Raw LLM Responses

Hi, let me preface this by saying that I am a “traditional” artist, painter, sculptor, and jewelry designer/maker. I have been creating and selling my work for over 25 years now but have been an “artist” since I was a child. I studied art in college (we are talking the 80’s here) with a focus on sculpture and went on to improve my skills as much as possible over the last few decades. I paint in acrylics, watercolor, and oil, and have dabbled a little in digital painting but always preferred more “traditional” ways of making art. Also, I want to mention… I was about 29/30 when I first got on the Internet. It blew my mind and I can clearly remember some people saying it was “cheating” to have access to instant information and not have to look up things at libraries and in books and encyclopedias- can you imagine?! While AI art is clearly a very polarizing subject, I think it’s IMPERATIVE that we treat each other with respect and kindness here and know that everyone is going to differ in life experiences and opinions. Calling each other names and bashing each others’ opinions and beliefs is juvenile and rude, and won’t get any of us anywhere. Being a “traditional” artist, and an older one, I at first rejected AI art and resisted even trying it. However, over the last month I have found an AI generator that allows me to use MY OWN artwork, sculptures, and photos (I use my grown daughters a lot as reference photos, with their permission of course, as well as my pets, and photos I have taken) combined with prompts, to create some very visually stunning artwork that looks like my work but has some fun effects added that would be hard to achieve traditionally. Unfortunately I have yet to have it render many things that were perfect- eyes are often wonky, too many teeth, disjointed limbs, floating objects- so often I have to take them into Photoshop to get them to look like the vision I have in my head- and many people would say why bother? But I find it fun to turn my vision into something tangible so for me it’s worth it. I am not currently using any of the work in anything to make money, it’s just for fun, but I do have some ideas of pendants and brooches I might like to do in the future. Which brings me to my next point… When I first started playing around with AI, I was doing it for jewelry ideas. Also….I should mention.. I KNOW that I am part of the AI training database because if I try and generate art and jewelry using my name and my “professional” name, things clearly INSPIRED by what I have made come up, but nothing even close to spot on. But I can see that it has made the connection to my countless work that’s been posted online for decades. Does that piss me off? I guess it’s supposed to… and the whole point of this video.. but it really doesn’t. I have spent decades being inspired by, and learning through, other artists and their work. While my style is VERY much my own, and very recognizable to my customers, I’d be lying if I said there aren’t certain artists who have inspired me and pushed my work in a certain direction, and I also know that I have inspired and helped beginning artists who have reached out to me both recently and in the past. Anyway… when I started with AI, the incredibly beautiful jewelry designs it came up with were things that blew my mind and things I have imagined but didn’t think were possible…and some weren’t logistically possible to make, but some were… and since I may wind up making some of these things down the road, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything like them anywhere so I decided to do a Google image search on every piece of jewelry I liked that AI generated, as well as the images it created that I liked.. and guess what? Not ONE thing came up for ANY of them in Google image search. Does that mean similar things don’t exist? Probably not. But that tells me that FOR THE MOST PART, AI really isn’t copying EXACT artwork or styles, but drawing inspiration from them, as artists do in the real world. Before some of you SNAP at me, yes, I realize there is proof that it is possible to get AI to generate things very close to the real thing… but I have yet to experience that. Maybe I’m just bad at it 😅. I also 100% agree with the people who have said that it makes them leery about art that people post online, especially digital art, and not knowing if that person made it or if it was AI. I know many people point out that AI art lacks emotion but I can tell you, and this is coming from an artist, that I have seen AI art that has moved me VERY much. The difference is that knowing it was generated by AI and not a human, definitely puts a damper on it for me. So my point here is really that, as many things in life, you can use this tool for good or you can use it for bad. I think it can be useful to help artists flesh out their ideas or give them a visual for a future project, as well as be a way for non-artistic people to be creative and be able to create something beautiful. As someone who has been creative all my life, I can’t imagine not having that ability and I think everyone should be able to feel creative, whatever that takes to happen. I am certainly not mad at non-creative people for embracing AI.. I think it’s a fun tool that has some very good uses. I think where it gets murky is when people generate AI art for profit and DON’T mention that it’s AI generated art and try and pass it off as their own. Not cool and definitely not acceptable. If I were ever to use something I generated through AI for profit, even if it was based on my own work, I would 100% say it was AI generated/enhanced because I am an honest person who always wants to maintain integrity. That being said, I feel that AI is here to stay and will only get better. I do fear that if artists continue to resist it and not somewhat, even if half-heartedly, embrace it, they will be left behind. I understand that some people see this as unfair, and as my mom always said “life isn’t always fair”, but I think there are ways to use AI responsibly and maturely without crapping on the artists that have given their lifelong craft, passion, and work, to these training databases. This is a tough subject and one that’s important to discuss… but it’s also important to stop bashing each other and respect each other’s opinions. I’m assuming most of us are adults here. The hostility has to go. It’s not helping anything at all. Thanks for listening.