How AI art killed an indie book cover contest

[MGlitch]

200 years ago a computer would have been witchcraft, 30 years ago using it for art was cheating. Insert the same with different years for cameras automatically adjusting settings and combining photos. AI is a tool, used appropriately it’s very similar to the cameras tools and plugins to photoshop that do the work for you. It’s just more powerful and complex.

If the layperson can’t recreate the work given the same tools then some amount of artistry went into the creation outside the realm of the AI tool.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

My mother was a trained artist. Initially my grandfather taught himself then taught her some basics before she went to art college. My grandfather continued to paint for another 50 or 60 years.

My daughter is self-trained professional fine art painter, that is very computer literate, but uses real paint, canvas, board and brushes. Sells loads of paintings.

I've studied calligraphy and did it for about 10 years, including pens made from rook feathers.
<< Avatar (famous illustration from Twa Corbies)

A daughter-in-law did excellent digital based art for years.
A friend's daughter does all kinds of art and crafts.

My father had degrees in Geography and maths. Ended up teaching English, (Head of Dept) and then a Vice Principal. Mostly he did charcoal sketches of birds and watercolour landscapes (for nearly 70 years). Later after he retired he auctioned paintings. I guess he taught himself before I was born. I never saw him study art, except books on photography. He was a far better artist than my mum or grandfather.

I was in charge of R&D in a company that had data centres, and though not directly responsible I knew as much most working on them and the NOC.

An artist is consuming as much food and electricity whether they work or not (maybe less food when working!). A person's lifetime would not consume as much energy as some data centres use in a month.

I can't see that Apple computer my digital Artist in-law used ate significant amount more energy than my daughter's laptop.

My grandfather only used oils (mum used mostly acrylic) and never had a computer.

Originally Posted by shalym

You understand, though, that the data center is doing a *lot* more than just assisting the artist with that book cover? You do know that, right?

Shari

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shalym

You understand, though, that the data center is doing a *lot* more than just assisting the artist with that book cover? You do know that, right?

Shari

They don't say what's used, which is ominous.
A data centre is usually divided up to different sections often called suites. Some of these high end LLM and image generation AI use multiple suites. "Learning phase" uses a lot more and of course that continues in parallel. On the deployed version the number of suites (equivalent to a datacentre) is increased world wide according to demand.

I'd not make assumptions about data centre usage, when Chat GPT can use up 5 litres of cooling water per single query. I know people in a US Corporation researching the use of these tools at management request, though the engineers think they are wasteful toys. You can get ChatGPT to produce "interesting" images as it can use XML to output an image.

[ApK]

Rules of the contest said no AI. Guy used AI. Guy was disqualified for breaking the rules. Not sure why there's more to this particular story than that.

As usual, the fault lies not in our tools but in ourselves.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ApK

Rules of the contest said no AI. Guy used AI. Guy was disqualified for breaking the rules. Not sure why there's more to this particular story than that.

This particular story is being used as a springboard to discuss AI being tools an artist uses rather than AI being the being doing the creating.

We all know (or can assume for the purposes of this conversation) that AI was specifically banned due to its usage being perceived as cheating (the assumption being that AI is doing the heavy lifting and the person doing the submitting did nothing more than the equivalent of a Google search to produce an award winning image). See also my Tron example from the first post.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ApK

...

As usual, the fault lies not in our tools but in ourselves.

I think some AI stole/genererated that response.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by John F

I think some AI stole/genererated that response.

Nope, totally original.

I may have cut and pasted some elements from somewhere, but I edited it.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ApK

Nope, totally original.

I may have cut and pasted some elements from somewhere, but I edited it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by John F

Attachment 202023

I think the response was a joke too. Or I am getting too meta?

[John F]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I think the response was a joke too. Or I am getting too meta?

Now that you mention it...

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Star Wars is an amalgamation of Flash Gordon and Dune. Everything is based is based on or influenced by something else.

A little bit off topic, but since you brought it up... The original Star Wars film is largely based on Akira Kurosawa's classic 1958 samurai film The Hidden Fortress.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...ars-stole-from

Even the characters of the robots were borrowed. In Kurosawa's film, the robots, C3PO and R2D2, were two bickering peasants.

Well worth a watch.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

A little bit off topic, but since you brought it up... The original Star Wars film is largely based on Akira Kurosawa's classic 1958 samurai film The Hidden Fortress.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...ars-stole-from

Even the characters of the robots were borrowed. In Kurosawa's film, the robots, C3PO and R2D2, were two bickering peasants.

Well worth a watch.

Yes, yes. I have it in a Critereon box set with Yojimbo and its sequel and The Seven Samurai. Though really, I prefer Roshomon and High and Low.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

A little bit off topic, but since you brought it up... The original Star Wars film is largely based on Akira Kurosawa's classic 1958 samurai film The Hidden Fortress.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...ars-stole-from

Even the characters of the robots were borrowed. In Kurosawa's film, the robots, C3PO and R2D2, were two bickering peasants.

Well worth a watch.

Yes, as is Seven Samurai vs Magnificent Seven (though MS is OK, the sequels are a bit meh).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, as is Seven Samurai vs Magnificent Seven (though MS is OK, the sequels are a bit meh).

I hope you didn't purposely leave out the best Seven Samurai remake, Battle Beyond the Stars

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I hope you didn't purposely leave out the best Seven Samurai remake, Battle Beyond the Stars

Not seen it yet. I was only referencing movies I've seen or have,