#artbyhumans trends as AI takes off

The Future. The hashtag #artbyhumans is starting to trend in the world, hoping to differentiate the work of human artists with that generated by the raft of AI-art platforms that have popped up this year. If the hashtag penetrates popular culture, the hashtag itself may become a marketing tool that denotes something more handcrafted and difficult — like shooting on film or doing your own stunts.

Human Made™

The humans are fighting back against the machines.

• #artbyhumans started popping up to tag works of illustrators and concept artists all over social media — the 2022 version of #no filter.
• Not that it has hit anywhere close to #nofilter numbers — that hashtag has been tagged to 280 million posts and counting, while #artbyhumans is just getting started at 4,500 on Instagram.
• But according to Fast Company, the fast-rising hashtag from artists “reflects a desire to set themselves apart from the onslaught of AI-generated images crawling around social media.”
• It may also be an admission that, yeah, the AI art generated by platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney is good enough to pass as human-made.

Other trending anti-AI hashtags include #notoaigeneratedimages, #humanart, and #noAI.

New analog
But when it comes to the threat of AI taking away jobs, artists are a little conflicted.

• Amsterdam-based concept artist Diepfris believes that AI will soon become skilled enough to generate images based on a client’s brief, ultimately making his job obsolete.
• Meanwhile, Melbourne-based illustrator Grant Regan thinks that the complex job of balancing multiple stakeholders’ notes is something only humans can do.
• Washington-based digital artist Jim Rowden has a more bespoke view, saying that there will always be clients who’ll want the maybe-increasingly-rare human touch. It’ll be considered something special.

Will human art one day be a new version of analog? It’s a thought that may make most artists shudder.