Artists are the people that brighten the world, bringing culture and works of beauty to the public in beautiful, creative ways. No matter the medium, every artist is a treasure to this planet.
A new breed of ‘artist’ seems to be emerging among the rise of AI -generated artworks, though more traditional artists don’t consider these images to be even remotely on par with human-made work.
RELATED STORIES
Artists across the internet are rallying against a competition winner.
Jason Allen, who goes by the username Sincarnate online, recently revealed that he won the Colorado State Fair’s fine art competition in the digital art category despite not drawing something at all.
He used an AI program to create the artwork.
A screenshot from the chat client Discord shows a paragraph he sent about his experience. He used a program called Midjourney, a software that takes user inputs and generates an image in turn.
Allen supposedly spent “many weeks” creating the perfect prompt and vetting images before choosing the one he was going to submit.
The final piece was titled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial.”
The image depicts a science-fantasy-esque scene with a large circular window in a grand hall and multiple characters in regal dresses.
Artists are not a fan of this news, and find the fact that an AI-generated image was allowed to win rather insulting.
They also fear the development of AI art could eliminate job opportunities.
Some also find the win to be disingenuous. Though Allen states he submitted his work as ‘Jason Allen via Midjourney’, no one can be sure the judges even knew what Midjourney was or how it functioned.
He seemed to predict the backlash.
“I knew this would be controversial,” reads another one of his messages on Discord, “How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI-generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element! Does this seem hypocritical to you guys?”
He has a lot of faith in the continuation of this art form.
He even believes competitions will create a category specifically for AI-generated artworks.
Whether they do or don’t, and despite all the criticisms, Allen says this victory has encouraged him. “I’m not stopping now,” he said. “This win has only emboldened my mission.”
h/t: Vice
