Yes. That’s the answer. AI, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), is going to eventually ruin the entire space. Some are optimistic and will only say it’s going to change the space. Yes, change it for sure. Like turning it upside down.
Just like ChatGPT, Gemini, and some other AIs can do with music – create songs in the style of any well-known artist you choose – even putting music to it! They will also create art in the style of any famous artist. AI artists will become masters at line drawings. Landscapes. Portraits. Illustration of any kind. Eventually it will paint with oil paints, watercolor, charcoal, pen, pencil, and crayons.
Artists around the world are going to be conflicted about what to do in the face of this threat.
Making a decent living from your art is going to fade away. And, probably faster than you think.
How Much Time Do Artists’ Have to Switch Careers?
The writing is on the wall. AI can already to amazing works of art in their current iterations. They’ll certainly have mastered every kind of drawing art on paper and canvas by the end of this year. If not this year, then 2025.
Time is short.
What will you do?
The art world is facing outright obsolescence. What can be done – anything?
What Is the Threat of AI in Real Terms?
Amazing Art in ANY Style or Combination of Styles
The threat is that AI will be able to create art in any style according to a simple or complex text prompt. You could tell it to create an alien landing scene at night in the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night with some alien visitors in the style of Picasso, with just black and white – pencil drawing – and you’ll have a masterpiece in seconds.
I’m not sure that anyone has hooked up an AI to a pencil holding robot yet, but it’s coming. For sure it’s coming, if it isn’t already being done. Masterpieces like we have never seen are going to fill the art world with unique styles and works that blow our collective minds (and incomes).
The images shown on this page were created by Dall-e. For free.
I gave this prompt, “Create a painting of a ufo landing in a field of wheat in the style of Van Gogh’s starry night. Add some alien beings in almost human form standing around the area in the style of Salvadore Dali. Use the colors of Van Gogh for the landscape and UFO. Use the colors of Dali for the aliens. The colors in the previous images you created were a bit too bright. Dim them down a bit.”
They’re not perfect, but of course this isn’t the latest or best AI art out there. It’s available to anyone though. For free. If I painted any of these, it would have taken over an hour, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it this good. I may try, just to see what happens!
Oh, and though I get a few free credits and made these without cost, they sell credits so you can make as many images as you want. The cost for a high-def large image 1024×1024 made with the latest iteration of Dall-e is just 8 cents per image. Imagine in a year, the price will be a fraction of a cent and the quality even better.
Speed and Exactness in Reproductions (Endless Originals)
Not only will AI be able to create works of art using any medium eventually, but it will be able to do so at the warp speed. It may take an artist a week to paint a mural size painting in oils or acrylic. It may take an AI just minutes or a couple hours.
The AI can reproduce a work of art EXACTLY as it did the first time. As artists, we can print out a work of art on a printer and it will come out similar as the original – if the original was on paper, canvas, or some other non-digital form.
There are so many ways we just cannot compete with AI art as humans.
AI Art Will be Ridiculously Cheap Compared to Human Artists’ Work
For the cost of electricity and materials, AI will produce art for a mere fraction of what artists charge. A $75,000 mural for the inside of the Hyatt Regency Maui, Hawaii will be sold and replaced with AI art that looks better and is made with far more preciseness and personal meaning that anything an artist could paint.
Why?
The person creating the art through the AI can prompt and revise endlessly to get the perfect painting. Artists cannot take such requests over and over. Eventually an artist stops and says – that’s it. That’s what you get.
Artists will be priced right out of a career as this gets going. Maybe even out of a hobby. Who is going to want to keep producing art that people aren’t buying? Are you really going to keep doing it because you’re so driven to do it just to see what you can create – if nobody is interested in your art any more?
If you thought competing with other artists was tough, imagine what you’ll be competing with in a year.
These are going to be extremely trying times for artists this year, and next. Probably, the entire industry is going to be on the road to financial ruin by the end of next year. I can’t foresee a scenario where AI cannot produce anything digital better than any artist alive, or who has ever lived.
Will buyers ignore AI art for art produced by human beings?
Some will. I think most will look at the cost benefit and the ability to create their own art with AI and very detailed prompts to get exactly what they want, and go with the AI art overwhelmingly.
Most artists are going to have a very hard time of keeping up their art hobby when nobody is buying their art works. Art is expensive to produce in most forms, and it’s probably the majority of people who are doing it in large part because it makes them some extra money.
What Kind of Art Will be Be Affected First? Last?
Digital artists are going away fast and first. They’ll become prompters of AI so AI can do the work. If they want. If not, they’ll find something else to do.
It won’t be a writing career they turn to either, that’s already nearly gone as an option. We have friends who are great writers who have already been replaced by AI.
Any art that can be printed by inkjet or other printers is next. So, an AI could create art that looks like a photographic image in clarity, and print it out on a good printer. This is already happening on some level and will certainly get far better fast as the AI learns best practices.
Art on paper and canvas is probably next. All an AI would need is a pen, pencil, paintbrush, or inkjets that spew watercolor, oils, or ink. It will need to be able to see and critique what it is creating as it draws or paints.
Clay, metal, wooden, and other sculpture works, jewelry, and other crafts will be probably be done better by AI in a few more years. Maybe many years away on a large scale basis. If you are an artist in this are, you might have a few years to do well for yourself and enjoy your passion before the intelligent robot artists take it from you.
AI Art combining all kinds of different media will come eventually, or maybe not. There may not be a real need for much art after the AI Artists ruin the world with it.
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