Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1491554
8 6 G R A P H I C S P R O • M A R C H 2 0 2 3 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M T H E D I G I T A L E Y E | S T E P H E N R O M A N I E L L O Stephen Romaniello is an artist and educator who has taught computer graphics since 1990. He is Professor Emeritus and the founder of the Digital Arts program at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Stephen is a certified instructor in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Premier and the author of numerous books, articles and media on the creative use of graphics software. Stephen is the founder and CEO of GlobalEye systems, a company that offers training and consulting in graphics software and creative imaging. AI's IQ Artificial Intelligence is finding its way into the graphics industry R ecently I saw a rather astonishing head- line: Art Made with Artificial Intelligence Wins at State Fair. Jason Allen, a video game designer from Pueblo, Colorado, entered an image to the Colorado State Fair's digital arts competition. Judges awarded him the Blue Ribbon and the first-place prize of $300. A l len's submission went v ira l when he revealed online that he'd created his prize-winning art using an artificial intelli- gence program that can turn text descriptions into images. He spent more than 80 hours to produce the piece titled éâtre D'opéra Spatial (Fig. 1). Allen created éâtre D'opéra Spatial by entering various words and phrases into an online software program which then pro- duced more than 900 renderings for him to choose from. He selected his three favorites, then tweaked them in Photoshop until he was satisfied. He boosted their resolution using a program called Gigapixel and printed the works on canvas. His victory has sparked an impassioned debate about what constitutes art. "We're watching the death of artistry unfold right before our eyes. If creative jobs aren't safe from machines, then even high-skilled jobs are in danger of becoming obsolete," com- mented @Omnimorpho on Twitter. Allen said he believes the criticism of his work stems from fear. Artists are concerned that technology will one day replace them. Cartoonist Matt Bors, founder of the Nib, in an interview for Atlantic monthly said, "To developers and technically minded peo- ple, A.I. is a cool thing, but to illustrators, it's very upsetting because it feels like you've eliminated the need to hire the illustrator." B U S I N E S S S T R A T E G I E S