Beyond the myriad ethical failures of Generative AI software ---
Generative AI software: Never ate a bad meal. Never lost a loved one. Never felt its stomach lurch on the swing set. Never felt embarrassed by a social gaffe. Never held a child. Never held an unpopular opinion. Never laughed at an inappropriate joke. Never acted upon a misunderstanding that resulted in a damaged relationship. Never had a good day. Never had a bad day.
Never idly wondered what the unlikely offspring of an echidna mated with an ostrich would look like.
Here's the overwhelming difference--- when an art director talks to me, they have an idea of what they want and what they would like me to do-- but they also want my unique creative input and voice. They count upon it.
They can communicate with me via our shared human experience and language. I can successfully infer countless instructions from the briefest of exchanges.
Even the most vague vapor of a thought can be built upon and given substance for meaningful discussion.
I bring expertise and execution--- but I also bring understanding of what they're after on an intuitive level and can help them to further develop and shape their ideas. Provide another perspective to further inform the concept.
True collaboration.
It's deep knowledge. Human knowledge. Actual intelligence. The education provided by living and sharing the experience of circling the sun on this rotating ball of mud.
When you type prompts into an engine--- you aren't collaborating. You aren't directing. You aren't creating. You're only praying to an opaque mystery that you hope understands you.
It doesn't. 1's and 0's don't understand you any better than you understand them.
Work with people. They're messy, but they're worth it. ;)
If AI is threatening to you at this point, you aren't really an artist. You are an illustrator (or whatever the written equivalent is) who was hoping to convert the ability to churn out pictures of the latest anime waifu, someone's furry OC, or a niche fetish into a source of income.
A real artist sees AI and thinks, "Hey, an automatic junior artist that can do [Backgrounds/colors/whatever the part of my work that I find least interesting and most tedious] quickly and for free with a reasonable degree of competence.
A real artist thinks, hey, I can train a LoRA on my own work, have the AI learn my style, then have it work from my sketches and skip to the touch ups at the end.
A real artist thinks, maybe the AI could give me some inspiration with this thing I gave up on half way through.
A real artist is probably thinking about how they could use an AI to speed up their workflow enough to progress into animation.
Or forgoing all that. A real artist instead ignores AI and produces art because they're passionate about it, having the humility to admit that there will always be others out there that will outshine them, but still persisting because it's about creation and expression, not fame and profit.
If you can't do any of these things, you aren't really an Artist, and you need to get a real job (one that is part of an industry that produces goods or services required by the general population) like the rest of us.
Agreed.