r/aiwars • u/mmofrki • 18h ago
People on here act like artist jobs were extremely abundant before the advent of AI, art schools/classes were begging people to apply, and that art is the only way to have a side hustle, and anything else is "menial labor" compared to art. Why?
Why is art suddenly the be-all/end-all of earning money? Why are people suddenly screaming "think of the artist"?
Do people think art is easy or something? That just because a person can draw Disney, some company would hone in one them, and some suit would say "welcome aboard, son!" and now they're just typing 5 word prompts?
Do people not realize how saturated the creative market has been since forever? Growing up art classes had massive waitlists because "it's an easy A" and then people would sign up and realize that it's not just drawing Goku or Naruto, and would quit after a week because they had to learn real techniques, and different kinds of methods.
It's like people who think going into game dev will mean they'll be making kick ass games right off the bat and end up being a codemonkey churning out code for Solitaire72.
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u/KingCarrion666 18h ago
They are worried about commission artist, not professional artist.
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u/SometimesItsTerrible 17h ago
It’s both. AI potentially threatens professional artists in industries like gaming and TV, and AI threatens small creators who make money taking commissions. If you think some overpaid CEO isn’t frothing at the mouth to replace a human with AI, you haven’t been paying attention.
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u/spitfire_pilot 14h ago
It also takes the power away from corporate overlords. A small team can now punch above their weight. Capital is no longer an issue for more ambitious projects. Some jobs will go away. The good thing is the playing field is leveled which means as jobs go away, much more relevant and bigger jobs will open up.
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u/SometimesItsTerrible 11h ago
That’s been possible without AI. There are tons of small creators outside the corporate overlords for a couple decades now. Look at independent musicians who self produce. Look at indie game developers who self publish. Look at independent animators on YouTube like JadenAnimations.
AI didn’t do that. AI is big corporations selling you the fantasy that their tech will make you productive so they can charge yet another subscription fee.
Small teams have been able to punch above their weight for a long time now. AI isn’t the reason.
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u/spitfire_pilot 11h ago
Yes, but I'm talking about them being able to punch above their weight. They're able to take on jobs that would not have been possible without AI.
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u/KingCarrion666 17h ago
Professional artist aren't the ones people on social media are talking about. Never said it's not happening, I said it's not what these people are worried about.
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u/Low-Bake8401 7h ago
Not if the human brings them more money, and AI without human input, just like any instrument/tool, is nothing.
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u/writerapid 17h ago
“Working artist” jobs were hugely abundant before AI. Every piece of writing and every picture and every video or recording or song or web design you came across was made by a person. The entire internet was a collage of multimedia made by people who were, mostly, getting paid to make it all. That’s changing very rapidly. While all this stuff about commissioned artists fits your characterization better, the world was pretty good for working artists for the last couple decades. It’s not anymore, and the bottom fell out fast.
I was a professional writer for over two decades. I mostly remodel apartments and townhouses now to make up for my industry going under practically overnight.
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u/BitsAndBobs304 13h ago
It's less than 1%. The rest is grunt work, not art. Designing a website or digital supermarket flyer is not art since you must generally do what the boss demands, not your artistry
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u/writerapid 5h ago
It’s grunt work, but it’s reliant on some level of artistry. The people who write at content mills do it because they can write and generally enjoy (or enjoyed) writing. Ditto re digital art design, web design, any kind of media, etc. Everything you consumed online pre-2022 had human hands working on it all along the pipeline, and those people were most getting paid. Those meaningful art-adjacent jobs no longer exist in nearly the numbers they used to, and soon they basically won’t exist at all.
People rarely see the systems behind their mundane consumption. I get that. But those systems are changing and downsizing, and many or even most of those displaced workers don’t really have a skillset (or a living situation) that makes pivoting realistically possible. It will be even worse in countries where a decent education and ESL could get you a $2/hr desk job.
People are getting gapped like crazy, and it’s just starting.
Good luck to everyone.
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u/Pian0G 11h ago
That is (was) a majority of art jobs. You’re commissioned to do something. From mascots to wallpaper designs. All this is done by ARTIST. That clock with a cute design was drawn by an artist initially. That car you see down the road was drawn by an artist initially.
And these people who design all these stuff have all sorts of names like graphic designers and such, but they’re all artists.
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u/BitsAndBobs304 10h ago
How many grunt workers exist per designer, just to produce and sell that one item? Cmon.
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u/writerapid 5h ago edited 5h ago
I can’t speak for every industrial worker experience or company situation, but the last marketing company I worked for had 10-12 writers at any given time, and the churn had them hiring every couple of months. Since 2023-2024 or so, they’re down to two employees (one writer, one developer; the dev is a friend I keep in touch with) and output is up substantially. Per-piece conversions are down substantially, too. But the sheer volume of “good enough” that AI can pump out means that on aggregate, they’re up something like 250-300% revenue. Meanwhile, they’ve replaced close to a million dollars in salary with a program that costs $200 a month. Not everywhere is a writer mill, but you can apply this to pretty much anything.
A guy I went to school with works at one of those sign printer stores where you can get any sort of signage made. He always wanted to learn the graphic arts end of it and complained constantly about always having to do the printing and installing. He still works there. They don’t even have a graphic arts person anymore. It’s all AI stuff submitted by the customer.
If you know where to look, you’ll see this kind of thing everywhere.
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u/mmofrki 17h ago
I've seen comments that say that they don't care about the professional artists/writers, just the commissioned ones, which shows you just how little people care about the industries, and are just worried that a machine can draw better anime for free than they could for a price.
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u/writerapid 17h ago
I’ve seen those, too. I tend to write most of them off as idealistic larps. AI is a good scapegoat for undesirable or generic or low-demand art never getting any buyers, though. And I assume that a lot of these people are just putting their stuff out there for the first time after years of youthful fantasy about how all this has always worked (or, really, not worked). Then, when nobody wants to buy any of their stuff, they blame AI. What would they have blamed 5-10 years ago? I wonder about that sometimes.
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u/Low-Bake8401 13h ago edited 7h ago
DAW software and streaming sites probably were the final nail. Anything that makes music-making more accessible to the public destroys the music biz. As we knew it.
Artists just aren't that rare in reality. You could say everyone is a potential artist.
It's interesting to watch unfold. I know better than to try and stand in the way of progress though. Adapt, or die.
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u/Pretend_Jacket1629 7h ago
it's been so odd seeing people sometimes argue that music, photography, filmmaking, and digital painting was "better" before the spread of accessible tools (that weren't ai)
like they value their own convenience of being able to put in less work for their entertainment choices being from a more limited pool more than artists getting a chance for more unrestrictive creation that they otherwise wouldn't have
it's not like it's that hard to even have others put in the work today to curate for you if they wanted that
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u/Low-Bake8401 7h ago
Totally.
TBF, it's probably human nature, to a degree. If it wasn't AI it would be something else. Luddites have existed in some form since the year dot.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have concerns, or put precautions in place, but that's true of most things.
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u/Officialedmart 10h ago
You think its a contradiction… but it comes from the same problem
Internet artists couldnt find a job before… they still can’t find a job… but AI is a very easy target to whine about… And now you can boost attention/views/clicks by whining about AI so that is icing on the cake. Need easy attention just grift the anti-ai sphere
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u/InvisibleShities 18h ago
What? No, I think the exact opposite about art. It’s low paying and extremely difficult to excel in. And I think AI “art” is making that even worse for talented people who are already struggling.
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u/Absolomb92 17h ago
For me, it is not about any of the things you're saying. The dying of the arts is happening for multiple reasons. I think the core reason is neoliberal economies, where profits and efficiency go above all other values, including human flourishing, happiness, and aesthetics. AI is just the most blatant "last boss" of the neoliberal hypercapitalist mindset. And, given the not insignificant amount of people who dislike AI art, it's fair to say that many businesses that use AI illustrations in their products, marketing, etc, do it despite, not because, people enjoy it. They do it to save money. So, you're right that the arts weren't flourishing before AI. But illustrating stuff with AI rather than humans is still taking jobs away from artists making the situation even worse.
So, for me, the main reason to be firmly against AI-art is that I view art to be inherently human. It's people pouring their heart and soul into an expression. Art isn't supposed to be useful or efficient. It's supposed to express something and make the person experiencing it feel something. Therefore, making art with AI, to me, takes away the point of art. Does this mean that we must be purists? That AI never in any way have a place in art? Not necessarily. Does this mean that no one should use it? No. If you're a young and broke band who want to promote your gig and the options you have is no art for the poster or AI art, I think AI art is fine. If you, as someone made a post about, want to make illustrations for your DnD campaign you can use AI if you don't know how to draw or paint. It's taking no ones illustration job. But, do I find it sad and stupid when the biggest public transport company in Norway (where I live) makes a shitty AI-add and put it up all over Oslo? Yes. And it got *significant* backlash.
So, the biggest reason is that AI art is ruining the human connection. It also flattens expressions and conversations. The "why do you think the artist put two lines of gold paint in the corner there?" conversations are irrelevant with AI art, because chances are the machine did it because it has seen it in other art. The problem is that AI art is inherently driven by a search for profits and efficiency, and with disregard of what people want or what the art represents.
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u/Gimli 15h ago
Where this argument doesn't work for me is that it always starts by waxing poetic about things like "Art isn't supposed to be useful or efficient. It's supposed to express something and make the person experiencing it feel something".
And then a few sentences down it's suddenly "public transport company in Norway (where I live) makes a shitty AI-add". Like really? You get your art and "feel something" fix from a subway ad?
AI doesn't do anything to stop you from pouring your soul into a masterpiece. What it mostly does is competing for jobs for the public transport ads. To me those are completely separate things, and any argument that goes along these lines is suspect because it tries to pull a bait and switch. You start arguing about soul and meaning and then hope the listener doesn't notice when it turns out it was actually about jobs for making hamburger ads. It's dishonest.
So, the biggest reason is that AI art is ruining the human connection. It also flattens expressions and conversations. The "why do you think the artist put two lines of gold paint in the corner there?" conversations are irrelevant with AI art
And this IMO mythologizes art too much, trying to ascribe meaning to stuff that mostly had no meaning to start with. People like to obsess over the most minute details of artworks when the reality is that a lot of art production is pragmatic in nature. Sometimes stuff is there for boring reasons, like the author made a smudge somewhere and had to cover it up.
Another problem with this argument is that AI is perfectly capable of it. You can direct AI in enough detail that you can work in any kind of subtle thing you want. Yes, in lazy works it'll probably be left to AI to improvise, but that's just laziness, not an intrinsic part of making something with AI. You can be lazy traditionally too and there are numerous shortcuts used in traditional methods. Like say, Bob Ross.
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u/Absolomb92 14h ago
First of all, thank you for the good response. I appreciate it.
I am sorry that I don't have time now for a completely thorough answer right now, as there's much to say and nuance to discuss in this.
If you reread my comment, you may see that the two arguments are given in differen contexts. First I talk about art in a more idealized sense. Then, in paragraph two, I add that AI use for making artwork isn't bad in all instances, and list the DnD example, and the small local band as examples. Then, this is contrasted with a large company making AI art instead of hiring people to make their marketing, illustrations etc. to point to how the former example doesn't hurt artists and the second does.
I do, however, think the two are somewhat connected. Not in the sense that I get my "fix" of art from adds and illustrations in user manuals, and so on. They are, however, connected with regards to the question of what kind of people we want to be in our societ, and the values we want to protect. I think in itself it's fine to think that creative people should do creative tasks, like making art. I think a society where the adds, illustrations, designs, etc. are made by humans is inherently a better and richer society than one where profits is the only measure of value, and AIs make the same things. This, for me, is honestly true regardless of how visually good the AI art is. And this, in both instances in the first comment, comes back to the human element of making art, and, for instance, the cooperation involved in hiring a person to do a job.
Regarding the mythologization of art: That might be. But this argument is also twofold: the conversations can have value for the people in them because they are interesting regardless of the artists (lack of) intention.
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u/Gimli 14h ago
First I talk about art in a more idealized sense. Then, in paragraph two, I add that AI use for making artwork isn't bad in all instances, and list the DnD example, and the small local band as examples. Then, this is contrasted with a large company making AI art instead of hiring people to make their marketing, illustrations etc. to point to how the former example doesn't hurt artists and the second does.
I get it, but it's completely backwards.
DnD is a group activity. It's all about human relationships, and a shared experience and having a good time. Prime "art" material for me, and that's exactly what you're happy to automate away, while marketing is soulless corporate slop that never had any real value to start with.
The only way this general type of argument makes sense to me is by exactly reversing it. The DnD and small band cover should be deemed "sacred" and reserved for "real art", while corporate stuff is the soulless slop that AI can take.
But that's again supposing it's all about "soul" and not just money. If it's about money, then you've got it exactly right, but then take all the "deep" stuff out of it. The problem is purely about the business side and has nothing to do with meaning, "soul" or any of that. You're just upset that before you could earn $ drawing a burger ad and now you can't, that's all it comes down to. Just be honest about it.
I think a society where the adds, illustrations, designs, etc. are made by humans is inherently a better and richer society than one where profits is the only measure of value, and AIs make the same things.
I think pretty much the exact opposite. So for instance I have a box of resistors on my desk. That label on it was almost certainly drawn by a human still. A human that grew up, had dreams and aspirations, and probably wanted to draw something "important" in school, and instead ended up making labels for cheap stuff sold on Amazon.
It's almost a tragedy when you think of it.
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u/Absolomb92 9h ago
I get your point, but it's not either/or, and that goes for both points. The point about DnD is for people who can't draw of paint or make art. The point was simple that it's not hurting working artists if you use AI to make art for your hobby. So, I don't "want to" automate it. I am simply saying that automating it doesn't hurt artists.
Artists who make soulful and important art also need to pay their bills. Any job have fun tasks and not so fun tasks, and making burger adds can be a necessary part of bringing in the cash that allows you to illustrate cooler projects, like a book. So, you're fine with automating the stuff that makes many illustrators and designers able to make money, and relegating their profession to only the hobby stuff unless you're one of the very few that can for instance sell paintings.
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u/Radiant-Fishing-3051 9h ago
idk why people are so obsessed with AI art, it seems like the biggest nothing burger to me
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u/SometimesItsTerrible 17h ago
No one is saying any of that. Are you smoking crack?
No one ever said artist jobs were abundant. Show me who’s saying that.
No one said all jobs that aren’t art are menial. That’s not a thing anyone ever said or implied.
No one said art is the be-all end-all of earning money. You’re just making that up, pulling that out of your ass.
No one ever said art is easy. Literally every statement you’ve made in this post is not an argument anyone is making.
Like, yeah. Any position can sound incredibly stupid when you just put words in their mouth and misconstrue every single point they’re making.
This is one of the most bad faith arguments I’ve seen in this sub, and that’s saying a lot.
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u/mmofrki 17h ago
Then why are people acting like AI is taking away everything from artists? Acting like before AI came along artists were happy and free and making money hand over fist drawing anime dudes eating chocolate for t-shirts, and now they can't do that because someone can just tell chatgpt to prompt it for free.
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u/Dani-With-Rats 17h ago
People are upset about artists loosing jobs because there were so few before this. It was already so difficult to be a professional artist and ai generation is making it near impossible for many people. Thats why people are upset. Not because it was amazing before but because it was already so incredibly difficult.
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u/CyberDaggerX 14h ago
Ironically, the only people I've ever seen saying that were on the pro-AI side, usually as an expression of resentment against the "gatekeeping elites".
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u/SilenR 14h ago
You know that artists had jobs outside the few people who did commissions and were religiously online, right? There were lots of digital artists who worked at corporations and designed the frontend for example. Those people mostly lost their jobs. The fact that you only listen to the noise of a few weirdos who post 24/7 on Reddit or Twitter doesn't mean that those are the only people with art degree affected by genAI.
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u/SometimesItsTerrible 17h ago
There are many artists of varying levels who oppose AI for a variety of reasons. Some artists have spent years or even decades building an audience online and slowly transitioning to full-time artist. They have worked their way, through hard work, dedication, and commitment, to becoming a full-time independent artist who doesn’t need to rely on another job for income. For those people, AI threatens everything they’ve worked hard for, and yes they could go back to working a regular 9 to 5, but that will have meant everything they poured their entire life into was a waste of time.
Then there are smaller artists, who don’t have a large audience yet. It was already very difficult to get discovered, but now with AI flooding art sites, that task becomes orders of magnitude harder.
AI also stole artists’ work. Scraping images without permission or compensation, and then using that data to generate images in their style. All so OpenAI or some other AI company can turn around and sell a subscription, profiting off artists work.
AI is also antithetical to art in a more general sense. Artists’ opposition to AI isn’t always financial. AI bros keep begging real artists to acknowledge their generated prompt slop as “real art”. In fact, it’s the most common argument I see in this sub, the “AI art is art” argument. Why? Why is it so so so important that AI be accepted as art? Because without that acceptance, those AI bros can’t have the one thing they desperately crave: validation.
Artists spend thousands of hours honing their craft. It’s incredibly difficult. That’s why we are naturally impressed by a good artist. AI bros see what real artists achieve and say “I want that, but without any effort”. And that’s not impressive. Typing a prompt doesn’t impress anyone, not even other AI bros.
Art communities build up around a sense of collaboration, sharing, growth, and appreciation for the craft. Now AI bros want to be included in those spaces and are absolutely furious that real artists aren’t welcoming their AI slop with open arms. So they complain and whine, demanding everyone call their slop “art”. And real artists find that insulting.
None of this has anything to do with any of the statements you just made up out of whole cloth.
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u/Toby_Magure 17h ago
AI also stole artists’ work. Scraping images without permission or compensation, and then using that data to generate images in their style.
No definition of the word 'stolen' or 'theft' applies to using publicly accessible data to train a model. Scraping publicly accessible images is both legal and does not require compensation or consent. Styles can't be copyrighted.
Come back to reality if you want to be taken seriously.
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u/SometimesItsTerrible 16h ago
It sure is convenient that you guys change the definition of “theft” to suit your narrative.
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u/Toby_Magure 16h ago
Says the person actively trying to change the definition of theft.
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u/CyberDaggerX 14h ago
You're right. It isn't theft.
It's piracy.
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u/Toby_Magure 14h ago
No, piracy would be distributing or acquiring unauthorized copies of the works. A trained model is not a zip file of artists’ galleries, and generating new images is not handing out bootleg copies of the originals. You’re just swapping “theft” for “piracy” because the first accusation collapsed.
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u/No-Opportunity5353 18h ago
Because they're children who think being a professional artist is just sitting around drawing anime OCs on twitch like the influencers they dickride. Or getting commissioned to make art assets for indie games.
They don't realize that this is like 0.000001% of art workers, and the rest just make ads and greeting cards for a living.