This entire article misses critical developments in the AI art space.
Controlnet was just released last week. It allows for precise fine-tuning of the image with skeletal positions, depth maps, outline sketches, etc.
It has been exceptionally received in the AI art community, because pure-text-prompting precisely runs into the issue described in the article. You can only convey so much information with text prompts.
That being said, artists in general still don't want to touch controlnet. Because despite controlnet solving their complaints about how the AI isn't controllable precisely, it doesn't solve the real problem, that drawing skills are massive devalued.
Artists will still exist, but most likely as hybrid 3d-modellers, AI modelers (Not full programmers, but able to fine-tune models with online guides and setups, can read basic python), and storytellers (like manga artists). It'll be a higher-pay, higher-prestige, higher-skill-requirement job than before.
And all those artists who devoted their lives to draw better, find this to be an incredibly brutal adjustment.
PS: Despite how people made fun of 'proompters', or predicted that prompting would be automated away. The skill ceiling to good AI art has radically increased. There's now 10 different fine-tuned models you need to learn the basics of, each with different strengths. There's thousands of LORAs to insert into prompts to precisely reproduce a subject that the base model has no information on. There's 20 parameters to tune, each with different effects. There's VAEs which affect coloring and fine-details. Now there's controlnet, and you'd better learn blender to rig basic skeletons to feed it.
This likely suggests the future of an AI-augmented economy: People become AI wranglers. Wordpress was supposed to make blogging easier, instead it spawned an industry of WP wranglers.
That being said, artists in general still don't want to touch controlnet. Because despite controlnet solving their complaints about how the AI isn't controllable precisely, it doesn't solve the real problem, that drawing skills are massive devalued.
Artists will still exist, but most likely as hybrid 3d-modellers, AI modelers (Not full programmers, but able to fine-tune models with online guides and setups, can read basic python), and storytellers (like manga artists). It'll be a higher-pay, higher-prestige, higher-skill-requirement job than before. And all those artists who devoted their lives to draw better, find this to be an incredibly brutal adjustment.
PS: Despite how people made fun of 'proompters', or predicted that prompting would be automated away. The skill ceiling to good AI art has radically increased. There's now 10 different fine-tuned models you need to learn the basics of, each with different strengths. There's thousands of LORAs to insert into prompts to precisely reproduce a subject that the base model has no information on. There's 20 parameters to tune, each with different effects. There's VAEs which affect coloring and fine-details. Now there's controlnet, and you'd better learn blender to rig basic skeletons to feed it. This likely suggests the future of an AI-augmented economy: People become AI wranglers. Wordpress was supposed to make blogging easier, instead it spawned an industry of WP wranglers.