AI and me
I’ve always been creative, I studied art & design up to degree level. I have worked for 30+ years as a successful artist / designer in diverse fields, graphics, fashion, character design, animation, tv.
As a kid I would scribble endless rolls of wallpaper, I honed my skills with pen & ink, paint from watercolour to airbrush. I have sat on the floor of far away factories & had limited time to produce large artworks for dresses and the like, by hand, in several colour ways, in perfect seamless repeats.
Then came the digital revolution. Everyone screamed ‘art is dead’. Today pretty much everyone I know, including friends who are getting in a tizzy about AI, use painting software, photoshop, illustrator, procreate. Everyone uses a digital pen, Wacom, Apple Pencil.
I would argue that digital tools / pens make the creative process far easier & more intuitive. The software makes it easy to produce ‘perfect’ brushstrokes, layers of colour. And there is the undo feature. Don’t like it? Undo & go again. Then tweak & filter as much as you like.
A few people I have had a discussion with don’t understand the process of generative AI, or AI generated art. There are lengthier explanations but in a nutshell if I was to want to create an image of a vase using AI I would create my prompt: ‘Vase on a metal table in the desert’ or whatever & add my experience of textures, technical camera info, whatever, to get my desired result. The AI has been trained on countless images so would scour it’s knowledge of vases & metal tables to try & get close to my vision. It wouldn’t just pull an existing image from the database, it would create an entirely new and original image from nothing.
Yes if I put ‘Van Gogh’ or ‘Mickey Mouse’ in to the prompt it may return images that draw on those styles. That is a matter for clever copyright lawyers, the same used to apply when I was a commercial artist. If I spotted something that I thought was close to my original I would take it to the legal team who would challenge the creator.
There are grey areas of course but there always has been. Someone showed me their new Tarot deck purchase the other day. I immediately recognised that it ‘borrowed’ heavily from classic decks. In fact on closer inspection I would argue that the images were scans of the original decks that had been manipulated. I pointed this out to my friend, who incidentally has an issue with AI, & she didn’t care. She was happy with her deck & didn’t care what I thought.
Similarly I had a discussion with someone who was a photographer who again was moaning about AI. I asked what camera they used. They didn’t have one everything was done on a smartphone. So their process is the image is shot on the phone (using a system loaded with AI). That image is then put through filters in LightRoom or similar, again big chunk of AI, before being filtered (AI) & finally released in to the Instagram algorithm. A looong way from the process I learnt in the darkroom at art college.
AI is just another tool to get my ideas out there. This sketch from my sketchbook was worked in to with ink & wash, augmented in AI and then finished in photoshop & illustrator before being uploaded to instagram. It depends ultimately on your ideas, your creativity. If you can control the medium rather than just pumping out random images. It reminds me of the Infinite monkey theorem.
There is a line for me. I don’t like people taking something running a filter across it & then flogging it on the internet.
Art has been a significant form of human expression for thousands of years. However, with the advent of AI technology and machine learning algorithms, there has been a growing interest in exploring the intersection between AI and human creativity. This intersection has led to the development of AI art, which refers to artwork created with the assistance of machine learning algorithms.
AI art has opened new doors for artists who are looking to incorporate technology into their creative processes. By leveraging the power of AI algorithms, artists can explore new possibilities and push the boundaries of traditional art forms.
AI art has also prompted debates around the notion of artificial intelligence being creative. While some argue that AI can never truly replicate human creativity, others believe that algorithms can produce art that is innovative and unique. Regardless of the differing perspectives, there is no denying that AI art has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion in both artistic and technological circles. Moreover, AI art is not only changing the way we create and perceive art but also raising questions about how these advancements will impact jobs in the creative industry, as AI art has the potential to automate certain aspects of creative work and reduce the need for human intervention. However, it is worth noting that AI art cannot replicate the emotional depth and personal experiences that human beings bring to their creative endeavors. This is where I would argue my experience as a designer will always produce a better image than just anyone punching ‘Monkey on a motorbike’ in to an AI.
AI art is still in its infancy and has a lot of room for growth, leaving us to wonder what exciting developments will emerge as artists continue to explore
Generative AI how does it really work
Generative AI has become a buzzword in the tech industry, promising to revolutionize everything from healthcare to finance. But what exactly is generative AI and how does it work? Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can generate new and original data based on patterns it has learned from existing data sets.
This is achieved through the use of deep neural networks, which can analyze large amounts of data to identify patterns and relationships. Once the neural network has analyzed and learned from the data, it can be used to generate new content, such as music or images. For example, a generative AI model trained on images of flowers could generate new, unique flower designs that have never been seen before. Generative AI works through a process of training neural networks on large data sets, which it then uses to identify patterns and generate new content that is similar to the original data. The neural network can generate new data by making probabilistic predictions based on what it has learned, and this process can be repeated many times to create a large number of new, unique outputs.
Generative AI has the potential to transform a variety of fields, but it requires large amounts of high-quality data and powerful computing resources. Generative AI models can be used for a variety of purposes, such as generating new designs, improving medical diagnosis accuracy by analyzing patient data, or assisting in drug discovery by identifying new compounds or molecules based on existing data.
One of the main advantages of generative AI is that it can enhance human creativity by generating new and unique content, which can be useful in fields such as art and design. However, there are also concerns about how generative AI may be used, particularly in regards to the implications for data privacy and security.
In summary, generative AI is a powerful tool that uses neural networks to analyze patterns in large data sets, and generate new content based on what it has learned. This technology has the potential to revolutionize many industries, from art and design to healthcare and finance. However, it also raises important ethical considerations that must be addressed to ensure the responsible use of this technology. Generative AI is a highly innovative technology that can be used to improve productivity, innovation and creativity across many fields but it also requires careful consideration of privacy and security concerns. Generative AI has the potential to transform industries such as healthcare and finance by analyzing patient data or identifying new compounds, respectively. In order for generative AI to be effective, it requires access to large amounts of high-quality data and powerful computing resources. As with any new technology, there are concerns about the implications of generative AI for data privacy and security.
If you are interested you can see some of my AI work on my instagram @omaratarot more often than not it is hybrid work with mixed media & photoshop. If I am sat alone just trying to understand the circus in my head I am most likely to express that through the medium of pen or pencil. Who knows, maybe one day I will go full circle, get old school & start another feed just of daydream doodles & sketches.
If you see an image & enjoy it I would say that art has done it’s job, if it’s not ripping anyone off does it really matter how it was created & more importantly would you be able to tell anyway?
