🤖 Will AI Soon Put Artists Out of Business?

Welcome to The Level Ups. Modern business news for the future business leader (explained in plain-Jane English).

Today’s issue: The AI-creator wave that’s taking over.

• Writers are the first hit.

• An image made by AI wins 1st place at state fair.

• A new company changing the ad-game.

• Even music is generated by AI (are Nicki and Jay Z the same person)?

What does this mean for the future of art?

Let’s get into it.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes & 49 seconds. Ok, it’s a bit long, but it’s worth it.

• Note: Since I promise to write in plain-Jane English, it may feel like I’m glossing over technical details. I am. I prefer this to be easy reading for a non-technical audience. There are links to the technical writes ups below if you want to read them.

AI Slowly Taking Over

Yesterday, I covered how this image was made with a simple prompt.

It turns out there’s much more to this than just images.

AI has been transforming:

• Writing

• Art

• Music

First, it was coffee-making robots, then driverless cabs. Now, it’s art.

They all work in similar ways.

Here’s how (my simple version below):

Billions and billions of data points get pumped into an AI system. The AI follows a model to make decisions on what to do next.

As it makes decisions, a program gives it a “yes” or a “no” answer (typically, it’s told “no”), and it adjusts.

Over time, it learns patterns and improves the underlying model. Decades later, AI is now "creating" on a human level.

It Started With Writing

The writing AI is called GPT-3. It stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (a mouthful).

Open AI has trained an AI to write like a human. It’s built on 175 billion inputs, and the “training” is the process I described above.

They’re pretty good writers. I’ve used them to help finish old freelance writing projects.

Here’s a short list of the big players:

• Jasper

• Copy AI

• Rytr

• Ai Writer

There are dozens, but this should give you a good start. Maybe it’s time to start a writing business??

Let me know how it goes if you do.

Regardless the AI-creator wave didn’t stop with writing. It started there.

Designers Should Keep An Eye On This

An AI-generated image won first place at the Colorado state fair. Designers were pissed.

Here are the top AI image generators:

• Stable Diffusion

• Dall-E 2 (also from Open AI)

• Playground AI

• Dream (by Wombo)

Again, there are several others. But this is a good start.

You might be able to play around with some of them. Typically there’s a waitlist to get access.

First, it’s winning a state fair. Then what?

How It Works

Here is a link to the best technical description I could find.

My simplified version for a non-technical person:

1. You type in the prompt (the short, written description of what you want to see).

2. The system breaks that apart, makes sense of it, and matches it to images in its database.

3. This matching process creates many different images, each of which should fit the prompt, and gives them to you.

That’s how this image was created:

It’s also how writing "a bowl of soup that is a portal to another dimension as digital art" created these:

Think about how many times the AI would have to be wrong about “a bowl of soup” and “a new dimension” before becoming good enough to produce those images.

That is why, at least for now, it’s all about the written prompts.

A New Industry Just For Talking to This AI

Since the prompt determines how well the AI performs, there’s a new industry just for these.

Makes sense. The AI won't make a decent image if you can’t write a good prompt. It's a critical part of the process.

People have responded:

• Youtube videos with prompt-writing strategies are up.

• There are websites let you buy and sell amazing prompts.

People are seeing the potential.

What happens when businesses start taking advantage of this tech?

The next one’s game-changing.

Next Level Advertising

The AI covered so far has been cool but hasn't been connected directly with business outcomes. Especially the image makers (the writers are a bit better).

The ad industry is worth trillions, and it might just get flipped on its head. There’s one new company that’s about to change the ad game.

The company is Osmosis, and the web demo tells the story. Check it out.

Straightforward:

1. Upload a photo of your product.

2. Enter your prompt with the scene, lighting, aesthetics and more.

3. The AI will create ads (not just one), and you can customize them further until you're happy.

Production-ready, branded ads with just one product photo and a prompt.

Put your can of sugar-free vodka soda on a bed of moon rocks in space while unicorns dance around it (if you want to).

While the example might seem a bit much, I think it’ll pay to be an early user of Osmosis.

New, crazy, interesting, never-before-seen ads will probably convert above the average. I tap ads that look new or interesting all the time.

Ads are a MASSIVE industry. Keep an eye on this company.

By 2032, A Top Ten Song Will Be Made By AI

Music is next.

Why can’t AI make beats if it can write like a person and design like an artist?

I think music is the best and most practical example. A song only takes one viral moment to turn into a hit. The ramifications are enormous.

Here are the big players:

• Sound Raw

• Boomy

• Juke Box (again, from Open AI).

• Melobytes (you can try it).

There are rumours that the music industry has already been using AI like this.

Check this video that makes it look like Nicki Minaj and Jay Z are the same person.

What Does This Mean for Artists?

I think the major turning point will be in 10 years when AI can make images that move. Animation is the turning point.

Imagine a child sitting in their room talking into a microphone that converts speech to text.

That text then gets fed into an AI (like the ones above) and creates a moving image with music and text. Like a scene from a movie.

“I want to see Buggs Bunny riding a unicorn in space with the sad song from Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s sad, troubled, and crying because he can’t find his love, Lola Bunny.”

Boom. The AI spits out a dozen different versions of that scene.

A child can string different scenes together and create a new motion picture.

Don’t like how that cartoon ended? Remake it in your vision with AI.

Ten years. That’s my call. What’s yours?

Predictions

But don’t be surprised if any of these predictions come true, aside from winning more state fairs.

By 2032, AI will write, design, and produce:

• A best-selling book.

• A $50M ad.

• A top 10 song on the billboard charts.

For some, it’s exciting. For others, not as much.

But it’s worth a conversation and what future business leaders need to know.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading!!