this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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When you first see what image-generating AIs can do, you feel bad for real artists; after playing around with it, you envy them. (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by birdcat@lemmy.ml to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] K3zi4@lemmy.world 52 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Spot on here! I've only just been using stable Diffusion for a couple of weeks now to help me visualise characters and locations in my world building. It's such a great tool when you really have no artistic skill. But the limitations soon become apparent and a lot of problem solving goes into trying to regenerate the simplest things.

Can generate a near perfect image in a minute if the prompts are right and you get lucky. But the details take hours, where an artist would be able to simply visualise and draw it in.

I think the key is to develop basic skills to draw a really shit mockup of what you want, then img2img it from that... I'll get there, maybe.

[–] IanM32@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

Exactly. At first glance it can spit out some really impressive stuff, but turning that content into a coherent piece of artwork still takes imagination and skill.

I can't draw very well, but I've gotten good at compositing and image manipulation over the years. SD is amazing, but it doesn't mean that I don't spend hours and hours piecing together an image to be the way I wanted it.

[–] Magiwarriorx@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've always explained it like this:

Every time you press that button, you'll get an image. Maybe even a really good image. But it will never be the image you had in mind.

[–] sudo@lemmy.today 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But sometimes you're restricted by your own imagination and the image produced reflects your desire stronger than your vision. The ability to consistently generate meaning and purposeful images with generative ai is an art in itself. It's just a different medium for artists to use.

[–] Magiwarriorx@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I've only found that true for days I am prompting without a specific image in mind. The second something specific gets in my head, and even hours of fiddling and tweaking prompts won't get the result that satisfies me (though I might get a bunch of cool tangential output along the way).

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

AI tools are support for professionals. For non professionals they are a toy, a magic box

[–] SwallowsDick@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The question is, could one million people reaching into the magic box at once pull out at least one thing better than a professional could make in the same time?

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

It is the same as science. Many discoveries are serendipity, they happen by chance. You need a professional to understand that that is a new discovery.

Anyone who manages to make something significant with AI is a professional.

[–] gon@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't understand what this means.

[–] Peafield@programming.dev 38 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I believe they are saying that the skill it takes a real artist to produce art is something to envy.

[–] birdcat@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

yea, specifically I envy the ability to form an original idea and then using your skills to create something exactly how you want it to be. Must be nice. Using those AIs is just unsatisfying, it's never your thing, never your style and never your idea, never your vision, never your art – even if it might look kinda cool sometimes.

I tried really hard to "create" an older Version of Daria (from the MTV cartoon, so not even an original idea cuz I cannot form those) standing in front of a billboard in a slightly dystopian environment. Despite numerous attempts of prompting, the best I got was this hyper-attractive girl in a green jacket.

Daria

[–] SgtSilverLining@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 years ago (4 children)

this hyper-attractive girl

I swear, it's actually really difficult to make ai women that AREN'T yassified. Is all the training data for what "real" women look like from Instagram?

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

No, just internet in general. There are a lot of sites/services that put the stereotypical "hot" women in the light and don't even consider anything else. The same way text content is driven by the most vocal people, video are cut/tailored towards hyperactive squirrels, etc.

AI just averages all this out and asks you "do you want it tipped a bit this way or that way". (I know it's a gross overgeneralization, but it still stands)

Curating the internet as a "sane, balanced" data source raise two main issues : what does "sane / balanced" mean, and how much human power is needed to seep through all the garbage. This is the main reason I'm not too worried about "AI". We will bend the thing to be a useful tool for a lot of usecases by using local training, but unless these two questions gets an appreciable upgrade, having one big "ubiquitous" AI model that will answer every need is not on the horizon.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Decades before the internet we knew that popular media does not depict actual women and tends to advance distorted ideals of beauty, often converging toward just one.

[–] birdcat@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Lol totally! I started with subtle wrinkles around here eyes and gradually tuned it up to unattractive, old, ugly, sad, which is what you see in the pic I posted 🤣

[–] gens@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averageness

It just happens when you average faces.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago

Art is a language. And artists are communicating throught art. You will never be able to communicate your art to an AI with text because it needs art to communicate

Atleast thats what i belive

[–] gon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

AAAAH!! Yes, that makes sense, thank you~

[–] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For data workers, AI is a lever, and a damn good one.

Whenever people call AI the next segway it's an immediate flag that they don't work in a field that uses it.

[–] Hangglide@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you talking about a segue or a segway? A leaver is much more useful than a Segway but they are both completely different things. Why are you comparing a machine to a leaver? Also, the Segway as a product wasn't nearly as popular as the inventor hoped. Are you saying people who think AI will flop like the Segway did are wrong or are you saying that the Segway is some super tool and AI is not?

[–] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

I honestly can't tell if you're trolling, idk how you could even come to the conclusions you did with my response.

  1. AI isn't going to replace us anytime soon. Data entry will be first, in the next 5-10 years most likely. When I say it's a "lever" what I mean is that for people like myself who work in IT, AI tools have multiplied our efforts and allowed us to spend more time doing and less time researching how to do. Even when it's wrong, it's usually good enough to get me on the right track and save me time.

  2. The Segway analogy was intended to illustrate how the average person who doesn't work on or around computers sees the invention. They think it's the next Segway (as in, a useless item that is supposed to change everything but disappears in months) because they don't have an actual use case for it and spend most of their time trying to make it write smut or whatever else they're dicking around with.

[–] MossBear@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Also, all of the time that people spend tweaking their prompts could just as easily be time spent learning to create their own art. The distance between absolute beginner and competent artist isn't as vast as some people would like to believe. It's just intimidating to a lot of people to get up the will to even try.

[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

I've heard a prediction that in the near future there will be courses on creating AI prompts and that it'll eventually become a job.

[–] LachlanUnchained@lemmyunchained.net 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I find that even with the best diffusion models, replication and character sets are virtually impossible. Also text does not work.

[–] trimmerfrost@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago

Same can be said about pre-industrial skilled physical labourers. Progress won't change for you, you have to change for it

[–] Splyntre@unilem.org 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

One of the best uses I've seen for this so far is tattoo design. It can get my general idea for what I want somewhat close enough to then show the actual artist more of what I had in mind much better than my ZERO ARTISTIC talent scribbles could