Machine image synthesis has grown tremendously in the last year or two. I'm sure many have seen examples of this in the media. The big change that happened a month ago was that a Stability.Ai released a trimmed down version of their software to the public. Previously the AI companies served as gatekeepers. They regulated if and what images someone could asked to be generated. Stability.Ai has done away with that moat. Their software can run on very modest hardware. They did more than make it publicly available, they made it open source. It's AI image generation for all.
I'm curious what people make of all this. Especially those involved in art. I've heard opinions ranging from excitement over a new very powerful tool to anger and calls for it to be made illegal.