I struggle with this video – a lot of it sounds like sour grapes. I mean, sure, AI-derived art might end up a little “formulaic” and it leans very heavily on prior art. But it’s the visual equivalent of Stock Aitken and Waterman’s Hit Factory in the late 80s. Nicking hooks and lines and melodies that lots of people have indicated they like – pop hits that appeal to the masses. It’s not “soulful” it doesn’t require a massive amount of effort. But, let’s be honest, Bananarama belted out a couple of great pop hits too.

The whole section about using images as references is confused and meaningless to me. The whole Michaelangelo argument was blown out of the water a few years ago, when it was *proven* that many of the “classic” artists (Vermeer and Rembrandt are two such examples) used lenses and mirrors to create drawings so accurate, a computer could model a perfect 3d chandelier from a flat image (I forget the exact details, but there was a documentary about this by David Hockney a few years ago). Humans *can* replicate images (almost) exactly. The argument in this video goes “well, if you *can* draw really well, that’s because you’re a great draftsman in your own right” without accepting that in order to become a great draftsman, you need lots and lots (and lots) of practice – a technique reduced to minutes and seconds instead of years by AI.

You should only use art as a reference if you enjoy drawing? You can only make art if intent and outcome are the same? Nonsense.

Sorry. I can’t agree with a single point in this video.
My initial reticence towards AI art had nothing to do with how it was created, just that the end result was pretty poor. Even in just a few months, it’s got to the point where it’s pretty darned impressive.

The main complaint in this video is that images are used without reward to their creators.
But at no point was it asked, how did the images get online in the first place? The assumption is that every single contributor resents having their artwork curated and organised. Most people created their art and put it online to shout out to the world “look at what I made”.

But what if it *was* rewarded?
What if every single artist who had their imagery categorised by AI had been financially rewarded?
Many of the arguments in this video would then ring very hollow.