Pretty much. Luddites raise a valid concern, but the proposed solution isn’t really a solution. It’s just trying to hold back the ocean with a bucket.
What should happen is that AI should benefit and support the artists, instead of the IP owners.
For example, Kev Walker has a highly distinctive style, but he churns out hundreds of illustrations of fairly generic fantasy characters to make a living.
Ideally, with AI he should be able to only draw a handful of high-quality illustrations, working an average of a couple hours a day, then when WotC or anyone else hires him to make 20 illustrations he can offer them a lower price by using AI “students” that copy his style (like the old masters). WotC gets a discount, and Walker gets to either work less or to make more money by selling many more illustrations to more customers.
There is still a loser here - the smaller artists who would have been hired instead of Walker, for a lower price. It turns the art market into something more like the music market, where cheap reproducibility leads to very few hitting it big and very many only making music as a hobby.
But that’s still eminently more fair than WotC getting literally all the earnings from AI, and more realistic than the idea of stopping AI from producing good-enough illustrations forever.
Pretty much. Luddites raise a valid concern, but the proposed solution isn’t really a solution. It’s just trying to hold back the ocean with a bucket.
What should happen is that AI should benefit and support the artists, instead of the IP owners.
For example, Kev Walker has a highly distinctive style, but he churns out hundreds of illustrations of fairly generic fantasy characters to make a living.
Ideally, with AI he should be able to only draw a handful of high-quality illustrations, working an average of a couple hours a day, then when WotC or anyone else hires him to make 20 illustrations he can offer them a lower price by using AI “students” that copy his style (like the old masters). WotC gets a discount, and Walker gets to either work less or to make more money by selling many more illustrations to more customers.
There is still a loser here - the smaller artists who would have been hired instead of Walker, for a lower price. It turns the art market into something more like the music market, where cheap reproducibility leads to very few hitting it big and very many only making music as a hobby.
But that’s still eminently more fair than WotC getting literally all the earnings from AI, and more realistic than the idea of stopping AI from producing good-enough illustrations forever.