AI-based Art Tools Seem Way Too Marred by Colonization

Microsoft announced it would be adding AI-based art tools — powered by DALL-E 2

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only affecting industries like business and healthcare. It is also playing an increasing role in the creative industries by ushering in a new era of AI-generated art. AI technologies and AI-based art tools are often widely accessible to anyone, which is helping to create an entirely new generation of artists.

In late September, OpenAI made its DALL-E 2 AI art generator widely available to the public, allowing anyone with a computer to make one of those striking, slightly bizarre images that seem to be floating around the internet more and more these days. DALL-E 2 is by no means the first AI art generator to become open to the public (the competing AI art models Stable Diffusion and Midjourney also launched this year), but it comes with a strong pedigree. Its cousin, the text-generating model known as GPT-3 — itself the subject of much intrigue and multiple gimmicky stories — was also developed by OpenAI.

Last week, Microsoft announced it would be adding AI-based art tools — powered by DALL-E 2 — to its Office software suite, and in June DALL-E 2 was used to design the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. The most techno-utopian proponents of AI-generated art say it provides democratization of art for the masses; the cynics among us would argue it's copying human artists and threatening to end their careers. Either way, it seems clear that AI art is here, and its potential has only just begun to be explored.

NightCafe is one of the big names in the world of AI art generators. It's known for having more algorithms and options than other generators, but it's also extremely easy for novice users to get the hang of. NightCafe is based on a credit system, but it has a generous free tier, and plenty of options to "earn" credits by participating in the community.