Economic Observer Reporter Ren Xiaoning Beijing report
html After mid-October, Zhang Shiying felt that a warm AI painting wave was setting off in China. The number of users on her platform increased by 10 times compared with last month. In Moments, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, , people can be seen everywhere in their eagerness to draw AI. Zhang Shiying is the founder of the AI creation platform YUAN. She told the Economic Observer reporter that this is a scene she has never seen in the past two years of entrepreneurship in the AIGC field."It's so popular that it's endless." Before receiving the call from the reporter, Zhuang Minghao, vice president of Quwan Network, just ended a discussion on AI painting. This topic is the most keen topic for his friends around him recently. In the second half of this year, the topic of AI painting began to break through the niche circle to the public, and this speed was far beyond his expectations.
When the painter Xiaotao first came into contact with AI painting in August, she was a little dissatisfied. In October, the high quality of the pictures drawn by AI shocked her. There is a joke on the Internet, and someone asked why AI learns to draw so quickly? The best answer is: Because you give it learning materials, it really learns. This has also aroused dissatisfaction among some artists, who believe that AI is plagiarizing and copying human painters' works and announced a boycott. Under the hustle and bustle, AI painting has become a new trend. Foreign Google , Microsoft , Meta, domestic Baidu and other major manufacturers have all ended, and a startup unicorn with a valuation of US$1.5 billion has been born. But the question is, how big is the trend of AI painting? Will it be a new era that is about to change the process of human creation? Or after the popularity, it quickly dissipates or becomes an auxiliary tool?
The wind comes from overseas
Although it only became hot in October, the trend of AI painting actually started to blow overseas in July and August.
Zhang Shiying's AI creation platform also has an overseas version, called imgcreator, and its main users come from the United States, Brazil , Germany, Russia, Indonesia and other countries. An American novelist recently created illustrations using imgcreator. He didn't know how to draw before and needed to ask a professional illustrator to accompany the pictures. On the imgcreator platform, he entered keywords, and the AI automatically generated pictures. He finally created a children's comic book by himself, and it sold very well.
"For this novelist, AI painting is a tool for making money. In the past, he created one book in 2 to 3 months, but now he can create one book in a few days. There are more trial and error opportunities, and the money-making efficiency will be higher." Zhang Shiying told reporters.
Overseas AI creation has become an obvious trend, and the types of creation are not just painting. The novels of the above-mentioned American novelists are also created using AI, using a platform called Jasper.ai. On this platform, users can quickly generate a short story with a few hundred characters with ups and downs in the plot. In October, Jasper received a $125 million Series A financing with a valuation of $15. The company has more than 70,000 customers and generated $40 million in revenue last year.
In addition to writing and painting, AI creation is being implemented in e-commerce, design, marketing and other industries. "It is not only a painting, but something that can really help some people speed up their industry and business." Zhang Shiying said.
Also in October, British AI creation company Stability.AI also received a financing of US$100 million, with a post-investment valuation of US$1 billion. The "literary picture" model, the originator of the AI creation boom, is an AI company OpenAI, behind DALL·E, which was revealed to be negotiating with Microsoft and want to get another new financing. Previously, OpenAI's valuation was close to US$20 billion.
The investment circle's enthusiasm for AI is returning. "To put it bluntly, now we finally see the possibility of using AI, and an ordinary person can think of how to use it." Before serving as vice president of Quwan Network, Zhuang Minghao was the vice president of Jingwei China Investment. He told reporters that the investment circle has been questioning AI a few years ago because it cannot be implemented. Now, AIGC has too much room for imagination. He gave an example. There is a scene in "Westland". The game producer talks while doing the game plot and completing the entire game scene. What kind of palace, what kind of castle does he need to appear in? What kind of character does the game protagonist need to appear in? Just talk to complete it.At that time, I thought it was a science fiction film, and according to the current development speed of AIGC, it is very likely that it will become a reality.
"It has changed from a toy of a geeky guest group to an interesting thing that is more popular." Zhuang Minghao feels that the popularity of AI painting shows that AIGC has broken the circle.
Weibo big V and partner of Ableslide, PPT customization company, Simon_Awen has always been paying attention to AI painting. In June, he wrote a long article that popularized AI painting knowledge. When he was updated again at the end of August, he almost rewritten a new article, "It's really sad. I feel that AI painting has quickly entered the Battle of the Gods." At the beginning of writing in June, AI painting products were still in the internal testing stage, and users need internal testing qualifications to experience it. In August, foreign major manufacturers ended, and each company launched more than one product to start internal volume . In August, Sta-blediffusion announced open source and was open to the public for free, setting off a carnival of AI painting abroad. Since its launch, more than 1.7 trillion images have been generated through its official platform DreamStudio alone. "It is foreseeable that there will be more and more exaggerated models and tools in the future," Simon_Awen said. Regarding this phenomenon, someone commented on his Weibo, "Maybe looking back, this is the starting point of a new era."
technology is breaking through
AI painting is not new. As early as 10 years ago, Microsoft's AI Xiaobing could draw, sing, and write poetry. In 2018, Google Drawing Mini Program sparked heated discussions in the academic circle. But it was not until this year that AI painting attracted high attention in the public circle. The reason behind this is AIGC's technological breakthrough in model.
2022 AI painting can quickly become a "magic brush Ma Liang". Zhang Lijin, a senior researcher at the Center for Big Data and Social Computing at Communication University of China, has recently become obsessed with AI painting. She enters texts every day and produces a large number of paintings. The production scenario is very simple. For example, if you want a picture of a jellyfish, you just need to open the mini program and enter keywords such as "jellyfish, seawater, tentacles" in the text box. You can generate various jellyfish of different styles in a few seconds. If you are not satisfied, click to generate again and have new pictures to choose from. The more keywords there are, the more the images generated are in line with imagination. In the past, people had imagination, but lacked a pair of hands that could draw. Nowadays, people only need to describe it with their mouths, and AI is the hands that draw.
is a painting method with lower threshold and higher quality. I also draw a picture of a cat. In 2017, the cat was painted by AI, consisting of several triangles or rectangles. The simple ones are not as simple as those of a 3-year-old child. After entering a long list of magic spell-like texts in 2022, AI drew a delicate and fashionable cat wearing steel and gold wire armor, bright eyes and majestic.
"In April this year, a paper about dif-fusion was popular in the industry, and the content quality of the entire AIGC has undergone a relatively big breakthrough." Zhang Shiying told reporters that AI could also create content in the past, but the quality was not high and it was unlikely to be commercialized. This year, Google, Microsoft and Meta have launched their own AIGC products, which is particularly lively in the second half of the year. Each company has launched its own AIGC models under the diffusion framework and commercially applied them in various fields.
Domestic Baidu company also launched the AI painting platform "Wenxin Yige" in August this year. A relevant person in charge of Wen Xin Yige told reporters that the initial AI painting was to completely imitate the way human painting was, with very high costs and only relatively abstract results. In 2022, AI painting has experienced a technological explosion, and a diffusion generation model has been introduced. After this model is used to generate pictures in text, it can model pixel-level and generate paintings with significantly improved resolution in a shorter time, and has significantly improved the aesthetics and detailed details. The finished products of some AI paintings are already comparable to those of human paintings.
Baidu founder Li Yanhong concluded: " artificial intelligence is moving from understanding content to generating content." He believes that in the past year, artificial intelligence has undergone some directional changes. Baidu has been developing AI technology over the years. In the second half of this year, Baidu promoted its digital human Du Xiaoxiao's writing of college entrance examination essays and participating in art exhibitions.Behind these AI-created works are pre-trained big model technology, which can produce digital content at a rate of one-tenth of a cost, at a rate of hundreds or thousands of times.
As a person who has been paying attention to the content industry track for a long time, Zhuang Minghao's perception of AIGC's learning speed is very obvious. When the diffusion model first caused discussion in April this year, the style of painting drawn by AI was still a bit strange and hazy, but in October, its resolution and fineness improved, and its texture was so strong that it was beyond words. It was difficult for ordinary people to see that this was a painting created by AI. In September this year, the AI painting "Space Opera" won the championship at the Colorado Expo Digital Art Creation Competition. The judges later said: "Although we didn't know that this was an AI work during the evaluation, even if we knew it, this award would be awarded."
When the AI-created paintings and top human painters were successful, AI videos became a new breakthrough direction. In October this year, Meta and Google released their latest products for AI videos. Among them, Google's Phenaki can use a series of text instructions with logical relationships between hundreds of words to generate a feature film that is more than 2 minutes full of camera sense, rich plot and transition. The netizens who saw it exclaimed on social media, "Short video creators are also dangerous!" "This matter has developed too fast, just like Pandora's box, and it can't stop when it is opened." Zhuang Minghao said.
He feels that the first phase of AI painting war has come to an end with the open source of Stablediffusion. "Its model is fast and good, high quality and open source, and can be used by anyone." Where will the technology break through next, where will the industry be applied? Is it AI video? Is the unlimited expansion of pictures? Or 3D modeling? Expecting but unknown.
commercialization pathway
painter Xiaotao also participated in the excitement of AI painting. As a professional, she knows that AI painting is earlier than the public. In August, she tried several AI painting platforms at home and abroad. She told reporters that AI painting can improve efficiency and can draw grand scenes beyond human imagination. She is not opposed to this matter, but it is unlikely that the painter will be able to commercialize it by relying on AI painting.
"Now, it is difficult to use things drawn by AI directly into the work. The details are not good, the perspective is wrong, and it is difficult to make something exactly the same as you imagined." Moreover, as the picture accuracy increases, the keywords that need to be described when AI draws are longer and longer, and sometimes it is like writing a paper, which is even more troublesome. Xiaotao thinks that AI painting can provide some reference for painters, but it is impossible to use it directly.
More people without a painting foundation are also joining in the fun of AI painting. An Internet industry insider told reporters that after seeing many friends sharing their AI paintings, he couldn't help but try it out. He felt that he had discovered a new world and had many paintings he created. However, when the reporter asked him if he would pay for AI painting, he immediately denied, "It's just a simple play, and I won't take it seriously."
was at the beginning of YUAN, and those who were willing to pay for AI were mainly those who could make money from it. In addition to the novelists mentioned by Zhang Shiying, designers, painters, advertising and marketing companies and e-commerce merchants on YUAN Chu and imgcreator are the main paying groups.
The marketing industry's enthusiasm for AI creation exceeded her expectations. With the current AI painting ability, it can quickly generate pictures based on text, and there is still a gap between the overall texture and the works carefully created by humans. But for the marketing industry, they need a lot of pictures with cheap materials, but instead apply to pictures made by AI. "Many people don't have that high requirements. They prefer to lay 100 materials and then refine them after a certain material is bursting. The most difficult thing in the past was that they couldn't find this explosive point. Now they can do ABtest at a very cheap cost." Zhang Shiying said. Although
is popular, it is still a small group that uses AI to paint. At the peak of overseas markets in August, midjourney users were in the millions, which was not large-scale.The "China AI Painting Industry Survey Report" released by the AI painting website 6pen in October this year shows that 60% of users have not paid for using AI drawing products, that is, they are completely free of charge. Among the remaining 40% of paid users, 16% pay within 10 yuan, 14% pay within 100 yuan, and less than 10% pay more than 100 yuan.
"The entire AIGC industry is still in its early stages today, but there is a phenomenon worth noting that this industry is developing too fast." Zhuang Minghao told reporters that if calculated based on the original cycle theory, it may take 3 or 5 years to reach the current scale, but in the AIGC industry, these changes can be achieved in one or two years. After the stable model was open sourced, some American companies made plug-ins based on this, and the next generation of photoshop has already supported AI painting. When an industry has a company that does underlying technology and an application layer, it will become richer, the industrial chain will become longer, the division of labor will be clearer, and the business model will be clearer. AIGC is moving in this direction.
In June this year, Zhuang Minghao and Baidu Wenxin big model people discussed the topic of AIGC. At that time, Wenxin people were still anxious because they didn’t know what the use of making this product, how to commercialize it, whether they should do the B-end or C-end, and whether they should find partners to do it together. By October, they had no need to worry at all, and countless people were pushing them forward. "They may be the one who is least anxious now. This has only been three months, and such a big change has occurred." After
overseas AI painting reached its peak in August, the popularity of the user side is declining. The country is currently hot, but those who join in the fun will eventually leave. By then, will AI painting dissipate like a gust of wind? Is it really commercially valuable?
Zhang Shiying has also been thinking about this question, "When will users really develop a need and stickiness to AIGC? It must be after integrating into daily work. So it must be industrialized." She told reporters that if it is just AI painting, it may be more like an interesting toy. "ToC is now just a process of educating users, letting everyone know that this thing exists in this world first." In terms of business path, she is more optimistic about the development potential of AIGC in designing and drawing, illustration, games, e-commerce, as well as the popular meta universe, digital people and virtual reality technology.
Controversy and questioning
AI painting is booming, and doubts are gradually appearing. From the end of August to the beginning of September, a large number of Japanese painters resisted AI painting on social media. They felt that paintings created by AI imitating their style will damage the artist's own image, and they said in their personal statements, please do not use my works in such an AI-automatic service.
htmlIn October, a big debate also started on Weibo. The well-known illustrator Lao Lei expressed that he did not oppose AI painting, believing that this would only replace "low-end" painters, which aroused dissatisfaction among many painters. Subsequently, painters such as MMMMM_Heye, Huayecai, and Moon Qilin also joined the debate, making the popularity of AI painting further break the circle.Xiaotao understands the boycott of Japanese painters very well. The source of that incident was that a Japanese AI painting website launched a beta version, allowing users to upload 15 to 100 images for AI to learn, and then output AI paintings with the same style. "It is very difficult for a painter to form a mature style of painting. It is indeed unreasonable to use other people's things without paying a little cost." She felt that the practice of this website was a bit too much.
But she also supports the development of AI painting. "Technical progress is definitely a good thing, which can improve the efficiency of painting." She feels that in the early stages of technology, one must first bloom with flowers and then wash away the sand, and it should not be banned in the early stages. But how to solve the copyright issue of AI painting needs to be paid attention to.
Zhang Lijin also discovered many AI copyright issues. She used the keyword "Lion King, City of Sky" to draw a painting on a domestic AI painting platform. The image of the Lion King appears is almost exactly the same as the animation "Lion King", but her eyes have become smaller. "If the Lion King's eyes are replaced by a small one, isn't it the Lion King?" If these problems are not solved, they will limit the development of AI painting.
The copyright ownership of AI painting works is not uniformly stipulated by each platform.Foreign midjourney platforms show that works generated by paid users can be commercially available, while non-paid users can only copy non-commercially. A relevant person in charge of Baidu Wenxin Yige told reporters that the Wenxin platform supports original paintings to enjoy copyright in accordance with the law, and encourages the AIGC platform to continue to invest in intellectual resources, improve content quality, and protect the fair and legitimate rights and interests of all parties.
According to the Copyright Law , the author of the work is human, not others. Partner and chief lawyer of the Intellectual Property Department of Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm Zhao Hu told reporters that there was a very well-known case before. A monkey used a camera to press the shutter to take a good photo, but because the author is not a human, the work is not protected by copyright.
But the problems with AI works are more complicated. During the AI painting process, someone described it in language, and the AI painting product is also made by humans. Should the painter or painting platform enjoy copyright? Zhao Hu told reporters that the current mainstream view is still that AI works do not enjoy copyright and are not protected. But there are also different opinions that are being born. "At present, various views are still colliding, no conclusion has been made, there is no clear legal provision, and there is no particularly typical case yet."
AI painting was hotly discussed in October this year, and another reason is that some painters are worried that their work will be replaced by AI. In August this year, the American " Atlantic Monthly " did not use the paid illustrations of the gallery website, but used a free image generated by AI to accompany the article. This illustration also aroused the artist's dissatisfaction.
"When AI was first born, people said that simple and repetitive labor would be replaced by AI. Now, even creative labor like artists is no longer a human being." Zhang Lijin was very moved by this.
The current artists’ concerns about AI are a bit like the concerns of that generation of painters when cameras were born in the 19th century. At that time, painters pursued the vivid pictures of portraits, but unexpectedly, after the camera was released, everyone could take vivid photos. A relevant person in charge of Baidu Wenxin Yige believes that with similar logic, AI painting will also bring about two changes: First, as a new tool, it will enable AI to collaborate with , such as a new creative method that is manually modified after the first draft of AI generation; Second, AI painting itself may form a new art school.
