I think the hype around AI art generators is actually hurting real artists more than helping

I visited a local art fair in Portland last weekend and talked to a painter who sells her work at booths like that. She told me her sales dropped about 40 percent in the last year because people keep saying "why pay $200 for a print when I can type a prompt and get something similar for free." The thing is, the AI stuff lacks the soul and the little imperfections that make human art special. I get that it's a cool tool for brainstorming or whatever, but I feel like the community here acts like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Has anyone else actually talked to working artists about how this affects their income or is it just me who noticed this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_patricia14d agoMost Upvoted

Heard similar stories from a ceramicist at the Saturday market here in Seattle. She said people think AI can just spit out a mug design instantly but forget the whole process of throwing clay on the wheel takes years to get right. The real issue is a lot of folks online haven't actually talked to someone whose income comes from selling physical work, so they don't see how the free tool thing cuts into actual sales. Also, that comparison between a $200 print and a free AI image isn't quite fair since a print is a tangible object you can hold and hang on your wall, not just a digital file.

blake69113d ago

Whoa hold on, I gotta respectfully disagree with that painter's numbers. A 40% drop because of AI art generators? That sounds like a stretch to me. Most people I know who actually buy art at fairs are there for the experience, the story behind the piece, and the fact that they're supporting a real person. Nobody's walking past a booth with a $200 print and thinking "well, I'll just generate something on my phone instead" - those are two totally different things. The people messing around with AI prompts probably weren't buying art in the first place.

christopher_wells413d ago

Has anyone actually looked at what kinds of buyers are drying up, though? I'm with @the_patricia on the ceramicist story - that tracks with what I hear from a guy who sells handmade cutting boards at the same fair. The big hit isn't from people who used to buy prints or mugs. It's from the folks who were buying cheap digital assets, like stock photos or basic vector art. Those folks were never at the $200 print table, they were the ones hitting up Fiverr or buying a $5 pattern off Etsy. Now they type a prompt and get it for nothing, so that whole low-end market just vanished.