AI image generation from text prompts. Midjourney, DallE, etc. These platforms are quickly disrupting the visual art and commercial art world. This isn't just "Putin as a Vampire Riding a Nuclear Bomb" wacky art. If you spend time looking at how these platforms are being used - they are quickly becoming production tools that are helping accelerate ideation and creation. Here are some examples:
* Developing logo concepts - the rendered text is usually wrong but the layout and design can be used to "hand build" a final concept
* Developing UI and web page designs
* Architectural designs and renderings
* Packaging design
Personally I'm using it to develop very niche imagery for a roleplaying game (Welcome to Grimsbury). Everything from postcards, postage stamps, posters, signage and illustrative imagery is coming out of Midjourney. The amount of control I have over the final product, the detail and unexpected "awesomeness" is mind blowing. I just generated a set of vintage postage stamps in the gravure style of scientists opening otherworldly portals. I could print them out and use them to mail a letter.
Artists and illustrators are very concerned about this technology - and rightly so. I was budgeting almost $2,000 to pay for art for my game - now - I spend $10-$20 a month to get hundreds of images that I 100% own the commercial rights to use. This will get me to the Kickstarter phase where I will then use kickstart $$$ to pay an illustrator to help with the final product - but Midjourney gets me launched.
This happened to someone I knew back in 2014 or so. We were hired together at C** Consulting and I was immediately shipped off to Dallas to help with an eCommerce program at a famous Watch & Accessory brand. My buddy from orientation in NJ kept in touch and was jealous I was on a project so quickly. He went back to his home and went into the C** office dutifully for the first month and just did training, enablement and finally surfed the web and got bored.
It seems his manager LEFT C** right as he joined. The ORG had not changed to reflect this status and my friend now reported to a ghost. He joked with me about it but was also baffled that such a large company could let this happen. His humor turned dark and he started to stay at home - do nothing - and collect his check.
Last I heard he applied to Ac** Consulting - got a role and started up with them... collecting two checks for a while until C** figured out what was up and reassigned him - he put in his 2 weeks notice at that time. :shrug emoji: True story.
I hope they bring back Battlezone - Activision rebooted it in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game))
A great single player and co-op "real time strategy" game that ran on a simple protocol called ANET (http://www.kegel.com/anet/) (http://www.strickleton.com/anet/)
Most servers are dark now but there's still a great community keeping this game alive. It had very robust tools for building and sharing your own maps for deathmatch and strategy campaigns. One of the first games I ever fell in love with.