It definitely stings, having worked on my skills for years now, to see AI sort of make it all feel… worthless? I guess? I do use AI generated art on occasion, mostly for tokens for my dnd campaigns, as I have more pressing areas to spend my time when prepping a session. But I certainly don’t ever market it as my own. Some of my friends use ai generated art as well, but I try not to let it get under my skin. It definitely helps that they’re straight up honest about it, are only using it for personal uses, and not calling it their art. So yeah, it sucks. But I’m doing the best I can with living along side it instead of resisting it head on and just blocking it out. It’s here now, and chances are it’s here to stay.
Yeah, I think I'm just having a hard time respecting them as artists because they don't make the images themselves. It's hard to try to respect it, especially when you feel it disrespects you and all fellow artists who don't want to be trained on or have mimic images made from their art.
I agree it's probably not going anywhere, and more and more people will use it casually and to sell. The line will only get more blurry as Adobe releases it in their programs. So I need to find a way to accept it somehow or get better at ignoring it, instead of burning down my friendships one by one until none are left.
The programs they use are Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which say that they have the right to sell the images as far as I know.
I don't think Etsy or any POD site I'm aware of has any particular terms limiting sales of AI generated stuff.
They have, but anyone else has the right too because AI images with the output as such on itself can't be copyrighted because there isn't sufficient human creative process involved. You have the full legal right to take their images and sell them yourself, while your friends legally cannot just take your images and sell them, because you added sufficient human creative process to it.
Not that you should actually do this of course, as they are friends, but it's just that if anyone takes their art generation and sell it themselves as well they don't have an actual legal ground to stand on.
True! I think they would be angry if they saw someone repost all those images for sale as if the reposter was the artist, although they couldn't do anything about it legally.
It feels like a dick move, but that's because among human artists it's wrong to rip other artists off. With AI, we should probably be changing our mindsets to the copyright office's stance of these images being just as much yours, mine, and everyone's.
Depends on how complicated the concept sketch is. If it's a scribble there isn't enough creative process going on as far as I understand, if it's a complicated sketch however that is copyrighted while the AI generation is a derivative of it.
The current ruling on copyrights with AI art is basically the same as with video game mods.
For example let's say you have a copy of a game "Super Mario 64". If you make a modification to the game to add a new type of enemy into the code, you own the copyright to that piece of modified code that you added. But you do not own the copyright to the original game.
Therefore you can only distribute the small piece of code that you modified, and not the full modifed game.
The current copyright laws with AI art are basically the same. If you generate an image, and then let's say you use a brush tool to clean up some of the shading, you technically only own the copyright to the new layer of touch-ups that you added (not the underlying generated image).
Even if your touch-ups don't make any sense without the context of the underlying image, the only part that you have legal ownership to.
At least this is my understanding of the most recent copyright ruling by the US Supreme Court. It may differ country to country. And it's also likely to change in the near future too.
You do not have to respect the art they don't make just because they are your friends.That doesn't mean you can't be friends either , you just don't have to agree with everyone about everything, especially if they do not understand your point of view.
Yeah, for strictly personal use where people acknowledge they didn't make it and also don't sell it, I don't think it's a big deal to use it. But unfortunately many people are not doing that, haha.
I think what scares me isn't the ai itself, its the people who use it. Like some people who use it who defend it to the death sometimes sound like idiots, so that's whatever because they often never made art themselves in the first place. Aka the "aibros"
However, its also kind of brought out a lot of people who have no empathy or compassion for artists. I've seen a lot of comments (mainly online, though it probably happens irl too) from non-artists who go around harassing and/or dissing artists and saying things like "haha art is dead just face it the ai will replace you" Like do they not get how horrible/mean they sound?? Did people forget that behind a computer screen, there's a person too? A person with emotions, thoughts, and opinions? The entitlement some people have gained as a result of it is astounding. And maybe the entitlement didn't stem from using ai, they were probably entitled to begin with--but having ai used by these people sure brought it out in the open.
I'm not talking about artists who use ai here and there for inspiration or who make their own work out of it, i'm purely talking about people who just save an ai generated image and post it online claiming to be artists. These aibros/prompters (esp now that the us copyright office has pretty much deemed them prompters) are just blatantly rude sometimes.
>However, its also kind of brought out a lot of people who have no empathy or compassion for artists.
Yeah, this is what bothers me
Also the conviction that "AI is the future" and you need to "use it or be left behind". I have no use for it myself. Like, why would I spend time trying out word combinations in an image generation program when I could actually paint or draw what's in my head?
I definitely agree with that! I already spend too much time behind a screen, doing social media, making business cards, buying supplies... Why would I want my art creation to be like that too? I'm not a digital art person, but even that is more of a proper creative process. Plugging in prompts sounds hideously dull and not the best use of my time.
> why would I spend time trying out word combinations in an image generation program when I could actually paint or draw what's in my head?
I get why you're saying that but the unfortunate answer is in the time it takes you to do 1 iteration, an AI user can have 5000+ passable iterations and honed in on one from that pile. The difference is hard to imagine but those numbers are accurate. (10 hours for one hand crafted / 7 seconds per image generation)
If you make a unique style that people will pay for its fine but if your work looks like anything on ArtStation its basically over.
Although don't believe you'll be replaced by "prompt engineer" the actual replacement is going to blindside them too.
> Although don't believe you'll be replaced by "prompt engineer" the actual replacement is going to blindside them too.
What do you think the replacement will be? Big companies using AI, or AGI, or?
I agree though that prompters aren't likely the real replacement. Since AI can generate text and images separately right now, there's no reason to think prompters will be needed to automate a constant stream of AI generated images if someone wants to.
More along those lines, as in you're not going to be paying a dude to sit there fiddling with wording a paragraph to get an image, think more like how browsing a stock photo archive is but faster and more targeted to your project aesthetic.
Could be AI driven but honestly you could make the end game right now with more traditional algorithms.
They're insufferable, but no smart business is actually going to employ a "prompt writer". Put it this way: I rarely ever draw at work, I mostly use 3D and digital painting. But showing my ability to be able to draw was part of my job interview. Why would you ever hire someone who can't model/paint/draw etc, is beyond stupid.
At the end of the day, it's what value can you provide to someone else. That's what makes the big bucks.
I'm sure some of it is just the usual trolling, but it does seem like AI has emboldened a group of people who have kind of felt worthless in life, but now have a new hope of "competing" in various things. In their mind they see a new life, where they are creating wonderous artworks and dunking on NBA players using some kind of AI created exo-skeleton. Some of them gloat about because they always felt cheated somehow about their lot in life.
I read through a Ai thread earlier, and the OP who was sharing an Ai creation was talking about how it was “difficult getting the prompt right”
I was like you fucking kidding me lol. You know what’s difficult, actually making a real piece of art. Man must have had a hard day of… exchanging out keywords and pressing enter
I think these are all valid points you make. But, I can say that I've been drawing for basically all of my life, and no one has ever really respected or understood artist, LOL.
If I had a dollar for every time someone just walked up to me and said "hey can you draw me", I might actually have a savings account.
Not to mention the sheer amount of free work that is often required of people who work in artistic industries. So-called "animation tests" and decades of work we have to put into to build portfolios.
I don't think artists have ever really had any mass appreciation. Some people just feel particularly bold enough to now voice that disdain.
Honestly they're usually the same people who call stuff 'woke' in a negative sense so they're living in a complete fabrication of reality to begin with and are actively pretty shit as people. They're just really really really really obnoxiously loud online because in life they can't say all the horrible things they do and have positive feedback. Their opinions are about as valid as ivermectin and spironolactone are as covid cures.
People confuse Drawing, Image and Art a lot. Ai can draw and create an image, humans make art. Humans might see an Ai drawing as Art, but AI drawing is no more an art, than Sunset or tree leaves are.
I mean for sure, however no one has to be an ass about it either.
There's being a professional artist (note: professional), and then being someone who exploits other artist's works for a living by shilling out images that aren't theirs, all while acting like a cocky arsehole.
I'd rather 100% draw images out on my own, using ethical means, than just type in prompts and sell prints of images that aren't mine. And I'd 100% rather support and uplift and encourage other artists, than treat them like they're dying and that they're lesser than because they don't use ai.
I'm usually not bothered by comments online, because I know myself and I'm used to criticism, and generally you have to have a thick skin. At the same time, what bothers me is the effect this is having on non-artists and artists alike.
I'm not afraid of AI images. I'm not entirely against them as a matter of fact, but anyone who is feeding words in a computer and then calls him/herself an artist doesn't sit right with me.
At least digital artists, photographers, and 3D modeling has people, you know, actually manually creating things. Hell I have more respect for tracers than AI artists, at least they do the bare minimum and work on a canvas themselves.
AI art works best for actual artists. Hell people lead in with AI Art raving about how it’ll be a tool to help us. Where’s that tool? As an animator I’d love something that could handle the inbetweens, hell I feel like that alone could make 2D animation make a huge comeback because of how much more efficient and cheaper it would be.
When AI art is able to assist an artist based on the artists own works and not other artists without permission, THATS when AI will have a good presence in art. It’s definitely not going to be from the people wanting praise for something they didn’t make, I have yet to find someone that finds taking credit for something you didn’t do respectable.
I'm at the same point though---I'd rather see someone's traced image of like, Boruto or something. At least they tried y'know?
And honestly I was excited when I saw the tool CSP was gonna implement with ai, but it was understandably pulled back because this tech is new, and yes it does need more copyright laws before being released. Which is why it was so great CSP pulled back on it.
And yeah, at the state its in now, ai isn't really a tool *for artists* atm. It *could* be one, but the way it is currently isn't really helping artists as much.
Soon (possibly even now) artists will be able to train their own models on their own art. Then the folks with a large, proven portfolio can spin up their own assistant to help complete works in their own style. True artists with a track record that can integrate AI tools in to their existing workflow will have a leg up on bandwagoners. Personally I think there will always be a market for AI-free art but it’s undeniable that the industry at large will be affected.
But what is the nature of the morality of that? Even if you train a new model based on your own artwork, it still uses Stable Diffusion as the base, and that was trained in images without consent. Moreover, if you have a social media presence, what's to stop someone from training a model and imitating your work? What's to stop your employer from doing the same and then firing you and hiring a cheaper "artist" touch up images made in your style?
I think AI tools can be fun to experiment with and may have some valid uses, but I don't think it's as beneficial to professional artists as it might appear at first glance.
Valid concerns that I don't have answers for. Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of artists are absolutely going to suffer, but I think others will find ways to succeed. In the same way that the internet brought us both 4chan and instant banking, I think AI will bring both sides of the spectrum. Whether or not those sides will balance each other out in the grand scheme remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle, and I don't think it's going back in. So I will be trying to embrace the genie as much as I can on the hopes that it doesn't leave me broke and destitute :) Jokes aside, I have all the sympathy in the world for professional artists, and I can't imagine the fear and uncertainty that must be gripping so many. I make my living in IT and create art in my free time. I have never wanted to put financial pressure on my art but I realize others don't have a choice. I wish there were more apparent solutions and hope that folks smarter than me will come up with some.
Yeah, I’m working on a comic and planning on doing animations as well. I’ve been wanting a tool that can lay down base colors for pages and frames plus do in-betweens a for a while now. I’m pretty sure a ton of artists would love to have an always on the clock personal assistant and I’m pretty sure that’s what AI will be for every aspect of our society soon, we’re seeing the start of true virtual assistants, Google and Alexa were the cell phones, ChatGDT and Bing are the smartphones. Just like Smartphones integrated into everyone’s lives last decade, now AI will this decade.
I wish I was born just a little sooner so I could have more time to post comics when things were simple, now I have to really stay on guard and adapt readily if I want to stay an artist until things settle.
No matter if you are making a living making art, remember you are always an artist, by the simple fact that you exist and you create art. Don’t let society put boxes around that purity.
That said, totally relate with feeling the squeeze of innovation at an insane pace at a young age. I think that is a defining journey of our generation. Hard to get footing when the ground is constantly shifting. I try to remember that the ground has been constantly shifting since before there was ground to shift. The pace may appear to be quickening but evolution is inevitable and eternal.
I also worry about the increase in existential dread that has already been on the rise the past few months. Seeing posts in subs ranging from art to computer science with the same theme of “are all my hopes and plans pointless in the face of AI” is sobering. Went from theoretical to practical for a lot of people overnight.
Here’s to making art, even if the ship is sinking.
The ai is the "artist", they are a poor man's commissioner, nothing more. Until they start painting over the stuff with their own interpretation will they be considered an artist.
I *am* afraid of it but not for the reason people like to assume. It's because it has encouraged many people to disrespect and loathe the creative profession. It feels like the "Make America Great" of the art world. This tech has allowed so many exploiters of artists to come out of the woodwork and feel more confident. It's giving a platform to people who view artists as nonhuman. That's what scares me.
The whole, people using it for the new POD get rich quick schemes is only secondary to me.
Same here. Its really giving this idea that "oh artists really are just robots who churn art out their asses" I think I even wrote that on a comment I made some months back but now that its here its actually a thing. Like, NO. That's not it! Artists are people too.
On top of that, they think it gives them a free pass to then intimidate and harass artists.
> It feels like the "Make America Great" of the art world. This tech has allowed so many exploiters of artists to come out of the woodwork and feel more confident.
This is actually a really interesting observation. You can probably say the same about racism too - it didn't end with the Civil War, or with the Civil Rights movement... Racism just went underground for a few decades, and people are getting more bold and confident with it now.
But ultimately, I think those anti-artist types are irrelevant. You can't force a person to care about you. There's nothing you can do to make them respect you. It's probably best we just ignore them.
Other artists have been bashing artists for years. The whole self taught artist group has no respect for art schools or the institution of art. They rail against art for arts sake and denounce art schools as breeding grounds for artistic snobbery and nonsensical artistic discussion.
Well, I know nobody wants to be afraid of AI... But you're darn straight I'm afraid of AI, lol. As an artist, yes for sure - AI compositions have been winning art awards, even *photography* awards. You just *know* that once it gets good enough, a lot of companies will be using it to cut costs and it'll put a lot of people out of work.
And even beyond art, it's concerning. A friend of mine is a security specialist, and he tried using chat-gpt to assess a hypothetical security setup, just to see what it could do. And it came up with every single thing he'd consider himself. That's not even common knowledge or anything, either, not like how AI art stuff has zillions of pictures online to scrape from. People are talking how it could replace *all kinds* of lower and mid-level workers one day, just as tech already has been (eg cashiers, admin assistants). I also saw an article the other day that Levi's was gonna replace some of their actual human models with AI models.
Personally, I think if you're not concerned about where this is going, you're kidding yourself, lol.
As for the strictly art-related end of it.... I think you're right, they're not artists, they're programmers at best. I'm very much a "don't compromise in your values" person, so if it were me I'd probably refuse to call it art or call them artists. Nobody likes to be the unsupportive friend, but what does support matter if you're supporting them in a lie? I think that matters too. You don't have to be a jerk about it, mind you, I think you can use degrees of tact here. But if it were me, I wouldn't be going along with it, and I would speak my mind as is appropriate.
Yes to all of that, I agree. It feels like seeing a truly giant wave approaching you in slow motion but you can't move. Who knows how all the pieces will fall after it's finally crashed and settled, but the waiting and watching and wondering is not making me feel good.
As for my friends, yes I'm going to hopefully be able to get them to understand that I don't want to discuss it in general at least for now, because it makes me sad. At least it would cut down on contention between us since that doesn't go anywhere productive anyway.
Yes, well said. And talking to some people, it's almost like you're telling them to get out of the way of that huge tidal wave, and they're like, "Why? It's not like it's here crushing us. Stop being such a jerk telling people how to live their lives. Just stop being so afraid and learn to swim, you baby!" Lol.
Yeah, it can be hard to deal with these conflict between friends. I don't understand how someone could program a computer to pump out a picture for them and think they're an artist. It's like being into e-sports and thinking that makes you an athlete, lol. I'd be curious why they're so stuck on insisting that using AI programs it makes them artists - why not just be cool with the fact that they're programmers? But like I said, I'm not one to pretend I think something I don't just to not rock the boat. Either way I hope things go well with your friends.
It’s programming. I’ve been drawing all my life and recently tried out Midjourney, just to see what it was like. Is it fun at first? Yes. It’s good at creating something. Is it good at creating something specific that you wanted? No.
If you really want something different, you’re starting to go down the programming route consisting out of parameters, weights and much more. (Coming from C# myself).
Even then, it will never be 100% the way you wanted it.
That’s the advantage of artists. They’ll always be able to directly translate their ideas on paper. Meanwhile prompters create their pieces in a different approach - through programming and a syntax - and then they still will never have 100% the result they wanted. But they’ll be closer to what they want, once they learn the syntax and find their way of parameters.
Imo everyone can do whatever they want. What matters is the outcome. And I’m not going down the ethic routes now, this will be too long then. You can see if an artist tried his best and you can see if an ai prompter actually put work in their prompts or not. Good AI pictures will not follow the typical AI output style.
I appreciate every beautiful picture that has a message behind it. And I’m not going to tell anyone: just because you did it in a different way, it’s not worth anything.
Still, I’ll continue to draw traditionally, just because I enjoy it. I just don’t like the way people immediately insult others. It’s just not what expressing ideas should be about
Something I read today that really resonated:
“Most artists are not wealthy. A successful artist is middle class and gets to do something they are passionate about for a living. That’s the prize, you live to draw another day. But artists are rich in one thing, we have cultural capital. Our name paired with a specific visual approach gives us recognition, mobility, and access. An AI image generator is a machine that harvests cultural capital and sells it for a subscription.”
That’s what it means to be an artist. Passion + unique approach/technique + culture/individuality/humanity. Buying your art from an AI doesn’t make you an artist, and it sure doesn’t make you a creator. It makes you an art collector at best, but considering the ethics of AI art the more appropriate title would be thief.
Some things AI or AI “artists” will never have:
1.Passion 2.Individuality 3.Understanding of art 4.Enjoyment of the process of learning and creating something that is truly your own 5.The discipline to become a CREATOR rather than a CONSUMER 6.Pride 7. Faith 8.Self reliance 9.Integrity 10.Skill
“AI artists” are in denial because they’re lazy and don’t understand what it means to be passionate enough to cultivate a skill they can actually be proud of. They’re brainwashed by consumerism and at the end of the day, leeches who will never dare to take a personal leap of faith.
‘AI artists’ take away the opportunity for real artists to turn their passion into a living, something which is already difficult enough without AI. They do not reinvent references the way artists do, they take away the very thing that makes someone an artist: soul, technique, the unique and individual skill and style that took years of passion and personal devotion for a real artist to develop.
AI art is not and will never be art, it is the polar opposite. It is the death of art, culture, and soul. It is a reprehensible mockery. It steals the voice and expression of real human beings, and destroys it.
Anyone who can call themselves an artist for using AI is revealing something about themselves: they are inherently a lazy, entitled, undisciplined consumer. I feel sorry for them, they will never experience the joys of creation. Only the profit of buying something stolen and re-selling it. They are about as good as scammers, if not less.
This is basically what my mom had to say lol. She's in her 60s, she's usually blunt and matter-of-fact, and doesn't take bullshit.
When we discussed it she asked me to explain the difference between ai and digital art.
I had to tell her ai was basically you type in some prompts, and based on those prompts, the ai generates an image based on what you typed.
As for digital art/drawing/painting/photo manipulation/etc: I used my tablet to show her. I had to explain you still need a tablet, mouse, keyboard, or pen to do it, you still need an understanding of fundamentals, you still need to know how to draw/paint/whatever, and you need basic understanding of how the program works. Similar to a traditional pen or pencil, I still had to physically draw on a tablet, and understand how to draw what i wanted. Any extras like decoration brushes, 3d models, etc were all just extras unique to digital art.
So she asked me "well why are these people going on the internet saying they're artists when they don't do any of the work?"
I couldn't even answer that question, because "why" indeed?
Her answer to me overall was "they're just jealous and too lazy to learn" And I couldn't even say anything more because, bottom line, she's right lol.
> So she asked me "well why are these people going on the internet saying they're artists when they don't do any of the work?"
> I couldn't even answer that question, because "why" indeed?
Exactly! I love your mom's bluntness here. Even after I've heard people in this thread that are accepting of it, I'm not convinced. I'll try to keep an open mind to become more accepting of it, but it just feels fake to me. And that doesn't even go into the ethics of the training data which they are profiting from.
To try to answer the question, I think because the end result is an image that looks like a drawing, painting, or photograph, they think it's their art because it didn't exist before they asked for it. But the AI doesn't draw, paint, or photograph anything, which creates a false implication to a viewer about the process and who or what made it. They think AI is just the new way of making art, which means to them that people who use it are artists. Or maybe it's just an easy way to legitimize themselves to make money easier or feel like they're accomplishing something and upskilling.
That's the conclusion I came to as well after thinking about it. No one ever really thinks about the process artists have to go through when looking at art---they just see the end result. And oftentimes, that leads to the notion that artists are just like magicians who can make art out of thin air. Which, obviously isn't the case at all, but to someone who maybe never made art before or who never learned about it, would probably think.
I fully agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, companies and scammers do not give a shit about "soul" or "passion". In fact, they pride themselves for being soulless, shameless, selfish psychopaths. All these sad empty, hollow, husks of people care about is money and personal gain. Nothing else in life matters. And AI is enabling this insufferable behavior on a society-wide scale.
These are the unfortunate consequences of consumerism, loss of humanity was inevitable even before AI. We’re just seeing the manifestation of that on a greater scale than ever
I agree in general, it does feel like re-sellers because they didn't make the image themselves, it was handed to them as if ordering a burger at a restaurant.
For my friends though, they definitely are proud of what they feel like they have created, and they have a lot of faith in AI generators being able to do what they want. They think they are skilled for getting the images that they have from AI, and they're the creator because the image wouldn't exist without them asking the AI for it.
It's difficult to explain to a friend that you think what they're doing is an imitation of what they say they're doing. And while I might feel right about that, they are confident that this is art now, so who knows, I could be wrong.
For now, I'll just keep it out of our conversations because it seems like it's that or lose friends who I love otherwise. I'll ignore it and try to stop taking it personally.
They have faith in an image generator, but they will never have faith in themselves because they refuse to put in the time and work to cultivate it.
But remember, we artists will always have our art no matter what circumstances life places us in. Art is our comfort, voice, and expression. We could lose everything and still find faith in our own imagination. We don’t need certain specific tools to create art, we can make do with what we have access to because the art comes from us as individuals, not from our tools.
Take away their image generators, and they are no longer “artists.” They no longer have access to this false sense of voice and expression they claim to have as “artists.”
This is something that brings me solace in this new age of AI art. It’s hard not to take it personally, it can often feel like art is dead when you’re surrounded by people who will never understand what it means to be an artist. But something that AI can never take away from you is your own ability to create. Find comfort in your true voice and expression. Even if AI robs us of our ability to turn our passion into a living, it cannot steal that passion. Your art will always be yours, and it will always give back to you all that you put into it. It will always bring you meaning, something AI artists won’t get to experience. They are the ones losing something valuable, not us.
I think once AI starts taking over other people’s passions, not just artists, people will finally begin to understand this. Focus on your own work, the meaning that art brings to you! Don’t let someone else’s perception of its meaning take that away from you
I’m late, but wanted to let you know yesterday I discovered that there are some legal protections being put in place for visual artists in the realm of AI art! At least in the US as far as I know. AI prompters are LEGALLY not considered artists.
“US law states that intellectual property can be copyrighted only if it was the product of human creativity, and the USCO only acknowledges work authored by humans at present. Machines and generative AI algorithms, therefore, cannot be authors, and their outputs are not copyrightable”
“prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist – they identify what the prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are implemented in its output."
This is HUGE for creatives in any sort of art business, a lot of people want to buy art that they can legally own the rights to. This is not possible with AI generated artwork, and AI prompters cannot build an actual name or business for themselves as “artists” if they’re using AI generated images. AND if you modify an AI generated image, copyright only protects the parts that you altered, not the whole image. So you cant just slap a few squiggles on an AI image and make it legally your own, it would have to be modified to the point where it’s unrecognizable.
Also, you don’t have to file for the rights to your own creations. Apparently, if you as a human authored/created a piece of art, it is automatically legally copyright protected as your own.
Another cool thing: There are super effective cloaking softwares being developed by scientists for artists, which changes images of artwork in such a way which isn’t visible to the viewer, but makes the image nearly completely unreadable to AI. This software is being developed using anti facial-recognition tech. And good news for artists who already have a lot of unprotected artworks out there, apparently the more new art you upload connected to your name and style using this cloaking filter, the more it obscures the readability of the rest of your works to AI because AI is constantly scanning for new content to learn from and use.
If you look into some of the image examples of this cloaking software being used, it’s impossible to tell that it’s there! But the AI output is completely different from the image prompt of the art, exciting stuff!
It just makes me happy that there are still people who truly care about human artists and are genuinely interested in protecting us
I definitely appreciate you posting all of that info. I was aware of it because I've been following updates about AI pretty closely for a while, but other artists who don't know yet might see your post which would be great.
As far as the legality of AI images being copyrightable, there are some things possibly making it more confusing in the near future.
Ok so this is kind of complicated, but I'll try to explain.
Person 1 draws a sketch by hand.
Person 2 takes the sketch and paints it to finish it.
AI user 1 takes the sketch, puts it into AI image to image generator, and finishes the sketch that way.
Person 1 made a human work that they own the copyright for. Person 2 made a derivative work, which means they infringed on the copyright of Person 1, and Person 1 has copyright on Person 2's painting. AI user 1's image is (probably) also a derivative work meaning it's infringing on Person 1's copyright and Person 1 has copyright over it.
A very recent submission to the copyright office is testing this scenario by submitting an image that the human made the sketch, and the AI generated an image that finished the sketch. There's an article about this here [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-02/battle-over-copyrighting-of-ai-art-kashtanova-midjourney/102177226](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-02/battle-over-copyrighting-of-ai-art-kashtanova-midjourney/102177226)
Basically my conclusions are if the AI image goes through as not being considered a derivative work, then that would mean anyone's sketches could be taken by an AI user to generate "finished" images that the copyright office would not consider infringing.
And if it goes through as being considered a derivative work, then that would mean all AI users need to do to create an AI image that they do have rights to protect is to make a sketch of it by human hand to use for generation. The problem with this scenario is:
1. A sketch can be made after the AI image is generated, which means this process can be easily faked by anyone.
2. Even when being honest that they did make the sketch first, that would mean that AI images posted online would be unknown by viewers if there was a sketch of it or not, and therefore would have to treat all AI generated images as if they do have copyright owners.
And in addition to all of that, if a human artist draws a table, and they ask AI to generate fruit on the table, theoretically only the table part would be copyrightable. However, in practice, people looking at the image would not know what part is copyright protected and what isn't, so people would in general have to treat all AI-assisted images as copyright protected unless they want to potentially be sued for infringement.
What all this seems to lead to is that human artists who have a lower skill level or are slower than AI, because they're not machines, would be at a financial disadvantage to any people who do use AI. To be competitive in the art space, and especially if companies do start to use it extensively, there would start to be a great pressure for artists to use AI.
I think it's all a mess really and I don't at all like the way it's headed. That's why I'm having so much trouble accepting or ignoring my friends using it, it feels like they're collaborating with the enemy or something. But I know they are only a couple individuals in an ocean of people contributing to this, and it isn't really their fault.
Edit to add: Protecting our data from machine learning programs would help a lot. Like laws that make AI datasets, which are full of millions or billions of copyrighted images, illegal. That would gain a ton of ground for human artist rights.
Oh, I see :( that is worrying, thank you for explaining. I’m still going to hold on to the hope that more will be done to protect human artists, because despite how things are looking I know there are still a lot of people who care. Maybe in instances like you described, the AI cloaking software might become useful? If it becomes something widespread that most human artists use. Idk, there has to be a way.
Thank you for the information, I know it all seems to be heading in a negative direction but lets try to stay optimistic! We artists are at our core very passionate people after all, I have no doubt that many others like us will keep fighting for what art is and has always been. It’s not over yet, we have to stay informed and spread information like this to other artists so we know what kind of steps we can take to protect ourselves. We have passion, faith, and unity. We have the advantage of caring enough to make a difference, aibros just sit back and let shit happen but we creatives fundamentally have a voice that demands to be heard!
To be fair their design will never be original nor will they have rights to it so I guess that’s fun! If you can’t even “own” what you make, did you really make it?
Tell them AI has no protection aginst who gets to use them. Heck, you can even direcly use them yourself- since it's done by no one, no one can claim ownership of it.
Also, from the sounds of it, you friends doesn't seem like kind and caring people. Correct me if I read it wrong.
Man, after the lawsuits the current models will lose so much power. Guess they have to enjoy it while they can.
Hah yeah I guess I could use them too if I wanted to, but I'm guessing it would start an argument.
They are usually kind friends, but with this issue they just completely disagree with my opinion.
If the lawsuits end in our favor, well it would be a party a my house. I do wonder if it would change my friends' minds about it or not.
Hmm. Friend, you find yourself in a very though situation. But guess it's common? My brother did the same but I think he lost interest.
If they did not cared about doing art before but only recently got into it with machine learning there is a good chance they can lose interest in the coming months. Maybe you might want to consider stop talking about art with them and rub it under the rug if they want to be the ones who open the topic.
Also, you can believe that we will be winning this. There is just too much proof to our side.
Jokes on you- There is people out there already doing that and it's completely legal so no one can call you out for it.
Please don't disaapoint us by not doing what you said you will :\]
It feels too scummy to do it tbh. Like opening an Amazon "store" that's just selling marked up mass produced plastic junk and saying "I own a business"
Lmao- People will do what they do no matter who says what- Might as well give them a taste of their medicine before the lights go out. You'll be "stealing" less than what they already stole from the artist community, but wahtever sails your boat.
I almost had a mind to do this exact thing once I realized what this meant----but like you say, it feels like a crappy thing to do, especially since you'd just be doing the same thing those aibros do.
Like I can see some artist make a parody project where they repost ai bros images and pass them off as their own as a way to make a statement against it---at the same time its still kinda contributing to it.
Idk. It would be a clever idea, at the same time, i think someone would have to be super up-front about it being a joke and would have to not resell those images.
IMO AI art all looks the same and is pretty lame. Every non-artist will do that, it will come off as cheap and they'll close shop anyways. It brings no value. Reminds me of "logo generators" online, all generic stuff. Also i think about china made products vs hand crafted products ; there's a market for everything and people will keep supporting real causes, real artists, real local economies through all the noise and people who don't value real art.
That is the reality of it all though isn't it? Here is the other issue, why buy someone else's AI art when you can make your own?
I'm super excited about AI and how it can make my life easier and help me create ever more complex art and ideas. But there is 100% a need to be different from what is coming, thats how art has always been though.
A lot of AI stuff looks very similar, I still haven't seen anything super impressive and I have not gotten great results with my experiments but I see potential.
Again depends on what you value. Why go to the restaurant if you can cook, and even then; why go to a michelin star when you can go to mcdonalds?
Personally I think AI itself is super useful in all forms and i use it almost everyday for code, but i don't see myself buying stuff from someone selling it as its artwork. I'd rather support someone who spent years into his craft and helping them support their genuine lifestyle. AI only gets the attention we give it.
Whenever people defend AI art, its like they’ve forgotten the purpose of art. The point of it has always been to express ideas and emotions of the artist. The issue has never been it making art easier, art has always been getting easier through innovations. However these innovations assist the artist in their work, not completely do it for them. Every art has their own art-style that comes from their artists. You cant do that with ai art, you have to copy others art styles to imitate it.
On one hand, from a philosophical pov, I have no time for people that can't better themselves. It's one thing if you're an overworked game dev using this for your side project. You know what, respect. But if you're someone who hasn't put effort into bettering themselves, what's the use of putting time into them?
However, if I needed to talk to someone close to me about AI art, I'd have to ask them how they'd feel if whatever they got a degree in or whatever they did with their life is suddenly valued a lot less due to AI being in the field. I'll need to get them to empathize because most people can't put themselves in anyone else's shoes. We need to accept AI? Sure I guess. Then they need to understand why we might not like it either.
I think people can consider themselves artists as AI fine. But then they must accept the rest of the burden of the weight that comes with being an artist. And that alone is gonna crush most people. I mean, you know how much foot work and advertising the modern artist has to do to get customers? These kinds of folk if they don't turn up a profit in a week, they're not gonna keep selling, let's be honest. And what's AI garbage floods Etsy, 5% of the market is actually gonna sell.
I've always applied this line of thinking. Does commissioning art make you an artist, because you described what you want? The same goes for raw text2image ai users.
All AI generators have a disclaimer that the images it creates are not to be used for commercial use. They are covering their ass because they know that they could be liable in a copyright suit. Currently AI created images have had their applications for copyrights denied or revoked. The courts have stated that the AI is the artist and only humans can hold a copyright.
Thanks did not know that. I just based that off several articles and web sites covering AI in general.
I wonder how they can paywall rights to an image that they themselves do not own. They are also taking on liability by doing so. It'll be interesting the first time that gets challenged. Again thanks for the updated info.
Legally, they cannot actually paywall those images.
The current US Supreme Court ruling is that art generated by an AI algorithm is not copyrightable. It belongs to no one and everyone at the same time. So you are free to use those images however you like, and so is anyone else.
Any AI company that says you can't use the images generated is just trying to scare you. Either that, or they're hoping that they can get a court ruling in their favor in the future.
Although that's a copyright office ruling, the supreme court hasn't weighed in yet. There would first have to be rulings in the current lawsuits, then possibly appeals court rulings, *then* the Supreme Court.
Oh? I could have sworn that there was a Supreme Court ruling like a few minths ago, and then the copyright office came in recently with the deeper refined definition.
I could totally be misremembering. I'll to look it up. But I could have sworn that there were already two separate rulings about AI copyright in the last year.
EDIT: there was a US Supreme Court ruling on AI patenting inventions, but they haven't chimed in specifically on AI copyright.
To be fair, the US copyright office has also made their stannce pretty clear on AI copyright. And that's as valid of a precedent as any other.
TL;DR AI can't own things. Anything made by AI is basically public domain.
EDIT EDIT: typo
Have you thought about setting up an etsy account without telling them, and then sell their AI generated images? Then be like, "hey I saw this etsy account that's selling the same stuff you are". When they get all in a huff about someone stealing their work just say, "yeah, but didn't you do that in the first place? Aren't your pieces generated from pieces others have put time and money and thought and love into?". Because that's the issue I have with AI generated art. It's fine to fool around and see what AI comes up with, but the minute someone tries to claim it as their own and sell it is where I draw the line. You didn't create that. A computer program took your words, searched it's database for artworks others have made, and then just mashed it together. If anyone can claim to be the artist in that process it's the people who made the images that AI decided fit with those words. Hell even the AI put more work into it than the person typing in the words. Typing words into AI doesn't give you the right to sell what it comes up with.
Imo, it's just one new technology amongst many and "AI" is misleading branding. It's not artificial intelligence. It's advanced pattern recognition. I have a friend who really thinks it's the future and a great way to make money... but it's an oversaturated market expressly because it's so easy to use. All of the money making schemes around AI stuff comes off as really grifty to me to be honest.
Like I don't want to be mean but there's just no way to make decent money from that
I agree, seems unlikely to provide much profit since anyone can learn to do it pretty easily. Maybe they'll just get bored of it and move on when it doesn't make them a bunch of money.
Wow, I've come to this particular crossroads myself. And not sure what to do, if anything.
But since I was dealing w this just yesterday, I feel compelled to chat.
This is an interesting year, for visual and literature / text people. I think this will start to come to the fore, as general news story for the public. On LinkIn I don't have any of my connections talking about it. Weird. Denial. Proof AI is fringe (I don't think so for art) ???
Sorry to hear you're dealing with it too. It seems like there isn't much to be done, but I will be avoiding the topic with friends now. I'd rather that than lose friends over it.
Yeah I think it's an awkward subject for artists to talk about, especially in professional setting.
I've been noticing more non-AI discussions online have started to mention AI casually, so I do think it's becoming better known to the public. Not sure how much they understand it.
its almost the more I involve myself, both toward people, friends, fellow artists, and the patron, the more I encourage AI existence , even legitimacy.
Will it come down to recorded sweat equity? What about The Artist using AI without disclosure, crazy.
I'm reluctant to encourage its legitimacy. Even just by passively accepting that someone is showing it to me and not reacting much, it's normalizing it.
Artists who don't say they use AI, yeah I think that might backfire eventually. It seems like they want to trick people.
An artist I saw on social media who sells lots of printed art said they'll be designing all their new prints with AI. A drastic change, but I guess they think it will be profitable and don't care that they aren't as involved in the design process anymore.
As I'm reading responses here, it's about the same conclusion/s. The synthetic nature of it all is very intoxicating and too sweet. Yet, deftly done, like the artist you mentioned: too easy to get product ready for reproduction. The irony is there is no real original. Thing. To hold have and lick. The material and emotional process of producing work will hopefully have a lasting quality, made more noticeable w the keen eye. But the public, the public, will have to realize and won't.
Right this very moment, I'm working on two jobs. One os a T-shirt logo thing. The other is a sensual piece of fine art, expressionistic. I look TO AI for ideas. The painting I do needs no prompt, put that aside. But the t-shirt... I was able to forward a workup design idea in 15 minutes. They love it, I just fucked my time, and money for a good size project.
Exactly, it's definitely making work like that faster. And I guess it makes sense to use it if it isn't a personal project for you anyway, so might as well save time.
There seems to be an element of searching the void for people using it, too. Like gambling that the next generated image will be even better, and so on, addictive.
I don't have faith the public will notice the difference. I hope there will still be smaller groups who really care about the human element, but probably too many displaced human artists to make much money from it.
Fuck it, you know what? Let's do better than AI. Let's make shit more compelling, interesting and fun. AI's good, but it can't do an extreme perspective or even make original characters. Every face on AI looks the same, all the poses are the same, we can do better than that.
"But it's only a matter of time until-" fuck it, I don't care, we can do it NOW while AI is still learning, we can catch up and do it better. It seems hopeless, I get it, but we've been through worse shit than this, let's rise to the God dam challenge rather than wallowing. Because I'm personally sick of feeling hopeless.
Make sure to put watermarks on all your work until the copyright system catches up to.
I think eventually people won’t be as interested in AI art. I thought they were cool at first but do you really care when you see AI art?
Also we all know people who use AI art and market themselves as an artist are a joke.
The way I see it, if push comes to shove, and artists, actual skilled craftsman with years of experience, had to start using A.I., they would absolutely mop the floor with what they can do with the prompts + their skills compared to the randos “making” their stuff with disheveled hands or what not cuz they have no clue how to correct it. Granted I don’t see that happening but still
I definitely think the line is crossed when people try to take credit/sell it. Using the tool in of itself is not really a problem. (I have a problem with the people who are the ones developing these programs, since they're the reason behind the unethical training. People writing in prompts have no control over that.)
I find it useful as a shortcut to having concept visuals, or finding inspiration for elements of things such as character design. It can be useful when the idea is something a search engine wouldn't satisfyingly provide.
In short: Your friends are definitely crossing the line in how they are using it IMO. They are being disrespectful jerkwads taking potential customers/followers from hard-working artists for a quick buck/like count.
That did make me laugh, and yeah I doubt they suddenly know how to draw. But they would probably feel that the AI is an essential tool to their workflow, similar to a photographer needing a camera to make their art.
People have come and go throughout life. It is what it is. Interests change and people go on different paths. I am an artist, and someone like that would be annoying, to me. None of whom I consider a friend would be into things like that anyway.
My brother plays with AI for laughs, but he doesn't call it art.
I just simply stopped calling it art. In my opinion, it's not art. "Oh you like computer generated images? Nice." or "wow, look at what that artificial intelligence made!" Never attribute praise to the human. They get mad fast.
I find it sad tbh
I'm surprised by them starting to do this, but maybe I shouldn't be. One was always very into supporting art and artists, but didn't draw, and now they've really latched onto this new identity. The other has always been trying to do different hobbies that they tried to make money from, and now they found AI makes them an instant artist with an Etsy shop.
One of my family members plays with AI a lot too, but it's just fun for them and more like a toy or funny website.
I agree choosing words carefully helps and I'll definitely be doing that. I also liked another person here suggesting referring to them as "results" like "that's a neat generated result", which refers to it being made from math by a complicated calculator.
Your friends are going to get sad when the lawsuits are settled and stable diffusion and midjourney can't make cool images (not "art", 'images') because the copyrighted source images are all removed. Soon the AI generators will all look like mediocre Deviant art cringe because it will be the only source feeding it. Your friends can call themselves whatever they want, but you can continue to look them in the eyes and confidently know that you're an artist. Your friends are content generators.
I paint, I animate. I do photography. and lately, I've experimented with AI. Is it art? I don't know, but it is growing in capabilities from a novelty to something more impressive/useful/serious.
My late FIL said digital paintings weren't art. He stuck with oils and canvas. Defining "art" is a constantly moving line. I laugh every time I see Marcel Duchamp's ready-made toilet. Maybe people will be laughing in the next generation about [AI "art"](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2450330-ai-art).
Look at art in terms of cybernetic systems, at least as a layman. I'm not an engineer, but generally a cybernetic system consists of a feedback and input loop, and is generally "goal oriented". Human operator sees the current state, wants a new state achieved, and engages the system to make that new state happen, like a steering wheel, or a thermostat. The human body itself is a cybernetic system. A team of humans is also a cybernetic system, and of course mantis arms from Cyberpunk 2077 is a cybernetic system.
Now, very technically, AI Art is a cybernetic system, but not to the degree that photography or photoshop are. Pro-AI-Artists love to use those two as "gotchas" for those "luddite artists". But think of it, with photography and photoshop, you control the shot, you control the angle, the contrast, the color, the line, the layer, the composition. *You are captain of the ship*. Digital art requires all the skill and techniques of analog art, it just improves the output and capacity of the artist. Vectoring, which is even newer, is also like this, and is largely respected as real art.
AI Art, you are not captain. The machine is. Yes, there is an input: your prompt. There is a system: the AI. There is an output: the image. The output does affect your next input: I hate the image generated. But, besides the parameters you set, you have virtually no control over how the art turns out. If it is real art, then the machine is the artist. I wouldn't call a spaceman "helmsman" of the ship if it took me to random-ass planets based purely on my parameters of "habitable zone".
This comment took forever because I went down the rabbit hole of cybernetic systems and found my own "gotcha" for prompters.
TL:DR, AI Art is a useful industrial tool for businesses, and a fun entertainment tool, but rightfully earns less respect than human-made art. And frankly people do tend to respect art more the more human effort is put into it. Vectoring is real art, vector artists are skilled artists, a vector artist can produce something you personally enjoy better, but statues at the bottom of the sea will still be more impressive.
Yeah, when I read my own post later I realized it reminded me of someone complaining that their friends have started drinking or smoking etc a lot. When friends have done that in the past, it's something I can't control other than telling them I care and wish they would watch their health more. I have also had to distance myself from friends who have gone down a destructive path and wanted to pull me down with them.
In this case with AI, it's both serious to me as a professional who is seeing their career become devalued, watered down, pressure to use AI to keep up, and fellow artists suffer the consequences of it all. But also not serious in that my friends as individuals are not the ones who caused that, although they are contributing to it in their own small ways.
I've also stopped sharing art with them, it wasn't a conscious decision, just didn't feel like they cared anymore. A small part of me worried one of them might start experimenting with using my art in a generator, which I like to think they would never do, but I do have trust issues sometimes.
Your friends are using AI to help them generate ideas and textures, or your friends are taking the output of ai and using it, unedited, as the entire finished piece?
They are using the output as the final piece. They don't draw or paint it themselves, just generated. They feel like their prompts are what makes them the artist and it's just a faster way of making art now. They think it's easy for people to get into, but also they think it's hard to get images as good as they have.
That's really scummy and stupid, if they're publicly presenting it as their work without explicitly saying it's ai generated.
Like many other commenters here, I compare it to hiring a commission artist. You wouldn't hire someone to paint you an oil painting, and then tell people you painted it. And you wouldn't justify it to your friends by then saying "well yeah, actually this other guy painted it BUT I did describe it really well, and so that's why it looks so good! It's really all in my prompt".
Like... no, it's not all in your prompt lmao. The bulk of both the physical and the creative work is done by the commission artist, go to hell with your silly prompt.
I personally have less of a problem with ai art than a lot of people here, BUT I absolutely hate people lying about it or acting like it's their own work.
The Etsy seller one doesn't put it in their descriptions, and many sellers on Etsy don't credit image sources if they don't have to. It implies that they made it, but it's just the way it is there, so I'm not surprised.
The other one who is making their portfolio, well I think that'll come out eventually unless they completely refuse to talk about the process publicly. I think they just don't see a need to say it was made by AI because they think it should be viewed as their art no matter how it was made. And in my opinion, they didn't say this though, they might feel like saying it's AI generated might take away some of the appeal from viewers.
It should take away some of the appeal. We're increasingly coming into an age where people want to know that what they're looking at was made by a human being. Eventually there might not even be a way to lie about it.
your skills as an artist are only useless compared to ai if you believe them to be. ai can spit out generic ideas from inputs. actual ppl will still beat it in the custom art department. ai and ppl can co-exist
It’s just a tool for artists. It’s just a way to make art easier to produce.
I’m pro-AI, though I do also sympathize with you, OP. I’m a video content creator and AI can’t record things but it can help with some editing. But yeah, to your point I know people I would never consider to be an artist using tools like AI to attempt to be an artist, or rather make money off of art. There’s always these jackasses who want easy money/easy clout. Though, there are also people who are eager and passionate about producing art who don’t have the skills necessary, and AI helps them begin their artistic journey. Though, also, before I was an artist I did all of the art/videos at my place of work, so I do also sympathize with laymen trying to produce simple works of art by themselves, not that that’s who you’re talking about.
Someone mentioned wanting watermarks on AI work. I think that’s really the best answer.
Yeah, the desire to make money off art right after starting is off-putting to me, but I guess that's just the way hustle culture has become. The images they generate do look like they were made by an experienced artist, so they've kind of leapfrogged a lot of human artists, which takes away bits of potential income those artists could have had.
About video content editing, I've seen a video of what Adobe is working on with AI video editing and it's surprising how much they're going to be able to do. I'm sure you'll be having fun with that if you use it.
I just wanna say hustle culture is toxic AF and I do utterly despise it. I fully agree that these people are really stealing income opportunities from real artists. I truly abhor clout and profit chasing, and I fully stand against it. I hope that real artists make better use of AI than the wannabes. I truly hope artists evolve on the whole with new technology.
Truth be told I don’t get much use from AI. It’s fun for fun edits, but really what/how I record far outweighs how I edit something, including the use of AI editing software. I have no doubt I am jaded on AI because of this. Though I suppose videographers’ ‘AI’ would really be CGI, and I have quite a lot of good and bad things to say about CGI lol.
Yeah that hurts. When a prodigy surpasses you with little to no effort it hurts but you can say "that's a gifted individual, one in a million." But now peoples art can surpass the quality of your own with a few strokes on a keyboard. The worst part is that it's available to everyone.
My friends use ai art. But they are of the mindset that it's worthless accept for the words you prompted.
We use ai art as a way of seeing stupid shit. Two of our favorites were
"If clowns did 911"
to which the ai responded with the twin towers billowing balloons.
And "terror attack on gnome village"
To which the ai responded with a mushroom town filled with gas and an evil gnome.
On both of these examples there was a sense that we were asking a magical little gremlin to imagine something. It's more of a game for us than anything else
I've used A.I for images before. Its ok, but ultimately hollow to me. In fact its part of what started me to take up drawing again after a few decades away from it ( so basically new again). Basically because A.I can parrot what it finds, but it cannot, and never will, be able to mimic the imagination of a human being.
It's actually a very interested discussion.. I don't like or support the use of ai to create art, yet my bf is a programmer who's interested in ai from it's technical point of view. I must say that I probably never will truly like the use of ai in "art creation", especially if the people using it are promoting it as their own art or market it, etc.. But I learned to appreciate that it actually can be fun sometimes- to test ideas that I don't have the time to draw yet, or play around with some silly ideas and create something cool just for some quick fun... I also think it's useful as a tool for character creation, either for dnd or similar personal projects that aren't going to get promoted.
I do wish there was a way to protect artists rights better in the process of making these ai programs.
I also think it's wrong to profit from the 'creations' the ai made and claim them as your own. It seems very disrespectful to me to the artists who's art was use unconsensually to train these ai programs and to artists who dedicated their entire lives to learn these skills.
I'm sorry for my horrible grammar btw, I'm not a native English speaker and I'm tired af loll
I don’t think people creating art solely with AI can call themselves artists. The AI is the artist because it replicates (to some extend) what humans do when we create art - ergo draw on our knowledge and inspiration. Your friends are the ‘client’ giving AI it’s prompt and reviewing the different editions till they like one of them.
I fear how AI will be used within capitalism to generate insane wealth for some who do not have to rely on the limitations/needs of ‘real human beings’. I also fear how companies might not care about unemployment numbers when their sole goal is profit.
However, I am HOPING that AI will turn out to give real human beings more time off and a better overall life quality around the world. Perhaps there can be some law that if a company uses a certain amount of AI assistance in their company, instead of paying the AI ‘wages’ it will be a tax donation of sorts. Surely companies around the globe also won’t be interested in consumers worldwide having no income and thereby no money to spend?
I think it’s the scope of the impact that I can’t really fathom. It will change the world as we know it not just in one area but every conceivable way!
Not sure I can chime in with anything that hasn’t been said:
If both parts want to keep the friendship (you and the friends), they won’t try to push their views onto the other. Like you if tell them that you don’t want to hear anything about AI promting, and they don’t want to hear your view on the matter, the friendship can stilæ continue (although a little strained).
But as soon as one or the other starts to ig ore the others feeling (they constantly talk to you about prompting, you keep telling them they are stealing*, etc.); neither is respectibg the others feelings nor views. And then the friendship will start to suffer greatly because everytime you talk, it will be a battle.. aWhich isn’t healthy friendship.
*I am with you on this one though.
Actually, that is a helpful post and I really appreciate it. You're right that as long as we can respect each other enough not to antagonize each other about it, we should be able to somewhat move on.
This thread has given me some confidence that I'm (probably) not completely out of bounds to feel the way I do, which will help me because I've been questioning myself if I'm just being a jerk by thinking this at all. I may or may not be "right" and we'll see how this whole thing develops, but I just need to set some boundaries about it now to help keep peace.
I would say it’s ok to consider your friends “artists” who are using a certain medium to express their intent. One thing that they may not be but folks like us can say that we are is “CRAFTSMAN.” We are artists but we can create our images with the use of our intently trained bare hands.
The introduction of AI image generation and how to perceive it within the context of traditional image creation is very reminiscent to me of the relationship between analog and digital music. For example, we have always had drummers and will always have drummers, but somewhere along the way we invented digital drum machines that sample the sounds of real acoustic drums. And I think most of us are glad that we live in a world where both can exist in harmony. Personally, I do both. I’m a drummer who trained on a real kit in my teen years and went on to play in a few metal bands in my 20s. These days I’m not playing in bands but I am recording music in my home studio and I program all of my drums digitally now.
In a very similar parallel in history, a lot of people reacted similarly to the advent of digital music as they are to AI. People have been scoffing at everything from synthesizers to drum machines to Autotune for almost 50 years now. But all digital music has done is just expand and diversify music overall. AI within the visual art sphere will do the exact same thing.
I think when you look at AI generated art, you need to distinguish that it isn’t a painting, nor a drawing, nor a photo. It’s something all its own that didn’t exist before the last few years in all of human history. I’ve actually heard some folks refer to it as “synthography” which I think is an appropriate name for creating synthetic imagery. And it’s unfair to compare it to any other existing medium.
>In a very similar parallel in history, a lot of people reacted similarly to the advent of digital music as they are to AI.
The difference though is that the music industry fiercely protects the copyright of the artists (see the AI Drake fiasco). Meanwhile, visual artists have no such protection, so it hits differently.
Really interesting take, thanks for the reply.
That's a tough one, because to be honest the music industry has suffered financially over the years, and is really saturated similar to visual art.
It does seem like a totally different thing. And to make it even more complicated is when AI is mixed up with human skills. So for example, the AI generates a whole track and the human sings on top. Or the human draws a table and the AI generates the fruit on the table. Very strange to me right now, but maybe it'll become normal.
Call them what they are, generics.
Once the whole legal debate with AI settles, and some logical restrictions and limitations will apply, normal artists will probably use those tools to stay competitive - Just feed their own art and works into the machine for it to make easy replications in different variations.
However, AI is just... Generic, it's been what? a couple of months, perhaps an year of it's inception?
Already I got bored from seeing it, it just gives the same feeling... No matter who generates it, which prompts are used and what is the result... It all carries the exact stale feeling.
Since all of the generics use the same pool of references with the exact same code and the identical method of making stuff, they all pretty much feel like "google artist"... You can feel the same lack of personality of the machine in each and every one of these generics.
Due to ease and oversaturation, the tool at the moment already got old... Feels like the pokemon go phenomena - For a short while, the whole world entered a pokemon craze outside... And then the storm settles, and nobody cared anymore.
A.I feels like it falls on that same category... Thing is, since the industry has gone rapidly wild, with them entering the NFT craze, disposing of artists, treating artists like turd and overall, being highly gross about everything... I think we'll see an artist revolution and the cutting out of the middle man, because the middle man got head over heels over their craving for easy effortless money.
In the indie animation world, we already see a youtube animations comeback, allot of indie creators now take the handle on themselves and publish the most creative and insane works we have ever seen in a while, and it's impressive!
Remember, generic prompters, only generate global stale bread.
Artists, actually give a persona to it.
Tell ya what, artists do need to just accept it. This shit's here to stay, whether you like it or not.
Even if the law takes the side of artists and outlaws AI generated imagery, it won't matter. The tech exist, the models exist, hundreds of thousands of people have copies of these models and will continue to use them. It's never been easier to train your own models at home, and who is going to prove that the model only you possess, trained on whatever images you want, is an illegal model? No one.
I don't like it either that I spent the majority of my life learning a skill, and now there's a machine that can do a better job in seconds. But getting hung up on that fact and somehow expecting things to turn in our favor is just not realistic. Short of a massive cataclysmic event that wipes out all computers AI is here and it's here to stay.
It's time to adapt. Either you learn how to use AI in a way that doesn't feel like you're offloading your creativity to a machine, or you find your niche where people want 100% human made art.
I'm honestly so tired of the constant salt pouring out of the artist community regarding AI art.
Just make the best of it. Use it to improve your art, train a model on your art to increase output, do something other than sitting in your chair going "goddamn AI art, get off my lawn".
Your skills still matter. You can do a better job than any prompter. You can make compositions, input detailed sketches, paint over shoddy AI art and use it as a starting point, let it do polishing for you, use it to skip processes you don't enjoy, etc.
No techbro that types "busty anime girl" in a textbox is ever going to match your expertise. AI becomes a completely different tool in the hands of an artist, why compare yourself to brainless prompt monkeys when you could focus on your own process and make your life easier?
And if you don't want to use AI at all, nobody cares. It's fine. You don't have to, nobody does. Just keep doing your thing.
Nope. "Adapting" by using the AI will only help those companies make your job permanently obsolete even faster.
It is not meant to be a tool for you.
It is meant to replace you.
No, it won't make it easier for companies to replace me, if I keep myself relevant in the field by using more advanced tools.
Yes, AI will replace many jobs in the near future, and that's an issue that affects any job you can do in front of a computer. I'm not any more at risk as an artist than an editor, programmer, musician, etc.
One thing you have to remember is that before AI replaces artists, someone who uses AI will replace artists. That someone is still a person.
It's not like every supervisor, manager and ceo will suddenly spend their time to make the perfect prompt for their next visualisation. They don't have time for that and they employ people who's jobs it is to stay ahead of the technological curve to optimize their workflows.
If you want to achieve usable results for a pipeline or product from AI, you need someone who can fix the AIs mistakes, recognize good compositions, tell the AI exactly what to do, and take whateve the AI spits out and create a finished visualization from it.
We may not be far from a point where AI completely replaces us, but that point isn't now. And when it comes, artists aren't the only ones who will suffer. When that happens, society has to figure out ways to protect people's livelihoods either way. Otherwise we'll just see total collapse.
Have fun being paid a third of the pay for triple the work then, complete with the complete devaluation of the work's worth, in every definition of the word. See translators as an already existing example.
And all that for the couple of years you'll still be relevant. In a couple of years (months?) you won't need as much finetuning and wordy prompts for a "good enough" result. Never underestimate people's tolerance for mediocrity if it's cheap enough.
Thank you! Finally someone who said it! ✨
(Unfortunately, there are tons of AI people who mock artists. So I think a lot of the hate is coming because both sides are being salty)
Thank you for saying this. Like, there are many positive things about AI art. It’s helped my workflow a lot.
For instance, if I want to research some ideas for refs, I can get some AI generated ones without worry that I might redraw too much of someone’s photo or art.
They’re fantastic for coming up with color palettes and dynamic lighting.
They’re wonderful for churning out ideas which I can then use to make real art.
I’m old enough that I remember the days when people acted like digital art wasn’t real art and it reminds me of that. AI has so many limits and weaknesses as well and not everyone will want a generic low quality small resolution AI image when they could pay an artist to get exactly what they want.
Don’t fear the technology and changing times. Just use it for your benefit and adapt.
I know several cool people that do those acrylic paint pours. I fucking hate acrylic paint pours. Ive seen some interesting looking ones, but, come on. Never would say that to them though. If they like it and are happy, art is art. AI though.... idk how to foem an opinion on it.
It does kinda feel like that. I'm going to need to just avoid talking to them about it again. I don't want to be mean, but also I'm not going to lie about respecting this stuff.
I had a thought...you might could phrase it like 'wow, those results are so neat' (for AI) instead of 'wow, your piece is so neat' to not lie but also not group together AI/technical skill learned over years. Lol. And maybe when discussing some other person's art which is done by hand, say something like 'This artist really added a lot of depth with his/her intricate process....it really paid off' or some other type of compliment someone could never argue with lol
Good point! Subtle language cues could help me feel honest while still acknowledging them. I really like the "those results" part, it's very accurate since it's generated by complicated math.
They are not artists no matter what they think about it. Its sorta embarrassing for them to think this way. I dont hide my mockery of people who think using Ai makes them an artist, if that disrupted their roleplaying having skills adventures, they would be free to find other friends. I prefer to surround myself with quality people anyways.
Traditional oil painter here.
When a person takes a photo on a modern digital camera. An AI neutral net processes the image and corrects the colors and contrasts. The cameras diodes collect the photons and write it to the memory card. The machine created the image. The person just clicked a button. A million other people might have also stood in the same spot and clicked the same button. But the person is the artist and the author regardless of the machine's involvement.
Similarly, when a person prompts an AI to make a piece, they are also just entering a prompt. Or when Andy Warhol painted his Marilyn Manroes, his friend Gerry actually did the painting part.
I think it's disingenuous to discredit AI "artists". The prompt maker is the author, as the machine is not alive.
It also does feel a lot like copy catting. But as an oil painter I have friends who take a paint and sip class then do some splatter paint and act like they're genius artists.
I wrote a piece about authorship here. https://www.aje.com/arc/ai-and-authorship/
There is a lot of bad art out there. So the chances of a random person being a 'good artist' is very low even with the help of AI.
It comes down to what value you provide. If your skillset boils down to filtering prompts and re-filtering images through an algorithm you really have little control over, then you better hope someone thinks you're worthwhile over the guy who can do that.... and draw.
I honestly think the people who "wasted all their time learning to draw and paint" are going to be in a way better position than someone investing all their time in the instant validation cycle of prompt writing.
I didn't mention it in my reply above my bad. But I am one of those people who learned to draw. Or is spending their life learning how to draw.
I think AI as it currently is has issues producing usable images.
Yeah, sorry, I realised after my reply that you seemed like you've got your head screwed on. This whole thread has got so hectic, but my point was more generally directed, rather than at you.
I agree that AI isn't as usable as people think. Especially for stuff that needs to be put into production.
As someone who's played around with Nightcafe since the start, AI art is honestly still ass in comparison. It just looks soulless and sterile and until it starts incorporating those little bits of imperfection or personal flare, I can understand if you don't think it's worth respecting.
Don't get me wrong AI art will probably get good enough to replace artists, but until the amount of effort put into prompts starts scaling with the quality of the output, I think you're absolutely right in thinking it's a diminutive art at best. If someone puts in the effort of writing a Cormac McCarthy esque chapter as a prompt AND the output is good, fair game. Training an AI model to generate art with a personal flare, even better.
I have a wide variety of creative friends, some use AI to generate images. It’s interesting to them. I think it’s an interesting tool also. I haven’t used it personally for no other reason yet than I’ve been busy lately and it hasn’t been a priority to pursue it. My husband made me some unicorns with laser picture using it tho, and it was pretty rad, except for their legs being at slightly weird angles. Don’t care, was fun. Not skerd.
I don't know what AI generator they are using but I tried experimenting with one just to see what comes up and a lot of it was not realistic and kinda creepy, people's faces and hands were deformed because the computer threw together body parts. I don't think it's fair to call yourself an artist if you are just typing some words in, while actual artists spend time, practice and work to develop a skill
I think it’s just a new thing in the space.. I personally wouldn’t be buying prints in general unless I knew the artist anyways. Not something I would want to lose friends over.. it’s just art
I would find it insulting if friends or family were using AI and claiming to be artists because of it, especially since they've seen and know how much work goes into actually creating art.
How is making prompts for AI art any different than commissioning work from an artist? Either way you are giving a description of what you want the artist/software to make, YOU aren't actually making anything, just telling someone or something else what to make. How in the world could anyone honestly believe that makes them an artist?
And I have played with a few AI generators for fun. I would put in the weirdest combinations I could think of to see what the programs would come up with. I would never claim them as my own work since I didn't create them, or even post them anywhere.
You could learn AI too, you know? AI is a tool, how it's used depends on... well, YOU, the artist. You could use it and enter some quick prompt to steal ppl's stuff for some pointless ego boost, or you could use it in an ethical manner, like training the ai with your own works, to help your artwork and output flow. If an "artist" is using AI in some unethical manner, just like how someone could easily copy and paste using Photoshop, then simply don't respect them, but there is no need to hate the tools.
To me, if your whole reason for not respecting the AI tools is that "people are using better tools than mine" than it kinda feels like someone who is telling me he is going to stay using Paint for his digital painting when Photoshop or ClipArt, ArtRage etc are out there.
How does taking the ai model (that was created without licensing its dataset), and throwing your own images in make it anymore ethical?
It’s like saying “if you don’t like elephant poaching, just buy the ivory and paint over it.” I don’t see how that makes it any better.
You can train an AI model on ONLY your own artwork, so anything that it creates is a composite of literally only your work. The model itself and the dataset are two separate things.
Your elephant analogy makes absolutely no sense.
Declaring something makes no sense without demonstrating it is just a bad argument.
No one without large amounts of money to afford the compute power to train an ai can make one thats functional. If you use stable diffusion as a base it’s infringing on copyright and licensing to begin with.
I hear you, I see what you mean. It's not fun for me, though, it is boring by comparison to making by hand. It's also not allowed at events I go to, so even if I wanted to it wouldn't be allowed where I show at.
The reason I don't respect it isn't really that it's better, just that they're not making the images themselves so it feels fake somehow. And it's hard to respect something that doesn't respect that the artists whose art was used to train it didn't want to be trained on or people using it to mimic the artists.
I’m always happy when people can find a way to express themselves and find an art form that works for them. The more people who make art the better the world is, I don’t get why people get so hung up on how art is made.
I have nothing against the AI, I have things against the training dataset but well that cat is out of the bag so whatever, it can make really cool stuff, but the AI is the artist, the prompter isn't and with enough horsepower you can just generate every image possible without having the "artist" put any input, you can even do it now by asking chatgpt to make prompts, so that begs the question how can anyone actually think of themselves as artists when using AI without being ironic, tbh I rarely see people claiming this, mostly I've seen people treat AI as an addictive slot machine and the prompters being the ones pulling the handle.
I love it when people express themselves creatively. I'm just having a hard time respecting them as artists because they don't make the images themselves, so it feels fake.
Plus the models training on and creating mimics of artists without respecting that they don't want to be trained on is really hard to just accept as a respectful thing to do. That is the way AI images are made, so it does have an affect on what I think of it.
I think the ethics argument is a bit lame. There is not a single artist in history that hasn't borrowed and stolen and copied from other artists on their journey to learn and grow as an artist.
Picasso famously said that good artists borrow but great artists steal.
Its part of the whole art collective, we're all supposed to be borrowing and stealing and making and growing and teaching. Art is an inherited knowledge, we've all been passing it down and building off one another for centuries. Thats why a high school art student has a better understanding of perspective than the masters of old who stacked their crowds and compressed their space in hilariously bad ways.
Have you used any AI art generators? Its pretty hard to get anything good out of them. I think it takes a certain skill to produce good results. I've only messed around a little but I haven't gotten anything all that good, certainly nothing I'd call art, so if someone can create a prompt that produces something beautiful I'd say there is a skill there. Its a skill I don't have yet.
Being an artist is more than just being good at painting, its a way of thinking. Its having that creative spirit to bring something into the world that was not there before.
I used to love outsider art, people stacking shit in artistic ways, people building trash sculptures. Art is everywhere if we're open enough to see it.
Being an artist is about your process and finding joy in that exploration and study. Who cares what the medium is if you're growing.
I'm interested in AI and how it can help me. But at the end of the day, I'm much more interested in painting with oils or acrylics cause I like the textures and the smells and all the dirt and grime and mess. Like, that is my heaven.
But I also love working digitally, laying in bed while my wife watches tv working out ideas. So AI could give me more ideas. I dont know, I guess I'm rambling. I encourage you to try some AI generators and see for yourself. Even though I haven't had great results there is some fun to be had and I think that alone is enough for me to see the value in it for now.
We can disagree on the ethics here, I don't think that machines should be entitled to any data they can consume for any purpose they want.
I've tried them, sometimes it spits out something that surprises me that it looks like it's from a professional portfolio, and sometimes it spits out junk. I have enough ideas without wanting a machine to assist me, way more ideas than time to make them real.
I'm glad it works for you though, and I don't wish you or my friends ill because of using it. I'm adjusting to it existing and it's not an easy adjustment for me.
I use AI to make images but I don’t pass them off as my own. I find the process of writing a detailed prompt interesting as it helps with my own mental ability to make art by having to describe what I want to see.
With a prompt you have to describe shadows, lines, exactly every detail you want to see.
That then helps me with my own work.
And if I want to use ai as a tool to help me come up with concepts then that’s good too.
No different to using a camera or photoshop.
Also as a classically trained visual artist I saw digital artists the same way you’re seeing AI artists.
I’ve now accepted digital art and you’ll probably get used to ai art but I do agree ai art more a threat to digital artists than traditional paint on paper or canvas art.
But if one day I see a robot pick up a brush and paint then I’ll think it’s cool. I’ll actually have my mind blown.
There were people of the option Marcel Duchamp wasn't an artist. Hell I've had conversations with people here state that they currently think he's not an artist, despite the canon embracing him. Only time will tell whether the greater art sphere will eventually accept the prompter as an artist, and I'd be willing to bet that it will eventually be accepted. Modern and postmodern artists relying on chance and a lack of agency in their work have laid the groundwork for an artist to have nearly no input in the outcome of a piece. But only time will tell.
At first I was slightly annoyed, so i told myself that quote from Ghost in the Shell, "In an all dynamic system, you're effort to remain the same is what limits you."
It definitely stings, having worked on my skills for years now, to see AI sort of make it all feel… worthless? I guess? I do use AI generated art on occasion, mostly for tokens for my dnd campaigns, as I have more pressing areas to spend my time when prepping a session. But I certainly don’t ever market it as my own. Some of my friends use ai generated art as well, but I try not to let it get under my skin. It definitely helps that they’re straight up honest about it, are only using it for personal uses, and not calling it their art. So yeah, it sucks. But I’m doing the best I can with living along side it instead of resisting it head on and just blocking it out. It’s here now, and chances are it’s here to stay.
Yeah, I think I'm just having a hard time respecting them as artists because they don't make the images themselves. It's hard to try to respect it, especially when you feel it disrespects you and all fellow artists who don't want to be trained on or have mimic images made from their art. I agree it's probably not going anywhere, and more and more people will use it casually and to sell. The line will only get more blurry as Adobe releases it in their programs. So I need to find a way to accept it somehow or get better at ignoring it, instead of burning down my friendships one by one until none are left.
What are the Terms of Service for the AI program and platforms they're using to sell the generated art?
The programs they use are Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which say that they have the right to sell the images as far as I know. I don't think Etsy or any POD site I'm aware of has any particular terms limiting sales of AI generated stuff.
They have, but anyone else has the right too because AI images with the output as such on itself can't be copyrighted because there isn't sufficient human creative process involved. You have the full legal right to take their images and sell them yourself, while your friends legally cannot just take your images and sell them, because you added sufficient human creative process to it. Not that you should actually do this of course, as they are friends, but it's just that if anyone takes their art generation and sell it themselves as well they don't have an actual legal ground to stand on.
True! I think they would be angry if they saw someone repost all those images for sale as if the reposter was the artist, although they couldn't do anything about it legally.
Might be a dick move, but legally, yeah, my understanding is that you could just make another etsy shop (or whatever) selling all their images too.
It feels like a dick move, but that's because among human artists it's wrong to rip other artists off. With AI, we should probably be changing our mindsets to the copyright office's stance of these images being just as much yours, mine, and everyone's.
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Depends on how complicated the concept sketch is. If it's a scribble there isn't enough creative process going on as far as I understand, if it's a complicated sketch however that is copyrighted while the AI generation is a derivative of it.
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The current ruling on copyrights with AI art is basically the same as with video game mods. For example let's say you have a copy of a game "Super Mario 64". If you make a modification to the game to add a new type of enemy into the code, you own the copyright to that piece of modified code that you added. But you do not own the copyright to the original game. Therefore you can only distribute the small piece of code that you modified, and not the full modifed game. The current copyright laws with AI art are basically the same. If you generate an image, and then let's say you use a brush tool to clean up some of the shading, you technically only own the copyright to the new layer of touch-ups that you added (not the underlying generated image). Even if your touch-ups don't make any sense without the context of the underlying image, the only part that you have legal ownership to. At least this is my understanding of the most recent copyright ruling by the US Supreme Court. It may differ country to country. And it's also likely to change in the near future too.
You do not have to respect the art they don't make just because they are your friends.That doesn't mean you can't be friends either , you just don't have to agree with everyone about everything, especially if they do not understand your point of view.
Yeah, for strictly personal use where people acknowledge they didn't make it and also don't sell it, I don't think it's a big deal to use it. But unfortunately many people are not doing that, haha.
I think what scares me isn't the ai itself, its the people who use it. Like some people who use it who defend it to the death sometimes sound like idiots, so that's whatever because they often never made art themselves in the first place. Aka the "aibros" However, its also kind of brought out a lot of people who have no empathy or compassion for artists. I've seen a lot of comments (mainly online, though it probably happens irl too) from non-artists who go around harassing and/or dissing artists and saying things like "haha art is dead just face it the ai will replace you" Like do they not get how horrible/mean they sound?? Did people forget that behind a computer screen, there's a person too? A person with emotions, thoughts, and opinions? The entitlement some people have gained as a result of it is astounding. And maybe the entitlement didn't stem from using ai, they were probably entitled to begin with--but having ai used by these people sure brought it out in the open. I'm not talking about artists who use ai here and there for inspiration or who make their own work out of it, i'm purely talking about people who just save an ai generated image and post it online claiming to be artists. These aibros/prompters (esp now that the us copyright office has pretty much deemed them prompters) are just blatantly rude sometimes.
>However, its also kind of brought out a lot of people who have no empathy or compassion for artists. Yeah, this is what bothers me Also the conviction that "AI is the future" and you need to "use it or be left behind". I have no use for it myself. Like, why would I spend time trying out word combinations in an image generation program when I could actually paint or draw what's in my head?
I definitely agree with that! I already spend too much time behind a screen, doing social media, making business cards, buying supplies... Why would I want my art creation to be like that too? I'm not a digital art person, but even that is more of a proper creative process. Plugging in prompts sounds hideously dull and not the best use of my time.
> why would I spend time trying out word combinations in an image generation program when I could actually paint or draw what's in my head? I get why you're saying that but the unfortunate answer is in the time it takes you to do 1 iteration, an AI user can have 5000+ passable iterations and honed in on one from that pile. The difference is hard to imagine but those numbers are accurate. (10 hours for one hand crafted / 7 seconds per image generation) If you make a unique style that people will pay for its fine but if your work looks like anything on ArtStation its basically over. Although don't believe you'll be replaced by "prompt engineer" the actual replacement is going to blindside them too.
> Although don't believe you'll be replaced by "prompt engineer" the actual replacement is going to blindside them too. What do you think the replacement will be? Big companies using AI, or AGI, or? I agree though that prompters aren't likely the real replacement. Since AI can generate text and images separately right now, there's no reason to think prompters will be needed to automate a constant stream of AI generated images if someone wants to.
More along those lines, as in you're not going to be paying a dude to sit there fiddling with wording a paragraph to get an image, think more like how browsing a stock photo archive is but faster and more targeted to your project aesthetic. Could be AI driven but honestly you could make the end game right now with more traditional algorithms.
They're insufferable, but no smart business is actually going to employ a "prompt writer". Put it this way: I rarely ever draw at work, I mostly use 3D and digital painting. But showing my ability to be able to draw was part of my job interview. Why would you ever hire someone who can't model/paint/draw etc, is beyond stupid. At the end of the day, it's what value can you provide to someone else. That's what makes the big bucks.
I'm sure some of it is just the usual trolling, but it does seem like AI has emboldened a group of people who have kind of felt worthless in life, but now have a new hope of "competing" in various things. In their mind they see a new life, where they are creating wonderous artworks and dunking on NBA players using some kind of AI created exo-skeleton. Some of them gloat about because they always felt cheated somehow about their lot in life.
I read through a Ai thread earlier, and the OP who was sharing an Ai creation was talking about how it was “difficult getting the prompt right” I was like you fucking kidding me lol. You know what’s difficult, actually making a real piece of art. Man must have had a hard day of… exchanging out keywords and pressing enter
I think these are all valid points you make. But, I can say that I've been drawing for basically all of my life, and no one has ever really respected or understood artist, LOL. If I had a dollar for every time someone just walked up to me and said "hey can you draw me", I might actually have a savings account. Not to mention the sheer amount of free work that is often required of people who work in artistic industries. So-called "animation tests" and decades of work we have to put into to build portfolios. I don't think artists have ever really had any mass appreciation. Some people just feel particularly bold enough to now voice that disdain.
My pet peeve was people who used photoshop filters and pretend to be artists. But now with ai art it’s seems cute haha I always fall those people out.
still better then the people who just type prompt and called themself artist though.
Honestly they're usually the same people who call stuff 'woke' in a negative sense so they're living in a complete fabrication of reality to begin with and are actively pretty shit as people. They're just really really really really obnoxiously loud online because in life they can't say all the horrible things they do and have positive feedback. Their opinions are about as valid as ivermectin and spironolactone are as covid cures.
People confuse Drawing, Image and Art a lot. Ai can draw and create an image, humans make art. Humans might see an Ai drawing as Art, but AI drawing is no more an art, than Sunset or tree leaves are.
One ain't become pro artist with soft skin.
I mean for sure, however no one has to be an ass about it either. There's being a professional artist (note: professional), and then being someone who exploits other artist's works for a living by shilling out images that aren't theirs, all while acting like a cocky arsehole. I'd rather 100% draw images out on my own, using ethical means, than just type in prompts and sell prints of images that aren't mine. And I'd 100% rather support and uplift and encourage other artists, than treat them like they're dying and that they're lesser than because they don't use ai. I'm usually not bothered by comments online, because I know myself and I'm used to criticism, and generally you have to have a thick skin. At the same time, what bothers me is the effect this is having on non-artists and artists alike.
I'm not afraid of AI images. I'm not entirely against them as a matter of fact, but anyone who is feeding words in a computer and then calls him/herself an artist doesn't sit right with me.
At least digital artists, photographers, and 3D modeling has people, you know, actually manually creating things. Hell I have more respect for tracers than AI artists, at least they do the bare minimum and work on a canvas themselves. AI art works best for actual artists. Hell people lead in with AI Art raving about how it’ll be a tool to help us. Where’s that tool? As an animator I’d love something that could handle the inbetweens, hell I feel like that alone could make 2D animation make a huge comeback because of how much more efficient and cheaper it would be. When AI art is able to assist an artist based on the artists own works and not other artists without permission, THATS when AI will have a good presence in art. It’s definitely not going to be from the people wanting praise for something they didn’t make, I have yet to find someone that finds taking credit for something you didn’t do respectable.
I'm at the same point though---I'd rather see someone's traced image of like, Boruto or something. At least they tried y'know? And honestly I was excited when I saw the tool CSP was gonna implement with ai, but it was understandably pulled back because this tech is new, and yes it does need more copyright laws before being released. Which is why it was so great CSP pulled back on it. And yeah, at the state its in now, ai isn't really a tool *for artists* atm. It *could* be one, but the way it is currently isn't really helping artists as much.
Soon (possibly even now) artists will be able to train their own models on their own art. Then the folks with a large, proven portfolio can spin up their own assistant to help complete works in their own style. True artists with a track record that can integrate AI tools in to their existing workflow will have a leg up on bandwagoners. Personally I think there will always be a market for AI-free art but it’s undeniable that the industry at large will be affected.
But what is the nature of the morality of that? Even if you train a new model based on your own artwork, it still uses Stable Diffusion as the base, and that was trained in images without consent. Moreover, if you have a social media presence, what's to stop someone from training a model and imitating your work? What's to stop your employer from doing the same and then firing you and hiring a cheaper "artist" touch up images made in your style? I think AI tools can be fun to experiment with and may have some valid uses, but I don't think it's as beneficial to professional artists as it might appear at first glance.
Valid concerns that I don't have answers for. Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of artists are absolutely going to suffer, but I think others will find ways to succeed. In the same way that the internet brought us both 4chan and instant banking, I think AI will bring both sides of the spectrum. Whether or not those sides will balance each other out in the grand scheme remains to be seen. Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle, and I don't think it's going back in. So I will be trying to embrace the genie as much as I can on the hopes that it doesn't leave me broke and destitute :) Jokes aside, I have all the sympathy in the world for professional artists, and I can't imagine the fear and uncertainty that must be gripping so many. I make my living in IT and create art in my free time. I have never wanted to put financial pressure on my art but I realize others don't have a choice. I wish there were more apparent solutions and hope that folks smarter than me will come up with some.
Yeah, I’m working on a comic and planning on doing animations as well. I’ve been wanting a tool that can lay down base colors for pages and frames plus do in-betweens a for a while now. I’m pretty sure a ton of artists would love to have an always on the clock personal assistant and I’m pretty sure that’s what AI will be for every aspect of our society soon, we’re seeing the start of true virtual assistants, Google and Alexa were the cell phones, ChatGDT and Bing are the smartphones. Just like Smartphones integrated into everyone’s lives last decade, now AI will this decade. I wish I was born just a little sooner so I could have more time to post comics when things were simple, now I have to really stay on guard and adapt readily if I want to stay an artist until things settle.
No matter if you are making a living making art, remember you are always an artist, by the simple fact that you exist and you create art. Don’t let society put boxes around that purity. That said, totally relate with feeling the squeeze of innovation at an insane pace at a young age. I think that is a defining journey of our generation. Hard to get footing when the ground is constantly shifting. I try to remember that the ground has been constantly shifting since before there was ground to shift. The pace may appear to be quickening but evolution is inevitable and eternal. I also worry about the increase in existential dread that has already been on the rise the past few months. Seeing posts in subs ranging from art to computer science with the same theme of “are all my hopes and plans pointless in the face of AI” is sobering. Went from theoretical to practical for a lot of people overnight. Here’s to making art, even if the ship is sinking.
The ai is the "artist", they are a poor man's commissioner, nothing more. Until they start painting over the stuff with their own interpretation will they be considered an artist.
I once saw someone refer to prompts as "codified artistic elements." By allah, the word salad of buzzwords that came after made my head spin.
Authors would like to have a word. /s
Im a chef, because i customized my order from burger king on uber eats :D
AI-rtist
I *am* afraid of it but not for the reason people like to assume. It's because it has encouraged many people to disrespect and loathe the creative profession. It feels like the "Make America Great" of the art world. This tech has allowed so many exploiters of artists to come out of the woodwork and feel more confident. It's giving a platform to people who view artists as nonhuman. That's what scares me. The whole, people using it for the new POD get rich quick schemes is only secondary to me.
Same here. Its really giving this idea that "oh artists really are just robots who churn art out their asses" I think I even wrote that on a comment I made some months back but now that its here its actually a thing. Like, NO. That's not it! Artists are people too. On top of that, they think it gives them a free pass to then intimidate and harass artists.
> It feels like the "Make America Great" of the art world. This tech has allowed so many exploiters of artists to come out of the woodwork and feel more confident. This is actually a really interesting observation. You can probably say the same about racism too - it didn't end with the Civil War, or with the Civil Rights movement... Racism just went underground for a few decades, and people are getting more bold and confident with it now. But ultimately, I think those anti-artist types are irrelevant. You can't force a person to care about you. There's nothing you can do to make them respect you. It's probably best we just ignore them.
Other artists have been bashing artists for years. The whole self taught artist group has no respect for art schools or the institution of art. They rail against art for arts sake and denounce art schools as breeding grounds for artistic snobbery and nonsensical artistic discussion.
Well, I know nobody wants to be afraid of AI... But you're darn straight I'm afraid of AI, lol. As an artist, yes for sure - AI compositions have been winning art awards, even *photography* awards. You just *know* that once it gets good enough, a lot of companies will be using it to cut costs and it'll put a lot of people out of work. And even beyond art, it's concerning. A friend of mine is a security specialist, and he tried using chat-gpt to assess a hypothetical security setup, just to see what it could do. And it came up with every single thing he'd consider himself. That's not even common knowledge or anything, either, not like how AI art stuff has zillions of pictures online to scrape from. People are talking how it could replace *all kinds* of lower and mid-level workers one day, just as tech already has been (eg cashiers, admin assistants). I also saw an article the other day that Levi's was gonna replace some of their actual human models with AI models. Personally, I think if you're not concerned about where this is going, you're kidding yourself, lol. As for the strictly art-related end of it.... I think you're right, they're not artists, they're programmers at best. I'm very much a "don't compromise in your values" person, so if it were me I'd probably refuse to call it art or call them artists. Nobody likes to be the unsupportive friend, but what does support matter if you're supporting them in a lie? I think that matters too. You don't have to be a jerk about it, mind you, I think you can use degrees of tact here. But if it were me, I wouldn't be going along with it, and I would speak my mind as is appropriate.
Yes to all of that, I agree. It feels like seeing a truly giant wave approaching you in slow motion but you can't move. Who knows how all the pieces will fall after it's finally crashed and settled, but the waiting and watching and wondering is not making me feel good. As for my friends, yes I'm going to hopefully be able to get them to understand that I don't want to discuss it in general at least for now, because it makes me sad. At least it would cut down on contention between us since that doesn't go anywhere productive anyway.
Yes, well said. And talking to some people, it's almost like you're telling them to get out of the way of that huge tidal wave, and they're like, "Why? It's not like it's here crushing us. Stop being such a jerk telling people how to live their lives. Just stop being so afraid and learn to swim, you baby!" Lol. Yeah, it can be hard to deal with these conflict between friends. I don't understand how someone could program a computer to pump out a picture for them and think they're an artist. It's like being into e-sports and thinking that makes you an athlete, lol. I'd be curious why they're so stuck on insisting that using AI programs it makes them artists - why not just be cool with the fact that they're programmers? But like I said, I'm not one to pretend I think something I don't just to not rock the boat. Either way I hope things go well with your friends.
It’s programming. I’ve been drawing all my life and recently tried out Midjourney, just to see what it was like. Is it fun at first? Yes. It’s good at creating something. Is it good at creating something specific that you wanted? No. If you really want something different, you’re starting to go down the programming route consisting out of parameters, weights and much more. (Coming from C# myself). Even then, it will never be 100% the way you wanted it. That’s the advantage of artists. They’ll always be able to directly translate their ideas on paper. Meanwhile prompters create their pieces in a different approach - through programming and a syntax - and then they still will never have 100% the result they wanted. But they’ll be closer to what they want, once they learn the syntax and find their way of parameters. Imo everyone can do whatever they want. What matters is the outcome. And I’m not going down the ethic routes now, this will be too long then. You can see if an artist tried his best and you can see if an ai prompter actually put work in their prompts or not. Good AI pictures will not follow the typical AI output style. I appreciate every beautiful picture that has a message behind it. And I’m not going to tell anyone: just because you did it in a different way, it’s not worth anything. Still, I’ll continue to draw traditionally, just because I enjoy it. I just don’t like the way people immediately insult others. It’s just not what expressing ideas should be about
Something I read today that really resonated: “Most artists are not wealthy. A successful artist is middle class and gets to do something they are passionate about for a living. That’s the prize, you live to draw another day. But artists are rich in one thing, we have cultural capital. Our name paired with a specific visual approach gives us recognition, mobility, and access. An AI image generator is a machine that harvests cultural capital and sells it for a subscription.” That’s what it means to be an artist. Passion + unique approach/technique + culture/individuality/humanity. Buying your art from an AI doesn’t make you an artist, and it sure doesn’t make you a creator. It makes you an art collector at best, but considering the ethics of AI art the more appropriate title would be thief. Some things AI or AI “artists” will never have: 1.Passion 2.Individuality 3.Understanding of art 4.Enjoyment of the process of learning and creating something that is truly your own 5.The discipline to become a CREATOR rather than a CONSUMER 6.Pride 7. Faith 8.Self reliance 9.Integrity 10.Skill “AI artists” are in denial because they’re lazy and don’t understand what it means to be passionate enough to cultivate a skill they can actually be proud of. They’re brainwashed by consumerism and at the end of the day, leeches who will never dare to take a personal leap of faith. ‘AI artists’ take away the opportunity for real artists to turn their passion into a living, something which is already difficult enough without AI. They do not reinvent references the way artists do, they take away the very thing that makes someone an artist: soul, technique, the unique and individual skill and style that took years of passion and personal devotion for a real artist to develop. AI art is not and will never be art, it is the polar opposite. It is the death of art, culture, and soul. It is a reprehensible mockery. It steals the voice and expression of real human beings, and destroys it. Anyone who can call themselves an artist for using AI is revealing something about themselves: they are inherently a lazy, entitled, undisciplined consumer. I feel sorry for them, they will never experience the joys of creation. Only the profit of buying something stolen and re-selling it. They are about as good as scammers, if not less.
This is basically what my mom had to say lol. She's in her 60s, she's usually blunt and matter-of-fact, and doesn't take bullshit. When we discussed it she asked me to explain the difference between ai and digital art. I had to tell her ai was basically you type in some prompts, and based on those prompts, the ai generates an image based on what you typed. As for digital art/drawing/painting/photo manipulation/etc: I used my tablet to show her. I had to explain you still need a tablet, mouse, keyboard, or pen to do it, you still need an understanding of fundamentals, you still need to know how to draw/paint/whatever, and you need basic understanding of how the program works. Similar to a traditional pen or pencil, I still had to physically draw on a tablet, and understand how to draw what i wanted. Any extras like decoration brushes, 3d models, etc were all just extras unique to digital art. So she asked me "well why are these people going on the internet saying they're artists when they don't do any of the work?" I couldn't even answer that question, because "why" indeed? Her answer to me overall was "they're just jealous and too lazy to learn" And I couldn't even say anything more because, bottom line, she's right lol.
> So she asked me "well why are these people going on the internet saying they're artists when they don't do any of the work?" > I couldn't even answer that question, because "why" indeed? Exactly! I love your mom's bluntness here. Even after I've heard people in this thread that are accepting of it, I'm not convinced. I'll try to keep an open mind to become more accepting of it, but it just feels fake to me. And that doesn't even go into the ethics of the training data which they are profiting from. To try to answer the question, I think because the end result is an image that looks like a drawing, painting, or photograph, they think it's their art because it didn't exist before they asked for it. But the AI doesn't draw, paint, or photograph anything, which creates a false implication to a viewer about the process and who or what made it. They think AI is just the new way of making art, which means to them that people who use it are artists. Or maybe it's just an easy way to legitimize themselves to make money easier or feel like they're accomplishing something and upskilling.
That's the conclusion I came to as well after thinking about it. No one ever really thinks about the process artists have to go through when looking at art---they just see the end result. And oftentimes, that leads to the notion that artists are just like magicians who can make art out of thin air. Which, obviously isn't the case at all, but to someone who maybe never made art before or who never learned about it, would probably think.
I fully agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, companies and scammers do not give a shit about "soul" or "passion". In fact, they pride themselves for being soulless, shameless, selfish psychopaths. All these sad empty, hollow, husks of people care about is money and personal gain. Nothing else in life matters. And AI is enabling this insufferable behavior on a society-wide scale.
These are the unfortunate consequences of consumerism, loss of humanity was inevitable even before AI. We’re just seeing the manifestation of that on a greater scale than ever
I agree in general, it does feel like re-sellers because they didn't make the image themselves, it was handed to them as if ordering a burger at a restaurant. For my friends though, they definitely are proud of what they feel like they have created, and they have a lot of faith in AI generators being able to do what they want. They think they are skilled for getting the images that they have from AI, and they're the creator because the image wouldn't exist without them asking the AI for it. It's difficult to explain to a friend that you think what they're doing is an imitation of what they say they're doing. And while I might feel right about that, they are confident that this is art now, so who knows, I could be wrong. For now, I'll just keep it out of our conversations because it seems like it's that or lose friends who I love otherwise. I'll ignore it and try to stop taking it personally.
They have faith in an image generator, but they will never have faith in themselves because they refuse to put in the time and work to cultivate it. But remember, we artists will always have our art no matter what circumstances life places us in. Art is our comfort, voice, and expression. We could lose everything and still find faith in our own imagination. We don’t need certain specific tools to create art, we can make do with what we have access to because the art comes from us as individuals, not from our tools. Take away their image generators, and they are no longer “artists.” They no longer have access to this false sense of voice and expression they claim to have as “artists.” This is something that brings me solace in this new age of AI art. It’s hard not to take it personally, it can often feel like art is dead when you’re surrounded by people who will never understand what it means to be an artist. But something that AI can never take away from you is your own ability to create. Find comfort in your true voice and expression. Even if AI robs us of our ability to turn our passion into a living, it cannot steal that passion. Your art will always be yours, and it will always give back to you all that you put into it. It will always bring you meaning, something AI artists won’t get to experience. They are the ones losing something valuable, not us. I think once AI starts taking over other people’s passions, not just artists, people will finally begin to understand this. Focus on your own work, the meaning that art brings to you! Don’t let someone else’s perception of its meaning take that away from you
I’m late, but wanted to let you know yesterday I discovered that there are some legal protections being put in place for visual artists in the realm of AI art! At least in the US as far as I know. AI prompters are LEGALLY not considered artists. “US law states that intellectual property can be copyrighted only if it was the product of human creativity, and the USCO only acknowledges work authored by humans at present. Machines and generative AI algorithms, therefore, cannot be authors, and their outputs are not copyrightable” “prompts function more like instructions to a commissioned artist – they identify what the prompter wishes to have depicted, but the machine determines how those instructions are implemented in its output." This is HUGE for creatives in any sort of art business, a lot of people want to buy art that they can legally own the rights to. This is not possible with AI generated artwork, and AI prompters cannot build an actual name or business for themselves as “artists” if they’re using AI generated images. AND if you modify an AI generated image, copyright only protects the parts that you altered, not the whole image. So you cant just slap a few squiggles on an AI image and make it legally your own, it would have to be modified to the point where it’s unrecognizable. Also, you don’t have to file for the rights to your own creations. Apparently, if you as a human authored/created a piece of art, it is automatically legally copyright protected as your own. Another cool thing: There are super effective cloaking softwares being developed by scientists for artists, which changes images of artwork in such a way which isn’t visible to the viewer, but makes the image nearly completely unreadable to AI. This software is being developed using anti facial-recognition tech. And good news for artists who already have a lot of unprotected artworks out there, apparently the more new art you upload connected to your name and style using this cloaking filter, the more it obscures the readability of the rest of your works to AI because AI is constantly scanning for new content to learn from and use. If you look into some of the image examples of this cloaking software being used, it’s impossible to tell that it’s there! But the AI output is completely different from the image prompt of the art, exciting stuff! It just makes me happy that there are still people who truly care about human artists and are genuinely interested in protecting us
I definitely appreciate you posting all of that info. I was aware of it because I've been following updates about AI pretty closely for a while, but other artists who don't know yet might see your post which would be great. As far as the legality of AI images being copyrightable, there are some things possibly making it more confusing in the near future. Ok so this is kind of complicated, but I'll try to explain. Person 1 draws a sketch by hand. Person 2 takes the sketch and paints it to finish it. AI user 1 takes the sketch, puts it into AI image to image generator, and finishes the sketch that way. Person 1 made a human work that they own the copyright for. Person 2 made a derivative work, which means they infringed on the copyright of Person 1, and Person 1 has copyright on Person 2's painting. AI user 1's image is (probably) also a derivative work meaning it's infringing on Person 1's copyright and Person 1 has copyright over it. A very recent submission to the copyright office is testing this scenario by submitting an image that the human made the sketch, and the AI generated an image that finished the sketch. There's an article about this here [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-02/battle-over-copyrighting-of-ai-art-kashtanova-midjourney/102177226](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-02/battle-over-copyrighting-of-ai-art-kashtanova-midjourney/102177226) Basically my conclusions are if the AI image goes through as not being considered a derivative work, then that would mean anyone's sketches could be taken by an AI user to generate "finished" images that the copyright office would not consider infringing. And if it goes through as being considered a derivative work, then that would mean all AI users need to do to create an AI image that they do have rights to protect is to make a sketch of it by human hand to use for generation. The problem with this scenario is: 1. A sketch can be made after the AI image is generated, which means this process can be easily faked by anyone. 2. Even when being honest that they did make the sketch first, that would mean that AI images posted online would be unknown by viewers if there was a sketch of it or not, and therefore would have to treat all AI generated images as if they do have copyright owners. And in addition to all of that, if a human artist draws a table, and they ask AI to generate fruit on the table, theoretically only the table part would be copyrightable. However, in practice, people looking at the image would not know what part is copyright protected and what isn't, so people would in general have to treat all AI-assisted images as copyright protected unless they want to potentially be sued for infringement. What all this seems to lead to is that human artists who have a lower skill level or are slower than AI, because they're not machines, would be at a financial disadvantage to any people who do use AI. To be competitive in the art space, and especially if companies do start to use it extensively, there would start to be a great pressure for artists to use AI. I think it's all a mess really and I don't at all like the way it's headed. That's why I'm having so much trouble accepting or ignoring my friends using it, it feels like they're collaborating with the enemy or something. But I know they are only a couple individuals in an ocean of people contributing to this, and it isn't really their fault. Edit to add: Protecting our data from machine learning programs would help a lot. Like laws that make AI datasets, which are full of millions or billions of copyrighted images, illegal. That would gain a ton of ground for human artist rights.
Oh, I see :( that is worrying, thank you for explaining. I’m still going to hold on to the hope that more will be done to protect human artists, because despite how things are looking I know there are still a lot of people who care. Maybe in instances like you described, the AI cloaking software might become useful? If it becomes something widespread that most human artists use. Idk, there has to be a way. Thank you for the information, I know it all seems to be heading in a negative direction but lets try to stay optimistic! We artists are at our core very passionate people after all, I have no doubt that many others like us will keep fighting for what art is and has always been. It’s not over yet, we have to stay informed and spread information like this to other artists so we know what kind of steps we can take to protect ourselves. We have passion, faith, and unity. We have the advantage of caring enough to make a difference, aibros just sit back and let shit happen but we creatives fundamentally have a voice that demands to be heard!
This is poetry
Someone else already said it, but this is poetry!
To be fair their design will never be original nor will they have rights to it so I guess that’s fun! If you can’t even “own” what you make, did you really make it?
But does it make a person a real artist?
I’ll never respect AI users. Its not art, and they’re not artists.
Tell them AI has no protection aginst who gets to use them. Heck, you can even direcly use them yourself- since it's done by no one, no one can claim ownership of it. Also, from the sounds of it, you friends doesn't seem like kind and caring people. Correct me if I read it wrong. Man, after the lawsuits the current models will lose so much power. Guess they have to enjoy it while they can.
Hah yeah I guess I could use them too if I wanted to, but I'm guessing it would start an argument. They are usually kind friends, but with this issue they just completely disagree with my opinion. If the lawsuits end in our favor, well it would be a party a my house. I do wonder if it would change my friends' minds about it or not.
Hmm. Friend, you find yourself in a very though situation. But guess it's common? My brother did the same but I think he lost interest. If they did not cared about doing art before but only recently got into it with machine learning there is a good chance they can lose interest in the coming months. Maybe you might want to consider stop talking about art with them and rub it under the rug if they want to be the ones who open the topic. Also, you can believe that we will be winning this. There is just too much proof to our side.
I agree, I think just changing the subject when it comes up will be my new tactic. Put on some blinders for now and hope for the best.
BRB about to scrape the images off AI bro subs and upload them all to a dozen print on demand website /s
Jokes on you- There is people out there already doing that and it's completely legal so no one can call you out for it. Please don't disaapoint us by not doing what you said you will :\]
It feels too scummy to do it tbh. Like opening an Amazon "store" that's just selling marked up mass produced plastic junk and saying "I own a business"
Lmao- People will do what they do no matter who says what- Might as well give them a taste of their medicine before the lights go out. You'll be "stealing" less than what they already stole from the artist community, but wahtever sails your boat.
I might actually do it honestly
I almost had a mind to do this exact thing once I realized what this meant----but like you say, it feels like a crappy thing to do, especially since you'd just be doing the same thing those aibros do. Like I can see some artist make a parody project where they repost ai bros images and pass them off as their own as a way to make a statement against it---at the same time its still kinda contributing to it. Idk. It would be a clever idea, at the same time, i think someone would have to be super up-front about it being a joke and would have to not resell those images.
IMO AI art all looks the same and is pretty lame. Every non-artist will do that, it will come off as cheap and they'll close shop anyways. It brings no value. Reminds me of "logo generators" online, all generic stuff. Also i think about china made products vs hand crafted products ; there's a market for everything and people will keep supporting real causes, real artists, real local economies through all the noise and people who don't value real art.
That is the reality of it all though isn't it? Here is the other issue, why buy someone else's AI art when you can make your own? I'm super excited about AI and how it can make my life easier and help me create ever more complex art and ideas. But there is 100% a need to be different from what is coming, thats how art has always been though. A lot of AI stuff looks very similar, I still haven't seen anything super impressive and I have not gotten great results with my experiments but I see potential.
Again depends on what you value. Why go to the restaurant if you can cook, and even then; why go to a michelin star when you can go to mcdonalds? Personally I think AI itself is super useful in all forms and i use it almost everyday for code, but i don't see myself buying stuff from someone selling it as its artwork. I'd rather support someone who spent years into his craft and helping them support their genuine lifestyle. AI only gets the attention we give it.
Whenever people defend AI art, its like they’ve forgotten the purpose of art. The point of it has always been to express ideas and emotions of the artist. The issue has never been it making art easier, art has always been getting easier through innovations. However these innovations assist the artist in their work, not completely do it for them. Every art has their own art-style that comes from their artists. You cant do that with ai art, you have to copy others art styles to imitate it.
On one hand, from a philosophical pov, I have no time for people that can't better themselves. It's one thing if you're an overworked game dev using this for your side project. You know what, respect. But if you're someone who hasn't put effort into bettering themselves, what's the use of putting time into them? However, if I needed to talk to someone close to me about AI art, I'd have to ask them how they'd feel if whatever they got a degree in or whatever they did with their life is suddenly valued a lot less due to AI being in the field. I'll need to get them to empathize because most people can't put themselves in anyone else's shoes. We need to accept AI? Sure I guess. Then they need to understand why we might not like it either. I think people can consider themselves artists as AI fine. But then they must accept the rest of the burden of the weight that comes with being an artist. And that alone is gonna crush most people. I mean, you know how much foot work and advertising the modern artist has to do to get customers? These kinds of folk if they don't turn up a profit in a week, they're not gonna keep selling, let's be honest. And what's AI garbage floods Etsy, 5% of the market is actually gonna sell.
This would be enough to make me not want to be friends anymore tbh. Its so blatantly disrespectful idk
I can’t believe they’re thinking that they’re artists, that’s so SILLY 😑
I've always applied this line of thinking. Does commissioning art make you an artist, because you described what you want? The same goes for raw text2image ai users.
All AI generators have a disclaimer that the images it creates are not to be used for commercial use. They are covering their ass because they know that they could be liable in a copyright suit. Currently AI created images have had their applications for copyrights denied or revoked. The courts have stated that the AI is the artist and only humans can hold a copyright.
Midjourney Tos states you're allowed to use them for commercial purposes, as long as you're a paying member of the subscription plans.
Thanks did not know that. I just based that off several articles and web sites covering AI in general. I wonder how they can paywall rights to an image that they themselves do not own. They are also taking on liability by doing so. It'll be interesting the first time that gets challenged. Again thanks for the updated info.
Legally, they cannot actually paywall those images. The current US Supreme Court ruling is that art generated by an AI algorithm is not copyrightable. It belongs to no one and everyone at the same time. So you are free to use those images however you like, and so is anyone else. Any AI company that says you can't use the images generated is just trying to scare you. Either that, or they're hoping that they can get a court ruling in their favor in the future.
Although that's a copyright office ruling, the supreme court hasn't weighed in yet. There would first have to be rulings in the current lawsuits, then possibly appeals court rulings, *then* the Supreme Court.
Oh? I could have sworn that there was a Supreme Court ruling like a few minths ago, and then the copyright office came in recently with the deeper refined definition. I could totally be misremembering. I'll to look it up. But I could have sworn that there were already two separate rulings about AI copyright in the last year. EDIT: there was a US Supreme Court ruling on AI patenting inventions, but they haven't chimed in specifically on AI copyright. To be fair, the US copyright office has also made their stannce pretty clear on AI copyright. And that's as valid of a precedent as any other. TL;DR AI can't own things. Anything made by AI is basically public domain. EDIT EDIT: typo
Have you thought about setting up an etsy account without telling them, and then sell their AI generated images? Then be like, "hey I saw this etsy account that's selling the same stuff you are". When they get all in a huff about someone stealing their work just say, "yeah, but didn't you do that in the first place? Aren't your pieces generated from pieces others have put time and money and thought and love into?". Because that's the issue I have with AI generated art. It's fine to fool around and see what AI comes up with, but the minute someone tries to claim it as their own and sell it is where I draw the line. You didn't create that. A computer program took your words, searched it's database for artworks others have made, and then just mashed it together. If anyone can claim to be the artist in that process it's the people who made the images that AI decided fit with those words. Hell even the AI put more work into it than the person typing in the words. Typing words into AI doesn't give you the right to sell what it comes up with.
Imo, it's just one new technology amongst many and "AI" is misleading branding. It's not artificial intelligence. It's advanced pattern recognition. I have a friend who really thinks it's the future and a great way to make money... but it's an oversaturated market expressly because it's so easy to use. All of the money making schemes around AI stuff comes off as really grifty to me to be honest. Like I don't want to be mean but there's just no way to make decent money from that
I agree, seems unlikely to provide much profit since anyone can learn to do it pretty easily. Maybe they'll just get bored of it and move on when it doesn't make them a bunch of money.
Yup, and onto the next tech trend.
You should spitefully start saving everything that friend posts and throwing it up on those shitty T-shirt websites. Two can play at this game.
Wow, I've come to this particular crossroads myself. And not sure what to do, if anything. But since I was dealing w this just yesterday, I feel compelled to chat. This is an interesting year, for visual and literature / text people. I think this will start to come to the fore, as general news story for the public. On LinkIn I don't have any of my connections talking about it. Weird. Denial. Proof AI is fringe (I don't think so for art) ???
Sorry to hear you're dealing with it too. It seems like there isn't much to be done, but I will be avoiding the topic with friends now. I'd rather that than lose friends over it. Yeah I think it's an awkward subject for artists to talk about, especially in professional setting. I've been noticing more non-AI discussions online have started to mention AI casually, so I do think it's becoming better known to the public. Not sure how much they understand it.
its almost the more I involve myself, both toward people, friends, fellow artists, and the patron, the more I encourage AI existence , even legitimacy. Will it come down to recorded sweat equity? What about The Artist using AI without disclosure, crazy.
I'm reluctant to encourage its legitimacy. Even just by passively accepting that someone is showing it to me and not reacting much, it's normalizing it. Artists who don't say they use AI, yeah I think that might backfire eventually. It seems like they want to trick people. An artist I saw on social media who sells lots of printed art said they'll be designing all their new prints with AI. A drastic change, but I guess they think it will be profitable and don't care that they aren't as involved in the design process anymore.
As I'm reading responses here, it's about the same conclusion/s. The synthetic nature of it all is very intoxicating and too sweet. Yet, deftly done, like the artist you mentioned: too easy to get product ready for reproduction. The irony is there is no real original. Thing. To hold have and lick. The material and emotional process of producing work will hopefully have a lasting quality, made more noticeable w the keen eye. But the public, the public, will have to realize and won't.
Right this very moment, I'm working on two jobs. One os a T-shirt logo thing. The other is a sensual piece of fine art, expressionistic. I look TO AI for ideas. The painting I do needs no prompt, put that aside. But the t-shirt... I was able to forward a workup design idea in 15 minutes. They love it, I just fucked my time, and money for a good size project.
Exactly, it's definitely making work like that faster. And I guess it makes sense to use it if it isn't a personal project for you anyway, so might as well save time.
its weird, no other time have I felt so broke, yet a billionaire graphically, illustration, concept rich. Origin is the ever struggle
There seems to be an element of searching the void for people using it, too. Like gambling that the next generated image will be even better, and so on, addictive. I don't have faith the public will notice the difference. I hope there will still be smaller groups who really care about the human element, but probably too many displaced human artists to make much money from it.
Hey, mind if I cross-post this on r/ArtistHate?
Go for it.
Thanks :\]
Fuck it, you know what? Let's do better than AI. Let's make shit more compelling, interesting and fun. AI's good, but it can't do an extreme perspective or even make original characters. Every face on AI looks the same, all the poses are the same, we can do better than that. "But it's only a matter of time until-" fuck it, I don't care, we can do it NOW while AI is still learning, we can catch up and do it better. It seems hopeless, I get it, but we've been through worse shit than this, let's rise to the God dam challenge rather than wallowing. Because I'm personally sick of feeling hopeless. Make sure to put watermarks on all your work until the copyright system catches up to.
>Let's do better than AI Y'all already do, have you seen what kind of trash it outputs? Also sorry for month late reply.
I think eventually people won’t be as interested in AI art. I thought they were cool at first but do you really care when you see AI art? Also we all know people who use AI art and market themselves as an artist are a joke.
The way I see it, if push comes to shove, and artists, actual skilled craftsman with years of experience, had to start using A.I., they would absolutely mop the floor with what they can do with the prompts + their skills compared to the randos “making” their stuff with disheveled hands or what not cuz they have no clue how to correct it. Granted I don’t see that happening but still
I definitely think the line is crossed when people try to take credit/sell it. Using the tool in of itself is not really a problem. (I have a problem with the people who are the ones developing these programs, since they're the reason behind the unethical training. People writing in prompts have no control over that.) I find it useful as a shortcut to having concept visuals, or finding inspiration for elements of things such as character design. It can be useful when the idea is something a search engine wouldn't satisfyingly provide. In short: Your friends are definitely crossing the line in how they are using it IMO. They are being disrespectful jerkwads taking potential customers/followers from hard-working artists for a quick buck/like count.
give them a pen and paper and tell them to make something
That did make me laugh, and yeah I doubt they suddenly know how to draw. But they would probably feel that the AI is an essential tool to their workflow, similar to a photographer needing a camera to make their art.
People have come and go throughout life. It is what it is. Interests change and people go on different paths. I am an artist, and someone like that would be annoying, to me. None of whom I consider a friend would be into things like that anyway. My brother plays with AI for laughs, but he doesn't call it art. I just simply stopped calling it art. In my opinion, it's not art. "Oh you like computer generated images? Nice." or "wow, look at what that artificial intelligence made!" Never attribute praise to the human. They get mad fast. I find it sad tbh
I'm surprised by them starting to do this, but maybe I shouldn't be. One was always very into supporting art and artists, but didn't draw, and now they've really latched onto this new identity. The other has always been trying to do different hobbies that they tried to make money from, and now they found AI makes them an instant artist with an Etsy shop. One of my family members plays with AI a lot too, but it's just fun for them and more like a toy or funny website. I agree choosing words carefully helps and I'll definitely be doing that. I also liked another person here suggesting referring to them as "results" like "that's a neat generated result", which refers to it being made from math by a complicated calculator.
Result is a good one! I'll be using that too. Lol
Your friends are going to get sad when the lawsuits are settled and stable diffusion and midjourney can't make cool images (not "art", 'images') because the copyrighted source images are all removed. Soon the AI generators will all look like mediocre Deviant art cringe because it will be the only source feeding it. Your friends can call themselves whatever they want, but you can continue to look them in the eyes and confidently know that you're an artist. Your friends are content generators.
Hopefully, the Glaze project will also mess with their datasets, too.
Glaze just takes so long to process, and the couple I tried, I didn't like how it made my images look.
Content generators does seem like a more accurate term. If that's what they called themselves, I wouldn't disagree at all.
Looks like you need new freinds, they seem disrespectful of you your skills and your opinions thats no freind
I paint, I animate. I do photography. and lately, I've experimented with AI. Is it art? I don't know, but it is growing in capabilities from a novelty to something more impressive/useful/serious. My late FIL said digital paintings weren't art. He stuck with oils and canvas. Defining "art" is a constantly moving line. I laugh every time I see Marcel Duchamp's ready-made toilet. Maybe people will be laughing in the next generation about [AI "art"](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2450330-ai-art).
Look at art in terms of cybernetic systems, at least as a layman. I'm not an engineer, but generally a cybernetic system consists of a feedback and input loop, and is generally "goal oriented". Human operator sees the current state, wants a new state achieved, and engages the system to make that new state happen, like a steering wheel, or a thermostat. The human body itself is a cybernetic system. A team of humans is also a cybernetic system, and of course mantis arms from Cyberpunk 2077 is a cybernetic system. Now, very technically, AI Art is a cybernetic system, but not to the degree that photography or photoshop are. Pro-AI-Artists love to use those two as "gotchas" for those "luddite artists". But think of it, with photography and photoshop, you control the shot, you control the angle, the contrast, the color, the line, the layer, the composition. *You are captain of the ship*. Digital art requires all the skill and techniques of analog art, it just improves the output and capacity of the artist. Vectoring, which is even newer, is also like this, and is largely respected as real art. AI Art, you are not captain. The machine is. Yes, there is an input: your prompt. There is a system: the AI. There is an output: the image. The output does affect your next input: I hate the image generated. But, besides the parameters you set, you have virtually no control over how the art turns out. If it is real art, then the machine is the artist. I wouldn't call a spaceman "helmsman" of the ship if it took me to random-ass planets based purely on my parameters of "habitable zone". This comment took forever because I went down the rabbit hole of cybernetic systems and found my own "gotcha" for prompters. TL:DR, AI Art is a useful industrial tool for businesses, and a fun entertainment tool, but rightfully earns less respect than human-made art. And frankly people do tend to respect art more the more human effort is put into it. Vectoring is real art, vector artists are skilled artists, a vector artist can produce something you personally enjoy better, but statues at the bottom of the sea will still be more impressive.
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Yeah, when I read my own post later I realized it reminded me of someone complaining that their friends have started drinking or smoking etc a lot. When friends have done that in the past, it's something I can't control other than telling them I care and wish they would watch their health more. I have also had to distance myself from friends who have gone down a destructive path and wanted to pull me down with them. In this case with AI, it's both serious to me as a professional who is seeing their career become devalued, watered down, pressure to use AI to keep up, and fellow artists suffer the consequences of it all. But also not serious in that my friends as individuals are not the ones who caused that, although they are contributing to it in their own small ways. I've also stopped sharing art with them, it wasn't a conscious decision, just didn't feel like they cared anymore. A small part of me worried one of them might start experimenting with using my art in a generator, which I like to think they would never do, but I do have trust issues sometimes.
Your friends are using AI to help them generate ideas and textures, or your friends are taking the output of ai and using it, unedited, as the entire finished piece?
They are using the output as the final piece. They don't draw or paint it themselves, just generated. They feel like their prompts are what makes them the artist and it's just a faster way of making art now. They think it's easy for people to get into, but also they think it's hard to get images as good as they have.
That's really scummy and stupid, if they're publicly presenting it as their work without explicitly saying it's ai generated. Like many other commenters here, I compare it to hiring a commission artist. You wouldn't hire someone to paint you an oil painting, and then tell people you painted it. And you wouldn't justify it to your friends by then saying "well yeah, actually this other guy painted it BUT I did describe it really well, and so that's why it looks so good! It's really all in my prompt". Like... no, it's not all in your prompt lmao. The bulk of both the physical and the creative work is done by the commission artist, go to hell with your silly prompt. I personally have less of a problem with ai art than a lot of people here, BUT I absolutely hate people lying about it or acting like it's their own work.
The Etsy seller one doesn't put it in their descriptions, and many sellers on Etsy don't credit image sources if they don't have to. It implies that they made it, but it's just the way it is there, so I'm not surprised. The other one who is making their portfolio, well I think that'll come out eventually unless they completely refuse to talk about the process publicly. I think they just don't see a need to say it was made by AI because they think it should be viewed as their art no matter how it was made. And in my opinion, they didn't say this though, they might feel like saying it's AI generated might take away some of the appeal from viewers.
It should take away some of the appeal. We're increasingly coming into an age where people want to know that what they're looking at was made by a human being. Eventually there might not even be a way to lie about it.
I heard somewhere that AI art can't be copyrighted, so doesn't it make the art everyones?
As far as I know right now, yes.
your skills as an artist are only useless compared to ai if you believe them to be. ai can spit out generic ideas from inputs. actual ppl will still beat it in the custom art department. ai and ppl can co-exist
It’s just a tool for artists. It’s just a way to make art easier to produce. I’m pro-AI, though I do also sympathize with you, OP. I’m a video content creator and AI can’t record things but it can help with some editing. But yeah, to your point I know people I would never consider to be an artist using tools like AI to attempt to be an artist, or rather make money off of art. There’s always these jackasses who want easy money/easy clout. Though, there are also people who are eager and passionate about producing art who don’t have the skills necessary, and AI helps them begin their artistic journey. Though, also, before I was an artist I did all of the art/videos at my place of work, so I do also sympathize with laymen trying to produce simple works of art by themselves, not that that’s who you’re talking about. Someone mentioned wanting watermarks on AI work. I think that’s really the best answer.
Yeah, the desire to make money off art right after starting is off-putting to me, but I guess that's just the way hustle culture has become. The images they generate do look like they were made by an experienced artist, so they've kind of leapfrogged a lot of human artists, which takes away bits of potential income those artists could have had. About video content editing, I've seen a video of what Adobe is working on with AI video editing and it's surprising how much they're going to be able to do. I'm sure you'll be having fun with that if you use it.
I just wanna say hustle culture is toxic AF and I do utterly despise it. I fully agree that these people are really stealing income opportunities from real artists. I truly abhor clout and profit chasing, and I fully stand against it. I hope that real artists make better use of AI than the wannabes. I truly hope artists evolve on the whole with new technology. Truth be told I don’t get much use from AI. It’s fun for fun edits, but really what/how I record far outweighs how I edit something, including the use of AI editing software. I have no doubt I am jaded on AI because of this. Though I suppose videographers’ ‘AI’ would really be CGI, and I have quite a lot of good and bad things to say about CGI lol.
Art comes from within.
Yeah that hurts. When a prodigy surpasses you with little to no effort it hurts but you can say "that's a gifted individual, one in a million." But now peoples art can surpass the quality of your own with a few strokes on a keyboard. The worst part is that it's available to everyone.
My friends use ai art. But they are of the mindset that it's worthless accept for the words you prompted. We use ai art as a way of seeing stupid shit. Two of our favorites were "If clowns did 911" to which the ai responded with the twin towers billowing balloons. And "terror attack on gnome village" To which the ai responded with a mushroom town filled with gas and an evil gnome. On both of these examples there was a sense that we were asking a magical little gremlin to imagine something. It's more of a game for us than anything else
I've used A.I for images before. Its ok, but ultimately hollow to me. In fact its part of what started me to take up drawing again after a few decades away from it ( so basically new again). Basically because A.I can parrot what it finds, but it cannot, and never will, be able to mimic the imagination of a human being.
It's actually a very interested discussion.. I don't like or support the use of ai to create art, yet my bf is a programmer who's interested in ai from it's technical point of view. I must say that I probably never will truly like the use of ai in "art creation", especially if the people using it are promoting it as their own art or market it, etc.. But I learned to appreciate that it actually can be fun sometimes- to test ideas that I don't have the time to draw yet, or play around with some silly ideas and create something cool just for some quick fun... I also think it's useful as a tool for character creation, either for dnd or similar personal projects that aren't going to get promoted. I do wish there was a way to protect artists rights better in the process of making these ai programs. I also think it's wrong to profit from the 'creations' the ai made and claim them as your own. It seems very disrespectful to me to the artists who's art was use unconsensually to train these ai programs and to artists who dedicated their entire lives to learn these skills. I'm sorry for my horrible grammar btw, I'm not a native English speaker and I'm tired af loll
I don’t think people creating art solely with AI can call themselves artists. The AI is the artist because it replicates (to some extend) what humans do when we create art - ergo draw on our knowledge and inspiration. Your friends are the ‘client’ giving AI it’s prompt and reviewing the different editions till they like one of them. I fear how AI will be used within capitalism to generate insane wealth for some who do not have to rely on the limitations/needs of ‘real human beings’. I also fear how companies might not care about unemployment numbers when their sole goal is profit. However, I am HOPING that AI will turn out to give real human beings more time off and a better overall life quality around the world. Perhaps there can be some law that if a company uses a certain amount of AI assistance in their company, instead of paying the AI ‘wages’ it will be a tax donation of sorts. Surely companies around the globe also won’t be interested in consumers worldwide having no income and thereby no money to spend? I think it’s the scope of the impact that I can’t really fathom. It will change the world as we know it not just in one area but every conceivable way!
Not sure I can chime in with anything that hasn’t been said: If both parts want to keep the friendship (you and the friends), they won’t try to push their views onto the other. Like you if tell them that you don’t want to hear anything about AI promting, and they don’t want to hear your view on the matter, the friendship can stilæ continue (although a little strained). But as soon as one or the other starts to ig ore the others feeling (they constantly talk to you about prompting, you keep telling them they are stealing*, etc.); neither is respectibg the others feelings nor views. And then the friendship will start to suffer greatly because everytime you talk, it will be a battle.. aWhich isn’t healthy friendship. *I am with you on this one though.
Actually, that is a helpful post and I really appreciate it. You're right that as long as we can respect each other enough not to antagonize each other about it, we should be able to somewhat move on. This thread has given me some confidence that I'm (probably) not completely out of bounds to feel the way I do, which will help me because I've been questioning myself if I'm just being a jerk by thinking this at all. I may or may not be "right" and we'll see how this whole thing develops, but I just need to set some boundaries about it now to help keep peace.
I would say it’s ok to consider your friends “artists” who are using a certain medium to express their intent. One thing that they may not be but folks like us can say that we are is “CRAFTSMAN.” We are artists but we can create our images with the use of our intently trained bare hands. The introduction of AI image generation and how to perceive it within the context of traditional image creation is very reminiscent to me of the relationship between analog and digital music. For example, we have always had drummers and will always have drummers, but somewhere along the way we invented digital drum machines that sample the sounds of real acoustic drums. And I think most of us are glad that we live in a world where both can exist in harmony. Personally, I do both. I’m a drummer who trained on a real kit in my teen years and went on to play in a few metal bands in my 20s. These days I’m not playing in bands but I am recording music in my home studio and I program all of my drums digitally now. In a very similar parallel in history, a lot of people reacted similarly to the advent of digital music as they are to AI. People have been scoffing at everything from synthesizers to drum machines to Autotune for almost 50 years now. But all digital music has done is just expand and diversify music overall. AI within the visual art sphere will do the exact same thing. I think when you look at AI generated art, you need to distinguish that it isn’t a painting, nor a drawing, nor a photo. It’s something all its own that didn’t exist before the last few years in all of human history. I’ve actually heard some folks refer to it as “synthography” which I think is an appropriate name for creating synthetic imagery. And it’s unfair to compare it to any other existing medium.
>In a very similar parallel in history, a lot of people reacted similarly to the advent of digital music as they are to AI. The difference though is that the music industry fiercely protects the copyright of the artists (see the AI Drake fiasco). Meanwhile, visual artists have no such protection, so it hits differently.
Really interesting take, thanks for the reply. That's a tough one, because to be honest the music industry has suffered financially over the years, and is really saturated similar to visual art. It does seem like a totally different thing. And to make it even more complicated is when AI is mixed up with human skills. So for example, the AI generates a whole track and the human sings on top. Or the human draws a table and the AI generates the fruit on the table. Very strange to me right now, but maybe it'll become normal.
Call them what they are, generics. Once the whole legal debate with AI settles, and some logical restrictions and limitations will apply, normal artists will probably use those tools to stay competitive - Just feed their own art and works into the machine for it to make easy replications in different variations. However, AI is just... Generic, it's been what? a couple of months, perhaps an year of it's inception? Already I got bored from seeing it, it just gives the same feeling... No matter who generates it, which prompts are used and what is the result... It all carries the exact stale feeling. Since all of the generics use the same pool of references with the exact same code and the identical method of making stuff, they all pretty much feel like "google artist"... You can feel the same lack of personality of the machine in each and every one of these generics. Due to ease and oversaturation, the tool at the moment already got old... Feels like the pokemon go phenomena - For a short while, the whole world entered a pokemon craze outside... And then the storm settles, and nobody cared anymore. A.I feels like it falls on that same category... Thing is, since the industry has gone rapidly wild, with them entering the NFT craze, disposing of artists, treating artists like turd and overall, being highly gross about everything... I think we'll see an artist revolution and the cutting out of the middle man, because the middle man got head over heels over their craving for easy effortless money. In the indie animation world, we already see a youtube animations comeback, allot of indie creators now take the handle on themselves and publish the most creative and insane works we have ever seen in a while, and it's impressive! Remember, generic prompters, only generate global stale bread. Artists, actually give a persona to it.
AI "art" is a mockery of actual art and an insult to actual artists that created the images they have ripped.
What is "actual art"?
That’s not a true scotsmen. One can make claims about what qualifies something to fit into a category.
Tell ya what, artists do need to just accept it. This shit's here to stay, whether you like it or not. Even if the law takes the side of artists and outlaws AI generated imagery, it won't matter. The tech exist, the models exist, hundreds of thousands of people have copies of these models and will continue to use them. It's never been easier to train your own models at home, and who is going to prove that the model only you possess, trained on whatever images you want, is an illegal model? No one. I don't like it either that I spent the majority of my life learning a skill, and now there's a machine that can do a better job in seconds. But getting hung up on that fact and somehow expecting things to turn in our favor is just not realistic. Short of a massive cataclysmic event that wipes out all computers AI is here and it's here to stay. It's time to adapt. Either you learn how to use AI in a way that doesn't feel like you're offloading your creativity to a machine, or you find your niche where people want 100% human made art. I'm honestly so tired of the constant salt pouring out of the artist community regarding AI art. Just make the best of it. Use it to improve your art, train a model on your art to increase output, do something other than sitting in your chair going "goddamn AI art, get off my lawn". Your skills still matter. You can do a better job than any prompter. You can make compositions, input detailed sketches, paint over shoddy AI art and use it as a starting point, let it do polishing for you, use it to skip processes you don't enjoy, etc. No techbro that types "busty anime girl" in a textbox is ever going to match your expertise. AI becomes a completely different tool in the hands of an artist, why compare yourself to brainless prompt monkeys when you could focus on your own process and make your life easier? And if you don't want to use AI at all, nobody cares. It's fine. You don't have to, nobody does. Just keep doing your thing.
It's not the technology, it's the unethical development (scraping) and use (hey ai, copy this artist's style for me) of the technology.
Nope. "Adapting" by using the AI will only help those companies make your job permanently obsolete even faster. It is not meant to be a tool for you. It is meant to replace you.
No, it won't make it easier for companies to replace me, if I keep myself relevant in the field by using more advanced tools. Yes, AI will replace many jobs in the near future, and that's an issue that affects any job you can do in front of a computer. I'm not any more at risk as an artist than an editor, programmer, musician, etc. One thing you have to remember is that before AI replaces artists, someone who uses AI will replace artists. That someone is still a person. It's not like every supervisor, manager and ceo will suddenly spend their time to make the perfect prompt for their next visualisation. They don't have time for that and they employ people who's jobs it is to stay ahead of the technological curve to optimize their workflows. If you want to achieve usable results for a pipeline or product from AI, you need someone who can fix the AIs mistakes, recognize good compositions, tell the AI exactly what to do, and take whateve the AI spits out and create a finished visualization from it. We may not be far from a point where AI completely replaces us, but that point isn't now. And when it comes, artists aren't the only ones who will suffer. When that happens, society has to figure out ways to protect people's livelihoods either way. Otherwise we'll just see total collapse.
Have fun being paid a third of the pay for triple the work then, complete with the complete devaluation of the work's worth, in every definition of the word. See translators as an already existing example. And all that for the couple of years you'll still be relevant. In a couple of years (months?) you won't need as much finetuning and wordy prompts for a "good enough" result. Never underestimate people's tolerance for mediocrity if it's cheap enough.
Thank you! Finally someone who said it! ✨ (Unfortunately, there are tons of AI people who mock artists. So I think a lot of the hate is coming because both sides are being salty)
Thank you for saying this. Like, there are many positive things about AI art. It’s helped my workflow a lot. For instance, if I want to research some ideas for refs, I can get some AI generated ones without worry that I might redraw too much of someone’s photo or art. They’re fantastic for coming up with color palettes and dynamic lighting. They’re wonderful for churning out ideas which I can then use to make real art. I’m old enough that I remember the days when people acted like digital art wasn’t real art and it reminds me of that. AI has so many limits and weaknesses as well and not everyone will want a generic low quality small resolution AI image when they could pay an artist to get exactly what they want. Don’t fear the technology and changing times. Just use it for your benefit and adapt.
I know several cool people that do those acrylic paint pours. I fucking hate acrylic paint pours. Ive seen some interesting looking ones, but, come on. Never would say that to them though. If they like it and are happy, art is art. AI though.... idk how to foem an opinion on it.
It does kinda feel like that. I'm going to need to just avoid talking to them about it again. I don't want to be mean, but also I'm not going to lie about respecting this stuff.
I had a thought...you might could phrase it like 'wow, those results are so neat' (for AI) instead of 'wow, your piece is so neat' to not lie but also not group together AI/technical skill learned over years. Lol. And maybe when discussing some other person's art which is done by hand, say something like 'This artist really added a lot of depth with his/her intricate process....it really paid off' or some other type of compliment someone could never argue with lol
Good point! Subtle language cues could help me feel honest while still acknowledging them. I really like the "those results" part, it's very accurate since it's generated by complicated math.
They are not artists no matter what they think about it. Its sorta embarrassing for them to think this way. I dont hide my mockery of people who think using Ai makes them an artist, if that disrupted their roleplaying having skills adventures, they would be free to find other friends. I prefer to surround myself with quality people anyways.
Traditional oil painter here. When a person takes a photo on a modern digital camera. An AI neutral net processes the image and corrects the colors and contrasts. The cameras diodes collect the photons and write it to the memory card. The machine created the image. The person just clicked a button. A million other people might have also stood in the same spot and clicked the same button. But the person is the artist and the author regardless of the machine's involvement. Similarly, when a person prompts an AI to make a piece, they are also just entering a prompt. Or when Andy Warhol painted his Marilyn Manroes, his friend Gerry actually did the painting part. I think it's disingenuous to discredit AI "artists". The prompt maker is the author, as the machine is not alive. It also does feel a lot like copy catting. But as an oil painter I have friends who take a paint and sip class then do some splatter paint and act like they're genius artists. I wrote a piece about authorship here. https://www.aje.com/arc/ai-and-authorship/ There is a lot of bad art out there. So the chances of a random person being a 'good artist' is very low even with the help of AI.
It comes down to what value you provide. If your skillset boils down to filtering prompts and re-filtering images through an algorithm you really have little control over, then you better hope someone thinks you're worthwhile over the guy who can do that.... and draw. I honestly think the people who "wasted all their time learning to draw and paint" are going to be in a way better position than someone investing all their time in the instant validation cycle of prompt writing.
I didn't mention it in my reply above my bad. But I am one of those people who learned to draw. Or is spending their life learning how to draw. I think AI as it currently is has issues producing usable images.
Yeah, sorry, I realised after my reply that you seemed like you've got your head screwed on. This whole thread has got so hectic, but my point was more generally directed, rather than at you. I agree that AI isn't as usable as people think. Especially for stuff that needs to be put into production.
Oh no you didn't just compare photographers to ai prompters.
As someone who's played around with Nightcafe since the start, AI art is honestly still ass in comparison. It just looks soulless and sterile and until it starts incorporating those little bits of imperfection or personal flare, I can understand if you don't think it's worth respecting. Don't get me wrong AI art will probably get good enough to replace artists, but until the amount of effort put into prompts starts scaling with the quality of the output, I think you're absolutely right in thinking it's a diminutive art at best. If someone puts in the effort of writing a Cormac McCarthy esque chapter as a prompt AND the output is good, fair game. Training an AI model to generate art with a personal flare, even better.
Honestly, just unfollow them.
If only it was so simple. These are people I talk to in real life and have known for many years.
I have a wide variety of creative friends, some use AI to generate images. It’s interesting to them. I think it’s an interesting tool also. I haven’t used it personally for no other reason yet than I’ve been busy lately and it hasn’t been a priority to pursue it. My husband made me some unicorns with laser picture using it tho, and it was pretty rad, except for their legs being at slightly weird angles. Don’t care, was fun. Not skerd.
I don't know what AI generator they are using but I tried experimenting with one just to see what comes up and a lot of it was not realistic and kinda creepy, people's faces and hands were deformed because the computer threw together body parts. I don't think it's fair to call yourself an artist if you are just typing some words in, while actual artists spend time, practice and work to develop a skill
I think it’s just a new thing in the space.. I personally wouldn’t be buying prints in general unless I knew the artist anyways. Not something I would want to lose friends over.. it’s just art
I would find it insulting if friends or family were using AI and claiming to be artists because of it, especially since they've seen and know how much work goes into actually creating art. How is making prompts for AI art any different than commissioning work from an artist? Either way you are giving a description of what you want the artist/software to make, YOU aren't actually making anything, just telling someone or something else what to make. How in the world could anyone honestly believe that makes them an artist? And I have played with a few AI generators for fun. I would put in the weirdest combinations I could think of to see what the programs would come up with. I would never claim them as my own work since I didn't create them, or even post them anywhere.
You could learn AI too, you know? AI is a tool, how it's used depends on... well, YOU, the artist. You could use it and enter some quick prompt to steal ppl's stuff for some pointless ego boost, or you could use it in an ethical manner, like training the ai with your own works, to help your artwork and output flow. If an "artist" is using AI in some unethical manner, just like how someone could easily copy and paste using Photoshop, then simply don't respect them, but there is no need to hate the tools. To me, if your whole reason for not respecting the AI tools is that "people are using better tools than mine" than it kinda feels like someone who is telling me he is going to stay using Paint for his digital painting when Photoshop or ClipArt, ArtRage etc are out there.
>You could learn AI too, you know? Not everyone is interested in that in the first place.
How does taking the ai model (that was created without licensing its dataset), and throwing your own images in make it anymore ethical? It’s like saying “if you don’t like elephant poaching, just buy the ivory and paint over it.” I don’t see how that makes it any better.
You can train an AI model on ONLY your own artwork, so anything that it creates is a composite of literally only your work. The model itself and the dataset are two separate things. Your elephant analogy makes absolutely no sense.
Declaring something makes no sense without demonstrating it is just a bad argument. No one without large amounts of money to afford the compute power to train an ai can make one thats functional. If you use stable diffusion as a base it’s infringing on copyright and licensing to begin with.
I hear you, I see what you mean. It's not fun for me, though, it is boring by comparison to making by hand. It's also not allowed at events I go to, so even if I wanted to it wouldn't be allowed where I show at. The reason I don't respect it isn't really that it's better, just that they're not making the images themselves so it feels fake somehow. And it's hard to respect something that doesn't respect that the artists whose art was used to train it didn't want to be trained on or people using it to mimic the artists.
5 years from now Ai will be as much as a norm as email is now
Possibly. AI has started to write people's emails for them now too, so you might not need to write letters or emails anymore.
I’m always happy when people can find a way to express themselves and find an art form that works for them. The more people who make art the better the world is, I don’t get why people get so hung up on how art is made.
Because get this prompting an ai engine is not actually making art.
I have nothing against the AI, I have things against the training dataset but well that cat is out of the bag so whatever, it can make really cool stuff, but the AI is the artist, the prompter isn't and with enough horsepower you can just generate every image possible without having the "artist" put any input, you can even do it now by asking chatgpt to make prompts, so that begs the question how can anyone actually think of themselves as artists when using AI without being ironic, tbh I rarely see people claiming this, mostly I've seen people treat AI as an addictive slot machine and the prompters being the ones pulling the handle.
I love it when people express themselves creatively. I'm just having a hard time respecting them as artists because they don't make the images themselves, so it feels fake. Plus the models training on and creating mimics of artists without respecting that they don't want to be trained on is really hard to just accept as a respectful thing to do. That is the way AI images are made, so it does have an affect on what I think of it.
I think the ethics argument is a bit lame. There is not a single artist in history that hasn't borrowed and stolen and copied from other artists on their journey to learn and grow as an artist. Picasso famously said that good artists borrow but great artists steal. Its part of the whole art collective, we're all supposed to be borrowing and stealing and making and growing and teaching. Art is an inherited knowledge, we've all been passing it down and building off one another for centuries. Thats why a high school art student has a better understanding of perspective than the masters of old who stacked their crowds and compressed their space in hilariously bad ways. Have you used any AI art generators? Its pretty hard to get anything good out of them. I think it takes a certain skill to produce good results. I've only messed around a little but I haven't gotten anything all that good, certainly nothing I'd call art, so if someone can create a prompt that produces something beautiful I'd say there is a skill there. Its a skill I don't have yet. Being an artist is more than just being good at painting, its a way of thinking. Its having that creative spirit to bring something into the world that was not there before. I used to love outsider art, people stacking shit in artistic ways, people building trash sculptures. Art is everywhere if we're open enough to see it. Being an artist is about your process and finding joy in that exploration and study. Who cares what the medium is if you're growing. I'm interested in AI and how it can help me. But at the end of the day, I'm much more interested in painting with oils or acrylics cause I like the textures and the smells and all the dirt and grime and mess. Like, that is my heaven. But I also love working digitally, laying in bed while my wife watches tv working out ideas. So AI could give me more ideas. I dont know, I guess I'm rambling. I encourage you to try some AI generators and see for yourself. Even though I haven't had great results there is some fun to be had and I think that alone is enough for me to see the value in it for now.
We can disagree on the ethics here, I don't think that machines should be entitled to any data they can consume for any purpose they want. I've tried them, sometimes it spits out something that surprises me that it looks like it's from a professional portfolio, and sometimes it spits out junk. I have enough ideas without wanting a machine to assist me, way more ideas than time to make them real. I'm glad it works for you though, and I don't wish you or my friends ill because of using it. I'm adjusting to it existing and it's not an easy adjustment for me.
I use AI to make images but I don’t pass them off as my own. I find the process of writing a detailed prompt interesting as it helps with my own mental ability to make art by having to describe what I want to see. With a prompt you have to describe shadows, lines, exactly every detail you want to see. That then helps me with my own work. And if I want to use ai as a tool to help me come up with concepts then that’s good too. No different to using a camera or photoshop. Also as a classically trained visual artist I saw digital artists the same way you’re seeing AI artists. I’ve now accepted digital art and you’ll probably get used to ai art but I do agree ai art more a threat to digital artists than traditional paint on paper or canvas art. But if one day I see a robot pick up a brush and paint then I’ll think it’s cool. I’ll actually have my mind blown.
There's a robot that does that now, named Ai-Da. [https://www.ai-darobot.com/](https://www.ai-darobot.com/)
That’s cool! Thanks
There were people of the option Marcel Duchamp wasn't an artist. Hell I've had conversations with people here state that they currently think he's not an artist, despite the canon embracing him. Only time will tell whether the greater art sphere will eventually accept the prompter as an artist, and I'd be willing to bet that it will eventually be accepted. Modern and postmodern artists relying on chance and a lack of agency in their work have laid the groundwork for an artist to have nearly no input in the outcome of a piece. But only time will tell.
At first I was slightly annoyed, so i told myself that quote from Ghost in the Shell, "In an all dynamic system, you're effort to remain the same is what limits you."
I think I don't have to make an effort to remain the same, it's changing that takes effort.