You’re Not a Real Artist if You Aren’t Using Generative AI
Australian company Savage Interactive which developed Procreate, a digital painting and illustration app, recently announced that they will not be incorporating generative AI into their offerings. “I prefer that our products speak for themselves. I really f***ing hate generative AI. I don’t like what’s happening in the industry, and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists. We’re not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products,” said CEO James Cuda. Ironically, CUDA is also the name of one of NVIDIA’s most popular tools for parallel computing and GPU connectivity, and plays a crucial role in enabling generative AI today. Lmao Procreate CEO’s last name is literally CUDA https://t.co/LngTYZSZgJ— Alex Carlier (@alexcarliera) August 19, 2024 “Our products are always designed and developed with the idea that a human will be creating something. You know, we don’t exactly know where this story is going to go or how it ends, but we believe that we’re on the right path supporting human creativity,” he added. This statement is bold given that the industry is increasingly adopting generative AI. Adobe, Procreate’s main competitor, is actively integrating generative AI into its creative tools to boost creativity and productivity. “Is this the beginning of the end for Procreate? Hating on generative AI and clearly admitting that they’re never going to integrate AI features oh boy. As he said, he doesn’t know how it will end, but one thing is sure: it won’t end well,” said AI expert Ashutosh Shrivastava on X. Many in the artist community have wholeheartedly supported Procreate’s stance on generative AI. However, not everyone is aligned. “People aren’t looking at this from a business perspective. Right now a decent subset of artists hate AI, so it makes sense to try and target that market if it’s large enough,” posted a user on Hacker News. “If artists suddenly started loving AI tomorrow, this pledge would be out the window. It’s just business and marketing – nothing more, nothing less,” he explained. This development has certainly pleased artists, but for how long? Generative AI is set to become a crucial tool for creating new art. For instance, today, a majority of social media is filled with AI-generated images, and recently, we’ve seen the impressive capabilities of Flux integrated into Grok 2, which can create remarkably realistic images. Artists Should Embrace Generative AI Artists should not feel disheartened about using generative AI. Art has always evolved with the emergence of new technologies. Just as digital art emerged in the early 2000s and made the lives of graphic designers easier, generative AI is set to do the same. It also allows non-artistic individuals to experiment with art and create something new. For instance, now even an amateur can create AI-generated videos without any prior knowledge of filmmaking. “I love artists. I have friends and family making a living in the arts. I went to art school. The artists who aren’t using generative AI to accelerate their process are, IMO, going to go extinct. Especially collaborative art,” posted a user on X. “AI art is real art, and there’s no shying away from this statement,” declared a 19-year-old artist who faced criticism for selling AI-generated artwork on Church Street in Bengaluru. Speaking to AIM, Ashok Reddy, a graphic designer at GrowthSchool, said, “It wasn’t a task I completed in one day; it was a collection of efforts over many months.” He emphasised that his images were original, generated from scratch, and not copied from any other creator or existing works. In a different approach to the AI art scene, David Sandonato, an Italian digital artist, began selling Midjourney prompt catalogues on PromptBase, a marketplace for AI art prompts. Today, he is the top-ranked artist on the platform, offering a library of 4,000 to 5,000 prompts, with new uploads daily. In a recent interview, Santonato said, “It began as a side hustle, but I’m convinced that this business has big space to grow when people will realise that today 50% of the images available in the top microstock agencies can be generated in full quality with a good prompt.” Recently, self-proclaimed career guru Priyank Ahuja shared an intriguing post on X, that read, “ChatGPT and Canva will help you earn an extra $15,000/month.” He followed it up with a series of video demonstrations on how to use the tools for simple tasks like designing T-shirts, creating creative Instagram ads, and making YouTube Shorts. Another user on Reddit said that he haa seen AI artists make $1000 a month selling adult themed content. “AI art is a different animal, and making money with it is going to look different than the traditional art community,” he said. AI artists around the world are gaining a lot of prominence. Refik Anadol, a Turkish-American new media artist, has captivated audiences worldwide with his work at the intersection of art and artificial intelligence at NVIDIA GTC earlier this year. Moreover, oftentimes, when an artist posts something generated using AI, many dismiss it as not being real art and offer a great deal of unwarranted criticism. “As for the pro-AI community, we don’t have to tolerate aggressive behaviours and continual hyper-protective mentalities; you do have the right to show your work freely and without hate. Yes, you should develop your visual style in your work, but you should also be free to express love and passion for people with whatever tools you want. That is true inclusivity for everyone to learn to do,” posted one pro-AI artist on Reddit. He argued that individuals often self-punish instead of seeking tools to address their weaknesses, develop their foundational skills, and enhance their artistic abilities, which he feels is unnecessary. In India, designers often pursue a BDes or BFA degree, which offers thorough training in Adobe Creative Suite. With the growing prominence of generative AI, it’s crucial for designers to also learn these new skills, as they can greatly boost productivity. In-house graphic designers at AIM also feel that with generative AI features, it has become increasingly easy to autofill and regenerate images, tasks that previously took a considerable amount of time. A major concern artists have with generative AI is that it relies on data from the internet without adequately crediting them. While this is a legitimate issue, simply avoiding generative AI is not the answer. Beethoven.ai, an Indian generative AI music company, is leading the way by paying royalties to the artists whose music is used to train its models. Similarly, Adobe is reportedly compensating artists and photographers for providing images and videos to train its artificial intelligence models. According to the report, Adobe pays between ¢6 and ¢16 per photo and an average of $2.62 per minute of video. Competitors Are Betting Big on Generative AI Procreate competitors are actively integrating generative AI into their products and services. Adobe’s generative AI platform, Firefly, offers capabilities such as text-to-image, which allows users to generate images from text prompts, expanding creative possibilities in applications like Photoshop. It also includes generative fill, enabling users to seamlessly add or remove elements from images, and generative shape fill and remove, which provide options to fill vector outlines and eliminate unwanted elements from images. Similarly, Canva is pretty much bullish on generative AI. The Australian design company recently acquired Leonardo, a startup renowned for its generative AI content and research. The company caters to diverse industries such as fashion, advertising, and architecture by developing AI models for image creation. Some people call it the biggest competitor to Midjourney. Canva has also introduced Canva Magic Media, which allows users to create images and videos from text prompts. Currently, around 180 million users worldwide use Canva. On the other hand, Procreate has over 30 million users. P.S. The banner for this article was not created using generative AI.
Is this the beginning of the end for Procreate?
Australian company Savage Interactive which developed Procreate, a digital painting and illustration app, recently announced that they will not be incorporating generative AI into their offerings.
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Siddharth is a media graduate who loves to explore tech through journalism and putting forward ideas worth pondering about in the era of artificial intelligence.