Talking to a kid at an art fair made me drop my grudge against AI art

Was tabling at a local show in Portland last weekend and this 14-year-old kid came up to my booth. He was super into my stuff, asked a bunch of questions about my process. Then he pulls out his phone and shows me some character designs he made with Midjourney. I almost rolled my eyes honestly. But he started talking about how he used it to get past his fear of drawing hands and then went back in and painted over everything himself. He had a whole sketchbook of stuff he did after using the AI as a stepping stone. Been hating on AI art for like a year now but seeing a kid actually learn from it and level up made me feel dumb. Has anyone else had a real conversation that changed your mind on this?

3 comments

3 Comments

gibson.sean1mo ago

Is it really that deep though? One kid having a positive experience doesn't suddenly make the whole ethical side of AI training data go away.

uma3061mo ago

Read a researcher say consent and compensation are the REAL issues here.

kelly_coleman611mo ago

Yeah a friend of mine's art ended up in a dataset without her knowing.