There is still a lot of interesting work making use of ML tools. Maybe I'm biased towards art that embraces experimentation and new technology, but I found even images like https://i.imgur.com/Jybvj0r.png (zoom out) far more interesting than most of what I see in galleries.
I think the unique point to ML tools is the sheer volume that, IMHO, vastly outpaces 90%. And I think that's partially down to the fact that image generators are themselves, by their existence, low-effort easy-to-use tools to create images. It's not as though there wasn't already a vast and comprehensive existing tool-set for aspiring artists, even ones with not a penny to their name, to use. Tons of open source art programs exist, and if you are ready to jump to paying for your tools, you have an incredibly diverse set of options over all manner of capabilities, price points, and focuses. The notion that these tools "democratize" art has been silly to me from the beginning; there were already tons of tools available to anyone who wanted to learn the skills to use them. These tools, instead, seem directly aimed at people who don't want to learn those skills, and like... unskilled artisans don't make good things. Sorry not sorry. If you lack the interest in the subject to learn the skills of how to make a thing, you probably also lack the interest to learn what constitutes a good version of that thing, and even if your AI is very well made, you won't know what to really ask it for. Which I think is the reason behind so many prompts including stuff like "octane render, unreal engine, featured on artstation."
So while yes I agree in principle that Sturgeon's law is definitely at work here, I think it's important to note that the tools themselves are largely just... not really going to fit into a creative's workflow who has the skills already, not even just the literal skill to put a pencil to paper, but the skill to know what a good version of whatever they want would look like. It's the same reason I don't really use copilot all that much, because it's easier to just write the stuff I know needs writing than asking it to generate it, and then modify it to suit my code-style and existing environment. I don't find that a compelling time saver, it's more like a time cul-de-sac. Yes I'm spending the time writing the prompt instead of writing the code, but I'm frankly pleased as punch to just write the code.
I guess to TLDR my own comment here: if you knew how to make the things, you'd just make the things. Image generators are explicitly for people who don't know how, and that reflects in the quality of what's made.
Is the same not true of point-and-shoot photography? Or crayons? There's a near-endless supply of low-effort content due to tools designed to be easy-to-use. Anecdotally I still see more "crappy photographs" (many of which my own) than "crappy AI art".
With both you can get deeper into the details, making choices about ControlNets, LoRAs, inpainting, etc.
> [...] people who don't want to learn those skills, and like... unskilled artisans don't make good things. Sorry not sorry. If you lack the interest in the subject to learn the skills of how to make a thing [...]
I probably wouldn't make claims about ML tools "democratizing art", but at the same time I feel this is too reductive in the opposite direction.
There are reasons why working-class people are vastly under-represented in arts. I think limited ability to dedicate a huge chunk of time to a creative pursuit is a largely overlooked reason, not just lack of interest.
I think it's also fine to want to, say, design a game without hand-painting all the normal maps - instead generating them with ML tools based on your textures. Someone not specializing to have fine-level technical skills in all relevant areas doesn't imply lack of creativity/interest at a broader scale.
> I think it's important to note that the tools themselves are largely just... not really going to fit into a creative's workflow who has the skills already
I'd claim lot of ML tools, like generative fill built into various image editors, already do even for those who aren't going out of their way to experiment with ML.
Sometimes it's useful to work at the higher level allowed by automation, and sometimes it's useful to have fine-grained creative control. These aren't mutually exclusive - the approaches can/should be mixed where appropriate. I've had good success with sketching out an initial block-color image, then iteratively diffusing and tweaking it.
Those have a skill floor though, even if it is quite, quite low. If you can't manage to get the object you're trying to take a photo of in-frame, or manage to draw the thing you're trying to draw, there's no amount the tool can do to compensate for that.
> There's a near-endless supply of low-effort content due to tools designed to be easy-to-use. Anecdotally I still see more "crappy photographs" (many of which my own) than "crappy AI art".
I mean it depends how you define crappy photographs. My phone camera is a tool, and I use that tool to document things for all manner of purposes. I wouldn't call those photos artistic in any way at all. It feels like you're deliberately saying "all photos are art, and most of them are bad" when I think the vast, vast, vast majority of those, including by the people who took them, would not be referred to as art.
> There are reasons why working-class people are vastly under-represented in arts. I think limited ability to dedicate a huge chunk of time to a creative pursuit is a largely overlooked reason, not just lack of interest.
Agreed wholeheartedly. But, a working class person who has things they want to express artistically is going hit various walls with generative models very quickly, in much the same way I did. Like, if you feel a creative verve at all, I just can't fathom you looking at the wide assortment of all manner of tooling, and choosing the one where you're playing telephone with a toddler that paints over-smoothed, nonsensical photo-realistic pictures.
And again we go back to the notion that "the process is the point" and as a creative, I completely agree. There are certainly times I feel frustration at my tools and wish they would just make what the hell I'm trying to make, but if that was the entire process, I would get nothing from it. Figuring out what prompt will get you what kind of output is interesting, but it's not fulfilling.
> I think it's also fine to want to, say, design a game without hand-painting all the normal maps - instead generating them with ML tools based on your textures.
To be totally real I've never heard of someone drawing normal maps. I thought the traditional way you went about making those was having a high-detail model inside a low-detail one, and generating them that way.
> Someone not specializing to have fine-level technical skills in all relevant areas doesn't imply lack of creativity/interest at a broader scale.
It's not a matter of high or low skills, it's a matter of wanting skills and wanting easily made repetitive crap. If you're the kind of person who finds it fulfilling to slam text into one of these things and get your teddy bear smoking weed pictures, and that's all you want and are fulfilled, more power to you. I wouldn't personally call that art, nor would I find it nourishing to my creative spirit, I would say that's just instant gratification and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Now if you take that stuff and then go try to sell it... I mean that's your prerogative, I'm definitely not buying and I would encourage anyone else to just type a similar prompt into a generator and get it that way.
