Is AI Going to Replace Artists?
This video is different from the usual tutorials on this channel. It is an opinion piece, recorded in early 2023 after the first AI art tutorials went out and some viewers were unhappy about it. The short answer given in the video is no, AI is not going to replace artists, and it is not close to doing so. The longer answer is more uncomfortable: designers who ignore where the tools are going will be replaced, not by AI itself, but by people who know how to use it.
Who this is about
The argument is aimed at people who design for a living, not at people who make art for the joy of it. If art is your passion and not your income, nothing here needs to worry you. Working designers, on the other hand, sell time and skill to clients or employers, and the value of that time is set by what someone is willing to pay for it. The video looks at the question from the employer’s side, because that is where the decision gets made.
The cost example from the video
Take a small web company with three designers making graphics from scratch. On a good day each designer might finish about five artworks, so the team produces around fifteen. At an average salary of 3,000 a month plus benefits, the company spends roughly 10,000 a month for those fifteen pieces a day. An AI image tool with a commercial licence costs a few hundred dollars a year, and one junior operator who knows the software can produce fifteen polished images in under an hour. The company saves well over half its cost and gets many times the output. The video’s point is not that the AI work is better. It is that most companies look at numbers, not at people, and the numbers are hard to argue with.
Why senior designers are the most exposed
The uncomfortable part of the argument is that experience is what gets replaced first. Senior people cost more, and a company that only needs someone to operate tools will choose a cheaper junior. The same logic applies to writers, coders and other knowledge work, and the video connects it to the wave of tech layoffs happening at the time.
What to do about it
The video does not pretend to like AI. It calls the output “not art” and says plainly that the author does not enjoy it. But fighting it is pointless because it is not going away. The practical advice is:
- Learn the tools. Combined with real design skill, they produce far better results than in the hands of a non-designer.
- Use AI for yourself, not only for your employer. Explore passive income, small products or a side business, so your livelihood does not depend entirely on one company.
- Treat design experience as an advantage. A trained eye still decides what is good, what to fix, and how to direct the tool.
Why the AI tutorials on this channel exist
Most AI art tutorials online are made by people who never learned to draw, which the video compares to someone who cannot drive showing off a self-driving car. The tutorials here are made for designers, by a designer, and the regular Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials continue alongside them.
Conclusion
You can disagree with the conclusions, and the video invites that in the comments. But the core message holds: the change is about how design work is bought and paid for, not about whether machines can be creative. Designers who understand that early have more options than those who wait.
Links from the video
- AI tutorials playlist: https://youtu.be/k9bJC9llQfA
