Will Midjourney Replace Artists Professionally?
Rabia Tabbasam
Last Updated February 07, 2023
We shared several pictures on social media networks that are not human-made but generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yes, that is true! AI can generate art beyond human creativity and imagination, considered unbeatable up till now.
But how?
Recent advancement in machine art is because of data science technology that consistently improves with time and makes machine art possible now, which was considered impossible at one time.
Many artists may disappear in the following years because of the recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) art generator software called Midjourney.
Why does the Midjourney create a buzz in the artist community?
Let me introduce you to one of the most potent art generator AI tools: Midjourney.
Midjourney is a powerful tool that millions of people can quickly assess, and after its success, it created much buzz in the art and AI community. The artist community is unfortunate with this software that can replace artists.
One recent example where AI-created artwork beat all other artwork in a digital art competition. It was reported in the current Vice article on AI artwork that won the digital art competition in Colorado.
Artist Jason Allen created Theatre d’ Opera Spatial with the help of Mid journey, which took first prize in an art competition and is considered unfair for several good and wrong reasons.
Nobody imagined that AI could ever be trained to replace the artist and win competitions against the human artist. Many artists need to appreciate the new revolution in AI-generated artwork. However, this does not happen.
How does Midjourney generate the art?
The next question is how Midjourney generates art. You might think that it can create a copy of an existing painting. The answer is No!
Let me show you an example of how Midjourney produced the images. It is run by using a text prompt. Firstly, the text will be understood by an algorithm.
Usually, algorithms do not understand the plain text and work in coordinates that can transform the text, which is called embedding.
Thus, the software embeds the text into the vector, resulting in the image generation algorithm.
Are there any possible flaws in the AI artwork?
The artwork created using Midjourney has noticeable flaws and can be recognized as AI artwork and easily fool the untrained eyes.
Recently, a non-trained eye purchased an AI-created artwork at the cost of 90,000$, suggesting that a non-artist person cannot identify original and artificially generated artwork by AI.
Another exciting incident was reported when famous American Newspapers, The Atlantic, The Economist and Cosmopolitan, used cover images that Midjourney created over the artist’s artwork.
Many artist communities were shocked and frustrated by the national magazine’s editorial decisions.
A new era of AI-generated artwork
Many artists in the struggling phase of their careers are excited about this new possibility. Many people use these tools with their creativity to produce exciting artwork that brings something extraordinary into their life.
A new recent innovation was observed in designing a graphic novel using Midjourney.
One of the famous writers made a whole graphical video on the history of humankind using Midjourney artwork. During the interview, the writer emphasizes how these tools bring imagination to life.
However, I can see the effects of these AI tools on the Art-community in the long run.
What is the artist's community afraid of Midjourney?
Recently, the demand for technical skills has been high; artwork illusion is at its highest peak among them. Due to this, many technical issues arose:
Firstly, Many art directors expected the concept artist to be familiar with the recent digital art software advancements and demand a shorter turnaround time for their films and title games.
It naturally pushes the artist to jump on the software that creates the artwork more quickly and in better quality than handmade art, which takes a lot of time and effort.
Secondly, these artists themselves increase the demand for Midjourney. The more artists use Midjourney; the more database is created.
More advancement in the art industry increases the threshold of artwork skills.
Thirdly, being an artist is hard in modern art technology. Many artists are scared about their artwork and how they can manage their lives.
They sell their artwork at a much lower price than those with similar decent artwork, with more than ten similar designs created by Midjourney and sold at a reasonable price.
How does the Midjourney source the images?
The primary concern arises among the artist community about unethical image sourcing by the Midjourney.
Many established artists are publically questioning how this Midjourney sources the image.
Midjourney draws the information from a massive database that includes copyrighted and non-copyrighted material, work of living professional artists, photos of living faces, and huge medical records.
This allowed Midjourney to produce the artwork from exciting material resulting in the massive violation of copyrighted materials and allowing anyone to access these materials through Midjourney.
So, will the artist be replaced by Midjourney?
At first, the artist may be considered an essential part of the AI art equation. Many artists consider themself promptists.
Even now, many short courses are introduced to boost the artist prompts skills to get a particular type of results.
With the recent advancement in the Midjourney art generation, we still need an artist to run the text prompt accurately.
It means inputting the correct prompt for the project to design the base of AI-generated artwork.
However, the concern raised by the artist community that this software might replace the artist is still treating the artist’s career.
Another critical factor is that this software requires a human input prompt to produce an image.
That led to the generation of the vast prompts database, mainly used for a specific type of art generation stored in the program database.
This resulted in the refinement of the recent technology that has the absolute potential to replace the artist in the coming future.
So what artist community can do in this scenario?
Recently, a successful campaign run by the artist community, “Say no to Art Work.”
After the successful lunch of Midjourney, there is a vast transition in art history, and human creativity is at stake.
This is the modern era where artists should equip themselves with the latest Art technology to live better.
Many artists raised concerns about the legislative action against the recent development in Midjourney artwork and the unethical sourcing of images upon which it is based.
Many artists run a successful movement on different social media platforms by changing their displays no Say No to AI Artwork and signing petitions from the concept of an Art Association.
However, many artists are part of this successful campaign, improving their art skills on Midjourney for better living.
AI has to be regulated.
There’s no doubt about that.
But whether you embrace it or run from it, its totally your choice.
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Rabia is a Biologist, scientist, and Content writer with more than a year of experience. AI revolutionized many industries and improved people’s lifestyles. As a content writer, AI helps her stay ahead of the curve and make the most of the latest technological advancements to improve my writing skills and create more impactful content.
She is interested in generating personalized content for a specific target audience making it more relevant and engaging for the public. While seeing a lot of stigma and misconceptions of AI in content writing, she has decided to join the Ava Machina , to be a part of a growing team who are passionate about AI.