Why Ai?
The benefits of Ai are profound, almost beyond comprehension (and not just for using Chat-GPT to auto-fill your resume!)
Ai in the art space alone has come an incredibly long way in the past couple of years and definitely not without controversy. However, being the massive nerd and constant creative that I am, OF COURSE my curiosity got the better of me and I went all in, like, head-first down the rabbit hole. I mean, I didn’t even think twice about it.
A lot of people are making noise and squealing that Ai art is unethical and not “real art”. In my opinion, this is merely because they either do not completely understand it or, if they’re a bit more honest with themselves, they are resentful that they spent years, or even a lifetime, training in just one art style, which is being superseded by this technology in the blink of an eye. In fairness, this has got to hurt a little, if not a lot. I get it.
I often remind people though, of how impressionist painters must have felt when cameras were invented. Then there was the birth of digital photography and Photoshop that absolutely decimated the film photography industry and their process. Those people who have been unable to accept the changing artistic landscape (pun intended) - well, where are they now? They couldn’t/wouldn’t evolve and they dropped off just like their methods did as a new industry standard was ushered in. Technology will always advance and change but right now it is moving forward faster than it ever has in our history (and I think that is the part that really scares people). The advances I have seen in the last 6 months alone within the text to image space, is absolutely mind-boggling and it is impossible to imagine where this is all going to be in another 6 months, let alone another 20-30 years!
However, I digress! Generative art is NOT just a simple mouse-click and automated process. Well, it actually is, but the results of doing the bare minimum are not wonderful and are often unusable for anything substantial or meaningful. Essentially, there is no true one-click solution. Generative art is merely a tool for creatives to use, like a paintbrush. Yes, it’s a paintbrush on steroids. Well actually, lots of ‘roids. And perhaps some hallucinogens. ANYWAY, there is absolutely nothing to fear! In fact, it is going to be able to help boost many industries to develop further and quicker than ever before!
Whilst generative Ai is essentially useless (for the moment) without human input or “prompting,” I happen to have a lifetime of cinematic, photographic and design experience which can be utilised as input. It definitely gives me a competitive advantage over others using the software & allows me to create like I never have been able to before. I can choose location, time of day, camera angles and settings. I can even reference expensive equipment that I can only dream of using in the real world such as the Phase One XF-IQ5 (approx. $65,000). I can choose the style of any artist; Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, Steven Spielberg, Quinten Tarantino, you get the idea.
Now imagine any small business that really wants to kick their marketing up a notch to compete with the big guys. Well, the playing field just got a lot more even now. With the Ai software I have been training with and obsessing over, I am now able to offer and provide BIG BUDGET results for a fraction of the cost AND time it would have taken a WHOLE TEAM of professionals to do, just one year ago.
The world is definitely in a very strange place right now, or is it? If you think about it, can’t every generation before say the same thing? Either way our species is constantly advancing and one thing you can bank on, is that never changing. So, to wrap this rant up I’ll leave you with a quote, from none other than Mr. Charles Darwin.
“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself”.
TjZ