I don’t get this. AI bros talk about how “in the near future” no one will “need” to be a writer, a filmmaker or a musician anymore, as you’ll be able to generate your own media with your own parameters and preferences on the fly. This, to me, feels like such an insane opinion. How can someone not value the ingenuity and creativity behind a work of art? Do these people not see or feel the human behind it all? And are these really opinions that you’ve encountered outside of the internet?
The AI bros can’t draw, so they love the idea their computer can do it for them.
The AI bros can’t sing, so they love the idea their computer can do it for them.
The AI bros can’t write, so they love the idea their computer can do it for them.
The AI bros can only consume, and AI is great for generating a lot of endless content lacking any depth.
Everything about this just feels really depressing. I’m guessing many people in the world are similar about only caring about consumption. As long as they deem it “good”, they don’t care how/when/where and by whom it was produced by.
Eh, I make my own music and somewhat play guitar, I don’t even use samples because it feels personally a bit like cheating myself out of the most challenging and interesting part, though ofc plenty way more talented and successful musicians sample all the way, so it’s just a personal stance.
I’d say actually it’s that experience, just making art as self-expression that has thoroughly inoculated me against artbro talking points.
I’m not against creative industries, nor am I pro corpos, but AI is just a tool and now that anybody can make images, the drawing people seethe, sorry not sorry, I’d rather make creativity more accessible than please egos of a select few rich kid narcissists.
I’ve seen beautiful artwork done with charcoal on paper, some of the most timeless beautiful pieces ever written were made on a deathbed, creativity will always flow from someone talented regardless of their financial limitations. AI doesn’t make creativity more accessible, AI uses an absurd amount of power and stolen work to make you feel better pretending the prompt you generated means that creativity is yours.
But the prompt is the creative aspect. It’s always the idea, and the rest is convention and form. And lol, modern poor aren’t going to have access to charcoal, paper, time or a deathbed, but they’re going to have a smartphone, hence it does indeed make creative expression more accessible.
I’d never have even tried music if I couldn’t pirate a DAW, plugins etc etc. Sure, cheap eBay fender clones and bargain bin amps help too, but like AI, piracy met me where I was. Shit ain’t cheap but once you know how to sail the high seas the possibilities are endless and it encouraged me to explore more.
Heck I’d actually gotten better at drawing too thanks to AI, I don’t have the time or energy as a wageslave to hone those skills, I’m not a millionaire like PewDiePie, but I can at least draw some basic shapes now because using that with controlnets and img2img in SD to produce ideas from my imagination was just encouraging enough to get me going and more realistically attainable. As with music, it brought me great joy.
Creativity isn’t to be gatekept and those select few privileged enough to practice it in lieu of something more materially useful aren’t to be put on a pedestal, there’s no such thing as talent for most people, just barriers to entry and accessibility.
People being able to enjoy art and artistry, especially not just by brainless consumption, but by producing it themselves will always be a good thing in my book. That’s what generative AI does.
All the artbros seething are just landlords of the art world feeling their houses lose value to new buildings that belong to everyone.
All the arguments about power use are null and void because if it wasn’t this it’d be something else, most advances in computing would require more power, we need to solve that problem with nuclear & renewables, not by artificially placing a cap on scientific advancements.
Please add a warning before typing such non-sense, I was drinking coffee and almost spit it out in my monitor.
So do you have a rebuttal or? Because this is the way I see it, using music because it’s what I know more:
I get an idea in my head for a melody or piece of music -> I either lay it out on an instrument or in a DAW piano roll or on paper -> I tweak and refine and add/remove elements -> I export the file and upload to a website.
The actual creative spark is the first step, the rest is a matter of speaking the language and skills at using the tools of choice to convey ideas clearly. Both are skills in and of themselves but one is about technique, the other is about a well-trained imagination and analytical mindset.
Prompts in that case are just another language like notes and scales, used to put ideas into form.
Then you add onto that LoRAs, controlnets, refiner models, custom refines of existing models, embeddings, weights, sampling steps, classifier-free guidance scale, and it’s quite a lot to actually learn and use effectively.
I don’t see how it’s any less creative whatsoever. Less skilled? Sure, absolutely, it can be. No denying there. Understanding that notes fit into scales and what a key is in music is a much bigger learning curve than simply typing in what you want, but in both cases that’s not all there is to it.
Maybe you could say it’s also less intentional, but plenty of art has unintentional elements which doesn’t make it any less creative.
I’m sure every amateur musician had that one experience where you make a piece of music that you think is sad, show it to a friend and they say it sounds cheerful, it doesn’t happen because you’re uncreative, it happens because your ‘musical language’ needs work.
Eventually you make that one track with a clear intent and show it to someone and they tell you exactly what you meant by it and it is the best gosh darn feeling on earth.
Proompting may be goofy, but it’s just another language, and it doesn’t invalidate the creative spark that starts it all.
If I commission a human artist to paint me a picture or write me a song, did I create it? I gave them the prompt to generate the work with their skills, so I must be as creative and skilled as any work they return, right?
You’ve asked something else to make your art, and then claimed that because you were really specific with your request that you deserve the kudos for the creativity and skill of the art. Pick up a pen and stop stealing existing artists’ work in order to force a computer to stroke your delusional ego.
Sure! According to your terrible argument, using AI is being creative, so I have a totally original, creative, full credit to me, reply generated with ChatGPT for you:
"Ah, yes, the old “I get an idea, I play with some tools, and voilà, creativity!” argument. How wonderfully simplistic. Let’s break this down, shall we?
First of all, your analogy between music composition and AI image generation is… well, cute. But it misses the mark in every way imaginable. You claim that prompts are “just another language like notes and scales.” Sure, in theory, they both help convey an idea—but one requires years of training, understanding of harmony, rhythm, texture, and the emotional weight of every note, while the other requires you to type a few words and hope for the best. That’s a little different, don’t you think? One requires mastery of an art form, and the other just needs a dictionary.
You mention using DAWs and instruments, where you “refine and tweak” to get the perfect sound. That’s great! But last time I checked, a piano doesn’t generate random melodies for you based on some keyword you type in. It doesn’t spit out a bunch of garbage until you say “oh, that’s close enough.” There’s a bit more finesse in playing an instrument or composing than clicking a button to “refine” a half-baked prompt until you get something that looks vaguely close to your idea. It’s like saying cooking a 5-star meal is no different than microwaving a frozen dinner because they both involve food at the end.
And then there’s the whole “not all creativity needs to be intentional” bit. Sure, there’s room for happy accidents, but when you’re typing in a prompt, it’s not about the accident—it’s about how many times you can hit the “regenerate” button until something pops out that looks vaguely like what you intended. If that’s your idea of “creative spark,” I’m afraid you might be confusing convenience with artistry.
Let’s not even get into the long list of terms you threw in there like “LoRAs” and “sampling steps,” which—spoiler alert—don’t actually make you an artist. They just make you someone who’s trying to sound like they’re mastering something complicated, when in reality, you’re just a user, not a creator. This isn’t about understanding the “tools of choice” or “learning to use” anything. It’s about what you’re producing with those tools. If all you’re doing is pushing buttons and waiting for software to do the heavy lifting, I’m not sure I’d call that “creativity” so much as “optimizing the use of someone else’s work.”
In the end, the best track isn’t the one where you typed in a prompt and got something halfway decent. It’s the one you built from the ground up, where you sweat the small stuff, honed your craft, and put heart into what you made. Sure, there’s no denying that learning the technical aspects of music is challenging—but at least it’s a real challenge, not just following the whims of an algorithm until you get something “good enough.”
But hey, you keep telling yourself that pushing the button is just as creative as composing an entire symphony. If it makes you feel better, go for it!"
I have to say, I’m actually impressed at how well it captured how I’d want to reply to your comment, the snark is on point… Maybe you are right in the end, generative AI is a very creative way of replying to bad comments online!
Everyone already can be creative and make images you moron
Neither is true.
Why don’t they then? And why do they now that AI is around?
Almost as if there’s a barrier to entry there for most people that’s been removed.