Star Trek AI art thread

F. King Daniel

Fleet Admiral
Admiral
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"Sad Drunk Spock"

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"A still from the 2009 movie Star Trek"

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"New Star Trek uniforms"

All made by me, with Stable Diffusion. This is amazing.
 
I'm deeply ambivalent about this stuff on my best days. On my worst days I positively dislike seeing it. It's fun right now, but I'm expecting these AI image generators to take a bite out of certain aspects of my job role over the next few years. And a few years after that, they'll probably improve the tech even further.

This isn't a case of having to retrain after a new technology or methodology comes along - I'm old enough to have been through that process. No, this takes humans almost entirely out of the loop, and there's nowhere to go after that.

I'm sure there are other people here that work in the creative sector, I'm wondering what their opinions are on this? Because right now I'm not a fan, and it makes me sad to see it.

EDIT
All made by me
I disagree with this statement strongly. You are a client who formulated a brief.

EDIT 2
Ugh I'm sorry that had a mean tone, I just don't like these AI generators and it winds me up.
 
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I disagree with this statement strongly. You are a client who formulated a brief.
That's fair
EDIT 2
Ugh I'm sorry that had a mean tone, I just don't like these AI generators and it winds me up.
I can see your concern. The genie is out of the bottle now and I recently saw someone liken it to the invention of photography and the effect that had on artists.
 
I think it's an interesting idea and I love seeing the results, but as an artist, it can be kind of annoying. The 'I can do it with the touch of a button, why should I pay you'.

On the other hand, it's a really brilliant and fast way for me to generate a space backdrop that I don't have to work hardly at.

It can be a good tool, I just think it's going to get abused like so many others. I still say bring it on as I'm curious to see where it'll go.
 
Ok, so firstly I think these are cool. Like a weird dream you might have about Trek. I've tried out Midjourney for Trek uniforms and I do like how it comes up with ideas you probably wouldn't have considered because they're so far out there.

Addressing SCE2Aux points, I'm a Concept Artist and I've definitely had moments of existential dread thanks to all this. I mean we all knew Skynet was going to happen, I just didn't think the Terminator would come for us armed with mad art skills ;)

It is a tool, it can be useful, it will also definitely be used to cut people out of the equation (i've seen it already). I could talk about this at length, but I don't wanna derail the thread too much. The Concept Artist Karla Ortiz has stuff to say about all these developments/legalities. Might be worth looking up her social media.
 
I'm deeply ambivalent about this stuff on my best days. On my worst days I positively dislike seeing it. It's fun right now, but I'm expecting these AI image generators to take a bite out of certain aspects of my job role over the next few years. And a few years after that, they'll probably improve the tech even further.

This isn't a case of having to retrain after a new technology or methodology comes along - I'm old enough to have been through that process. No, this takes humans almost entirely out of the loop, and there's nowhere to go after that.

I'm sure there are other people here that work in the creative sector, I'm wondering what their opinions are on this? Because right now I'm not a fan, and it makes me sad to see it.

EDIT

I disagree with this statement strongly. You are a client who formulated a brief.

EDIT 2
Ugh I'm sorry that had a mean tone, I just don't like these AI generators and it winds me up.

Ok, so firstly I think these are cool. Like a weird dream you might have about Trek. I've tried out Midjourney for Trek uniforms and I do like how it comes up with ideas you probably wouldn't have considered because they're so far out there.

Addressing SCE2Aux points, I'm a Concept Artist and I've definitely had moments of existential dread thanks to all this. I mean we all knew Skynet was going to happen, I just didn't think the Terminator would come for us armed with mad art skills ;)

It is a tool, it can be useful, it will also definitely be used to cut people out of the equation (i've seen it already). I could talk about this at length, but I don't wanna derail the thread too much. The Concept Artist Karla Ortiz has stuff to say about all these developments/legalities. Might be worth looking up her social media.
Completely agree with both of these takes. While as a graphic designer and occasional illustrator I find AI interesting as a brainstorming tool to help generate ideas that I then turn into actual artwork, I also think it's getting pretty scary with how indistinguishable from human work the results look. And then you have sites where you not only give a prompt, but you also choose one of an assortment of actual living artists in whose style the AI should generate its result. And it's at this point where I find the whole thing pretty problematic. And also, if you look how quickly these things improve, we're getting to a point in a couple of years – or months even, if the current rate is any indication – where most clients won't see the need to hire actual people who've trained for this stuff for years and years to develop their own unique style and craft. But why pay for it if there's an AI that will generate exactly what you want for a fraction of the cost?

I usually try to have a positive outlook on future technology, but this shit looks like it will quickly change everything I know about the profession I work in, and I would be lying if I said it doesn't look bleak. Even if I agree that playing around with this stuff now can be very entertaining.
 
Any good trek ships yet?
Nope. Stable Diffusion refuses to draw any Treklike ships, instead substituting it's own generic scifi designs. I presume it's part of whatever it uses to prevent known celebrities showing up. Ask for Picard, Janeway, Spock or Kirk and you get weird bootleg versions. The outfits will change frequently, but it's almost always the same bootleg version, like an AI generated cosplayer.
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EDIT: AI PICARD HAS TOO MANY FINGERS!
EDIT #2: And here's the Enterprise and James T. Kirk
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Perhaps the A.I. “sees” the secondary hull gradually shrinking down to Ent-D proportions and extrapolates a saucer with growths on it as a next step.

Perhaps one of these engines could be fed only images of the Ent-E and refit…and come up with something out of STO.

That was done to get to a chess-piece like soap-nozzle for Unilever, as per a Ted talk. Might be a nightmare to code a swan shape in place of a face…which might also be whatever is going on with the image here perhaps.

Nixon-Spock I don’t get at all…unless it was fed that mind-meld image and did a Tuvix on us.

Restore compressed files
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-gan-architecture-heavily-compressed-music.html

AI for cheap
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-robe-array-small-companies-access.html
A breakthrough low-memory technique by Rice University computer scientists could put one of the most resource-intensive forms of artificial intelligence—deep-learning recommendation models (DLRM)—within reach of small companies.

This is great news for hobby folk!
 
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What about copyright issues and similar? Isn't the AI generated "art" based on images it's found/swiped/collected from the internet? Surely it hasn't produced the images above, say, from scratch?

(Apologies - I've only recently become aware of the AI art phenomenon, or whatever it is. I'd better do some research...)
 
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