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Had a chat with my uncle that made me rethink AI art completely
My uncle is a painter, like oils and canvas old school stuff. He's been doing it for 40 years. Last week at a family dinner he started talking about how he tried an AI art generator just to see what the fuss was about. He said it took him 6 hours to get something that even looked close to what he had in his head, and it still felt hollow to him. That hit different because I always figured AI art was just type a prompt and boom you're done. But hearing him talk about all the tweaking and the frustration made me realize there's still a craft to it, just a different kind. I still don't know if it's really creative on its own or just a tool though. Has anyone else talked to a traditional artist about this and got a different take than you expected?
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blair_nguyen1mo ago
Nah hard disagree honestly lol. Your uncle spending 6 hours on one image just proves the point that AI art is still a massive shortcut compared to actually grinding out real painting skills for 40 years. Like imagine a chef spending a decade learning to cook and someone with a microwave calls themselves a chef because they had to press three buttons in a specific order. The struggle your uncle went through to get the AI to do what he wanted doesn't make it creative, it just makes it tedious. A real painter can just look at something and paint it, no prompts, no tweaking, no fighting with a robot that doesn't get what you mean. It's like saying using a GPS makes you a navigator because you had to type in the address yourself.
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pat_stone1mo ago
Is a painter really more creative just because they spent 40 years mixing paint instead of 6 hours mixing prompts?
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ward.kim1mo ago
So wait @blair_nguyen, are you saying my uncle's 6 hours of swearing at a computer is less impressive than 40 years of swearing at a canvas?
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