A lot of people are seeing the power of DALL-E 2 and freaking out saying that this software will replace artists.
AI can be used to improve our lives, but we are really uncomfortable when it starts replacing artistic creativity.
Employment, privacy, and AI becoming self-aware, are usually always cited as the top concerns for artificial intelligence (and rightly so!).
Sure, we are ok with AI in our cars braking for us in case a child runs into the street.
We are even ok with AI in healthcare to improve health outcomes.
But using AI to generate art?? Now we are in murky waters.
As someone who has been in the AI Artwork space for the past year and interacted with artists using Midjourney, NightCafe Studio, I can say with confidence that it does take a lot of experimentation, time, and effort to figure out how to use text prompts correctly.
A lot of artists say they use AI as their digital paintbrush.
Despite that, innovation and new technology should be approached with caution.
DALL-E 2 has strict limitations on creating artwork that resembles real people like celebrities and political figures.
Currently, DALL-E 2-generated art is for personal use only and cannot be commercialized.
AI can be a visual tool similar to how Billie Eilish and Kanye West experiment with autotune.
Remove the tool from the talented artists and they are still amazing.
Remove the tool from the amateur and they can’t produce the art.
Current limitations of AI Artwork
Currently, one major limitation of DALL-E 2, is that the AI generates completely different images every time.
One may struggle to create a cohesive narrative story with a main character using DALL-E 2 as it is not possible to replicate similar characters or scenes.
At the moment, the tool can be used for one-off visuals, inspiration, designing mood boards, or brainstorming ideas.
While DALL-E 2 is incredibly powerful, the novice user will have a hard time getting repeated results.
If one uses CLIP-guided diffusion tools and has sets of prompts that produce a similar style of artwork, it is very possible to create a book using only AI-generated artwork.