I’d like to begin this piece by sharing 4 feedback that appeared under a current Twitter/X publish I made (spelling and punctuation as written…)
1. “for f#ck sake stop f#cking up perfectly good artwork with AI you HAD something already”
2. “Your photos are always hugely creative! Ignore the luddites with their pissy comments. They look AWESOME animated like this!”
3. “Why the AI sh#t instead of creative work or art”
4. “Amazing work. Ignore all the haters / bullies”
These optimistic and detrimental feedback are typical reactions to my use of AI in animating pictures. They clearly present that the topic of AI and its use in ‘art’ is deeply polarising.
My pastime is toy pictures. This entails posing Doctor Who motion figures, lighting them atmospherically, and compositing them towards photographic backgrounds that I’ve shot utilizing my Photoshop skills. For the last few years, my humble band of around 640 @scifitoyphoto Instagram followers was comfortable to present my photographs a couple of likes, and everybody appeared comfortable.
Then, like a brand new kind of Doctor Who monster, generative AI started to rear its head. Back in 2023, I began utilizing Adobe Firefly to generate the occasional alien planet or spooky graveyard background for my toy pictures. As these backgrounds had been secondary to the foreground figures (and infrequently blurred to faux a shallow depth of area), nobody appeared to object, and the ‘likes’ saved on coming.
Fast ahead to the current day, and I’ve just lately found NaukNauk. This is a smartphone app that’s devoted to bringing pictures of toys to life as five-second animations. I started feeding my older sci-fi toy pictures into NaukNauk and was amazed at what it might produce. A nonetheless picture of two Cybermen in a cemetery sprang to life because the silver robotic figures strode in direction of the digital camera, blades of grass being compressed underneath their metallic boots. The app even preserved the unique dramatic lighting, backlighting the marching Cybermen as they superior.
Not everybody in my small social media pool was as comfortable as I used to be. One of my Instagram followers objected to my use of AI as a result of it was “stealing from other artists”. My response was that since I’d composed the toys within the unique picture, lit the set, composited the weather collectively in Photoshop, and directed the motion by way of textual content prompts, it wasn’t ‘stealing’ to then carry a picture that I had created to life. My critic didn’t settle for any of those factors and stated that it could be a “really sad unfollow for me to do”.
The detrimental suggestions on my use of AI continued. I laughed off the occasional “this is sh*t!” feedback as a result of they had been knee-jerk, and the writers didn’t seem to grasp the method of collaborating with AI so as to add animation to an present nonetheless picture. My favorite trolling remark thus far stated that certainly one of my animated motion figures “looks as bland and lifeless as your face does in your profile picture”. At least they’d spent a while and thought on crafting their remark, relatively than defaulting to the extra frequent and lazy “this is AI slop!” that some individuals regurgitate under a publish.
Another frequent and recurring opinion was that I used to be damaging my inventive work by utilizing AI. “Can you please stop posting the AI slop of your great photos? It’s really diminishing the quality,” wrote one follower. I took the ‘great photos’ bit as a praise after which had an concept to placate enemies of AI. I proposed to the remark author that sooner or later, I might attempt to publish a nonetheless picture alongside an animated model. People would then must swipe from the nonetheless to view the animation. The crucial follower didn’t reply on to this proposal, however I used to be happy to see that they did ‘like’ my subsequent publish, so I took that as a seal of approval for my compromise.
I perceive that the information facilities that energy the AI computations used to animate my toy pictures will not be good for the planet, and this does give me meals for thought. Though just one individual has used this level as a criticism. However, I can’t resist the inventive scope that AI provides to my toy pictures. I loved creating the Doctor Who-themed photographs up to now, however now I can direct the ‘performance’ of the figures and make cinematic digital camera strikes in brief clips, which will get me one step nearer to being a ‘director’ of my favourite TV show and is immensely creatively fulfilling. Which is what a hobby should be!
Feel free to check out my toy photos (and swipe for animated versions) on Instagram – @scifitoyphoto. Compliments (and constructive criticism) welcome. Now I’m off to discover a much less ‘lifeless’ Twitter/X profile image!