicki Minaj is an artist, she writes all of her own lyrics and all that sort of stuff. But for her, AI image generation tools are a great way for her to interact with her fan base and promote herself as well as her music, because everyone can get involved since its so easy. I'm not saying it's a positive thing, but for marketing, it is very effective
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
It was pretty disheartening to see. I'm not a fan of her but I could still respect her creativity and skills. When she doubled down on people slamming her for using AI, it really soured my view on her. I don't care if she's an artist or not anymore, what she is is arrogant and greedy.
Our civilization will never recover from this blow. N... Ni... Nicki Minaj was our hope and inspiration. To think she chose AI...
Honestly, I started a mural painting business as a side hustle & now have more clients than I can handle. I’m even in the concept artist union so technically I’m ok with big studio work, but most of us see the writing on the wall. Plus I just can’t stand an AD sending me some Midjourney monstrosity & asking if I can use it as a starting point. Like no, that’s not my role 😂
As you said at the beggining, as professionals we should aim for tools that aid artists rather than be a botched replacement of them. You guys should check the efforts of collectives like EGAIR in Europe and Concept Art Assosiation in the US, as well as the current dozen of lawsuits running against most companies out there. What is needed is an ethical approach - a legal framework - which incentivizes true progress than mass copyright infringement commited by a few tech companies labeled as "progress". There are efforts out there from lots of people to push for such frameworks, and it's not impossible, and imo way better thing than any sort of doom spiraling all day.
Technology only moves forwards. It will leave everything and everyone behind eventually.
The computer replaced typewriters, if you are not learning new skills you will someday be left behind.
So according to your logic, we must be mindless vegetables that let your AI write everything and assume that you did it.
@@verigumetin4291
So let's replace the ability to write or use the keyboard, it's not my problem that you are mentally mediocre and that your imaginary girlfriend writes your books, is that the future you want to live? where the lazy are rewarded and talent is devalued?
@@ed61730
Your technology does not advance, it only steals other people's work, liquefies it, vomits it in your face and sells it to you as something new, it is because this technology was made for mediocre people with people who have no use for thinking.
@@verigumetin4291
I'm surprised that you are literally the first 3d-related marketplace that take a strong stance in favour of artist here. Not surprised that you do, but surprised that you are the first. And now even Blender Market works with some AI company to deliver batch order of models for gen. ai training...
Where did you find this out? I was thinking about selling some stuff on BM (I have an add-on that's almost ready for release) but I'm reconsidering now.
Edit: dang I found a thread on Reddit talking about it. I'm going to try selling on Flipped Normals instead.
@@swordofkings128 yea, probably the same thread on reddit. I will try to put a link to it on separate answer, but I doubt it will come through as YT is very aggressively marking them as spam. The thread was titled "Is this the end?"
thats messed up. all of that fine print we never read on every site we signed up for, uploaded anything to, etc, is now coming back to bite us with ai. all of our data and assets are being sold to train ai and theres nothing we can do about it. the world sucks man
Guys. I admire your stance. But isn’t it hypocritical to use ChatGPT which also uses data sources that are not authorized by their creators
Aside from taking a stand, I think having a policy that prevents full AI generated content to be on the platform helps customers too. Artstation and CGtrader have become painful to browse, no matter what you look for there are always 100s of post of AI made garbage so instead of me looking for the model I need I am spending time trying to filter all the useless AI stuff.
When restricting AI art to keep artists employed, we'll have to consider our own uses of helper ais, like GPT as a copywriter/content producer, a coder, etc. Those are jobs too, and it raises a fair question: if a struggling copywriter can't use an image generator, can struggling artists use gpt to write copy?
Best comment !
Won't happen. Also, If you as an artist thinks you can be replaced, then you're replaceble.
You have already lost before even starting.
Wow, artists nowdays... Thinking they are gears in the machine. The sad state of artists...
I thought artists were "ahead of their time" as they say.
Guess you guys are just cogs in the machine and not true artists. A delusion of you claiming that title?
I'm glad AI is taking over.
@@arkhimsanitastupor You're a sassy one.
@@arkhimsanitastuporStop stealing and go touch some grass.
Although I have seen some people complain that AI art sucks just because it's AI, most of the time it's because they (especially artists) look closely and start seeing big anatomy, colour, light/shadow and even perspective flaws, nonsensical design choices that instead of adding to the piece oftentimes just distract you, because it's starting to look very samey and unoriginal, or because it looks very fake and ultra-polished in a soulless kind of way. Also for me the saddest part is the fact that some have trained AIs and create AI art, with the intention to hurt artists, I mean you can be indiferent to artists and what they do, but I don't understand why they have so much hate towards them.
I don't necessarily agree with the following sentiment, but I have heard it: "Because a vast majority of artists are arrogant, conceited and egotistical about their skill or artistry."
@@andrewcaminiti2186 Yeah, but that's like saying "most people are stupid therefore let's treat everyone like they are useless", not the best example but you get what I mean.
I'm curious how educational institutions like Gnomon workshop are going to navigate what's ahead. Like, what are they going to teach? How to prompt? Yep, scrap the whole library guys...just make tutorials on how to prompt. It's over my dudes. What a sad, depressing fucking clusterfuck of a world we live in.
The funny thing (?) there’s already an app (a trained ai or somehing ) that you write to it what you want. And it gives you a top notch ´´promt´´ xD.
@@Chejov1214 whats' that
in chat gpt4 there's already an ai called : ''prompt profesor '' @@redwong6119 it helps you make promts
@@redwong6119
Great talk. And as someone who studied actual economics (not business economics), I gotta confess, the point made about "who is going to buy stuff if people are unemployed" is what worries me the most.
Why?
Because on one hand, the rules of the game arel made by entrepreneurs and business people, who have more influence than they had ever before in human history, since everything happens on a global level now. And those very people aim for their own profits first, while rarely ever caring about general welfare implications, as long as there are still people left who are willing (or have to) to work for them, and others who are able to afford their product. And if either number shrinks, prices just go up.
On the other hand, everyone relies on "free markets", that supposedly fix all those problems, because invisible hand magic. This mechanism however requires actual competition, that hasn't existed for quite some time now - and that is more and more unlikely to ever exist again, because the oligopolists are already lightyears ahead of everyone who even thinks about entering the market.
So, to a certain degree, there is no need for the big companies to change their business approach in the foreseeable future. If anything, it makes sense for them to be even more ruthless in the short term, so they can gain market share (or even eliminate the competition) just in time before politics steps in and starts regulating markets, or - their individual best case scenario - before the whole system changes because they themselves are the ones able to change it.
There needs to be a new business model for 3D artists going forward. The old model where an artist breaks his/her back for a studio, gives up their personal life in favor of a deadline only to then be replaced by AI is not going to sustainable.
I feel this is a crucial time for 3D Artists to seek a secondary passive income by selling on online market places or finding their own clients. No one can fire you if you work for yourself.
AI will affect all industries.
@@AstroSquid While I agree, I feel it doesn't have to affect everyone within the 3D industry to the same degree and an artist can take pre-emptive steps to minimize the negative effects.
@@RappinAcoustic As far as I can tell, this will be affecting all industries, as AI is new. The investments happening on wall street are focused on AI in tech. Though I think it's good for AI to not have copywrites. I do think people should force AI to be accountable for it sources, as that's how industry has always worked to protect copywrites.. I don't believe AI people when they say AI can't account for it sources. I think they don't want to make it.
@@AstroSquid Ppft they're lying. All they have to do is upload their training database, that's how they can account for their sources.
@@applepie9806 you are brilliant. Lies hidden in plain sight. I would imagine that data is proprietary. Here's what AI thinks about this.
"The issue you're raising is indeed a significant ethical concern in the field of AI. When AI models are trained on datasets that include copyrighted material without proper attribution or permission, there is a risk of potential infringement or misuse of intellectual property rights.
The inability of AI systems to directly account for the sources of their training data, or to provide proper attribution, can be seen as a limitation or ethical shortfall of current AI technology. This lack of transparency can lead to situations where AI-generated outputs may inadvertently or intentionally reproduce copyrighted material without proper acknowledgment or authorization.
Addressing this challenge requires a multifaceted approach that involves both technical and policy solutions. Technically, efforts can be made to develop AI systems that are more transparent and accountable, allowing them to provide information about the sources of their training data and any copyrighted material used.
From a policy perspective, there may be a need for clearer guidelines and regulations regarding the use of copyrighted material in AI training datasets, as well as mechanisms for ensuring that creators are appropriately credited and compensated for their contributions. This could involve updating copyright laws to better address the unique challenges posed by AI technology and ensuring that existing intellectual property rights are effectively enforced in the digital age.
Ultimately, addressing issues of attribution and intellectual property rights in the context of AI requires collaboration between technologists, policymakers, legal experts, and other stakeholders to develop solutions that uphold ethical standards and promote innovation while respecting the rights of creators."
I've been doing art my whole life and it might just be because im entering my 30s but I'm really reconsidering how and why I make art... I've been feeling really discouraged by the amount of policies, discussions and general opinions that are NOT in favor of actual artists. It's less common but i've also seen a lot of pure animosity from tech-bros towards artists who are HAPPY about artists being replaced or advocates who say that its just the future. It's insane to go from a world where AI was a vague idea to a world where AI is beginning to infect every inch of our lives. Honestly I feel like the general public doesn't even have a good grasp on what AI even is or how it works and it's 100% intentional - training models with stolen images, data, etc was not a mistake.
It's kind of like a pandoras box effect where once its been introduced there's no way to ever go back. I feel like we could have lived in a world where AI was used as a tool BY artists to make their lives easier and improve their workflows to be faster. We could have made it so that people didn't HAVE to work. But instead we're still living in a world where peoples lifelong passions get put on a chopping block and profits for few people come first.
Dont worry the tech-bros will have their lovely job taken by ai too. Then they will understand you.
This discussion was very depressing to me as a 3D artist 😢
True. I am considering changing my career because of it. Hard times are coming
do not allow the hype to influence you, if you knew how many real people and artists are really required in real production for games and animated movies you'd be able to see it as just what it's a tool, and as it's new and I have been fully supported by investors that need to cash back on it, of course, it's hype like this, it's up to us.
@@cgaltruist2938 what do you mean it's hype? It's depressing not hype
@@Lathspell_ agreed, it was hype 6 months ago, now it has real impact. Question is, should you change your career, or integrate quickly it in your workflow as a creative tool? it’s a hard call, and I understand why people are worried.
@@Fralibers The only ppl that are going to integrate AI in their workflow are gonna be ppl with years of experience. Companies wont be taking risks with new employees anymore. But ofc it wont be that extreme yet. You could go for an unpaid internship and get experience there and hope that after some years a company will read your application
My big issue with AI is that it just removes meaning and purpose from everything thus making the entire society hostile to human existence unless you are a weirdo who just loves to lie down and spit to the roof for the rest of your life. Most people want to have a reason to do things. Doing things for the hell of it is hardly motivating or meaningful if there exists a supernaturally good intelligence that is available to everybody and outperforms you at everything all the time.
Exactly, live in the tribe esque communities with us. We'll talk about it over a good fight. I'll let you have the first swing, brother.
I understand your point but the AI doesn't create art on its own accord. Regardless of your opinion on prompting and data scraping, there is a person behind it always. Personally making art for me was about the idea and the result, the process of moving my hand around is just how I got from idea to result. Just like the best part of travelling is thinking of where to go, and arriving there, not the plane ride or waiting at the airport.
@@dp2791 For me, an idea is just an excuse to get to do something. Without the doing part it becomes hollow and meaningless. Stripped of all excitement, growth and action.
The mere thought of ending up like the fat blobs on Wall-E and dare call that "progress" is spine chilling to me. Living meaningless lives because there will be nothing worth bothering about. But that will be an issue for the upper castes, a la Huxley - the lower ones will still get their backs broken in the name of capitalism.
@@dp2791 Learning and doing art is all about journey. With AI it's like taking helicopter ride to Mont Everest and then doing selfie on top in alpine climber gear.
I really appreciate that you brought up the hypocrisy of big music artists using AI art. I saw a Foo Fighters concert late last year, and they had a few songs agree they used AI video visuals in the stage display, and I felt sick to my stomach. I was having a great time until then.
And Toto is releasing new songs on TH-cam with AI art for visuals. I was a long time fan... I'm so disappointed. They really don't understand until they're victims in this, do they?
I also just appreciate you remaining on the right side of history. It's disheartening when the companies we worked closely with, and the people that once rooted for us turned around and basically backstabbed us and robbed us, and figuratively took our wallets... Our identity, our income -- they're taking everything...
guys.. i was one of the OG 3d designers on PCs. 1980s/ Its never been about us, Apple has always used us. SV and Hollywood never cared about us. Adobe couldn't wait to claim ownership of work done in their tools/ servers. They tried going back to 2001. True. The 3d model warehouse sites / built on Star Wars models;) also goes back 25 years. AI doing the thinking creative work is the death of everyone. The VFX "industry" that folk like me pioneered 30 years ago didnt think much sadly. Most had bad biz models that led directly to their own demise today. They saw the Printing industry die via tech, and couldn't see that as them 30 years later. anyhow. best of luck.
I no longer click on videos with AI generated thumbnails
I truly believe that art is an engine for shaping culture, any form of art, and I'm not talking about any creation. I consider art to be decoded symbolism that leads to reflection. Starting from this, it is difficult to understand what AI generates, or rather what people who do not understand art can generate with AI.
I don't think people who dedicate themselves to art will stop doing so because the trendy tool gains more followers on social media. Nor do I believe that the general public will avoid and marginalize artists, replacing them with AI creations.
In theory, the idea that an Artificial Intelligence based on transformers reaches singularity is virtually impossible. This is a current topic, but it is also linked to the fact that the computing power required to continue improving the systems is reaching its limit. I don't think AI by itself is capable of creating culture. I also don't see artists wanting to create culture using AI, although there may be some who develop AI games, like the highly talked-about Palworld, with lots of influencers playing it and making it go viral. But these are things that, to a certain extent, will not become the norm, as the final product reflects our current society, rejected, recycled, soulless, an amorphous mix of what the gaming market might be feeling lost in at the moment. There is no more innovation because everything is games as a service... I say this because the vast majority of companies are heading in this direction, but they are not memorable things; they are just reflections of our society.
Here, we need to talk about Larian and Baldur's Gate, which appear as a breath of fresh air. Memorable game, culture. History.
Art generates culture, and AI is just a reflection of the state of our society. Art can change society; AI is a tool that lacks the ability to encode symbolism that leads to reflection. Even if those significances can be encoded using AI, in art, aesthetics are not everything. However, in comparison, the aesthetics of AI do not exist; it is just a pompous product with a generic finish.
Great podcast Guys, as always.
However, if I'm remembering correctly, enrollment in art schools and programs is down across the board. There's already a considerable amount of damage being done. AI has the potential to be a wonderful tool for humanity, but it can also cause us to spiral into some really dark spaces if we don't check it now. Across the board.
AI art is the the ultimate engine for shaping ALL cultures. It ability to digest and generate new art from the hearts of and emotions of all creation ever created is what makes the AI artist the best artist ever. human artist are narrow and shallow.
@@EdNorthcottJust like knife can be used for cutting food and also kill therefore AI is a non issue just like a knife
How about we wait for another year for them to release gpt5 and then make assumptions like whether it is impossible for AGI to emerge or not at 10,50 or 100 trillion parameters level.
Of course it lacks certain features like agency, autonomy, planning ahead, memory, flexible real time learning etc and improvement and introduction to new algos, but the point is, it may not really take as long to solve these issues as we used to think, especially when unprecedented research backed by tones of money is backing it.
If you know anything about the cellular automata and how complexity emmerges, you will most likely be proven wrong this decade itself.
It's time for VFX and GAMES artists to Unionize.
They should have done a long time ago but they were mostly too selfish to do so because of the kinds of money they were getting compared to the physical arts, it was considered you get what you deserve. The wildwest of arts related industry!
They shouldn't ask companies not to replace them with AI. Companies who exploit AI will inevitably be more efficient and cost effective putting companies who still use human creators out of business. They need to target politicians and get legislation passed to restrict AI and punish companies who use it
@@UnknownUser69698 I do not disagree, but that is like asking companies not to use machines to take the job from those who did it by hand/manual labor.
Those with the money (often) always wins, and they will here too.
@@UnknownUser69698 you are a delusion luddite; imagine wanting to use state violence to "punish" people for using a technology lol
@@UnknownUser69698 Replace politicians with AI.
At 50, I was just scraping by, no idea what I can do if it all dries out in the future? I have the option to move to Italy and live in my small remote farm, cheaply. I am not good at anything else apart from design!
I got get this take... if you're good at design you must be good at creative programs. Why not learn how to add ai into your workflow to offer more for your clients? Learn 3d, all of these things will always be relevant.
Who could have seen this coming? Totally unexpected that companies would choose cutting down costs on artist salaries. Brave new world we have created for ourselves. Can't wait until all white collar jobs are rationalized away by this BS
it's been expected for 25 years if you had ever learnt Artificial Intelligence. but many think their gravy train is going to last longer than other peoples, every non physical job can be removed by technology over time, the problem has always been how quickly can you get ahead of it, or how else can we deal with social problems using economic fallacy!
@@GaryParris not just non physical jobs can be automated away. And calling being an artist a gravytrain is insane and laughable. Since when is it a well paid job anyways? Such a scummy answer with zero empathy for the hardship and unemployment it will cause. AI is a much faster accelerating field than other technologies that came before and causing a much bigger loss of work in society that will cause major instability and uproar. Just telling people "uhm actually you should have learned AI 25 years ago 🤓" is not a solution and shows that you don't understand how a basic society is supposed to function. I will not further engage with sociopaths
i think we will need way more nurses and janitors and less artists and it workers in the future. i mean we already do, just look at how insanely fast we import third worlders into europe and the US to fill those jobs since they are more willing to be exploited and enslaved and treated poorly. great shift is coming
@@rickysargulesh1053Losers lose winners win . Art and music industries always have been a gamble due to is subjective value. Arranging pixels in different order does not contribute to civilisation in any way .
I honestly think its time for a union in this industry. Its a shame that studios really think an AI can do the work a person can.
Its truly a shame the state of this industry games and film studios closing and being bought out by other studios, strikes, mistreatement of employees due to lomg working hours, walk outs.
The industry needs fixing asap.
It was a large part of why the writers and actors went on strike last year. The same is needed in many industries, now.
@@EdNorthcottexcept no one missed the writers as they couldn't write their trash stories for once.
this should have happened 25 years ago. but ego and youth is hard to educate.
I worked for an Asian gaming studio (early last year) as a 3D Environment Artist. They are transitioning to scrapping many of the concept artists and just use AI to generate multiple concepts and provide those to the 3d artist to use as reference.
That is a good way to save money. Artist are expensive.
I think it's important to remember that the danger of job loss is not unique to artists. As productivity goes up, less workers will be necessary for nearly every job industry. I kinda feel like only the top 10 to 20% of positions in each field will remain.
That is why it is not good to work for others be independent.
Massage therapist. Midjourney can't do that.
I think the opposite. The top fields will be replaced first.
1)This is not like other tech revolutions that replaced primarily muscle power. This is replacing brain power.
2) The return from purchasing an expensive AI system is greater when used to replace an expensive high salary manager, than a low salary worker. In fact, it may be cheaper to continue to pay for the low salary worker with his low cost and high versatility, than to use AI.
This tech revolution is not like the others.
@@raphaelprotti5536 I've seen some amazing chairs and add ons
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🎙️ *Discussion on AI policies for the flip normals Marketplace, emphasizing the platform's artist-centric approach.*
02:14 🤖 *Concerns about AI use on other platforms and Flip Normals' commitment to being artist-centric.*
03:23 🚫 *Policy against AI-generated promotional images to maintain authenticity.*
06:50 🌐 *Decision-making process for AI products involves evaluating alignment with values and community feedback.*
09:39 🤝 *Emphasis on artist-friendly approach, avoiding the creation of AI models from user data.*
11:02 ❓ *Community involvement in reporting AI products lacking automated detection tools.*
14:09 🌟 *Team's thoughts on AI, its excitements, concerns, and potential impacts.*
16:13 🔄 *Use of AI tools like ChatGPT for efficient task automation with a small team.*
17:51 🚀 *Acknowledgment of AI's potential to aid in concept generation and workflow acceleration.*
19:37 📚 *AI tools, like transcription in Premiere Pro and ChatGPT, accelerate tasks such as creating help PDFs.*
21:38 💡 *AI tools, such as regex and ChatGPT, save time for data manipulation and code-related queries.*
23:15 ⚖️ *Ethical considerations of AI in creative industries and potential job impact.*
30:11 💻 *Challenges with overreliance on AI in workflows, especially during failures.*
32:58 🔄 *Shift from human interactions to AI assistance on platforms, impacting community collaboration.*
38:14 🖼️ *AI's ability to scrape and synthesize data raises authenticity concerns.*
39:37 🤖 *AI models inheriting biases and ethical issues, like gender bias in credit card algorithms.*
41:14 🌍 *Global impact concerns of biased AI models, especially in widely used platforms.*
42:47 🎨 *Ease of using AI tools for artistic creation raises concerns about skill development.*
46:21 🧐 *Difficulty in distinguishing AI-generated content poses challenges for portfolios and marketing.*
51:21 👀 *Concerns about deepfake technology and its potential for misinformation and manipulation.*
54:47 💼 *The negative perception of an AI-driven world in art and technology industries, impacting artists.*
57:48 🖼️ *Concerns about AI's ability to restore images and potentially create fake history.*
59:45 😢 *AI's rise discouraging people from pursuing or continuing traditional art careers.*
01:00:55 🌐 *Speculation about a future shift towards smaller art companies and fewer traditional jobs.*
01:02:58 🌍 *Concerns about a potential future where AI dominates industries, leading to unemployment.*
01:04:52 🤖 *Emphasis on maintaining a platform prioritizing artists and human-centric content.*
01:06:01 🤝 *Advocacy for supporting artists, encouraging the creator economy, and focusing on human-driven content.*
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We need more people and artists to take stances right now. The more people that let it just happen and accept it as an inevitability, the worse it is going to be when it settles in its final state. Right now is the time we need to be fighting for how things are being used. Set the precedent of what should be allowed. If everyone just rolls over and continues to let AI users and companies walk all over the artistic community, they are going to take us for all we are worth. I've already announced to my company that if it comes down to us using AI for work, at least in the way it currently functions, I am gone. If the future of my career requires me to step over the corpses of other artists and their careers, I want no part of it.
As a semi-pro 3d artist, I prefer AI to be used as a tool to help artist for their works. I really wish someone could make an AI to help retopologies a high detail object. But sadly people use it to replace the workforce. We just need technologies that make our work more effective, not to replace us!
great that you guys are in support of artists, but just note it is hypocritical to still use generative AI that takes other peoples jobs: the regex example. Just like in art, code-based AI is pulled from git repos both private and public, so is learning off copyrighted code the same way as art-based AI's. It's taking coders jobs the same as art AI is taking artists jobs. I understand its a great tool for non-techical users, but you can't say this one is ok at the same time as saying the art one is not ok, because non-artists can then just use your same logic to say the art one is ok as just a tool for non-artists.
You bring up a very good point, as he said in the video however this is more of a "tool" to speed things up rather than replace someone. "I spend 10 minutes with chatgpt instead of 3 hours in stack overflow".
I have a friend that works in the programming industry and even he uses chatgpt. For programmers it's definitely a tricky subject because programmers are always looking for ways to automatize their own tasks. From the little bit I know, programmers more so work as debuggers and code managers rather than actual programmers... but I would like to hear more of your thoughts on this, are you a programmer? has this impacted you negatively?
I think where AI may have a flaw is in the problem of 'convergence'. The way things seem to work with software is that one tool often dominates a given space- like photoshop in image editing- or Zbrush in 3D sculpting. If this happens with AI Image Generation- where one tool, like Midjourney for example, becomes the industry standard- this may be a big problem because unlike other tools Midjourney has a massive impact on the final product it creates- the degree of user input is somewhat limited.
Now consider the interface of Midjourney- how is it controlled? Mostly by text prompts combined perhaps with sample images. But here's the thing- in any given case if I want to write a precise prompt I need to use a narrow selection of words. For example, if I want Midjourney to make me an image of a Dragon I will need to use the word 'Dragon' in my prompt- and the same thing applies to everyone else- so we end up with a scenario in which the same tool-Midjourney- is fed very similar text prompts.
The result is likely to be that in any given genre the outputs will converge- my image of a dragon will likely look a bit like your image of a dragon because we both used the same software and we both had to use similar words in our text prompts in order to get our Dragon image. So as more and more people use the same tool and the same small lexicon of words to prompt that tool it seems inevitable that the resulting images will share some overlapping features.
There is a tendancy to assume that AI image generators are completely unbiased in their operation and somehow magically interpret the intent of their user without introducing artefacts of their own into the process. This is literally magical thinking. AI Art machines do not in reality read the minds of their users- what they actually do is create images using the correlations they have learned between a given set of words and a given set of pixel patterns- so in the case of the word 'Dragon' the AI has learned that this word is associated with a given type of pixel pattern and will reproduce iterations of that pattern in response to that word.
This introduces a third kind of convergence, which arises from the fact that in response to the prompt 'Dragon' the AI must synthesize a single coherent image from the vast number of Dragon images it has been exposed to- this means that there is a degree of 'averaging out' involved- a statistical process whereby more weight is given to those aspects of the 'Dragon pattern' that are shared by the largest number of Dragon images it has seen- again we see that the software is likely to converge on some features of Dragon images more than on others- resulting in a somewhat generic Dragon 'type'.
In summary then as the use of AI image generators becomes ubiquitous- and especially if a single model-like Midjouney- comes to dominate the image generation space- the result will be that in any given genre where these tools are used the resulting outputs will display a degree of similarity. In isolation this may not be apparent to the users- but seen 'en masse' it will become noticeable that everyone's outputs look similar. From a Marketing perspective this is not good, since often the entire point of using images is to establish brand or product identity.
So it may well be that the very speed and convenience of AI Images will lead to them becoming 'overexposed' in the sense that people start to see any product with AI images as being related to other similar products that also use AI images- say, for example, two computer games in which the dragons appear oddly similar in design because the designers used Midjourney to make their game assets. Over a long enough time span I suspect that the 'AI look' will become it's own cliche', one that will be actively avoided by anyone who wants their product to seem unique and stand out from the crowd.
this is an interesting viewpoint but in reality you can train your generator with specific images to create a very tailored output. so you can create a quite stylized and specific output. you can do this now in midjourney. also the -style command can control the output look and feel.
you can also train your own lora with specific images in Stable Diffusion which again can create a quite tailored output.
this kinda negates your argument that everything will end up being samey.
if you use the AIs on default vanilla settings then yes i’d agree with you but they are highly customizable
@@feralmode What you say is true of course- just as a human artist might work in different styles and mediums AI's can be trained to do something analogous. But I would argue that you are falling into the trap of assuming that AI's are entirely transparent in the way they operate- that their own internal processes leave no trace on the images they produce- to me this idea seems unlikely. For example if you look at a collection of AI images from Midjourney and a collection from Dall-e the two sets of images can be seen to be different to each other- no matter what the subject matter or style applied may be- Midjourney images tend to be more artistic or cinematic while Dall-e images tend to be a little more literal and less dramatic. This is surely a non controversial claim- after all the two models are products of different algorithms and training regimes. Indeed it would genuinely strange if they did not display a degree of individual bias in their outputs. There is no such thing as an unbiased AI because each model must be the result of the specific programming and training used to create it.
So my point really is that just as human artists cannot help but develop individual styles that make their works identifiable, no matter what subject or medium they choose to work in, the same must be true of AI Art models- each will exhibit consistancies and identifiable visual markers that will persist no matter what style or subject they are trained to produce.
That being so- if a given model is very widely used- it's outputs will be seen to converege toward these visual markers. Humans are themselves very good at pattern recognition and in time will learn to notice when an image is a Midjourney image or a Dall-e image or an image created by a well known human artist.
It's interesting that while the arguement is often made that AI's learn from their training data in a manner similar human artists, the logical extension of this arguement is seldom pointed out- which is that human artists then go on to develop unique personal styles that make their work identifiable. That being so why is it not also true that AI Art Generators have unique individual styles that make their outputs identifiable? The AI Art community seem to find this idea uncomfortable- perhaps because it challenges the myth that the images they create with AI are pure and unbiased expressions of their own intent- which is a quasi mystical idea that ignores the reality that the more powerful the tool, the larger an imprint it will leave on the things created by it.
From a commercial perspective it would be a mistake to hire the same artist that your competitors used if you want your product to have a distinct visual identity. So using Midjourney when everyone else also uses Midjourney might not make sense if it proves true that the images Midjourney creates exhibit distinct and consistent patterns in it's outputs that are-like a human artist's personal style- impossible to entirely eradicate because they are derivations of it's basic algorithmic and training methodologies.
@@paulhiggins5165 again you are making the point that the AI converges stylistically.
my point is you can be very granular in your stylistic requirements to the degree that this fine tuning can be its own unique style.
have you spent much time using midjourney or stable diffusion? i get the feeling you are coming from a hypothetical viewpoint.
if you’ve spent a long time using the AI’s and develop a little experience you can see how customizable they are in terms of visual output. stable diffusion more so than midjourney but MJ is working on being more customizable while still trying to be user friendly.
@@feralmode Style is not really relevant here at all. A human artist can work in different styles but they cannot escape the many influences both biological and learned that lead their outputs to exhibit discernable qualities and charecteristics that make their works recognisably their own.
At root the question is a simple one- can it be claimed that any given AI model is free from bias in it's outputs?
If the answer to this question is no then it's inevitable that any given AI Art Generator will display a distinct visual bias in it's outputs- no matter what particular style it has been trained to emulate. And if a population is exposed to a large enough number of examples it will eventually become sensitized to that bias.
I think we can agree that Midjouney and Dall-e- for example- do display distinct bias in their outputs- these models are not the same and neither could be swapped out for the other without this impacting on the results obtained.
My point is simply that if a large number of people and organisations use the same tool and that tool inevitably leaves an indelible impact on it's outputs then those outputs will begin to converge in the perception of the public.
The result being that products intended to possess unique visual identities may instead seem to be related to each other in unintended and undesireable ways.
'visual bias', 'visual identities' are these not essentially similar to styles? you're getting into semantics here.
and my point is, again, for the third time that this 'convergence' you talk about is not necessarily a fixed or inevitable attribute. you can control it.
but i'm repeating myself here and you don't seem to be listening to my point.
have you even used midjourney?
@@paulhiggins5165
Excellent episode as always. It's so odd that saying "We Are Pro Artists" feels like a bold stance these days...
AI is a complex topic, because its very hard to have a complete overview.
Fx. you say it would be bad to loose all entry level artist jobs, but are fine with using AI to make small scripts for processing data or create useful regular expressions (regex). Aren't those small scripts and regex in the area that an entry level programmer could do?
I am not saying you are wrong in automating the boring tasks, I am saying that many parts of the AI topic are complex. Who will define what is ok to automate and what isn't?
No debate about AI can be taken seriously without discussing Copyright.
As an artist, you copy every artist you have ever seen
@@dedlunch shut the fuck up, that's not how it work
@@dedlunch that's completely different from training an ai on someone's work without their consent. really stupid comment
Everything AI spits out is by default public domain.
Meaning you owe nobody royalties.
This should be reason enough for studios not to go into AI.
@@UnknownUser69698well, technically, the human brain is a network of neurons, a neural network
Thank you for your work guys. The time has come for generations of artists to be heard, to discuss and educate people about what we look for In arts. Emotions, human efforts. We need tool that make our effort more efficients, and give us more control. Not technologies that replace our creative thinking and make us loose power over our work.
Let's strive as artists, and not become users.
AI is not only replacing the 3D artist (albeit slowly right now), it is impacting a ton of different jobs. Be prepared to fight to even land a job in a convenience store. I think I am going to hang it up and find another hobby, perhaps knitting!
Self checkouts are replacing workers at supermarkets too.
@@zk4929 there so much theft in my city, they are reverting back to normal checkouts
Has AI replaced any 3d artist yet? I would be highly surprised if you could actually generate anything usable
Oh ive seen some scary good stuff..@@UnknownUser69698
nah, i still don't even see the "2D artist replacement" that everyone was talking about few years ago. AI is having the same isues that it have at the beggining, every work of "art" still looks AI and microwaved
We really should unionize…. The accountants already did it
this is just me being optimistic here, but could it be that artists will remain and all ai will just be kind of irrelevant noise on the outside? Does ai have to "eliminate" all artists? Do people still value that it's human made? Will there be a big push to elevate human made over computer made?
But, but... 3D AI-generated meshes are pure garbage. It's almost impossible to use that crap in any commercial project because of the horrendous quality. I'd love to use some for my personal projects, but it's not even good enough for that right now. It's not denial, it's fact.
For those frequenting Art station, there is a popup checklist on the bottom right that can exclude all content created by AI.
Which is a sick reversal of responsibilities. AI platforms should have to ask for permission from the original creator if they intend to use 3rd party work.
By now if an art platform allow AI image to co-exist along with real artwork, that mean they're feeding your artwork to their AI generator, there's no other reason for that kind of co-exist at all. So if you exclude all content created by AI, the artist still suffer from AI thief even if you want so see AI image or not.
Not the point. The idea of a portfolio website for artists is for artists to showcase their own art amongst peers, create a community of professionals. AI art is taking the attention away from the actual professionals using stolen art, the existing community is being spammed and their reputation besmirched by low effort AI art and complete newbies. It isn't a good gallery to showcase art that artists are proud of anymore, just by putting your art there you're just going to be judged by recruiters and other professionals like "oh you're another AI prompt generator, not an actual artist. I'm moving on."
@@applepie9806 True, Artstation is not a good soil to grow anything anymore, you're etheir move to Cara art platfrom or stay in artstation to be eaten by AI worm and rot away day by day.
AI is certainly a huge challenge to adapt to. As someone in their (early!!) 40s I can remember when some studios were like "they're using photos in their texturing? HA! True 3D artists hand paint all their own textures for each surface property." I took a break from 3D for about 6 years and when I came back to it, I couldn't believe how many asset packs people were using, and auto-painting or detailing tools in Substance Painter etc. The industry has seen constant huge shifts in technology and what people will still consider artistry or not. HDRIs for lighting? Trash for n00bs who don't understand the art!! It will be interesting to see where the balance ends up with AI.
I think the quality standards for products will skyrocket. Whatever ai can save time on will leave more time to work on something else.
In the near future, AI's impact on the visual arts business can be likened to the transformation seen in the music industry with the tools used by contemporary "rappers" and DJs. Numerous artists, likely the majority, might not have emerged in the art scene without the assistance of digital algorithms for music production and voice modification for synchronization. Some have become multimillionaires in the digital transformation without learning to sing.
I think photography raised these same issues with artist in the past. As it replaced things artists did.. I think AI will evolve to support the talents artist have, because a talented artist is still a talented artist with or without AI.
@@colbyr.adamson4427 you guys are so naive, maybe it will be true for some projects.
But I believe that big companies are juste gonna do the same quality as before if not worse but with higher release frenquency. It's just about money at the end, dont be fooled by the "helping artists work faster" argument.
@mathisrodriguez3461 The reason is because of competition, with ai a dude could make what we're making now. Multi million dollar company could always make better.
Hey guys I got your Humble Bundle set and really really appreciate the information you guys allowed to be shared on the Humble Bundle thanks so much
I was at the bookstore yesterday and I saw a series of books, that to my eyes, totally looked like AI art. It wasn't, at least I think i wasn't made with AI. It was probably just illustrated in a style that AI likes to copy. But I find myself questioning the art I see now, and I don't like that.
My favorite episode in the series so far. Many really important points raised. Top stuff, keep up the good work guys!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Wow, I knew you had a small team, but didn't think it was just 3 people!
Really makes me happy to hear how much you guys care about the art community. I'm all for whatever you have planned in the future
20:24 ChatGPT "stole" idea, job, from anther writer, keep your writer's jobs. Yes, safe you time, as 2:44 had addressed nicely, automation take other jobs, safe time for "your" other creative task, it can take other's idea. AI "sample" other writing, coding too. When technology comes, artisans go out of job.
May be, "real" artist survive are those who use real pen, brush, ink colors. Note: I'm not being satire here, back when digital "artist" take over pen&ink for art we have been there, done that. The "art" create "manually" by artisan will become luxury items. Commodity picture will be come consumable goods by automation.
Inevitably AI will continue to expand exponentially in the next decades, I think in the future AI will be the norm in many fields, and manmade 3D models will be a sought out and very valorated niche. As in mass produced, cheap wood furniture vs Craftsmans woodwork.
Sadly but realistically, the market likes big profits and quick mass production (who doesn't like making money?). Hopefully, as some jobs declined many new ones will appear.
Mad respect to you guys for taking the human and artist focus. Would love to see a future FlippedNormals portfolio site if funding ever came along for it. 💪
I'm not sure of the scale of it but companies are def gonna fire some or a lot of people in exchange for AI workers. There is a company in my home city of Gothenburg (Sweden) called MindArk, they develop Entropia Universe, they layed off about 25 people last year (about 40% of all their employees) to instead implement more AI apparently. It feels so so... I am not against AI as a type of help but artists and other losing theirs jobs like this is just sad...
Ya, I have industry xp as a wrangler - that's my entry job. The plan was to skip any film or art school since I already have a BA and a comp sci diploma - but I feel herded into an IT role as opposed to an artist role in fear of losing my job to AI. Roto gone, matchmove - eventually, FX? probably. But I don't have the artistic chops to model or DMP either.
Remember to set your robots.txt file to deny scrappers (google up the details; it's an official standard). At least will help with scrappers that are ethically programmed (if the coder is aware of the standard, of course).
Finally a breath of normality. I think one of the only good applications of AI generators so far has been how many respected people turned out to be either absolutely shallow and ignorant of the broader picture, or complete sociopaths.
I'm a graphic designer. The invention of Adobe in the early 90s took peoples' jobs (type-setter, film-runner, film-checker, design assistant, art director, designer, and more) and combined them into one role, the modern-day, entry-level graphic designer. Graphic designers used to be more senior staff members, so this created an opportunity for talent to skip to mid-level opportunities.
That being said, technology-savviness used to be an advantage, but modern tech is easier to use, so when you erase entry-level, you're also turning mid-level work into entry-level work. (and you're cramming dozens of more tasks onto a mid-level person's plate to compensate).
So these entry-level jobs won't go away, they'll just complete more tasks in the same position. You'll be able to experiment more.
I was thinking something like that too. It sounds like entry level may require a higher skill floor
Bro but how do you work with ai art? It's not like you have access to its layers, its not like you can edit the fingers in it flawlessly. Ai doesnt use brushes or adobe tools, it simply caluclates pixels. This is literally ruin for concept artists, background artists etc. There's no adaptability, companies just prompt concepts and backgrounds until it looks good, and voila. Please stop with these stupid past examples. Adobe products were always meant to be a tool, generative ai is not meant to be a tool, its not hard to use it, its a replacement, there's nothing hard in typing words. The quality is astounding, many companies use it now. Adobe products were very hard, you still have to learn drawing concepts,photography concepts tools, filters, VFX etc. but what is hard about prompting that will make companies want to pay you? 3 people gather and prompt until they hit something good, then prompt some more, and think which prompt looks the best for their project.
@@piotrek7633 If you're a savvy Photoshop user with a background in traditional art, then you can work magic with object select tool in no-time regardless of #of layers. So there's a place for traditional tools alongside Ai and it saves you some time on semi-custom works.
The adobe illustrator has a generative art feature that actually has editable vectors too.
I see lots of complaints/comments from non-artists about ai generated art on social media. I think big companies see ai as a way to save big money, but many of the the actual consumers are tuned off by consuming content that was robot-made.
Yes, many ai gen art looks cool or surreal, but ultimately humans don't want to be consuming media that is all robot-made.
I'm seeing more and more comments on social media from people who are growing weary of AI-generated art. Perhaps this is a good sign for real artists.
There was a new paper on 3D model generation using some kind of refining voxels noise (where in 2D we have pixels). It's crude and still unusable, but shockingly advanced for a first draft. They're already working on it, so you guys are right to think ahead. What I want, is the option for an artist to choose. Artist and client can choose to use an AI trained on their OWN art, and only their own art, if they wanted to deliver a prototype fast, or they can choose the old fashioned way. That's what I thought AI tools should have been for artists
Thank you so much for being one of the few artist-centered platforms out there
As a 3D sculptor I can't count the amount of times in the last year the concepts I have been presented are AI directed or 100% AI. What can I do? Turn away work? I'm not in a position where I can say no to work.
Now is the time to focus on fundamentals. There will be loads of people wasting their time trying to make "random seed" everything software do what they want, while neglecting the fundimentals - story telling, composition, piepline, a personal vision, experience. oh but multimodality and control net... If you work with a client, you will always need access to every part of the pipeline that AI doesn't give. Remember, your brand or studio clients are packed to the brim with middle managers whos only purpose is to make changes - they need to do it to stay relevant. So now you have to change the hair color, I can go back to 3d or I can do it in post with mattes, oh but AI... and its not 32bit liner workflow. Its not in acesce and I have no idea what the format or sensor that's supposed to be... In a few years we'll look back at the absolue BS that is the latest venture capitalist junk. Self driving cars, coworking space, dtc medical, digital money, and the list goes on and on.
Hit the nail on the head, fundamentals matter, i can confidently say that there will be loads of eye candy trash out there but the fundamental will be missing
This was an amazing and insightful talk, I am glad to see other artist standing up against the corporations trying to phase us out. They need our minds and ideas or their tech doesn't work. I think this needs to be at the forefront of our minds these next few years. We need to come together and create our ideas to fight against these AI bots or corporations.
Good on you guys highlighting things like data scraping that can't be fully controlled by good policy. It can be hard for hard work to thrive in such a suddenly unethical environment without help from the platform and community
Im delighted with this important conversation getting out to so many people.. too many truly dont understand how destructive this mess is and thoughtfully discussing these issues helps immensely
C suite execs have an exploit button and that is the only job they’ve ever known.
well what if the trends will shift, like soon digital art stuff or ai generated art will become mainstream and not cool anymore. And cool market will shift to manual traditional art ? handmade 3D scanned clay sculpture or charcoal paintings will be the grail in art world.
My thoughts exactly. Traditional arts are not only immune to AI, but it will get a recognition boost when everything digital will become suspicious. It's easy to detect AI generated stuff nowadays, give it a few more years and it will be very hard to spot the difference for untrained eyes. A traditional painting however, can't be made with a machine yet.
@@axl87 yes. things that are not factory made more like sewn, cuts, basically crafted by human are more precius these days. It can be incorporated for commercial art like games and animation as well. I bet some perfect imperfections will highly appreciated in the future.
@@axl87 gai 3d printers are probably in the works right now.
People who are artist are going to hate AI image creators and those who can't draw are going to love it. AI cuts down on time, money and gives those who don't have the skill "The ability". In the long run this is the world we are in now and those who are against AI and trying to fight it are going to lose in the long run. There are probably more people without skills as an artist than those who have skills. We better find our way away from money and quickly. We need another system because this one isn't going to work for much longer.
It's totally fine to make the choices you think work best for Flipped Normals.
But I think its really important to clarify that allowing utility tools does indeed do everything that image generative tools also do.
It uses people's underlying code as a basis to generate new code to make tools. that is in fact ultimately replacing technical artist's jobs and replacing software developer's jobs. So it is not different.
The reality is artists feel more ok threatening the work of developers/technical artists than they do about threatening other artists.
ai is here to stay. but this common mindset to me feels a bit more of protecting our own mindset, then it is caring about the fundamental issues. eitherway Flipped Normals is only one place out there and can't fundamentally change the entire internet's usage of ai, so i place no particular blame on you guys. I just prefer to view things with a great deal of honesty.
(for perspective, i divide my time about half/half between art and technical/coding in the vfx space )
Taking jobs from artists is horrible; do NOT do that. But taking jobs from developers, no problems... 😅
Dont be a luddite. AI is already here. If you refuse to get with the times and use this as a new tool, you will fall behind those that are not afraid to use it. The more you resist, the more you suffer. If you choose to stick to your current expertise, you may be happy for the personal independence, but your art is more now niche than ever. You may distignish between the handmade and AI, but the consumers will not care.
What you know about the luddites is biased. Luddites had legitimate grievances that we are still dealing with today.
@@carultch Then farming was our biggest mistake. We should all still be hunter gatherers. They have grievances but they weren't legitimate; they were worried about their own jobs and lives, not for humanity as a whole. Human progress will always optimize and most careers in history have gone extinct thanks to technology. You can want your clothes made by hand, but there are 8 billion people here that don't want to be naked.
Finally, a thoughtful intelligent conversation on this subject from the perspective of artists. I really appreciate your perspective guys! And I’m relieved and hopeful that someone with some heft in the industry has defined some boundaries.
It’s gonna be tough, but we’re going to have to lean into the human aspect of our work as a rare commodity, or start more collectives with the mindset of, ‘well, that’s not how we do things around here.’
I think photography raised these same issues with artist in the past. As it replaced things artists did.. I think AI will evolve to support the talents artist have, because a talented artist is still a talented artist with or without AI.
Ai is meant to assist us, speed up our workflows, not replace us.. We must advocate this, and you're doing great job!
The hard pill to swallow is it will cause job loss or lower pay due to that.
@@Dewfie Yep, I lost a job, not sure if you due to ai but something is wrong in the industry atm , I'm guessing lots of factors, but we dont give up, and study harder, work harder, so that your pay - even with ai assistance wont get devalued, although, I dont disagree with you, you might be right to some degree, maybe coders will work less on the code, and also test their own code themselves, but I dont see that it will replace us, there is no chance.. I use AI (bard) for lots of analysis when i study, and i find it makes mistakes, and it leads to discussion.. i dont know i find benefits in this, fuel your fury to better your workflow, thats what im trying to do .. its such a complex topic! I just think that turning away and refusing it entirely is not going to stop it, know your enemy, and make it your ally.. let's hope for the best
The currently layoffs not are connect to AI, MPC, DNEG and others, are doing that for long time.
They're villains and they never cared about natural intelligence but themselves.
Ia will lead to the instagrem effect.. image saturation and stagnation.
so if the ruling on ai is it cant be copywritten does that mean we can just take from these companies and remarket it at a lower price just to bite in to them?
If it gets ruled that they need to start over with ethically sourced materials and everything currently out is illegal does that mean there will be a lot of class action lawsuits?
Can you embed enforceable contracts into metadata of images so if they get scraped the contract in the metadata is now enforceable?
What will happen:
One day someone will "steal" their "copyrights" and sell without their permission, making a lot of money.
Company X with said "rights" would sue.
Will obviously lose in court.
Then this will start an industry and perhaps legal precedent.
copyright is not representative of generated value by a company. they can still sue for loss of their value if you use their content if its involved in a product. people focus too much on copyright to see the reality of industry lawyer tactics. source : a lawyer talking to me. I take no responsibility in this information.
Just my 2 cents( as they say). I would also like an AI that I could give it some concept and ask it to create a variation based on some prompt. In work I've been asked to use Midjourney to generate ideas, which is fine, but I find it wastes more of my time to fiddle with prompts to get it even remotely close to what I want. And then it just gives me 4 really silly versions. So I have to be fiddling with the prompts to get me anything interesting. So...to me AI is a big waste of my time. But I do use it when I get stuck with ideas and I know I can't find it with some google search. But it would be nice to have an AI where the process is simply "here is the image, generate variations based on this and this, and this prompt"
But on the other side, you guys mentioned how fast you solved one of the problems that required regex. Honestly...yeah you did your job faster than learning regex, but next time you need regex you would again go and prompt the AI to get you a working regex, instead of you learning it. And regex isn't that hard at all. It would take you like 10-15min video tutorial to get the basics you most likely needed.
at 46:00 that's what I always try to say to the people who started to rely on the output of AI instead of the output of their skills and dedication. Thought that everything had a shortcut and once that degenerative tool shutdown, they just started drooling in the corner of the room.
Sad times when you invert you flipped normals and they stay depressed.
There weren't a whole heaps of jobs beforehand, especially for junior modellers. I know vets say not to give up, but it's even harder to secure a living now.. I had to return to ft IT work and freelance here and there when I am not exhausted..
@41:00 we already have all of our searches filtered through google, and all our web use filtered through social media...yikes
Artists might feel a bit worried when they see what AI can do, maybe because they don't fully get what it is. Really, AI is like a big, detailed map of everything creative that people have done so far. It means artists don't have to wander around in the dark anymore, accidentally finding the same old stuff again and again. With AI, artists can see where they are and head straight for the edges, ready to explore new places that no one's seen before. So instead of being scary, AI can be like a helpful guide, showing artists where they can go to make totally new and exciting things.
That sounds great, on paper. But in reality, artists who depend on their art for a living will be forced to take lower wages and/commissions. We're not just talking about some recreational activity here. People's livelihoods are at stake.
@@meremortal979 I don't think that will be the case. The thing that gives art it's appeal is it's uniqueness. The thing that sets it apart and makes you notice it. AI generations all have the same sense of familiarity, like you've seen it before. It undoubtably looks fantastic but at the same time you know it already, it feels like it's pushing buttons that have already been pressed.
@@PaulBrunt I appreciate your perspective bud'. But working in the industry has proved to me that creativity and 'uniqueness' only matters if corporate can profit off of it.
@@meremortal979 Why do you think uniqueness doesn't matter? Don't companies still spend $$$ on photoshoots despites the fact that stock photos will often do. Working in marketing I can say we're just spent many thousands on such a shoot, when we could have just used stock. Artists are cheep; when running a campaign, the spend on creative pales in comparison to the cost everything else, yet has a disproportionate effect on results. Companies spend the extra 2/3/4x for a professional instead of a student, yet it doesn't results in something that looks 2/3/4x better! The fact is if skimping on the creative paid then companies would be doing it, and many artists would already be out of a job.
I've found artists more often then not undervalue their work and have no idea how much money they make companies.
Amazing conversation. Hit a lot of important nerves, I have fed a lot of my previous rendered models and scene renders into Ai programs like Magnifique and it is really mind-blowing... the level of detail is mind blowing and also feels like I should obey and make these modifications to my real models in order to improve my final output to compete with ai. 😢😢
I have also already created some music with Ai... pretty decent quality, not always perfect, but surprisingly good vocals, beat and melodies.
Appreciate this discussion. I am a little bit frustrated with artists saying don't panic. Maybe it is good advice in general, and maybe we shouldn't panic per se, but we have to be pragmatic, this will definitely result in job loss. It is an inevitability of technological development. The difference with AI is that it might lead to a complete societal shift where human beings as a whole no longer work, save for a handful of people that direct what the AI needs to accomplish.
Scripts: are created by machines. Houdini, VFX, Generators, and Nodes: are already generated by machines, and codes, and will be dominated by AI Models. Coding, Scripting, it's just the start. Artists in the industry will use those tools because they need to work faster, and more efficiently. Procedural material creation, procedural texture creation. Designer nodes, will be generated by machines. Besides, where do you draw a line? When an artist is using plugins, addons, scripts, procedural "machine applications". Those Artists are all of a sudden banned? It's tech. It will always evolve and no one can stop it. On top of it is the consumer that doesn't really care how things have been made. Did you ever hear a kid asking the question, ohh.. wow, how was that animated movie made? It was an army of artists, that modeled, textured, animated, etc.? Consumers do not really care, they want to consume. Not to blame them, it's just how it is. How you will create digital assets will not matter anymore for the mass-market. Does it matter for individuals, and artists, doing their own thing? Of course. For me it will always matter if a human artist will paint a picture. But that's a different chapter. Also, differentiate digital art from "physical" art. When and where did AI or tech start? 30 years ago, a 3D Artist didn't exist. A 3D Artist today, doesn't even need to know how to paint, or how to draw. He uses digital tools, code written for applications, to use an application. Does this make now an artist a true artist? You see, it's all relative. The "banning" happened also 30 years ago, where every real painting artist that went to art school said: What you want with Photoshop? And a digital pen? You are not an artist, you are a cheater. Then, the digital market evolved, because of digital film, internet and social media. There was a need for digital artists, even so, every digital artist is just the bottom line from any production, getting paid the lowest possible, to maximize profit from the studios, pr producers. How do you want to ban AI? Guys, sorry to disappoint you. But you don't have the funds to ban the big tech and the progress. The artists are always the poor folks, being used for their traditioanl talents and work, to produce some crazy bs. lol; If you want to bann AI, you should also bann Digital Art. Just go back to the roots, create a club for the "starving artists", sell real art, real physical paintings, sculptures, or create physical art in many other ways, like installations, initiatives, build real stuff, produce real products. Images, image sequences (also known as film lol;) it's already dead. 3D Artists will be vaporized soon. Why would an ad agency spend 100xtimes more money on a short commericial, being created via an Agency, 3d Artists, doing crazy 3d modeling, motion capture, vfx, modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, animation, compositing, and and and.. if you can just prompt your damm video or film? You see, 2d images at the end, that's the final product. And end consumers, don't really care. But you still have some niches, where 3d artists will be needed for some time. Like VR, AR, 3D Environments, also games. Models, materials, shaders in run-time, still needed. But even that, is just a matter of time. So when artists ask, what they should do. Become a real artist, physical artist, paint walls, create real sculptures, real painitngs, become extrodinary good at it. Make physical products. But digital products, like images, and even 3D models, will be dominated by machines. If we like it, or not. Then, there is one question left: Why do you even want to ban AI Art or fight the machines? Skynet can't be stopped, Arnold showed us already years ago, right? Best career advice: Leave the digital art space, find something else in your life. Or stay, and you'll be hit. cheers
Yo, Stop throwing the word "Terrified/Terrifying" around when talking about Ai. It makes you and people sound weak and helpless. We're better than Ai. The only difference is their brains are connected to the Web
The only artists crying about ai are either uncreative people recycling old formulas, or people who only care about money. All of the smart artists are learning to take AI, train models on their own unique portfolios, and using them to expedite their productivity. It's not going anywhere. Its only going to get better, more accurate, better images, better VIDEO, BETTER ANIMATIONS, and eventually perfect text to 3d, and within the coming decade, text / voice to videogame. Fighting it is only holding yourself back.
There will also be a lot of things that ai cannot do, at least for now and for a while, and while basic b**** art jobs will likely be condensed into teams that can use these tools, there will be high level high paying and highly valued positions for people who can actually do it by hand.
BTW: using photoshop with layers and ctrl z etc etc etc is to do your illustrating, or procreate, whatever, is already cheating. Moving around mistakes, skewing, transforming, undoing... its all cheating already.
love the video from the beginning to end I do agree if art dies then everything dies. we artist must not give up we must stand together and keep creating
11:19 - With AI, of course... or the good old fashioned way, community intelligence, and a button to report suspicious items.
How do you think about ai generated textures?
I am constantly on the search for textures to use for my models. I usally do Roughness Bump and high maps etc. out of them. Basic PBR-Material workflow.
Despite I have my camera with me all the time you can imagine I can not photograph all textures by myself. You know, I don't have the ressources to travel to egypt for photoshoot the walls of a pyramide every second month. 🤷🏻♂️
So mostly I rely on stock images. Stock photos like that are more and more ai generated anyways. Often not even easy to distinguish. And I still would have to search my ass out for content, what slows down any productivity.
Why not take the shortcut and generate some source material for textures or brushes with midjourney or stable diffusion by myself and keep on doing my art with it. Instead of everyone wasting so much time with searching a certain photo.
i don't think AI is a buzzword that will fade eventually dude. i mean i guess if some sort of apocalyptic scenario happens, like the sun frying all technology? even then humans would just rebuild everything and AI would become an objective again. it's inevitable
There's nothing you can do, it's over. I'm just training my body instead so I have a chance to be a contruction worker when I'll be an old man. If the Tesla bots aren't released by then.
Yeah clearly, a lot of people are now preparing themselves to THE transition (for now AI isnt a risk, but it will be in next 5/10 years). "AI humans" robots are too complicated and too expansive so clearly all jobs that required movement with hands or legs and all jobs that aren't behind a PC is safe. So not only the clichés of constructions workers or plumbers, but for example computer repairers (everybody in the world and in their house have techs machines and they're all fragiles)
If it is not artistic, automate it, otherwise AI is morally questionable to say the least...
Fabulous conversation, thank you. The AI genie is well out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in (just like the internet - could you really imagine the world without it?). It'll be enormously disruptive for the job market in all sectors. But governments aren't on the ball about the solution. I think it will eventually mean the need for universal basic income.
Internet destroyed artist jobs, reference are so easy to get nowadays.
I'm probably gonna die because of this.
Thinking of switching to oil painting and sculpting and when AI is good enough to start my own game or movie company , with just a small team using AI to lighten the work load.
Honestly with AI us artist having jobs is the lest of my concerns , it could get bad and fast. or it might end up like Star Trek where we are so civilised all that is left to do is explore space.
Best and most objective talk about this topic i heard for a long time! thanks for sharing!
I am not afraid of AI because it is not capable of producing anything useful in 3D. The unfortunate aspect is that clients and even companies comes to artists with fully AI-generated references, but the details and proportions are unrealistic and impractical for realistic execution. Also if you don't do it in the same way as it looks the reference because it wont be usable, they think you are not good artist-it happened to me. Sometimes we have to say No.