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Comment by intellectronica | Hacker News Reader

Midjourney output is: - 70% depictions of conventionally attractive women, often with unconventional / unrealistic body proportions - 20% run of the mill fantasy book covers - 10% everything else (including some really cool and interesting images).

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Btw, "conventional beauty" is effectively an underhanded slur rooted in the envy of the "are-nots" toward the "ares". "Unrealistic" functions similarly, as there are plenty of women with the body proportions depicted in the handful of images I managed to see quickly perusing this page, and so while they may be uncommon (made, shall we say, more conspicuous in an age where obesity has skyrocketed and slovenly dress is ubiquitous), they cannot be unrealistic as such women do exist and do, in fact, dwell among us as fellow human beings. (N.b., some of the women depicted are entirely average or vulgar, and the manner in which some women are 'depicted' is also deficient in taste.)

And as this is effectively an artistic depiction, it would not be unreasonable to expect some idealization (no wrinkles, no blemishes, etc), which is kind of the whole point, as art, at least fine art, as it is produced to contemplate and enjoy beauty (which is, pace the relativists, objective; subjective tastes may conform to greater or lesser degrees to the objective fact). Even when you get your photograph taken, don't you want your "good side" photographed, or the zit on your forehead concealed?

Eh?! Only on MJ women have boobs bigger than their head.

The outputs represent the intents of the users.

No shock with mainstream media resenting “conventional beauty” that people would lean towards it with AI tools.

The descriptions don't really have to indicate beauty standard though. Seems to be implied.

e.g.: "18th Century Regency Era Portrait painting of a woman with long hair, wearing jane austen cream floral"

"Asian woman, pastel colors, mystical, empowering, stand in your own power, infinite possibilities"

That sounds roughly like the same ratios for most digital art on the internet. It's also probably indicative of the types of people (kind of nerdy, probably) people who are making images with Midjourney. I'm more likely to use Midjourney to make an image than a trained artist is, but a trained artist's image will likely be higher quality, more creative, and more diverse from what we're seeing here. Clearly, I'm guessing a little bit, but I bet that's what's happening.

Midjourney is a gateway drug to more advanced image generators.

Which generators are you referring to?

Stable Diffusion, likely.

Someone else mentioned civitai.com, I gave it a look and was surprised at the diversity of models, most of which are derived from stable diffusion tho.

I don't know. Here's someone making vintage movie posters with Midjourney[0]. Most professional artists would kill to be able to produce work like this.

Also another account[1]. I don't see lack of quality and creativity here. Other than maybe the bland face syndrome which (apart from weird hands) seems to be a problem with AI.

Granted, one could say that what quality and creativity there is belongs to other artists (notwithstanding touch-up work in photoshop, etc) but it's still clearly there. We're way past the point where AI art is qualitatively substandard relative to professional art, it's just subject to Sturgeon's Law, where most of it is low effort.

[0]https://www.instagram.com/todd_skull/

[1]https://www.instagram.com/drawiaj/

This is an exaggeration, right?

Then again, I see your point; even if the actual numbers were half of that, it would be a lot.

It's tongue in cheek and of course I don't have comprehensive data, but I do follow AI art a lot (which I find interesting) and that's my general impression. I wouldn't even say that the numbers are that wildly exaggerated.

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