DeviantArt upsets artists with its new AI art generator, DreamUp

Looking at the comment section it seems that people struggle to understand how it works and thinks it is literally copying parts of people's images.

Educating people about such a technical topic seems very difficult especially since people get emotional of their work being used.

It's worse than copying parts of images, it's replacing artists.

I know because I'm literally working on setting up Dreambooth to do what I'd otherwise have to pay an artist to do.

And not only is it replacing artists, it's using their own work to do so. None of these could exist without being trained on the original artwork.

Surely you can imagine why they're largely not happy?

No one is happy when technology renders them obsolete or drives the marginal cost of what they produce to zero.

This is manifestly true. Artists worried that they would be rendered obselete by photography, and to a degree they were correct. Those that survide had to completely redifine their role and how they served that role.

I am not a portrait artist despite having a camera. Instead of hiring a portrait painter, I hire a photographer. It’s much cheaper now, so I can afford to hire many portraits throughout my life. It still takes an artist to get a good portrait.

Portraiture is a good example of what I mentioned. I am a painter, but I would say that a camera is far more capable of capturing the subtleties of the human face your than a painter. Don't believe me? Search for paintings made before 1800 that feature a smiling face. They exist, but even the lamest insta does a better job of showing us those fleeting facial moments.

Landscapes are another matter. Try finding any photo of a landscape that is half as sublime as the landscape paintings made by the Hudson river school. An effective painter can improve upon optical reality in a way that beggers belief. They do this with a clever mix of increasing contrast and affinity in a way that would be almost impossible for a photographer.