If I think of shortcuts using tech for art not as cheating, but as delegation, my anxiety about it goes way down. It's still my idea, it's still my vision, I'm just telling the tech what to do, like an assistant, and it does it, it's still mine, and it's more efficient. The problem comes when I don't know how to use the tech fully.

@Jazzy_Butts I don't know if it's medalj) necessarily more efficient. It may be for you if you can't draw, but an artist will be able to whip up the exact thing you want while using a lot less actual power to do it. Think about AI websites where their servers' GPUs are operating at 100% constantly, and you have to sometimes try a dozen times to get the prompt right and then you're upwards of 30 minutes in the hole. And if you want to run it yourself, the GPU (plus all the other computer parts) to do it is going to cost some money as well.

If I want an approximation of something, I don't mind using AI real quick, but if I want something specific and to look good, I think it is more efficient to pay an artist. I mean, the artist i just commissioned for some Damaris artwork, I paid a good price for and in exchange I got to give her insanely specific instructions and then on top of that, when there were some things that looked slightly off she could correct them easily. Trying to get the same result with AI would be impossible, or at the very least incredibly inefficient.