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I read all comments so far and I agree partwise with some pro ones and partwise with some con ones.

First let me point out and make it really clear that this wouldn’t be a major change of the content I usually do. You can see it as „filler-content“. Not everyone likes the idea of it, I get it. I wouldn’t subscribe to a artist for AI art myself. It’s just supposed to be some little extra for the people who may like it. This won’t take away much of my time for the usual content I always did and still will do (Animations and comics/hybrids of both). Yes, I may utilize AI to enhance some images of a comic page to maybe add some more realistic skinfolds for example but I’ll do what I always did and use AI just as extension of my workflow if at all for those.

Someone wrote it doesn’t look like my style.
I agree with that but people who follow me for longer will remember that I was always playing around with art styles and if you compare work I did 5 years ago with more current content, you’ll notice some shift over the years, even if you ignore fidelity improvements. It’s not fully comparable because it doesn’t evolve/change from my original art naturally but some artist’s style isn’t just the pixels or lines you can see, it’s also the preferences, ideas and editing.

Another person wrote that utilizing AI isn’t just a „make art button“.
It’s kinda true but also false. First of all you need to gather a general idea, then you’ve to set up some prompts which give you results close to the idea you got in your head. That’s the core to use AI and most people, especially those who aren't artists and never were ones are gonna use those tools this way. I never used other tools than Stable Diffusion with A1111 WebUI but I think Midjourney or some Apps don’t give the user much more freedom than that. It’s technically „press a button for art“ from here but just like with actual 2D or 3D art created by humans, you can spend more time to fine tune, improve and give it a certain something (at least with A1111). It’s a lot of fiddling around if you want to get something near perfect. Especially hands and fingers are a struggle but it’s possible. When I’m satisfied with it, I’m gonna send the image to Photoshop and keep editing there, where I fix some weird spots and enhance the overall image with color corrections, highlight improvements etc.
This workflow even gets more complicated if you use your own renders as base for the AI, as mentioned in the comments.

Last but not least the comment about "why support artists, if everyone can do the same art". First of all I think there's general nuances between people using AI. The tools I use can not just create basically every art style in the world, you can also create new ones. This sounds odd, since AI works with data made by humans and you would assume it's bound by the input. It's technically true but just like a artist can mix and match certain styles they draw inspiration from to create their own unique art style, AI can do the same. It's morally certainly grey with tendency to black but I wanted to point that out.
Secondly, I don't expect anyone to support me for those. They're like mentioned just bonus in the 1€ Bronze Tier and I maybe would even offer them for free but I'm not allowed to post NSFW content on Patreon without paywall. I also don't know if and how I'm gonna share them publicly yet. 

Some closing words:
AI is a tool, which won’t go away anymore. This can be bad and good and it’ll be both, most likely. Keeping up to date with it gives me as a artist a certain feel of security for the future. Who knows how it’s gonna evolve? I mean, I could keep up with it in the background but when I create images, why not just sharing them?
I’m still quite critical of AI art myself and it all depends on what someone makes of it but the more those tools progress (and they do really fast), the bigger the anxiety becomes.

I hope I was able to clarify some things and give you my perspective as an artist on this matter. If you want to add something, let me know in the comments. I’d be glad to keep the dialogue going.

The poll points pretty clearly in a pro direction. It ends tomorrow and then I'll make my final decision.

Comments

DezzieArts

Understandable. I do hope you're keeping in mind the US Copyright office has made it clear AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted. How that will play out if someone decides to hi-jack your art and post it elsewhere is in the air. Currently artists have solid legal recourse to get the art pulled under the protections of copyright. Will image platforms extend that same protection to AI-generated images? I agree that AI will one day become a useful tool for artists, but until it's unethical means of development are resolved there is a general "use it at your own risk" sentiment in the legal world.

surodyTG

I don't treat these mostly AI generated images as a source of income, at the moment it's just playing around and like mentioned some option to improve already self-made art. I'm not sure how this is getting regulated in the future. The only real solution I can see is artists offering their art to some data base voluntarily, the services using this data ask for a paid subscription and artists getting paid for it. I guess a bit similar to something like skillshare.

W C Purdy

I'm sorry, but this is it for me. AI is a parasitic technology by nature, requiring a constant stream of input from real, human artists. Human artists that it then devalues by sheer nature of its existence. If an AI trains off of its own AI generated images, it leads to something called "model collapse." It only survives by parasitizing human artists, even as it actively devalues their work and skill. I don't care in what capacity it's used. I don't care if it's currently popular. I don't even care if I become "that crazy, crotchety old man" shaking his cane at the kids on his lawn or whatever. I will not contribute to anybody who contributes to the growth or proliferation of this technology.