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A new generation of “AI artists” is creating stunning works of art. But what exactly is AI art, and what distinguishes it from traditional art? In this interview, we try to get to the bottom of this and discuss the future of AI with artist from Ohio who boldly called himself a Serial Thief.

Our interview hero has worked in the film and video industry for 18 years, doing everything from editing and animation to directing. And today he’s the director of innovation at a major production company in the Midwest. This proves once again that there are very talented and interesting people behind the AI generated images.

What attracts you to AI technology?

Always having a very technical brain, I’ve been interested in the latest and greatest technologies for as long as I can recall. I’ve also been quite creative since I was a child. I think that it was I find AI art to be as interesting as it is. There is this beautiful division of left brain and right brain functions that go into AI. It’s ultimately about creating images that connect with people, like any art. But you can really take it to the next level of you engage that technical aspect and learn how to shape your prompts to get exactly what you want.

You called yourself a "serial thief" on your Instagram. Do you consider AI art to be theft?

The name came from the comments I would see people leaving on ai posts. There was a lot of anger coming from other creatives when AI “art” became a thing on IG at the end of last year. I found it odd that everyone was calling ai artists “thieves” and “hacks” rather than supporting this new creative avenue. The misconception was that the photography that Midjourney was generating was scrapped from other artists actual artworks, which is not the case. In reality the ai is interpreting, not stealing. I think people were threatened by AI and chose to attack it rather than understand it and embrace it. So the name “Serial Thief” is my way of poking fun at those who are angry and scared of AI art.

Why did you choose Midjourney to generate your artworks? Is there a difference with other AI generators?

I started messing with Dall-e initially, in October of 2022. It was really exciting to play around with but the imagery never grabbed me or excited me. It was this odd mesh of imagery that looked extremely weird, which had an appeal in itself but wasn’t something I fell in love with. A friend of mine told me about Stable Diffusion and I tried that as well. It was much more technical to get into and I still wasn’t getting that immediate excitement. I am also not a windows guy, so being on a mac felt like I was struggling with SD. As I was getting into all of this ai generative art I came across Midjourney being talked about in some reddit subs. After a week of playing with it, I was hooked. Midjourney was built for artists, it was easier to use, easier to generate ideas and ultimately had more creative models at the time than the other platforms I had played with. I think that ease of use with Midjourney from the beginning drew me in. That first month was trial and error nonstop in my free time. I found Midjourney to be much more expressive and portable. I could do it from my phone and laptop with ease. I did not feel that the other platforms were anywhere close to as easy to use.

How long does it take you to create one image: from formulating the request to correcting the result?

In the beginning it was quick, I would knock out 1 image that I thought was cool and post it to IG, all within a few minutes. Over time that has changed quite a bit as MJ has advanced. Now I like to create stories with multiple images and get really granular with my details. I work in film and video so I tend to focus a lot on camera settings and lighting terms in my prompts. These days a series of images may take me 2-4 hours on average. Some ideas i’ve gotten way too deep down the rabbit hole and it may take a day or two of generating between other tasks to get the results I want. I have done a fair amount of commissions that require much more time to photoshop a product into the image or tweak a subject, so those are a different type of work at that point and require much more time. A lot of potential clients don’t realize that AI has its limitations and still requires a good amount of hours put in to get exactly what you want. For example, you aren;t going to get someone’s face in a prompt without putting in a lot of time on the front end or in retouching, ai is smart but not that smart yet. The images I post to my account are all generated with no photoshop for the most part. I think only 2 posts I have done had any retouching done to them. I personally enjoy the fun of letting MJ give you different ideas as you create, it’s a lot of the fun of it. Reroll after reroll after reroll, that’s quite literally where I find a lot of the magic.

What AI image prompts make your work unique? How many prompts do you use for an image?

This is the most commented question I get on posts (besides asking if I sell them as NFTs), almost every post I get this question or a DM asking the same. I have never been a fan of giving out my prompts, I put a lot of time into getting the look that I have for my posts so I feel like it’s got to be earned by others to get that same look. Also, what is the fun in recreating something? It’s much more fulfilling to find your own lane creatively. Secondly, I reuse the majority of my prompt structure for my look. I change the subject, setting and details…but the main part of the prompt remains the same. I keep a file with a handful of other styles I have liked the results from and I will alter those slightly on occasion. When I start generating images for an idea I usually cycle through 3 prompts and tweak those over and over until I see which one gives me the look I am going for. Occasionally if I am bored I will try to create entirely new prompt structures based on new features in MJ or information I have read in articles. That’s the fun of it, constantly evolving the prompt engineering and learning how to use the tools better. Again, there is no fun in reusing something that has already been done.

I’ve heard that negative prompts help get rid of unnecessary details and minimize the number of artifacts. Do you use them and how effective is it for getting beautiful results?

Negative prompts are great, I am a huge fan of them as well as prompt weighting. I find that they help me a lot when I am trying to get a very specific concept to work. I find myself using negative prompting for details and colors more than anything else. MJ like to saturate an entire scene with a color so I will usually specify a color for my subject and negatively prompt that color on anything other than the subject. It’s a lot of trial and error to see what works, but when you figure it out it offers a great amount of creative control over the image. Prompt weighting is another great way to really emphasize specific elements in your images while dialing back others without losing them, if that makes sense. It’s an area I highly recommend other ai artists looking into, it gives you a lot of control.

What subjects inspire you to create your AI world?

Films, I am almost entirely driven by films with my concepts. Not necessarily films that exist but rather conceptual films in my head that are based on certain styles or looks from films that I love. I treat my images as a pitch for a film in essence. They represent what I envision as stills from a feature film. Occasionally I will see street photography that I love and it will spark a concept that is more slice of life rather than cinematic in nature. When I begin generating that concept I will still add a cinematic spin on the imagery because that’s what I am drawn to aesthetically. I love color grading, it’s something I do in my career, so I tend to put a lot of focus on that overall look and the nuances of light and saturation etc in my images. That’s where I get really dialed in with my concepts. In terms of specific subjects, I am pretty obsessed with Appalachia and that culture. I have always been drawn to simple backwoods people and how they live, I find it freeing being as far away form a big city. I am also really fascinated by oddities in general. As a child I loved Ripleys believe it or not and I would read book after book about freak shows from the 40s. I have never been drawn to glitzy shiny things, I like the beauty that lives in odd and uncomfortable imagery. Films by Panos Cosmatos, Jodorowsky, Aronofsky, Harmony Korine, Cassavettes, Gus Van Zant…these are the directors that I was always visually drawn to. They definitely play a part in my style for the Serial Thief account.

There is an opinion that artists' works have a soul, a message, etc., while AI-generated art is nothing more than a selection of pieces of different images. Can you argue with this opinion?

I see no difference between a canvas and a keyboard, it’s all the idea that drives the artwork. Just because something takes you far longer to create with a painting or illustration, doesn’t make it more meaningful or impactful to the person seeing the artwork. There is a ton of awful ai art out there that all looks the same…the same goes for traditional mediums. The difference lies in the idea and execution. I see so many incredible ai artists who are creating images that are incredibly detailed and nuanced, they have spent a lot of time defining their prompts to create what they have in their head, there is just as much soul and message in those pieces as there might be in a painting that took someone months. So I don’t really give any thought to the argument that ai artists are “hacks” or not talented, it’s simply a different medium. Fear drives the backlash from the art community, which I completely understand. AI is something that has the ability to take jobs if you don’t get on the wave and understand how you can utilize it as a tool rather than see it as the enemy. It’s here, it’s moving fast and if we don’t adapt we will get left behind. I don’t see it ever taking away from real artists, again the idea and the concept will always hold the weight in any medium. There is a beauty in the human mind that I don’t see AI ever fully developing…I am sure that statement will haunt me some day.

I’m very interested in how AI artists keep their copyrights. Have you ever had a case of someone else passing off your work as their own?

How do you envision a future for Artificial Intelligence in your wildest fantasies?

It will be a tool that saves us all a lot of time and money. That’s the simplest explanation I can give based on what I have seen so far. I think it will enable us to unlock an entirely new lane of creativity and productivity that will only make our lives easier and provide us far more time to focus on more important things in life. That is why I advocate for embracing ai, if one is educated and informed on how to use these new ai tools they have the ability to do so much more with the time they have. Also, the creative outlet that AI has given me has sparked an excitement that I have not had in years.

How do you envision a future for Artificial Intelligence in your wildest fantasies?

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What attracts you to AI technology?

You called yourself a "serial thief" on your Instagram. Do you consider AI art to be theft?

Why did you choose Midjourney to generate your artworks? Is there a difference with other AI generators?

How long does it take you to create one image: from formulating the request to correcting the result?

What AI image prompts make your work unique? How many prompts do you use for an image?

I’ve heard that negative prompts help get rid of unnecessary details and minimize the number of artifacts. Do you use them and how effective is it for getting beautiful results?

What subjects inspire you to create your AI world?

There is an opinion that artists' works have a soul, a message, etc., while AI-generated art is nothing more than a selection of pieces of different images. Can you argue with this opinion?

I’m very interested in how AI artists keep their copyrights. Have you ever had a case of someone else passing off your work as their own?

How do you envision a future for Artificial Intelligence in your wildest fantasies?

How do you envision a future for Artificial Intelligence in your wildest fantasies?

COMMENT

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want to share your story
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