ZigguratAug 1, 2023

How much did photography "stole" painter jobs ?

https://sh.itjust.works/post/2036821

How much did photography "stole" painter jobs ? - sh.itjust.works

With all the fuzz about IA image “stealing” illustrator job, I am curious about how much photography changed the art world in the 19th century. There was a time where getting a portrait done was a relatively big thing, requiring several days of work for a painter, while you had to stand still for a while so the painter knew what you looked like, and then with photography, all you had to do was to stand still for a few minutes, and you’ll get a picture of you printed on paper the next day. How did it impact the average painter who was getting paid to paint people once in their lifetime.

Show threadNotAnonymousAtAllAug 1, 2023

It sure did have a big impact, comparable to what some people expect to happen soon with AI.

However, I think your framing misses the main point of why many artists today are wary about AI: They are not just being replaced, their own work is used as a building block for the tools that will replace them; and they were not asked for permission and don’t even get any compensation for that.

Show threadVlynAug 1, 2023

If you have a basic understanding how AI works then this argument doesn’t hold much water.

Let’s take the human approach: I’m going to look at all the works of popular painters to learn their styles. Then I grab my painting tools and create similar works.

No credit there, I still used all those other works as input and created by own based on them.

With AI it’s the same, just in a much bigger capacity. If you ask AI to redraw the Mona Lisa you won’t get a 1:1 copy out, because the original doesn’t exist in the trained model, it’s just statistics.

Same as if you tell a human to recreate the painting, no matter how good they are, they’ll never be able to perfectly reproduce the original work.

Show threadC4d

Let’s explore this further. When we look at the work of a human we can often see their influences (and they can often acknowledge them or even cite specific works). In a way, they are able to credit those they were inspired by.

Would an “AI” be able to do the same? I’m guessing it probably can, but more as a statistical similarity to other works. I don’t know if it can cite its sources.

Aug 1, 2023 at 7:26amWeb
Show threadVivaceMossAug 1, 2023
A human can say that they were influenced by XYZ but they might not be crediting all of the instructors they had, or all the art books they read, all the stepping stones that got them to the point of being able to produce a work that has an identifiable influence. Then consider the people who influenced the person they’re citing as an influence, and so on and so on. I don’t know that the AI can tell you where every flourish comes from, but the person using it as a tool certainly could tell you what tags they used, which often include "in the style of "
Show threadLaticaudaAug 1, 2023

Instructors and art books literally give permission to use them as a “stepping stone” by definition.

Also the main difference is that a human has a human mind and is making creative decisions unique to that human. The problem is that a narrow AI algorithm cannot be anything BUT derivative. If you never give a human any input they can still make art, that’s why we have cave paintings. But a narrow AI algorithm needs specific input via specific pieces of art or else it can’t create anything. It cannot be anything but derivative. With that in mind permission and consent is much more important to the artists whose specific pieces are being fed into the algorithm.