How to THRIVE in the age of AI as an ARTIST

Art is half about the art and half about the artist.

It’s no longer enough to merely post appealing digital art online. Build a community around your art. Get used to talking on camera. Push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit. Remember how difficult it was to muster the courage to share your art with the internet? Well, you may have to make yourself go through a vulnerable stage again. Use your life, experiences, or even unique perspectives that only you can provide the world in a genuine way.

If you keep posting progress videos every day, you will not be able to keep up. You will burn out. 

The influx of AI content will falter in comparison to real people with real stories. It isn’t enough to post pretty images. Yes, I love aesthetically pleasing pictures. I strive to make those myself. But unfortunately, most people don’t recognize the true difference between a digital image created with an artist’s blood, sweat, and tears, and an image made with generative AI.

Be human. Tell YOUR story. Don’t just make art - be an artist. If you keep saying real art is human-made, you have to make it apparent that you’re a real person behind that art. Once you do this, you will become less threatened by AI. 

The world needs you.

Right now, many artists, designers, and illustrators are stuck in a negative thought loop. They speak to an audience familiar with the negative consequences of how some AI generated images are used, but that’s all they focus on. As a result, they appeal mostly to other artists who know the struggle. Consequently, they don’t speak to audiences who aren’t familiar with the differences between AI images and human art.

They are burning out because they aren’t speaking to the majority of audiences out there, aside from the artist followers who want to support the artist for partaking in the same thought loop.

Furthermore, they have to work harder and harder to try to reach the people they don’t know how to reach. So, they burn out and become even more embittered against AI in ANY form, because their illustrations are all they are putting forward. Hostility to technology is all they are putting forward.

Let’s use AI to empower artists again. Let’s get involved in the conversation. Let’s make our voices heard in a balanced and nuanced way. We need to address the real issues of art theft, and artists being put out of work. This will be difficult to do on a large scale because we, as artists, tend to have difficulty looking past our volatile emotions.

We need to express more kindness towards artists who use AI for reference, brainstorming, and inspiration - especially mental illness sufferers, who are broadly left out of the discussion.

But it doesn’t have to be so complicated.

“But Aleo,” you may say, “I don’t have an incredibly compelling life!”

Yes you do.

You are a person, with a personality. You have unique perspectives, experiences, and ideas which can only be told by a real human being. A human being as unique as you.