Back in July I started noticing that Olaf Blomerus, someone I followed on Instagram, had started posting new images created from Midjourney. After marvelling at the images he was posting, I wanted to check it out. It’s an interesting experiment, to be sure. There are a lot of legal and ethical issues that are tied to AI art generation, all of which are complicated and nuanced. And like most things tied to technology over the last 20 or 30 years, the speed at which this is moving is far faster than our institutions are able to keep up with. On a personal note, I don’t think I can picture any instance in my past work where I would have benefitted from having this tool. 

I don’t think it’s going to replace anyone working in the creative concept art fields. I had a recent conversation with my Aunt who’s a fine artist and photographer, and she was blown away by what the technology is capable of. But I don’t think it’s a replacement for the art that she and other artists create. Some of the images created from my prompts have been useful in helping me personally visualize something on my writing projects, but I can’t ever imagine using anything I’ve created from a prompt being used professionally. I’d rather pay someone for their expertise. Happily I’m not the only one that feels that way. Is it possible that that would change in the future? Sure. Is it inevitable? Not at all.

Anyway, below are some examples that I’ve created since the start of August. It’s been fun to experiment, and also fun to see what other people create in the Discord channels.