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Updated: March 14, 2023 @ 8:15 am
Trent Rickman, an artist of 17 years who has used artificial intelligence programs to produce art, has since stopped using the program that potentially displaces the creative artist. Besides using AI, he is a painter.
Trent Rickman points to one of his paintings named “Origin story,” that uses acrylic and metal gold leaf to show humanity’s origin story.
Various paintings by artist Trent Rickman.
Trent Rickman holds up a piece titled “Revival” that was made by artificial intelligence.
Art pieces made by Trent Rickman hangs on the wall.
A butterfly painting made by artist Trent Rickman.
“Revival,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
“Lion of God,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
“Native Spirit,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
“State of Wonder,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
“A.I. Angel,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
Health Reporter
Trent Rickman, an artist of 17 years who has used artificial intelligence programs to produce art, has since stopped using the program that potentially displaces the creative artist. Besides using AI, he is a painter.
Trent Rickman points to one of his paintings named “Origin story,” that uses acrylic and metal gold leaf to show humanity’s origin story.
Various paintings by artist Trent Rickman.
Trent Rickman holds up a piece titled “Revival” that was made by artificial intelligence.
Art pieces made by Trent Rickman hangs on the wall.
A butterfly painting made by artist Trent Rickman.
Over the last few months, the development of open-source, artificial-intelligence content generation platforms for art, animation and more has advanced significantly, leaving many in those fields wondering what their futures hold.
One local artist, Victoria resident Trent Rickman, has worked with the technology to co-create pieces of fantastical images with just a few simple inputs into a program.
“Art the way I’ve known it is dead, but at the same time, long live art,” Rickman said.
Rickman has been an artist for 17 years, starting as many artists do, using art as a way of expressing his emotions.
Each night, with the lights out and his family in bed, he goes to his home studio to work on his art. Sometimes Rickman even gets to greet the sunrise as he works.
“Revival,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
When he first discovered how artificial intelligence art programs worked, he found himself angry like many other artists.
This is because many artificial intelligence art programs are open-source platforms that pull from the vast internet for reference material to compose an image.
Because of this, many artists have disputed the originality of the images, with some even claiming their copyrights were violated.
“If you want an image of a pink flower, it’s going to pull from thousands of images of pink flowers to give you that image,” Rickman said.
In one case, the platform Stable Diffusion generated an image with Getty Images’ watermark because it allegedly pulled so many images from the service to generate it.
However, despite his initial anger, Rickman decided to give the technology a chance and get a better understanding of it.
“Lion of God,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
In many ways, this is where art has been moving, and it’s a dynamic that has resulted from the artists themselves, he said, noting how many artists have put themselves online to market themselves.
“We didn’t think it was going to come this quickly, but it is here,” Rickman said. “Anything that you’ve done with the internet is helping shape this outcome.”
Rickman doesn’t use artificial intelligence in his art anymore, and those pieces he did create with the program, he only claims to have co-created because it did most of the work. He simply inputted the information to create it.
“Native Spirit,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
However, he doesn’t expect artificial intelligence to replace artists as many in the debate about the technology fear, he said.
The only difference is that the barrier to create will be much lower than before, Rickman said.
He hopes the technology gives users a greater appreciation of art, potentially motivating them to pursue doing art for themselves.
“That desire to create will never really go away,” Rickman said.
“State of Wonder,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
At the end of the day, the technology is a tool and just needs to be put through an ethical lens, said Nathan Rodriquez, former Victoria Art League president.
No technology is inherently bad. It’s all how it is used, and right now, as the technology is advancing, that’s an ongoing conversation with artists working to provide solutions, Rodriquez said.
One solution is artists working to create a data mine in which the programs can pay to use the art with the artists’ permission, he said.
“At the end of the day, it’s a tool, and it’s all how we use it,” Rodriquez said.
“A.I. Angel,” co-created by Trent Rickman using artificial intelligence.
Kyle Cotton was born and raised in San Antonio and graduated from San Antonio College and the University of Texas at Arlington. Cotton has covered economic development, health care, finance, government, technology, oil and gas and higher education.
Health Reporter
Kyle Cotton was born and raised in San Antonio and graduated from San Antonio College and the University of Texas at Arlington. Cotton has covered economic development, health care, finance, government, technology, oil and gas and higher education.
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