TheFearMaster

good day, boy! its been a while since I wrote a journal here but I feel like its about time. I had this topic in the back of my head for a while and I thought to write a journal about it. lately there has been a surge in AI generated content and AI images generation tools and its been the main topic of discussion in art circles since it emerged, the emotions regarding it were ranging from excitement to absolute demoralization. first of lets start from the beginning, my name is Mohamed Saad, I'm an art director and concept artist from Egypt I've been painting since I was a little kid but I decided to shift to digital around 12 years ago and I've been working professionally in the entertainment industry for over 7 years art has been life changing for me, I had the honor working with videogames and movies studios, indie projects and many other things as an artist, it was a way to express myself as someone on the spectrum it gave me a reason to push forward even in my darkest days and it was life changing, I was always the oddball an outsider and I didn't really fit into the popular circles, but I always found my place inside my sketchbook well I couldn't afford buying them so any book with empty pages were my sketchbook book covers, anything..... Making art is something I'm proud of, its an integral part of the human experience and also a way to express my soul to the world, and as you can tell from my writing its not my strongest aspect in my creative expressive arsenal art saved my life, I was at rock bottom physically, I was an alcoholic and I worked a mind numbing job in a factory making literal pennies a day for over 9 hrs a day I've found solace in making art, it was a place where I wont have to worry about anything and it was beautiful. lately there has been a sudden surge of AI generated content and the first thing I've felt was excitement, now there will be tools for those who always wanted to express their soul but aren't artistically skilled enough to do so, also those who unable to create due to physical disabilities there's a whole new world for them to explore and a new way to share their vision with the world, finally others can have an experience like mine. but the deeper I dive into it the more sinister it gets, looking into how it functions it raised huge concerns. the data used to train the AI was gathered from the internet, many of it are copyrighted materials so I decided to check the database and see if my work is there and it was , over 150 of my artworks were there alongside millions upon millions of other artists work millions of hours of hard work, effort, blood sweat and tears are just used as "Data" to feed the AI, it was heartbreaking to say the least as someone who deals with art thieves daily from NFT accounts stealing my work and putting it in their shops, to printshops who print my artwork without my permission or any compensation, now I had to add another demoralizing factor to the list in this never-ending game of cat and mouse. It was sad to see how a tool like this was created on the backs of thousands if not more of artists, again we are being used and its the scummiest way imaginable. when this kind of tech appeared in the music industry they instantly shut it down, but this wasn't the case for us, why? because we don't have multi-billion dollars record labels and studios behind our backs, most of us are working day to day to make ends meet this is why they targeted it instead of other mediums, we don't have the means to fight back and they know it. not long ago I came across an article on BBC about image generation with Emad Mostaque the founder and CEO of Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion. one part from the interview really stuck with me about how they see artists and the artistic process of making an artwork: "illustration design jobs are very tedious'. it's not about being artistic you are a tool" illustration and design jobs are never tedious, the back and forth is what makes it worth it talking with my clients for hours, getting feedback on commissions and repainting and adjusting is an amazing experience, in fact I always encourage my clients to always say when there's something they want changed, I want to visualize their imagination to be the best they want, I want to turn the words into worlds and I want it to be....perfect. are we tools? to the industry, unfortunately its true and its why I stopped taking work from big studios no matter how lucrative the pay is and only work with indies and commissions, to them we are just cogs in the machine and the working conditions are absolutely horrible even for freelancers, I've been hospitalized multiple times due to work hours and crunch, in fact I'm still recovering from physical and mental injuries from this environment, thankfully I'm much better now. artists aren't tools, artists are creators

I want you to take a minute to imagine a world without art..... would you want to live in this world? tech circles and enthusiasts always cheer for progress, I love tech too in fact I've invested a lot in it, as a digital artist you have to software, hardware and learn the new tools to make sure your work is industry standard. but being a blind fan of a new tech without understanding the ramifications is shortsighted and naïve. AI tools will unfortunately take entry jobs in many fields and on the long run this will have a negative impact on the industry as a whole how did we all make it into the industry? it was entry jobs ! making book covers, card illustrations, concept art what will be the impact when all the upcoming artists don't get the chance for their breakthrough? you wont have a new wave of artists and the tools used cannibalised millions of artworks to train it. its not like the invention of the camera, its not like the industrial era and we aren't luddites. we're being gaslit whenever we speak against it and its heartbreaking and demoralizing. many are happy with the new tools available, but the ethics behind it is the reason I will never support it. art isn't a problem to solve, art is the fruit of hardwork mastering skills and expression of the soul, in fact art is the solution a solution to the human imagination, before we invented written language we painted in caves, created stories with lines and these stories inspired generations to become artists and question the meaning of many things around us. my intro about how art changed my life isn't an attempt to appeal to emotion I wanted to share my own experience and how life changing it was, it gave me a reason to push forward and create art for me and people around me. I want to say to artists who are demoralized by this, please keep making art don't follow the easy trends, Create and share the universes in your mind with the world. keep arting.