AI Design

I've worked in a copy shop part time for about a decade and I've never really given AI much thought even though I see lots of headlines like "AI is going to steal every job" and even some that say AI can do better graphic design than a human.

Seems dumb and far off to me, but lately I've been getting artists coming into the shop printing out posters of their AI art. There is one that likes to talk shop and wait on his posters to print out on our Design Jet so we usually have half an hour at a time to chit chat.

Then when Adobe put their little AI thing into Illustrator I used it a bunch to check it out. Most things it generates are just weird. Maybe there are few usable elements in a design, but stuff just comes out so bizarre it's usually not even salvageable. I've tried at least 3 other sites out there to generate art.

This morning I was talking to a tech buddy about AI and he sent me a fun cartoon from openart.ai. I then copied a bunch of the art I've done there and we laughed a bit, and then I started creating new stuff. One of them created a black and white portrait of some fake woman. It was really awesome. I do screen printing at home and I took this image and turned it into a really cool t-shirt design. Like one of my favorite designs ever. I drew a couple of things to really make it pop and sent it around to my friends who all agree it's awesome.

So now I'm sitting here realizing that maybe it's not bull shit. AI really can do some awesome shit, especially when guided by a human. At least for now. The only consolation is that I have been trying all day to come up with a second design and it's failing in amazing and incredible ways. So I've got that going for me, but still I'm a bit shook.

Anyway, just thought this was a fun anecdote, would love to have a little discussion about it. Thoughts?

​

​

​

​