Graphics Artists In China Push Back On AI and Its Averaging Effect (theverge.com) 15
Graphic artists in China are pushing back against AI image generators, which they say "profoundly shifts clients' perception of their work, specifically in terms of how much that work costs and how much time it takes to produce," reports The Verge. "Freelance artists or designers working in industries with clients that invest in stylized, eye-catching graphics, like advertising, are particularly at risk." From the report: Long before AI image generators became popular, graphic designers at major tech companies and in-house designers for large corporate clients were often instructed by managers to crib aesthetics from competitors or from social media, according to one employee at a major online shopping platform in China, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from their employer. Where a human would need to understand and reverse engineer a distinctive style to recreate it, AI image generators simply create randomized mutations of it. Often, the results will look like obvious copies and include errors, but other graphic designers can then edit them into a final product.
"I think it'd be easier to replace me if I didn't embrace [AI]," the shopping platform employee says. Early on, as tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney became more popular, their colleagues who spoke English well were selected to study AI image generators to increase in-house expertise on how to write successful prompts and identify what types of tasks AI was useful for. Ultimately, it was useful for copying styles from popular artists that, in the past, would take more time to study. "I think it forces both designers and clients to rethink the value of designers," Jia says. "Is it just about producing a design? Or is it about consultation, creativity, strategy, direction, and aesthetic?" [...]
Across the board, though, artists and designers say that AI hype has negatively impacted clients' view of their work's value. Now, clients expect a graphic designer to produce work on a shorter timeframe and for less money, which also has its own averaging impact, lowering the ceiling for what designers can deliver. As clients lower budgets and squish timelines, the quality of the designers' output decreases. "There is now a significant misperception about the workload of designers," [says Erbing, a graphic designer in Beijing who has worked with several ad agencies and asked to be called by his nickname]. "Some clients think that since AI must have improved efficiency, they can halve their budget." But this perception runs contrary to what designers spend the majority of their time doing, which is not necessarily just making any image, Erbing says.
"I think it'd be easier to replace me if I didn't embrace [AI]," the shopping platform employee says. Early on, as tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney became more popular, their colleagues who spoke English well were selected to study AI image generators to increase in-house expertise on how to write successful prompts and identify what types of tasks AI was useful for. Ultimately, it was useful for copying styles from popular artists that, in the past, would take more time to study. "I think it forces both designers and clients to rethink the value of designers," Jia says. "Is it just about producing a design? Or is it about consultation, creativity, strategy, direction, and aesthetic?" [...]
Across the board, though, artists and designers say that AI hype has negatively impacted clients' view of their work's value. Now, clients expect a graphic designer to produce work on a shorter timeframe and for less money, which also has its own averaging impact, lowering the ceiling for what designers can deliver. As clients lower budgets and squish timelines, the quality of the designers' output decreases. "There is now a significant misperception about the workload of designers," [says Erbing, a graphic designer in Beijing who has worked with several ad agencies and asked to be called by his nickname]. "Some clients think that since AI must have improved efficiency, they can halve their budget." But this perception runs contrary to what designers spend the majority of their time doing, which is not necessarily just making any image, Erbing says.
More garbage (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Enshittification, where even the most modest of talents is pushed aside by someone writing "Draw me a picture of a Florentine woman with a smirk" in ChatGPT.
Re: More garbage (Score:3)
There's SOME good stuff out there (Score:2)
The Netflix' series 'Adolescence' is the most brilliant thing I've seen for years; I defy you to watch it without bursting into tears at some point. But yes, the suits are ever less willing to put money on something totally new, so we mostly get much the same thing reheated. And having expanded far too much in the past few years, the retrenchment underway in the film / TV is especially painful. Here's hoping that the trickle of good stuff will not disappear completely...
Re: (Score:2)
MOST artistic output is garbage (Score:2)
In other words, AI will just continue the trend we have seen towards uninteresting garbage in every form of art since the 70s. There worst part is that people don't even seem to care, they just keep consuming it.
Do you really believe this has got worse since the 70s? Nah...
Especially in advertising, but in a lot of other fields as well, it's all instantly forgettable garbage and always has been. If the 'artist' is lucky, it will still attract enough paying customers to keep the artist in spondolicks.
Just occasionally true artists will arise who change what the world appreciates. They are rare, and usually even much of their output is actually less than amazing.
And very often governments fall for the idea that they
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
The argument that artists will "always" retain an edge by fixing artifacts or choosing lighting mistakes a temporary bug for a permanent feature. The "human touch" tasks like fixing artifacts or choosing lighting are a temporary patch on an improving technology. You assume human qualities like taste, and originality are insurmountable moats but AI is already not just an apprentice executing an order. AIs are collaborators in discovery. Their "misunderstandings" and unexpected outpu
Re: Welcome to the new reality (Score:2)
So when you have an emotional response, you are just projecting your insecurities onto her.
All true, except the parrot part.
Seriously, you wrote a thoughtful comment, but I can't see commercial graphic arts surviving the tidal wave of barely good enough generated crap.
My observation is that management and customers have no taste. They usually love the worst ideas, which they came up
What people do in private is up to them (Score:2)
We don't bother to prevent orgies or other forms of 'interesting' behaviour as long as it doesn't frighten the horses. Where the problem lies is that artists have come to believe that they have a right to taxpayers' money.
In other news (Score:2)
Now, clients expect a graphic designer to produce work on a shorter timeframe and for less money
In other news, furniture craftsmen announce that Ikea and Walmart have really changed their customers' expectations about what furniture should cost and how long it takes to obtain it!
Sorry Chinese Artists (Score:2)
Your work is not special enough for survive AI, either!
I guess the government could restrict AI. We'll see. That would be interesting.