Recently artificial intelligence or AI has been making rapid progress in image processing and generation. Techniques such as “put-a” or “midjourney” have caused quite a stir by converting text into images. Never before has it been possible to create digital images so easily, so quickly and so cheaply.
Vincent Britz discusses the latest trends with his students at the “Artificial Creativity” seminar at the University of the Arts in Berlin.
He believes, “It is equivalent to the emergence of the first photographers after the era of classical painting. Of course there was resistance. People said, it’s not art, fake or anything. Then after some years and decades the idea of photographer also got established. In my opinion, the same trend will be observed in artificial intelligence as well.”
Artificial intelligence can turn historical black-and-white films into color in an instant. However, in complex artworks, the limits of this technique become apparent.
Vincent Britz says, “I think the problem is that if the grass is intentionally pink in an artistic video, the AI will turn that color into green, because it works by averaging.”
Complex image processing such as shading or lighting is not a problem in the latest generation of AI-based graphics programs. The work which earlier took days or hours to do, is now done in seconds.
“It’s really dangerous,” said Ernst August Graf, a student of visual communication. More and more people are able to create timeless images. The images I spend so much time creating are no longer as valuable as they used to be. But there is also a need to understand new tools and intelligently apply them to larger concepts.”
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Programs such as “Dal-ee” or “Midjourney” are disrupting the traditional creative process. All those tools are very easy to use. As you type something into the program as a description, the AI displays that instruction as an image. Although artistic quality is never perfect, there is no limit to creativity.
Visual Communications student Philip Dollinger said, “As an artist, I see the opportunity to innovate and create new things with new methods and tools as an added empowerment. I still see it as a huge opportunity.”
“It’s really exciting that a designer no longer needs to think about how to draw a picture,” says Vincent Britz of the Berlin University of the Arts. Instead, one has to think about how best to describe, so that the computer can easily draw the picture. The work is almost the same but the method is completely different.
Pixels collected by AI from billions of photos of real people on the internet are being made to create images of people who don’t exist. Giving an example, Vincent Britz said, “Imagine, I downloaded all the pictures from your Facebook profile and fed them to the artificial intelligence and instructed it to draw a picture of you. AI will create a picture of you just by looking at those pictures. Any previous images will not be processed. Although your image is based on each pixel, it is its own creation. Then it will be difficult to discuss the issue of individual rights.”
