Another unpopular opinion.

Over the last few months a strange consensus has taken shape across art communities worldwide: AI steals our paintings and will steal our jobs. This position is not unique to artists, but artists have become the loudest and most visible group.

1. Theft of paintings
Imagine there is no AI. Artists post their work on Instagram, Behance, ArtStation and other platforms. Then one day a large wave of beginner artists appears. They are not really artists, more like imitators. They start using existing paintings as references and create works that look very similar to the originals, just with some extra details or a slightly different theme.

My question: how is this different from AI?

2. Theft of work
Another popular idea is that AI will steal everyone’s job. To be honest, it is hard for me to explain my position, but not because I do not have one. It is because every programmer, QA engineer, and even every sysadmin hears every hour: 'Hey, you will lose your job next month / year / decade!'

Is that true? Yes, but with some exceptions.

Will a good programmer lose their job? I do not think so.

Will a mediocre programmer lose their job? I am sure they will, and that is a good thing.

We live on the edge of a new era, very much like the Industrial Revolution. Back then many people lost their jobs, but a few years later they retrained and became excellent factory workers.

So why are some people so obstructionist now? Yes, sadly, mediocre artists / programmers / managers will lose their jobs and will be forced to learn something new. But as I said before, that is good.

3. Madness
Why am I talking mostly about artists and not programmers or others? Because some artists go mad at the mere mention of AI.

I do not want to post here the memes about 'bombs as tools against AI data centers' or quotes from radicals who dream of hurting or even killing AI developers. But there is another side of this madness: Cara, a new platform for artists, which positions itself as fighting AI and AI-generated art.

Cara claims to be a platform that protects against AI theft and bans AI-generated images. But, sorry artists, a month ago I uploaded an AI-generated painting there (it is still available) and I also grabbed several artworks from other creators to produce AI-generated copies.

So what is the point?

Sadly, Cara is not a defender against AI, it is a thief, and much more dangerous than OpenAI, Google, Meta and others, because behind Cara stands the CCP, since it is run by Chinese companies. Just like TikTok, which steals everything from content to personal data that flows by the terabyte to servers inside China.

Cara does not protect your work from theft. It steals it for its own purposes.

Please, let us keep moving forward.

Artists, unite to teach one another and grow beyond what AI can do, and then AI will not be able to replace you. Unfortunately, mediocre artists, just like mediocre programmers and other workers, will lose their jobs. That is a necessary sacrifice.

We live in a world where we must get better day by day, and that is wonderful.

As usual, I invite you to discuss this :)