Artificial Intelligence is changing the world of work, Especially the illustration. Programs that within a few months have turned from marginal technology for a few to a tool available to all. ai likes Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DAL-E Now allow anyone to obtain artificially generated images with simple text commands. Aside from the obvious prospect of changing jobs, the painters also have a lot to say about how they’ve been trained in these techniques. Millions of works of artists and graphic designers protected by copyright have been taken and fed into machines that have extracted the parameters needed to recreate the images requested by users.
The first signs of this revolution have already appeared in ChinaWhere gaming companies are using these technologies extensively. 70% drop in jobs for graphics, in terms of productivity which has increased more than 40 times. A phenomenon that may also affect a sector that has developed rapidly in Italy in recent years: that of comics. According to the latest figures from the Italian Publishers Association, there are more than there are 10 million comic book readers in our country260% more than in 2019. A business of over 100 million euros, with Japanese manga driving revenue and growth.
According to PwC estimates, Artificial intelligence will impact $15 trillion in global wealth by 2030. 40% of the entire world’s economy is tied to AI. And this illustration appears to be the first frontier of this change, even if discussion about the negative effects of the transition soon died down. “I suspect AI only started talking when it started targeting other areas,” he says Roberta Sorgepainter, Twitch Ambassador and Host of Lakka Comics Digital, “At the moment, no one has thought of making specific rules.”
As an illustrator, how do you see the future of your work and that of your colleagues in light of the spread of Generative Artificial Intelligence?
«We painters were the first to be targeted, but the general opinion from those who didn’t understand the matter was largely negative, prompting us to accept the reality of changing jobs. instead when the question touched the world of musicAction was taken immediately.
by moment fake song drake and the weeknd, Created by an artificial intelligence, Universal quickly demonstrated how quickly artificial intelligence-generated cultural material can be banished from circulation, with the right conditions of power. Things move very fast when it comes to large companies, but nothing gets done when it comes to individual employees. I don’t think there is anything wrong with automating a process, but what is wrong when the automation method misappropriation of others’ work,
The painters defended themselves by expressing their disagreement, and sometimes it worked. The site was involved in one of the protests artstation, many of which the artists left a symbol with the abbreviation “AI” crossed out as a sign of disagreement with the company’s policies, which allowed algorithms to be trained through on-site work: this allowed the company to You are prompted to review your Terms of Use. Similar steps have been taken since deviant art and other sites in the same area. But they are moving very slowly.
There are already competitions where AI-generated images and photos win. These initiatives cannot be left to private individuals, legal intervention is required. But taking work and time out of a creative process expresses capitalist tendencies. want to see everything happen right away, Very few people want this to be the case, and we have to expect these innovations to upset the wrong people.”
One does not have to pay to be inspired by something. How do you view the ethical issue regarding training AI algorithms?
« If a person is motivated to replace a worker with the same job, That work is protected by copyright. Shameless copycats are prosecuted and publicly condemned. I have seen a lot in my career working in the field for 10 years. A consensus ethical basis for artificial intelligence is currently missing. In many cases this consent was not requested. Many sites have treated this with content use agreements that can be changed retroactively without the user’s consent. Legally, such contracts are absurd, with similar terms only allowed on the Internet.
It was a nice reality check to see that no one cares about artists’ work being plagiarized. But this is nothing new: we have never felt safe in our work. And this is not the first time that our work has been misused. freebooting (the act of publishing material prepared by others that pretends to be one’s own, ed.), for example, it’s always been on the internet, Artificial intelligence is taking away demand from this sector.
But it would also be a legitimate competition if they hadn’t stolen the work of painters to learn how to draw. And we, unlike large companies and organizations, cannot defend ourselves against open piracy. I would be happy if laws were made, regardless of what happens to jobs. the situation is already out of control,
This technology exists and probably will not stop. But can we envisage a future in which the painter’s work coexists with these tools?
«Yes, but it is utopian. The reason why I am not so positive about coexistence is that so far the question has moved to a purely economic level, it is no longer about art. And the law will also follow this direction: Generative AI will be regulated only when it makes economic sense to do so. So I pinned my hopes on the private sector. There may be some companies that pride themselves on not using artificial intelligence, only human painters. This already happens with some video game houses. I believe in this sector a lot, more so than other sectors like fashion or automotive. In my experience, this is the one that pays the most attention to the human side of artistic work., This will be a step not only for marketing but also for the attractiveness of the industry,
The widespread use of generative artificial intelligence in a given field can be really discouraging the youth Investing his years of study to work in that field, creating an employment crisis should machines not prove suitable to completely replace human work. I think Illustrator would prefer to live by his art, not modify something created by AI. Have a different work ethic.
If you toss your apprenticeship along with your job application, you lose out on study time to improve. I am not optimistic about the future of this profession, where the selection is already ruthless. I would like it to be a cultural movement that sees AI as something negative when it takes over from humans, to prevent this change. Because having a poster of your product is much more comfortable than hiring an illustrator. maybe pay”promptist”, Perhaps a new job has been born, a guy who is very good at writing the right signs».
Research from the World Economic Forum predicts that artificial intelligence will replace 85 million workers in a few years, while at the same time creating another 97 million jobs. When photography was invented, the need for painters disappeared, but the profession of photographer was born. Could this figure of the “promptist”, who creates illustrations almost exclusively with algorithms, really be born in the future?
“It’s not about believing whether or not new jobs can be created. I don’t doubt it, but the comparison to photography doesn’t seem right to me. In this case, it’s really about taking another person’s work and making it is about to modify. Photography added another discipline to the field of visual artswithout stealing the pictures.
The painters haven’t yet had a lifetime’s work to steal their techniques from them. However, in this case, technology is eating us alive. My future is what I see”cyberpunk”, And I’m not sure there is enough maturity to benefit from technological advances. Even though “Promptist” is present, you may have left Illustrator,
Speaking of regulation, you immediately thought of an internal market process. Do you think that the intervention of state power is so unlikely?
,I don’t find state regulation impossible, but it is slow, The private sector is very fast, much faster than states or international organizations. Furthermore, they do not have the incentive to act in this direction, given that the economic advantage is in favor of those who want to use generative artificial intelligence”. ©
📸 credit: Roberta Sorge, Canva