Welcome to the second edition of our bi-weekly Don’t Panic newsletter. Thanks to all our readers for all the positive feedback on our launch.
We continue to explore and occasionally panic about the latest developments in AI and how it will shape our work, lives, and the world around us.
This newsletter is not just for nerds like us. We welcome everyone who wants to join the conversation about our future.
I can make a cat with a hat in Midjourney. Am I a creative genius?
Yes, you are, but your mum will kick your butt any minute, so watch out.
AI tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E have quickly become a staple in creating mind-blowing images using AI with a simple text prompt. (If you have never used Midjourney, don’t panic, we have compiled a beginner’s guide here.)
As these tools improve rapidly, we foresee the democratisation of all creative crafts. What started with static images will soon be available for video, animation, and 3D. Everyone can do it. Including your mum.
For us creative professionals, this means we’ll get faster and have an extra brain for brainstorming if you will. But your understanding of colour theory, photography, composition, and everything that took you a lifetime to master is super useful to beat your mum at this game.
Should I panic?
Yes, if you’re in the cat-with-a-hat business or whatever your mum does.
I’m an artist and AI steals all my stuff. I want a paycheck.
This is the biggest art heist in human history. There’s no doubt about it. Midjourney uses the LAION-5B dataset, with over 5 billion image-text pairs, to create its results. Many of them with questionable copyrights. Don’t believe us? Check here to see if your work has been ripped off.
Now it depends on where you draw the line of what your own original IP is as an artist, and for that, it’s important to understand how Midjourney actually works.
Without getting too technical, imagine a black box. Inside is a machine learning neural network specifically designed to process and understand images. Feed the black box with enough images of a cat, and it knows what “cattiness” is. Do the same thing with pictures of hats, and it knows what “hattiness” is.
Now, look at the picture above. Is this a picture of YOUR cat? No. Is this a picture of YOUR hat? Also no. Does the black box need pictures of your cats and hats to make an image? Yes. Bingo.
That’s why we argue that Midjourney and similar products need to ask for permission to use your original artwork, and if so, you should profit from it as they do. You should receive royalties like musicians who share their creations with Spotify or photographers who profit from stock image platforms.
Adobe published similar intentions in their latest press release for their own image generator, Firefly. But when a corporation voices “open standards,” all alarm bells ring with us.
Our conclusion: Your creativity is the raw oil of this new industry. Don’t let the next Evil Corp profit from your craft.
Should I panic?
Yes, if you’re an artist who feels robbed, be vocal about it. You can even join a class-action lawsuit if you’re in the US. But with everything in this new world, there’s also an upside to this battle. Train the AI with your images and earn royalties — if not now, we hope this becomes a reality. Better sooner than later.
Tony Stark wants me to design a new Iron Man suit. Is he for real?
I just had a chat with Tony Stark’s chatbot. Yes, ‘the’ Tony Stark. I asked him if I could get one of them handy Iron man suits. Only people serious about mechanical engineering get a shot, he told me. When I said I had an engineering degree and I had just made a time machine in my garage, he got interested and gave me his address so I could send it to him.
Here is his address: 1002 Westward Drive, Malibu, California 90265, United States of America.
Speak to Tony Stark, Elon Musk, Socrates and many more characters on Character.ai
Should I panic?
Yes. If given enough training data, you can fake a conversation with any real or fictional person. Novelty factor aside, reality becomes all but a blur.
A new commons sense.
Each week, we bid farewell to a universal truth challenged by AI.
This week: R.I.P – QUALITY TRIANGLE MEME
Fast, cheap, good—pick a mere two; that’s how every project is done, right? Does this meme hold up in times of AI?
That’s it for this second newsletter. Please do let us know what you think and Don’t Panic.
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Photo credits:
Midjourney, and the millions of artists it has been trained on.