Channel/Midjourney
We’ve been living with AI-generated images for a while now, but this week, some of the major players took some big steps forward. In particular, I’m talking about significant updates to Midjourney, Google’s new model, and Grok.
Each company shows the technology evolving at different paces and in different directions. It’s still very much an open playing field, and each company demonstrates just how far the advances have come……Continue reading…
Source: AI image generation just took a huge step forward | Digital Trends
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Critics:
There are many tools available to the artist when working with diffusion models. They can define both positive and negative prompts, but they are also afforded a choice in using (or omitting the use of) VAEs, LorAs, hypernetworks, ipadapter, and embeddings/textual inversions.
Variables, including CFG, seed, steps, sampler, scheduler, denoise, upscaler, and encoder, are sometimes available for adjustment. Additional influence can be exerted during pre-inference by means of noise manipulation, while traditional post-processing techniques are frequently used post-inference. Artists can also train their own models.
In addition, procedural “rule-based” generation of images using mathematical patterns, algorithms that simulate brush strokes and other painted effects, and deep learning algorithms such as generative adversarial networks (GANs) and transformers have been developed. Several companies have released apps and websites that allow one to forego all the options mentioned entirely while solely focusing on the positive prompt.
There also exist programs which transform photos into art-like images in the style of well-known sets of paintings. As generative AI image software such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E continue to advance, the potential problems and concerns that these systems pose for creativity and artistry have risen.
In 2022, artists working in various media raised concerns about the impact that generative artificial intelligence could have on their ability to earn money, particularly if AI-based images started replacing artists working in the illustration and design industries. In August 2022, digital artist R. J. Palmer stated that “I could easily envision a scenario where using AI, a single artist or art director could take the place of 5-10 entry level artists
I have seen a lot of self-published authors and such say how great it will be that they don’t have to hire an artist.” Scholars Jiang et al. state that “Leaders of companies like Open AI and Stability AI have openly stated that they expect generative AI systems to replace creatives imminently.”
AI-based images have become more commonplace in art markets and search engines because AI-based text-to-image systems are trained from pre-existing artistic images, sometimes without the original artist’s consent, allowing the software to mimic specific artists’ styles.For example, Polish digital artist Greg Rutkowski has stated that it is more difficult to search for his work online because many of the images in the results are AI-generated specifically to mimic his style.
Furthermore, some training databases on which AI systems are based are not accessible to the public. The ability of AI-based art software to mimic or forge artistic style also raises concerns of malice or greed.Works of AI-generated art, such as Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial, a text-to-image AI illustration that won the grand prize in the August 2022 digital art competition at the Colorado State Fair, have begun to overwhelm art contests and other submission forums meant for small artists.
The Netflix short film The Dog & The Boy, released in January 2023, received backlash online for its use of artificial intelligence art to create the film’s background artwork. AI art has sometimes been deemed to be able to replace traditional stock images.In 2023, Shutterstock announced a beta test of an AI tool that can regenerate partial content of other Shutterstock’s images.
Getty Images and Nvidia have partnered with the launch of Generative AI by iStock, a model trained on Getty’s library and iStock’s photo library using Nvidia’s Picasso model. There are many options, ranging from simple consumer-facing mobile apps to Jupyter notebooks and webUIs that require powerful GPUs to run effectively.Additional functionalities include “textual inversion,” which refers to enabling the use of user-provided concepts (like an object or a style) learned from a few images.
Novel art can then be generated from the associated word(s) (the text that has been assigned to the learned, often abstract, concept) and model extensions or fine-tuning (such as DreamBooth). AI has the potential for a societal transformation, which may include enabling the expansion of noncommercial niche genres (such as cyberpunk derivatives like solarpunk) by amateurs, novel entertainment, fast prototyping, increasing art-making accessibility, and artistic output per effort and/or expenses and/or time—e.g., via generating drafts, draft-refinitions, and image components (inpainting).
Generated images are sometimes used as sketches, low-cost experiments, inspiration, or illustrations of proof-of-concept-stage ideas. Additional functionalities or improvements may also relate to post-generation manual editing (i.e., polishing), such as subsequent tweaking with an image editor.
Prompts for some text-to-image models can also include images and keywords and configurable parameters, such as artistic style, which is often used via keyphrases like “in the style of [name of an artist]” in the prompt and/or selection of a broad aesthetic/art style. There are platforms for sharing, trading, searching, forking/refining, and/or collaborating on prompts for generating specific imagery from image generators.
Prompts are often shared along with images on image-sharing websites such as Reddit and AI art-dedicated websites. A prompt is not the complete input needed for the generation of an image; additional inputs that determine the generated image include the output resolution, random seed, and random sampling parameters.
Synthetic media, which includes AI art, was described in 2022 as a major technology-driven trend that will affect business in the coming years.Synthography is a proposed term for the practice of generating images that are similar to photographs using AI. AI-produced images are causing artists to be concerned about AI art potentially devaluing traditionally-made art. There is also the question of whether or not the gathered data can be used to produce a work….
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