Make way for prompts, as they could be the modern day equivalent of oil.
Composing the language used to direct AI platforms such as ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 to create essays, articles, images and beyond has become a lucrative career, attaining salaries well into the six-digits. Of course, anyone can invent prompts, but only particular prompts, for example “Produce a watercolor of a soldier in a field within the John Singer Sargent manner,” produce precise, wanted (or undesired) outcomes.
Skill and commitment are necessary to compose quickly given the lack of discovery and unreliable nature of AI technologies in today’s age. As an example, this can be seen through Bing Chat’s manic diatribes. Furthermore, these systems are always being altered and provoked by malicious triggers, ignoring safety protocols incorporated by their developers.
However, not all businesses or programmers have the finances to hire a professional engineer. Fortunately, there is the possibility of taking on shorter-term projects via the gig economy.
The amount of prompt marketplaces, which are websites where people can buy, sell, or give away prompts made for different artificial intelligence systems, has significantly increased since the first one was profiled last July. Doing a quick Google search uncovers many of these portals and more seem to be popping up all the time.
ChatX offers prompts that are tailored to ChatGPT and picture-creating applications like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. NeutronField’s prompts they have available are more varied, containing Disco Diffusion and Craiyon as well.
A lot of the marketplaces that exist, like NeutronField’s Miroslav Kostic, have not had any prior involvement in Artificial Intelligence or Data Science. It all began as a pastime for them, trying out systems such as Stable Diffusion but coming across roadblocks when seeking to unlock the best results.
Kostic shared with TechCrunch in an email interview that they have been experimenting with AI models that convert text into images since September 2021’s introduction of Disco Diffusion. A lot of effort and time were invested in manifesting the visions that were already in their mind, including dystopian science fiction scenes and out of this world space-scapes, yet they soon found that making images that make sense with just words was a challenge.
Kostic largely handles NeutronField single-handedly, evaluating all proposals presented by vendors to ensure that they follow the rules of the platform. NeutronField does not accept prompts that can be used to create celebrity deepfakes, portrayals of bloody violence, or copies of copyrighted characters.
Salehi reported by email that the field was rapidly expanding, and that there was an urgency for a simpler and more functional way to link responsive engineering and AI users. With the progress of AI systems, they have the capacity to take over elaborate processes and activities that used to require manual labor, read massive amounts of data that human capability can’t keep up with, and facilitate automated processes for employees to accomplish tedious and repetitive work. It is likely that the requirement for commands that can take advantage of these abilities may rise too.
A few entrepreneurs behind certain marketplaces have switched totally from various other sectors, presumably aiming to take advantage of the prevailing AI fad. Pisuth Daengthongdee tried to make an NFT market initially but was discouraged by how tough the rivalry was.
Daengthongdee informed TechCrunch that the considerable customer base for AI-image generator programs like Midjourney, DALL-E and ChatGPT, which all topped over a million users in December, was a major reason for the shift.
It’s clear that all the existing prompt marketplaces don’t stick to the same methods, as this area is unexplored and unknown. Every platform has their own individual path when it comes to dealing with prompt selling and buying.
As an illustration, PromptSea records solicitations on a blockchain, constructing an irrefutable documentation of every prompt’s commencement, exchange and sale. One setback is that solicitations on PromptSea must first be “minted” before they can be marketed, a procedure that is not instantaneous – or free. The benefit is that PromptSea-generated prompts have a noticeable, public history, Daengthongdee claims, which makes it simpler to figure out who their rightful holder is – and for the owner to obtain a share of subsequent sales.
Daengthongdee proposed that they could keep an eye on new prompts and remove any that seem untrustworthy, which is a common practice among NFT markets such as ChatX and PromptSea. Along with this, the network will entrust moderators to go through the new prompts and be rewarded for their work in the future.
NeutronField stands out due to its commitment to producing “high-grade” word-to-image instigations as well as its store that carries physical products including shirts, backpacks, and laptop holders, Kostic noted. ChatX, on the other hand, sticks to more traditional guidelines by offering special collections of instigations that have been hand-selected, according to Salehi.
For the time being ChatX is giving away prompts free of charge, however they charge a fee of $39 (in Canadian Dollars) for custom made prompts that go through the moderation queue and successfully make it. The same amount is rewarded to the prompt creator.
Salehi intends to put a commission-based system into effect in the near-term. NeutronField and PromptSea are already placing charges for commissions and PromptSea specifically is charging 10% for each transaction.
Daengthongdee stated that the on-demand industry can be considered a subset of the synthetic intelligence driven content formation that could shake up the international imaginative world. He believes artificial intelligence will eventually be used like other programs such as Photoshop or Blender, helping people or studios make imaginative outputs less expensively.
It’s quite daring to make such predictions, however prompt marketplaces are still in their early stages. They have a lot of catching up to do with big names such as eBay, Alibaba and Amazon, as they lack features such as customer ratings and review systems and personal customization options. The marketplaces are quite small scale and don’t offer a lot of options – interestingly, none of the co-founders provided economic figures or activity statistics when asked.
I ponder how sturdy these fledgling companies will be when facing the various struggles that are pending for them as generative AI holds on to its consumers.
Think about moderation when it comes to a small turnover. This can be simpler than on a large scale with the possibility of malicious participants. Just envision a gang of sellers overwhelming an online platform like ChatX with messages asking for nude deepfakes. Such requests might not even be displayed, but the moderation process would take a long time, potentially hindering genuine prompt creators.
Chatx is presently accepting sellers manually and building a framework that will allow clients to report questionable prompts that may get past the moderation, due to their anxiety about this issue. Meanwhile, PromptSea and NeutronField have not implemented any such limitation up to this point.
Next is the problem of copyright. Can the authors of prompts secure their rights via copyright, potentially leading to situations where sellers illegally copy and sell them? Neither ChatX nor NeutronField have strategies outside of manual moderation to protect against this. PromptSea thinks its blockchain-based system will mitigate the issue of authorship, but it has yet to be tried.
What is clear is that quick markets are not going to be disappearing anytime soon. They will keep on advancing and adapting according to the AI systems they are made to stimulate, progressing in slow increments and certainly hitting bumps along the way.
Kostic seemed undaunted by this, however.
Kostic stressed the importance of prompt marketplaces maintaining awareness of advances in AI technology, noting that staying current is essential in order for marketplaces to provide users with the most up-to-date prompts.
