While that is 100% true, the real problem is that the risk of finding out whether you can make special art has significantly increased. Previously if you didn’t make it as an artist, you could still earn money with other art related tasks - in graphics, many became illustrators. In music, people made music for ads.

That plan B is now going away, and a music career will be much more like a sports career: either you make it in football, or you need to find another career where your football skills won’t be very useful.

That is obviously scary for many.

Artists who make it usually have a legend, a story to tell or be told by their friends, associates, agents, publishers, gallerists, etc. That story has a human dimension that touches the rest of us and we somehow connect to it. Van Gogh cut of his ear, we still keep talking about it and wondering why? There is nothing AI can tell us about itself, its "art". The artistic struggle with AI is not about expressing your vision on a canvas in a way that makes others feel what you want them to feel but about forcing it to generate something it is incapable of generating or programmed not to generate. We got to the point where we are given crayons programmed to not draw the things others do not want them to draw or to draw HR-approved version of what the artist wants to draw. The future is now and it's shit.

Using van Gogh as an example of “artists who make it” is insane.

Which I guess is appropriate, because he was literally crazy. He suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and died from suicide, depressed and in poverty.

That’s the opposite of “making it”. It’s zero consolation that people like his work now, he never even knew.

> Using van Gogh as an example of “artists who make it” is insane.

So is building a tool that will only generate "approved" art. We need to be able to express our idea, feelings, our perception of the world in ways that do not fit corporate standards of text, audio, or visual communication. It's part of being human.

So don't use the tool or make your own. You don't get to tell people what to use or like.

> So is building a tool that will only generate "approved" art.

And so is eating ice cream with your forehead. Are we just doing non sequiturs now? I didn’t defend image generation tools in the slightest.

> We need to be able to express our idea, feelings, our perception of the world in ways that do not fit corporate standards of text, audio, or visual communication.

I agree. My point started and ended with “van Gogh in an awful example when talking about artist who ‘made it’”. That’s it. There is nothing in there to be extrapolated to AI or any other subject.

The sign reads (paraphrased): “I want AI to do my dishes so I can do art. Not do art so I can do my dishes”

Your response is “learn to art” “The nerds dont owe you anything.” “Most of You would be unsuccessful anyway”

You brought in absolutely unrelated items.

1) Learn art - that is baked into what the Sign is saying. There is no Terminal Point for being an artist.

2) Nerds dont… - Where nerds come in as a class for this conversation?

2.1) if you can speak for all nerds, please note that I sure as heck dont want Warhammer 40k, I want Star Trek.

3) Most would be unsuccessful - so what?

Are they happy practicing their craft? Do they have the choice to spend their time on those pursuits and enrich their lives, and share their joys with others around them?