 Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and yes we are going to dive into the topic of should an artist dare to use AI or artificial intelligence? This is indeed a controversial topic. I've been receiving many questions and concerns from my subscribers and patrons on my Patreon page and I hope to unlock some of the questions and concerns many artists have in using AI. I'd like to clarify that the type of artist I'll be referring to in this video is a fine artist such as myself and at the end of this video I'll be sharing some of my techniques and strategies in using AI in ways that I think will benefit many fine artists and plus it's a lot of fun. An important first point is what is AI? AI is a type of technology that uses algorithms to create something in a way that mimics human intelligence. It can be used in a variety of industries and yes even in art. While I'm not an expert in using AI I have found ways to use it quite effectively as a tool for painting. I'm sure my viewers will have varying opinions on this subject so we may have a very lively and engaging comment section to this video. I'll first briefly share some of the pros and cons in using artificial intelligence as an artist as well as some of the concerns and then I will share with you how I've been using AI technology in a way that I believe not only makes things faster but sparks my creative juices. What are some of the pros and cons in using AI as an artist? While AI can lead to increased creativity and innovation there are also ethical concerns and the risk of losing the human touch. Here I'll be sharing some video footage from a channel called Picks Imperfect. In this video the channel owner shares some very interesting amazing and mind-blowing computer graphics that are generated entirely by artificial intelligence. The images are created by descriptive prompts that the user will put into the program and the system will use a deep learning algorithm that has a massive training set of images. The system then utilizes those images to familiarize itself with your prompts and how to come about a final image. It's really bizarre and fascinating. Here's an example of an AI image that was created with a prompt of an elderly woman climbing stairs to heaven with an ethereal mood. The results are truly amazing. It is my opinion that AI art is not fine art but lends itself more to computer graphics and video games. But I must add a word of caution as with any technology there can be a dark side so be careful and use your own good discernment. It seems there are always dark forces wanting to pull us down in this world. On a practical note AI technology is changing a lot of industries including graphic design. This is some footage from a website that designs logos and as a graphic designer myself I can't tell you how crazy this is the things I used to have to spend hours or days achieving can be done so quickly with AI technology. And I want to clarify that AI art that a computer entirely generates is not the same as digital art. These are some of my digital paintings. I love digital paintings that I create in either Photoshop or Procreate and it is a wonderful way for an artist to literally use computer tools as a medium so the artist is actually doing the work and not the computer. This is a wonderful computer illustration done by Ross Draws. I thought this was so well done and I do consider this fine art. We may have some differing opinions with this so I'd love to hear what you think are the definition lines being crossed when it comes to AI art digital art and traditional fine art. Another question I've often received when sharing some of my tips on using AI is should I be afraid of AI and generally speaking no AI is a useful tool but it is up to humans to decide how they use it so is AI mark of the beast technology many of you know my position of faith in Christ so I'll simply say perhaps not yet but it is possible but regardless of your positions philosophically we do know there are nefarious forces at work whether human or spiritual and we need to be careful and be aware that there can be agendas behind the direction of AI technology and the outcomes that it produces. And the last topic before I share some of my tools for using AI as an artist is AI alive. I'd say keep in mind the term artificial in artificial intelligence even though again there may be varying opinions on this topic including the belief by some that Google's artificial intelligence lambda has become sentient or able to think for itself. There are so many different terms and concepts being presented today that it can literally make your head spin. Regarding the concern of whether AI is sentient or not it's my feeling and strong belief that true life began in a garden and we were given as artists an amazing palette of plants and landscapes and animals and yes the unique and magnificent design of the human form. Those are some of my thoughts and I'd love to hear yours in the comment section. We're going on to my tips and techniques for using AI but first if you've been enjoying this video I would love it if you would go ahead and like this video subscribe to this channel and if you'd like a little bit more I have extra content full real-time tutorials consider becoming a patron of mine it's only five dollars a month and you can cancel at any time. When it comes to using AI technology to enhance your life and career as an artist it can get overwhelming because there are so many different resources out there there are lots of apps many of them are great some of them are not free and some of them are not so great so here are some that I like and I would recommend. This is a shorter version of a tutorial I have over on my Patreon page where I share some of my apps this is literally right from my iPhone. I have a whole folder in my iPhone dedicated to editing photos and videos having a graphic design background I have a lot of Adobe products that you have to pay for but there are some free apps available as well the one called ArtoMaton the one with the tomato the first one there I actually have a tutorial here on my YouTube channel discussing how to use that one and it's free but one I've really liked lately is called Linza it is available in the Google Play and Apple Store it's not free it's about maybe $40 a year and like everything else it's very selfie driven and it does actually give you some very good tools for refreshing your face if you need to. One of the things though that made it very popular was this automated magic avatar and you know I never created an avatar before but I saw another artist try it and I guess curiosity got the best of me it is pretty crazy what it can do with just some of your own photos personally I think we already focus on self too much so that was my first and last time using that option there is a little extra charge for that magic avatar option but you can move directly on to the photo editing option which I recommend and we'll show you right now I'm in the main photo editing section of the Linza app right now and it basically will allow you to pull photos from your camera roll on your phone and I often like to take my own paintings and add them to Linza and give them some of these creative options one that I really like is one that's called art styles you see on the very bottom there's all these choices art styles is really a neat and fun way to adjust your own art to possibly create it in a different way I mean it is your own painting okay so we're not plagiarizing this is a little study that I did of a longer tutorial on my patreon page and often when I find a motif or theme that I like I'll repaint it so what I did is I used the art styles to go through and tweak this painting and it really like I said at the beginning of this video it just sparks your creative juices here I'm adding the style under the basic category I think it's called Gothic but it creates a really chunky type of textural appearance to your painting and the fun thing about these is you just get to play and when you play I really do think it enhances your creativity and the fun of it right why not and here are just a few more you'll see me creating or playing around with here but also too it has full photo editing features such as contrast brightness you can also go into each effect and change the intensity there are so many different options now another thing I like to do is take reference images whether they're my own or from copyright free reference sites as in this one from unsplash.com and alter them a bit with some of the art styles and different features within the lens app doesn't that give you the feeling of impressionism and here's the final painting I think the use of the art style definitely influenced a feeling of impressionism and energy this is part of a tutorial that's here on the Monet Cafe channel and as I said before you can once again take your own painting and give it some creative art styles so the sky's the limit and it really is a lot of fun and now I'll share with you a little footage that's from a recent Patreon only real-time tutorial where I took my own photo it was my backyard and the moon was so bright actually it was very yellow and beautiful so I took my own photo and I put it into lensa and gave it some different artistic styles keep in mind this is my own photo and I'm just getting some artistic inspiration from lensa I actually do still use my own photo as a reference and I keep the lensa version beside me as well so as you watch me paint here it leads me to one final question do I think that artists like Da Vinci Monet Van Gogh would use AI technology yes I actually think they would they were pioneers and trend setters of their day and as long as they were not compromising the involvement and use of their own minds I think they'd use AI as a useful tool in closing I'd like to share that use of AI as a fine artist should be used merely as inspiration and not as replacement for what your own mind can cognitively and beautifully create some artists may be concerned that AI technology is going to take over their jobs and there will be no need for human artists anymore it's my strong opinion that this will not happen I believe most people love art but not just any art there's something so beautiful and special about a painting created by a human hand and human heart and even though AI may be the buzz and the rage in our current world nothing can replace the enchantment and the creativity of the human spirit I hope you enjoyed my thoughts and tips on using AI as an artist and I would love to hear your thoughts so be sure to leave a comment like this video feel free to share and become a patron if you would like to join my patreon family for more artistic fun and learning happy painting