As AI modelling/generation of AI artwork, painting etc. and the computer generated artwork becomes more sophisticated, many artists are talking about it and some fear it would put many artists or illustrators out of business. I checked them out of course... yes they are amazing. In some areas they look like a CG masterpiece. But it's even colder than many CG drawings - you can feel the lack of human touch. Here I use "Disoc Diffusion" to create some pieces and then edit the AI ​​rendering paintings to see how they look and feel.

I would say yes they could really replace a lot of artists, but artists can also use it to help finish their CG painting faster, or to get the fundamental of the piece for the larger work frame. The world is changing fast, we need to adapt and instead of being left out of the trend, try to think positively - maybe we can learn new tools and adopt them with our current skills.

Another thing is that they can't be made accurate enough to show emotion on the pieces (at least in my opinion) or match a client's specifications compared to what an artist has in mind. They might get very close to what we have in mind, but at the end of the day, they still can't directly read your mind, and even if the generation goes in a slightly different direction, the hours of modeling can be wasted and you have to do another rendering. So there is still some room for improvement - I know the technology is advancing fast and may soon be a lot closer to what we envision, but again it also depends on the artist/illustrator whose skills do the retouching of the image would affect piece.

What I think about this whole AI painting is - don't give up the traditional art! What you can do with the brain and hand will help your CG painting. What you can do in CG painting will help your enhance and edit your CG rendering paintings. The human brain is still developing.

Below are my modifications compare with the rendering pieces:

AI can "deftly" create background objects, but everything related to humans and animals is still a bit out of shape, thus artists should focus on adjusting the creature part and you'll have an amazing result.

The AI can almost read your mind just by typing in keywords, but you still have to move things around.

Below: Based on the AI generated image, I adjusted the hue to my liking and added a woman's face. This part requires illustrator skills.

But I would say it does something amazing. Sometimes like below I can only edit a small part. But did it really produced what I have in mind? I would say not 100% - and during the modification I feel like the AI already generated something, and therefore I had to follow it's art direction to finish or edit the image. Hence in a way, the AI is guiding/guiding me instead of just helping me. You have to remember what you have in mind before the generation or it will control or limit your creativity. Is that good or bad? See how you use it... Very interesting.