My Life's Been a Fucking Waste Thanks to AI Art

[WasteOfLife]

I'm a professional artist, I've been doing freelance illustration professionally for about a year at this point. I'm not making much money, and I'm working ~60 hours a week, it's par for the course when you're just starting out. I used to tell myself "It's fine that these jobs pay poorly. Every hour I spend at this is an investment in my skill, and in the future I'll attract bigger, and better clients, get faster at working, and it'll all come together." but the rise of AI generated art has thrown all that into question. I'm not sure if there's a future for me in this industry, anymore, and I don't have anything else going for me. I'm 30, I've got no money, no car, I live with my dad, I have few friends, no other real marketable skills. I thought learning to draw was my ticket to having a better life, and I put all my eggs in that basket, what the hell am I supposed to do now?

It takes a 10,000 hours minimum to have the skills to be a full time professional artist, 20,000 hours to make top tier work that can get on the front page of portfolio websites. I spent the last 8 or so years of my life - pretty much my entire adulthood - getting good at this, now just anybody can type some words into the web UI for a custom Stable Diffusion model, and get results comparable to me.

What's even worse is the technology is powered by the works of human artists, the AI basically looks for statistical correlations between arrangements of pixels on great works of art, and makes something that fits within those parameters. If there weren't human artists making great work, the AI wouldn't be able to do anything. It's completely unfair.

It gets even worse, the AI functions best when it pulls data only from top tier artists, people make custom "models" which are trained on the works of only the best artists who share a particular aesthetic, or even the gallery of one specific artist. Another thing people do is type artist's names into the text prompt the generate the image. In short: more stealing = better results, more of your own original idea = prompt that just confuses the AI and makes bad results.

It gets worse, people can also use AI to steal art the old fashioned way and get away with it, you can feed somebody else's painting into an AI and tell it "make something 90% similar to this but different enough that I can pretend it's mine and sell it." It's so fucking unfair, it makes me so mad, and I see it everywhere, paintings from my favorite artists that I recognize, but have been laundered through AI.

It's unfair, I'm screwed, my life is ruined and I'm having trouble finding the will to go on. I already had self esteem issues before all this happened, now they're 10x worse. I feel like I can't negotiate for more money or people will run to AI, I can't focus on my work. My relationships are falling apart because I'm such a wreck. I'm binge eating as a coping mechanism and slowly gaining weight because I just don't care anymore. My life is a fucking waste, I'm a loser, I spent 10,000 hours of hard work to be a loser.

I almost forgot: people online are actually taunting artists over this, calling us names, telling us to get a real job, telling us we're whining. Fuck em'. I wish I could fucking kill em' all. In Minecraft.

 

[AvidFan]

I'm sorry to hear this, it's easy to read and watch things about AI without remembering the huge impact it actually has on the real world. It's not just computers being cool and doing entertaining things, it's computers doing things which affect human beings and which are not necessarily helpful or can be downright sinister as with deep fake and other trickery, with regulation and laws and ethics having little chance to keep up with the pace of progress.

I imagine another area this is having a huge impact is in a sector I used to work in myself - I used to write a lot of content for websites, blogs etc. I remember the days when you could get an autoblog plugin to save you time blogging and it would write absolute garbage content that might feed search engines but you could tell in the blink of an eye it was just auto generated as it bore little resemblance to human writing and was just sentences thrown together. That was only 10 or so years ago, I imagine Chat GPT will now be replacing a lot of content writers. The only ray of light I have is that I've tried to get chat GPT to write a poem that doesn't rhyme and so far it's failed every time (though it might have copied some modern poetry by now...). Similarly it's not doing anything creative it's just copying and churning out reconstituted human works. Unfortunately the AI is far better at myself than avoiding typos or missing out words due to glitches between my brain and fingers!

When I was at school we were fed this image of the future world (2020s seemed unbelievably far off back in the 80s!) where robots were doing most of the manual work and so the only jobs would be creative jobs, I guess back then they weren't really predicting that computers would start taking that over as well. The bots actually seem more advanced on the creative side, you can imagine the catastrophe that would be getting robots to deliver takeaway food, it would take 2 days and they'd fall over 100 times so at least deliveroo drivers are safe for now. The AI is bloody scary though.

Even in my own sector I can see how chat bots might begin to replace a lot of the work I do in gathering information and collating it accurately.

I'm sorry this is so impactful on you as a clearly talented and hard working person. This is the sort of thing I've dreaded for years and it's here. I hope you can find a way through. It is certainly extremely unfair but you are not a loser, I hope you will be able to see that in time. We're all losers in these scenarios, in a different sense. I hope you can find a way to make your career work despite these challenges. As things have changed I've seen my own work go from highly paid for less work to having to do more and more work for the same pay as capitalism and automation creeps into every nook and cranny.

 

[seabird]

I'm sorry. All I can say is that I hope for a future which brings humans to a realization of hands and brains doing work, using actual creativity, and the deep satisfaction of accomplishing a beautiful process no matter what medium or genre.
You're valued here. I hope you are able to get employment, and as importantly, find some peace.

 

[may71]

Sorry that you're going through this. AI may shake up the art world, but there might also be new opportunities that precipitate. Please don't give up.

 

[WasteOfLife]

Thanks everybody. I'm super grateful that some people are sympathetic. I need to remember that not everybody is a troll, or completely indifferent to artist's plight.

I talked to a crisis line operator about this, and it kind of helped. There are probably some niches that AI won't take over that an artist can move into. Maybe it's not 100% over, it's just harder now, and I need to give up on how I thought I would make a living.

It's hard, though. Freelancing eats up so much of my time that I have little left over to pursue adjacent skills. It's hard to work full time while also job hunting, or trying to learn 3d modeling, or trying to make videos with my art, etc. Every time I try to pivot the sheer amount of work I need to get done sucks me back into working all day every day on commissions.

To make matters worse, it's hard to focus, I get so fixated on the injustice of the situation, I can't stop thinking about it, and obsessing. I waste entire days sometimes. I can't go on like this, I need to make a change, but it's not working, every time I get sucked back in.

I don't think there are many new opportunities coming for artists, there are new opportunities being created for people in other fields, with other skillsets, but new jobs aren't coming for artists. That's the problem with that talking point. Yes, automation will never take away all jobs, there will always be things for people to do, but that's not always true within a specific field, what's good for society is sometimes crafted out of the bones of individual people.

There are maybe opportunities for those using AI, but I'm not willing to use it. I keep trying but it unironically triggers the shit out of me the more I learn about it. I find stuff like this:

How is any part of this okay!? He's literally just taking people's art off pinterest, feeding it into an AI, and patting himself on the back for "how good he is at AI". This bastard doesn't deserve eyes to look at things. I'll never join the ranks of these people.

Anyways, no offense may71, I know you mean well. I just don't find that line of thought comforting is all. and some people (not you) use it as a way to dismiss artists' concerns.

 

[Soul flower]

I'm an artist - who has kept a day job as well. I've thought about doing illustration time lapse videos or glass blowing tutorial/ videos for youtube. They get a lot of hits.... but really don't like using social media so I haven't done it. I also make most my art money via glass art so still bit out of reach for AI. Just an idea in mind for another revenue stream. Have you checked those out or considered this? NOT like the AI video you show - but actual artists working.

AI is taking over more then art --- I think life is shifting from doing to being... if that makes sense.

 

[may71]

Anyways, no offense may71, I know you mean well. I just don't find that line of thought comforting is all.

I'm sorry. I understand.

 

[Ziggy]

It makes me sad to read about this. To me the artist has always been more important than the art. Artists and musicians such as Beethoven and Dali, are brilliant because of who they are, not just because they produce things that people like. You shouldn't let your self esteem suffer, the TV show Britain's got talent will tell you the most amazing thing in the world is a dancing dog, but it's not. Both Beethoven and Tchaikovsky hated their pieces that were most popular with the general public, and they were right and everyone else was wrong. But how do you get everyone to realise this?

I think that there is some hope in the future, there was talk that people don't like classic music CD's which are perfect due to editing and prefer one off live recordings warts and all because mistakes make it more real. (But then you have talk of edited music with intentional mistakes...) I just feel that there is going to be a move away from what's 'generic' to what's 'real'. But how long will that take? (After all most films and computer games are becoming more generic and people complain but there seems to be no change in direction even though I think these industries will suffer badly in the future)

 

[1Lefty]

Hi @WasteOfLife , that's frustrating to see. I'm sorry that your chosen field has become even more difficult than it already was.

I don't agree with the premise that your life is wasted, though. I think any hours that are spent pursuing a passion, or learning, are valuable.

If someone has depression, or other mental/emotional challenges, the playing field is already skewed. Sometimes getting out of bed can be a victory

 

[1Lefty]

Hi @WasteOfLife

How are you doing today?

Peace

 

[foreverforgotten]

Hey...I lm feeling this too. With coding and development right now. .I'm at a loss now too. I'm 33 in same boat only difference is I live alone because no family. But I actually quit art because I thought it wasn't "rEaLiSTiC" as I was told all the time. Seems we creatives can't win huh? I've come to realise that in this world today, AI may be replacing a lot of industries. You are not alone in the fears of job instability from AI. If you've already started on a path, the art path I say just try to keep on going. I'm going to keep on learning coding. Because if we keep at it, eventually we'll find a spot for ourselves right? Im also not giving up 100% on art. I still love to create and I want to sell art in the future. I have no other skills either. Im not even good at coding. But please don't give up The world is changing, but its a process. I think there's still time to find our spots.

 

[alice202]

WOL
I think that AI is changing the world profoundly, and we are just beginning to see its impact. I, for one, never thought about the impact on artists. I am hearing the most about chatbots - it seems people don't care if they are able to write or not, as long as the job gets done.

Keep brainstorming about things you can do with your artistic talent - whether that's developing an online class or working for a company that needs a creative. Is there something you can produce and sell? I love looking around Etsy - lots of creatives selling stuff there.

Don't give up. I think life in this century demands that we keep re-inventing ourselves to fit into the economy. Heck, I'm on my third career. Hopefully its my last. I do see lots of jobs getting taken over by automation.

Hang in there and you will find something that fits into this crazy job economy.

Alice

 

[1Lefty]

Hi @WasteOfLife

I hope you're doing ok today

Peace

 

[Waves]

Hello

You sound talented. Artistic skill is a gift. So you are gifted. You have probably seen how marketing sells art. Just look at the bad art that is popular because of marketing. I still think people want original art. If you can whip up vanity art quickly, you might be able to sell that. Can you paint a pet dog quickly? If so,you could probably sell portraits of people’s pets or kids. I see an artist on an app called Nextdoor here in USA doing that. It is not what you want to do but it could bring in revenue for you. Get your name known locally. Just a thought. I feel for you. It is hard to be creative when hungry and cold. I am praying for you.

 

[ExceptMaybeNot]

It takes a 10,000 hours minimum to have the skills to be a full time professional artist, 20,000 hours to make top tier work that can get on the front page of portfolio websites. I spent the last 8 or so years of my life - pretty much my entire adulthood - getting good at this [...] you can feed somebody else's painting into an AI and tell it "make something 90% similar to this but different enough that I can pretend it's mine and sell it." It's so fucking unfair, it makes me so mad, and I see it everywhere

I'm in a very similar situation, I hope you're still alive, hit me up if you need someone to talk to about all of this.
Anyone who landed here for the same reason as we did is welcome too. We could create a small group on discord or anywhere else where we can vent about this and share our thoughts and maybe art as well.