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I am a guy who does those kinds of Fiverr commissions. Not the $10 ones, but plenty of $50-100 dollars ones. I have a lot of thoughts and concerns about the imp

I am a guy who does those kinds of Fiverr commissions. Not the $10 ones, but plenty of $50-100 dollars ones. I have a lot of thoughts and concerns about the impact of Dalle-2 on visual arts as a whole, but I see no threat at all to my Fiverr business. 90% of my clients couldn't do anything without a human in chat that walks them through all the steps. There's no possible interface simple enough for them to do everything without my help. They can't figure out which files they want and what to do with them once they got it. If there's any possible customisation option - they will use it to make the pre-made template uglier, and then will ask me if I could do something to make it look good again. That's what they are paying me for.

gnicholas 4y ago
Could a webform be used to ask the questions that you ask (based on a very large decision tree, of course), and then either (1) format the results in a way that AI can generate an appropriate image, or (2) have a human look at the results and in 4 minutes use AI to generate an appropriate image? Do you think that people in your line of work, or adjacent lines of work, will use AI to offload brainstorming or to get inspiration? My guess (as a complete outsider) is that the skill of drawing will remain important, but that there will emerge a new skill: an AI translator, who serves as a midwife for the creation of AI art.
- reb 4y ago
  Bingo. Artists have a new creative tool with new constraints, tricks, and prerequisite skills. I think the idea it'll destroy other forms of art (and art-derived commerce) is an unlikely one since it can be used to fuel many of the creative arts that currently exist, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough.
- NoToP 4y ago
  Midwaif
- vanadium1st 4y ago
  Many services like that already exist - at this moment they are using stock images. Once AI generated images become as good and predictable as stock images - I have no doubt that the services will switch to them. But, stock images have existed for many years. They are considerably cheaper than custom work, are as professional looking and are available immediately. Sounds like an absolute game changer, but in reality the market for custom design work didn't die. I am not sure that I understand all of the reasons why people pay extra for custom design work in a world where automated stock services exist. Some of my guesses are - People don't trust their visual taste and want a trusted human to make those decisions for them - Discovery problem. People are simply unaware of such services and their benefits - People are willing to pay premium for the knowledge that their design has a human author. - Last mile problem. Even if the image looks 99% like what you want, you might still need a guy to save it / fix it / crop it / format it because you don't know how to do it yourself. I am sure that there are more factors. And even if AI images will bridge the quality gap to human-made stock images, all of this will still apply to them. Many services and technologies have been trying to solve those problems for many years. AI will add to that process, but I don't see a reason for a dramatic change in the near future.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    I could imagine a service that creates logos/designs via an interactive process that lets the user/customer resize various elements, change colors/shapes along the way. This would be sort of similar to the way you can use AI tools to infill different parts of images.
  - nextaccountic 4y ago
    > - Last mile problem. Even if the image looks 99% like what you want, you might still need a guy to save it / fix it / crop it / format it because you don't know how to do it yourself. That's the next step for AI generation. The AI image will be almost what you want but you will hire someone to fix it
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
Forgive the dumb question but what kind of output do you make? Do people ask for graphs on fiverr like the article? (I can only imagine sort of "must have a powerpoint ready for 9am in Tokyo sort of thing. I know that's a real industry even if that industry always seemed to me like everyone gathering round a fake painting with everyone knowing it's a fake) Anyway - always interested.
- vanadium1st 4y ago
  I sell logos and vector illustrations. I have tons of pre-made ones in my portfolio. If someone likes one of my logos for their business - they can just buy it outright. They don't even have to contact me and can just buy the file package generated by the website. If the client likes the logo, but can't figure out the interface, or want me to apply some changes - he contacts me. I talk to him, do everything that he requests and at the end I sell him the logo + premium for my time and additional custom work. Usually people ask me for things similar to what they saw in my portfolio. Rarely do I get unusual requests like this graph. If I get a request that I can't do - I will say no or refer them to the graph guy. But if I am feeling creative - I tell them an unreasonably high price. Sometimes they agree and it turns out that I was a graph guy all along
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    That makes sense - thank you.
Bakary 4y ago
AI is moving so fast that we might be a couple of years prior to having a program capable of conversing with a dumb and indecisive person like this and outputting what they want
- mjr00 4y ago
  Dec 2016 - "These 20 companies are racing to build self-driving cars in the next 5 years." [0] Oct 2022 - "Even after $100 billion, self-driving cars are going nowhere." [1] People have been historically notoriously bad at predicting how good AI/technology will be in 5-10 years time. If the predictions from 2015 were right, the roads would have been filled with level 4 and 5 autonomous vehicles for years now. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-driverless-cars-by-2020-2016-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-driverless-... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-06/even-after-100-billion-self-driving-cars-are-going-nowhere https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-06/even-afte...
  - Bakary 4y ago
    With Stable Diffusion & co. I've had the opposite sensation. I was completely floored as to how it blew past all of my expectations.
    - mjr00 4y ago
      Don't get me wrong, Stable Diffusion & co are incredibly impressive. I'm using NovelAI image generation for a project I'm working on, so it's already useful to me as more than just a toy, even. It is absolutely a massive technological step change. But NovelAI and Stable Diffusion both have limitations. It's nearly impossible to generate two different specified characters, much less specify two characters interacting in a certain way. For NovelAI, common/popular art styles are available, but you can't use the style of an artist with ~200 pictures. (Understandable, given how the AI works technically, but still a shortcoming from a user's perspective.) Both are awful at anything that requires precision, like a website design or charts (as shown in the article). And, as most people know by now, human hands and feet are more miss than hit. People are extrapolating the initial, enormous step change as a consistent rate of change of improvement, just like what was done with self-driving cars. People are handwaving SD's current limitations away; "it just needs more training data" or "it just needs different training data." That's what people said about autonomous vehicles; it just needed more training data, and then it would be able to drive in snow and rain, or be able to navigate construction zones. Except $100 billion of training data later, these issues still haven't been resolved. It'd be awesome if I were wrong and these issues were resolved. Maybe a version of SD or similar that lets me describe multiple characters in a scene performing different actions is right around the corner. But until I actually see it, I'm not assuming that its capabilities are going to move by leaps and bounds.
tsol 4y ago
I'm working at a small food startup and we needed a logo. One the one hand I was ordering a commission from UpWork and on the other side I was trying to create a logo on my own using DallE2. Dalle2 took a lot of tries and I ended up eventually with 2 good candidates. Unfortunately neither were perfect and I don't have time to try and edit it despite having some graphic design experience. The commission, on the other hand, allowed me much more control over the situation as I could ask for incremental changes and then see how I feel about them. Dalle2 is really lacking. If you wanna do things DIY you may find it useful but it'll still take some extra work. If you just want a good product that is ready for market, you need an artist
- tfsh 4y ago
  When I've worked with graphical artists if the idea is tough to explain I usually include some rather awful mocks. I postulate in that regard Dalle could be used as an intermediary step to create visually appealing mocks for graphical designers to realise and expand upon.
  - raffraffraff 4y ago
    This is what I thought as soon as I saw the blog post, but in reverse: as a tool for graphic artists. My wife ended to turning her artistic abilities into a greetings cards / wedding stationery because her social anxiety and low self esteem make it extremely difficult for her to work through the process of figuring out what the customer actually wants and how much she should charge for a commission. The way she describes it, many customers think that they can give you a one-sentence request and get back exactly what's inside their head, except that there is nothing inside their head at all, just a very loose idea. Essentially, they want to flip through an infinite set of mock-ups (that they don't pay for) until they finally stab one with their finger and say "THIS!", but they have no idea in advance what "this" is. When they finally come to payment, they only want to pay for the time it took you to produce the final result, which is "just a simple design!" In fact, the red-flag customers sound like this: "Hello. I'm looking for the simplest thing in the world and it probably won't take an amazing artist like you 15 minutes to make. It'll be used as a logo at our business so it would be great publicity for you!" Person doesn't value your skill and will try to low-ball you. Ask them to clarify their one-sentence request and they say "Oh, you know, just a simple logo with something nautical on it". Tell them you'll charge for every set of mock-ups as you slowly figure out what they want, and they disappear. I think that tools like these could be the first step in your journey with a customer. They have to explain to AI what they want, and refine their statement to the point where it produces "mock-ups" something in the right ballpark. Then you can take their top 3 results and talk through them.

gnicholas 4y ago

Could a webform be used to ask the questions that you ask (based on a very large decision tree, of course), and then either (1) format the results in a way that AI can generate an appropriate image, or (2) have a human look at the results and in 4 minutes use AI to generate an appropriate image? Do you think that people in your line of work, or adjacent lines of work, will use AI to offload brainstorming or to get inspiration? My guess (as a complete outsider) is that the skill of drawing will remain important, but that there will emerge a new skill: an AI translator, who serves as a midwife for the creation of AI art.

reb 4y ago
Bingo. Artists have a new creative tool with new constraints, tricks, and prerequisite skills. I think the idea it'll destroy other forms of art (and art-derived commerce) is an unlikely one since it can be used to fuel many of the creative arts that currently exist, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough.
NoToP 4y ago
Midwaif
vanadium1st 4y ago
Many services like that already exist - at this moment they are using stock images. Once AI generated images become as good and predictable as stock images - I have no doubt that the services will switch to them. But, stock images have existed for many years. They are considerably cheaper than custom work, are as professional looking and are available immediately. Sounds like an absolute game changer, but in reality the market for custom design work didn't die. I am not sure that I understand all of the reasons why people pay extra for custom design work in a world where automated stock services exist. Some of my guesses are - People don't trust their visual taste and want a trusted human to make those decisions for them - Discovery problem. People are simply unaware of such services and their benefits - People are willing to pay premium for the knowledge that their design has a human author. - Last mile problem. Even if the image looks 99% like what you want, you might still need a guy to save it / fix it / crop it / format it because you don't know how to do it yourself. I am sure that there are more factors. And even if AI images will bridge the quality gap to human-made stock images, all of this will still apply to them. Many services and technologies have been trying to solve those problems for many years. AI will add to that process, but I don't see a reason for a dramatic change in the near future.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I could imagine a service that creates logos/designs via an interactive process that lets the user/customer resize various elements, change colors/shapes along the way. This would be sort of similar to the way you can use AI tools to infill different parts of images.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  > - Last mile problem. Even if the image looks 99% like what you want, you might still need a guy to save it / fix it / crop it / format it because you don't know how to do it yourself. That's the next step for AI generation. The AI image will be almost what you want but you will hire someone to fix it

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

Forgive the dumb question but what kind of output do you make? Do people ask for graphs on fiverr like the article? (I can only imagine sort of "must have a powerpoint ready for 9am in Tokyo sort of thing. I know that's a real industry even if that industry always seemed to me like everyone gathering round a fake painting with everyone knowing it's a fake) Anyway - always interested.

vanadium1st 4y ago
I sell logos and vector illustrations. I have tons of pre-made ones in my portfolio. If someone likes one of my logos for their business - they can just buy it outright. They don't even have to contact me and can just buy the file package generated by the website. If the client likes the logo, but can't figure out the interface, or want me to apply some changes - he contacts me. I talk to him, do everything that he requests and at the end I sell him the logo + premium for my time and additional custom work. Usually people ask me for things similar to what they saw in my portfolio. Rarely do I get unusual requests like this graph. If I get a request that I can't do - I will say no or refer them to the graph guy. But if I am feeling creative - I tell them an unreasonably high price. Sometimes they agree and it turns out that I was a graph guy all along
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  That makes sense - thank you.

Bakary 4y ago

AI is moving so fast that we might be a couple of years prior to having a program capable of conversing with a dumb and indecisive person like this and outputting what they want

mjr00 4y ago
Dec 2016 - "These 20 companies are racing to build self-driving cars in the next 5 years." [0] Oct 2022 - "Even after $100 billion, self-driving cars are going nowhere." [1] People have been historically notoriously bad at predicting how good AI/technology will be in 5-10 years time. If the predictions from 2015 were right, the roads would have been filled with level 4 and 5 autonomous vehicles for years now. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-driverless-cars-by-2020-2016-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-driverless-... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-06/even-after-100-billion-self-driving-cars-are-going-nowhere https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-06/even-afte...
- Bakary 4y ago
  With Stable Diffusion & co. I've had the opposite sensation. I was completely floored as to how it blew past all of my expectations.
  - mjr00 4y ago
    Don't get me wrong, Stable Diffusion & co are incredibly impressive. I'm using NovelAI image generation for a project I'm working on, so it's already useful to me as more than just a toy, even. It is absolutely a massive technological step change. But NovelAI and Stable Diffusion both have limitations. It's nearly impossible to generate two different specified characters, much less specify two characters interacting in a certain way. For NovelAI, common/popular art styles are available, but you can't use the style of an artist with ~200 pictures. (Understandable, given how the AI works technically, but still a shortcoming from a user's perspective.) Both are awful at anything that requires precision, like a website design or charts (as shown in the article). And, as most people know by now, human hands and feet are more miss than hit. People are extrapolating the initial, enormous step change as a consistent rate of change of improvement, just like what was done with self-driving cars. People are handwaving SD's current limitations away; "it just needs more training data" or "it just needs different training data." That's what people said about autonomous vehicles; it just needed more training data, and then it would be able to drive in snow and rain, or be able to navigate construction zones. Except $100 billion of training data later, these issues still haven't been resolved. It'd be awesome if I were wrong and these issues were resolved. Maybe a version of SD or similar that lets me describe multiple characters in a scene performing different actions is right around the corner. But until I actually see it, I'm not assuming that its capabilities are going to move by leaps and bounds.

tsol 4y ago

I'm working at a small food startup and we needed a logo. One the one hand I was ordering a commission from UpWork and on the other side I was trying to create a logo on my own using DallE2. Dalle2 took a lot of tries and I ended up eventually with 2 good candidates. Unfortunately neither were perfect and I don't have time to try and edit it despite having some graphic design experience. The commission, on the other hand, allowed me much more control over the situation as I could ask for incremental changes and then see how I feel about them. Dalle2 is really lacking. If you wanna do things DIY you may find it useful but it'll still take some extra work. If you just want a good product that is ready for market, you need an artist

tfsh 4y ago
When I've worked with graphical artists if the idea is tough to explain I usually include some rather awful mocks. I postulate in that regard Dalle could be used as an intermediary step to create visually appealing mocks for graphical designers to realise and expand upon.
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  This is what I thought as soon as I saw the blog post, but in reverse: as a tool for graphic artists. My wife ended to turning her artistic abilities into a greetings cards / wedding stationery because her social anxiety and low self esteem make it extremely difficult for her to work through the process of figuring out what the customer actually wants and how much she should charge for a commission. The way she describes it, many customers think that they can give you a one-sentence request and get back exactly what's inside their head, except that there is nothing inside their head at all, just a very loose idea. Essentially, they want to flip through an infinite set of mock-ups (that they don't pay for) until they finally stab one with their finger and say "THIS!", but they have no idea in advance what "this" is. When they finally come to payment, they only want to pay for the time it took you to produce the final result, which is "just a simple design!" In fact, the red-flag customers sound like this: "Hello. I'm looking for the simplest thing in the world and it probably won't take an amazing artist like you 15 minutes to make. It'll be used as a logo at our business so it would be great publicity for you!" Person doesn't value your skill and will try to low-ball you. Ask them to clarify their one-sentence request and they say "Oh, you know, just a simple logo with something nautical on it". Tell them you'll charge for every set of mock-ups as you slowly figure out what they want, and they disappear. I think that tools like these could be the first step in your journey with a customer. They have to explain to AI what they want, and refine their statement to the point where it produces "mock-ups" something in the right ballpark. Then you can take their top 3 results and talk through them.