Except there are artists available at all price ranges. Usually with the expensive ones you’re paying for experience and/or prestige. There are less experienced/prestigious artists that will gladly take your $60 commission.

Also, art isn’t a necessity. It is a luxury and by definition always will be, especially custom art commissioned by you. The stance of the people behind AI art is founded on the notion that you need art so it can benefit from automation in the same way food does. But you don’t need art. It’s the capstone of Maslow’s pyramid. If you’re at a level of privilege where art starts seeming like a necessity, you can afford $260 for it.

Ugh yes these artists, so mean, so evil, greedy and disgusting, they don’t deserve being paid not even a tenth of the minimum wage. 60 bucks isn’t enough to cover that 12 hr job you say? Where do you live???

“AI is great because i can steal from poor artists who are barely paid as it is”

My brother, I am someone who is pretty pro-AI art, for reasons too complex to get into, but which basically have to do with latent possibility spaces and the boundary between discovery or creation.

I am typically pissed off and annoyed when people get their pitchforks out at any mention of AI art. I also consider myself a pretty decent amateur artist. I draw, I paint, I 3D model. I also like working with the more core technologies of AI. I have a horse in both races, so to speak.

But this post, this post makes me feel like one of those pitchfork-wielders that typically annoy me. Why? Because you’ve depicted the artist as a rude snob who looks down on poor people, and is thereby getting their just deserts and having their smugness deflated now that they’re no longer needed. This is such a wildly inaccurate perception of artists. 9999/10000 artists make probably less than $40,000/yr in the U.S. Most of them could make more money doing something else, but they don’t, because they love art. They aren’t looking down on poor people, they are poor people.

And no, $60 really isn’t enough. Nobody is getting paid enough these days. Do you have any skills or crafts that took you 4 years of work to become even barely good enough at that someone would even consider hiring you? And if so, how would you like it if someone asked you to work for days at a rate below minimum wage? Don’t people deserve to have not just subsistence lives, but nice happy lives in return for creating something nice and happy for you?

No artist is sneering at your low commission offer on account of you being poor. The sneering is that, you can spend $60 on something that you don’t need whatsoever, whereas they likely need your $60 to buy something like food. These are people who live ENTIRELY off what people pay them for their work, no wage, no tip, etc. How could you ever look down on them for wanting to have a nice life, while at the same time wanting what they provide? It’s fine if you’re not willing to pay $260 for their work, but it’s not fine to look down on them for it, and it’s nonsense to characterize them as a judgemental snob. Unless you’re trying to commission Jeff Koons or something, any artist you talk to is struggling to get by just like everyone else. You aren’t “serving them right” or “teaching them a lesson” by going to AI instead. You’re just making it harder for them to make a living doing what they love, and regardless of whether AI does it better than them, or another artist is willing to live a shittier life for that and therefore charge a lower price, that’s nothing to be proud of.

I don’t want to be mean or make you feel bad, though, I just want you to stop and think about what it must feel like to be a poor artist and see something like this. No doubt they’re suffering extra competition as a result of AI, but should we revel in that? If in my small town, I have a neighbor who makes a decent living by charging $20/ticket to his guitar concerts, and then one day another guy moves in, who plays way better my neighbor, and only charges $10/ticket…such that eventually my neighbor can’t afford to make a living playing his music any more and picks up a job he hates instead…That’s just a shitty situation. And I’m not going to go as far as many others do and say you’re bad for buying the $10 tickets from the new guy. I get it, you’re struggling too, we all are. You want some joy for the lowest price you can get it, and if it’s better, why not? But that doesn’t mean we need to turn our noses up at our neighbor and deem his shows “overpriced” - especially if he’s already living on less money than his patrons to begin with.

spamming this cringe bullshit across a bunch of different instances doesn’t make you any less of a permavirgin slop fiend who loves to be cucked by corporations

Nah

I loveeee ai , specially ai wifus

Not like I’m gonna make art for anybody else anyway. Do I look like a fucking party clown? I’ll take your ideas, they’re gonna suck, and maybe if it’s impressive I’ll write a note I never look at again.