1. The art of AI-Art
A dive into AI Generated Art, the tools and the rest
Dennis Vroegop

2. Agenda
• What is AI Art?
• Technology
• Platforms
• Running Stable Diffusion
• Ethics and legal stuff
• Wrapping it all up…

3. What is art?
The hard question…

4. One way of looking at it.
“Art is a way for people to express
their creativity and imagination. It
can be in different forms like
painting, music, dance, writing, and
more. Art helps us communicate
ideas and emotions. It can be
beautiful, thought-provoking, or
even make us feel different
emotions.
Art can also tell us about the world
we live in and the people who make
it. It's a personal and subjective
experience, and everyone can
appreciate it in their own way.”

5. One way of looking at it.
“Art is a way for people to express
their creativity and imagination.
It can be in different forms like
painting, music, dance, writing, and
more. Art helps us communicate
ideas and emotions. It can be
beautiful, thought-provoking, or
even make us feel different
emotions.
Art can also tell us about the world
we live in and the people who make
it. It's a personal and subjective
experience, and everyone can
appreciate it in their own way.”

6. A timeline
A bit of history

7. Visual art, a history
• Statues over 40,000 years old
• Cave paintings, dating back over 40,000
years.
• Ancient Egypt
• Greece
• Rome
• Medieval Europe
• Rennaissance
• Photography
• AI?

8. Shift from
craft to
creativity

9. Painting requires
skills
• Creativity
• Composition
• Knowledge of anatomy
• Skills with materials
• Skills with tools

10. Photography
• Allowed (almost) all to create
portraits
• Most skills are not applicable
• Still needs a feel for
• Composition
• Lights
• Composure
• Atmosphere

11. Not everyone is
good at this...
• How many terrible family pictures do you
have?
• Cut off heads
• Over exposed
• … your thumb in the picture?

12. Others are
brilliant…
• We have a recording artist
• Pretty successful
• But should be more recognizable
• New album, we think could become
big
• Make this artist a household face
• Go!

13. Annie
Leibovitz,
Born in the
USA

14. © Dennis
Vroegop
(not so brilliant
photographer…)
Ullevi Stadium, 24/06/2023,
Gothenburg, Sweden

15. Introducing AI Art
Let's look under the hood.

16. Neural Networks
The engine.

17. Building a neural
network.
By hand…

18. Meet
Morris…
Our 9-year-old Labradoodle, who
is afraid of water.

19. Rain in mm
and outside
time in
minutes

20. Other factors
• Have I already had my steps today?
• What time of day is it?

21. Quantization
Rain (in mm) < 5 5-10 > 10
1 2 3
Steps done < 5000 5000-10000 >10000
1 2 3
Time of day Morning Afternoon Night
1 3 2

22. Input A
Input B
Input C
Output

23. A
B
C
Input A
Input B
Input C
Output

24. A
B
C
Input A
Input B
Input C
Output

25. A
1
B
2
C
3
Input A
Input B
Input C
Output
1
2
3
4
3
5
7
6
8
9
1
2

26. 6
30
72
1
1
1
282
1
2
3
4
3
5
7
6
8
9
1
2

27. 18
60
144
3
2
2
570
1
2
3
4
3
5
7
6
8
9
1
2

28. End results..
Walking time 5 – 10 minutes 10 – 20 minutes > 20 minutes
< -1.5 -1.5 – 0.8 > 0.8

29. 2,5
1
-0,5
2
1
3
-0,5625
-1
-1
0,5
0,5
-1
0,5
-0,75
0,5
-0.75
-0.75
2,5
1

30. A
B
𝑆 =
𝑖=0
𝑛
𝑤
𝑓(𝑥) = 𝑥2
C
Our hero: The Neuron

31. Only a lot of them…
• This simple model has:
• 8 inputs
• 3 hidden layers, each having 9
neuros
• 4 outputs
• 270 lines, thus weights
• 27 bias values
• In total 297 parameters…

32. Train an AI System
How do we get ‘knowledge’ in the system?

33. Predict houseprice
• Enter numeric values
• Square meters
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Feed them in a neural network with
random weights / biases
• See if the outcome matches
(probably not)
• Adjust weights / biases
• Repeat… (a LOT )

34. Identify an image
• Cut the image in blocks
(128x128, grayscale)
• Feed them in a neural network
with random weights / biases
• See if the outcome matches the
expected label (probably not)
• Adjust weights and biases
• Repeat… (still A LOT)

35. Some areas are ‘sensitive’
“Cats ears”

36. Image generation!
(Just reverse it!)
• Generate an image with noise.
• Look for patterns that fit the
description
• Eliminate as much noise as possible
• Look for more details that fit the
description
• Remove more noise
• Repeat until done
• Tadaa!

37. Noise
generations

38. Find boundaries

39. An image
emerges

40. Almost there...

41. Final result!

42. Two factors that
determine the
outcome:
• The random numbers that generate the
noise.
• The model used.

43. Some of the
platforms
• Dall-E
• Midjourney
• Adobe Firefly
• Stable Diffusion

44. Dall-E
• (Really Dall-E 2...)
• Deep Learning model
• OpenAI
• Uses GPT3
• Free to use (account is required)
• DALL·E (openai.com)

45. MidJourney
• From MidJourney, Inc (SF, CA)
• Actually profitable
• Latest version: 5.2
• Uses Discord as interface
• Limited free usage
• Paid subscription
• Midjourney

46. Adobe Firefly
• From Adobe (Duh...)
• Free, by invite
• Based on Adobe Stock
• Different use cases
• Vector AND pixel based
• Adobe Firefly

47. Stable Diffusion
• From Stability AI Ltd
• Public available
• Open Source
• Free download
• Used in many AI sites
• Can be run locally
• Depends heavily on public models
• (Allows for NSFW, but don't tell
anyone!)
• Stable Diffusion Public Release — Stability AI

48. Let's see!
A demo says more than a thousand Powerpoint slides.

49. Using The
Tools

50. Ethics and legal stuff.
All the things you don’t want to think about.

51. Ethical
• Who owns the artwork?
• Is there bias?
• Privacy: are there real persons in your art?
• Is this really art?
• Don't abuse!
• Deepfakes
• Claim as original
• Read the fine print!

53. What is going
on?

54. Some statements:
• AI Models are trained on propriety data.
• Getty, Shutterstock and others claim they
own that data
• They want money since AI copies that data
• … or at least it is a big collage
• They are angry!

55. If Getty e.a. win…
1. No more AI art. Just pay the artist
2. AI is owned by Getty e.a. and the artist gets a percentage
3. AI is owned by Getty e.a. and now they don’t have to pay the artist anything anymore…

56. If Getty e.a. win…
1. No more AI art. Just pay the artist
2. AI is owned by Getty e.a. and the artist gets a percentage
3. AI is owned by Getty e.a. and now they don’t
have to pay the artist anything anymore…

57. To summarize:
• Art is from all ages
• Tools evolve with technology
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
• AI Art is for everyone
• Big money will try to monopolize
• Just have fun with it!

58. Thank you for
listening!
Find me at
dennis@vroegop.org