sivsii

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I WENT crazy with this one, artfight attack on @wojnalik !

A needlefelted bust! Around 7cm in height

Im super happy how it cameouutt, i used carded wool, wire and my own hair for the whiskers

The ears also have wire in them so theyre posable

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Old school chaos crew sketch

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A needlefelted Preceptor Arnora for @armadoodledoodle for artfight!

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A needlefelted Preceptor Arnora for @armadoodledoodle for artfight!

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Artfight for @sivsii ! <3

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you, artist online. somebody has referenced you in conversation irl by your online handle and somebody else knew who you were talking about. somebody has kept up closely with your posts for a period of time like their morning paper. somebody found a music artist because of you, thinks of you when they hear them on the radio. somebody followed you years ago and remembers you randomly even though they can't find you. somebody has screenshotted and saved your posts and sent them in discord servers. somebody has made your drawings their lockscreen, added them to their favorites folder and looked at them when they're going through some shit, has sent them to their best friend and sparked conversation in private chats. your art in particular could be the source of a keen sense of nostalgia for someone. maybe they've even printed out your images using their home printer and taped them to their bedroom wall and they look at it every day and they never even told you. isn't that scary? isn't that awesome? remember this well.

submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known so that you may turn around and see the impact you leave and the light you cast on others.

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Looking at some of your work, it is stunning but it is very similar in style to AI artwork, do you have any recommendations for how to tell apart photography like yours from AI.

I've been thinking about this. And this may sound controversial at first, but I'm hoping people will hear me out.

We should stop trying so hard to detect AI art.

I think we should all lift that burden from our brains.

I have often talked about "woke goggles." Where conservatives have lost the ability to enjoy anything because they are hypervigilant about detecting anything woke. They've cursed themselves into just hating everything. All they have left is the "God's Not Dead" Cinematic Universe.

And I worry people are getting AI goggles now. They are so concerned about accidentally enjoying robot art and hurting artists that they have overcorrected to the point where they are hurting artists.

One cannot say "AI is all soulless slop that always looks bad" and then accuse a real artist of making something that looks like AI and not hurt them. By doing so, it includes the baggage of all of the "slop" comments along with it. This crusade is having collateral damage to the very artists we are trying to protect.

Yes, we need to be cautious about malicious AI images. Misinformation and deepfakes are going to be a big problem. People using AI imagery for profit is already a mess. But if you are cruising your feed and like a cool sci-fi robot gal or a photo of a waterfall and it turns out to be AI... that's fine.

It was trained by real artists and AI is going to create some cool shit because of that.

Honestly, I think a lot of the worst slop is because the dipshits creating the prompts have no artistic taste. People keep blaming the AI for how bad it looks and often don't consider it is a product of the loser who published it.

There is plenty of non-slop out there that has fooled me. And, like it or not, it is going to get harder and harder to tell what is AI. Until there are better tools or better regulations, I don't think there is much we can do to avoid enjoying AI art every once in a while. If only by accident.

Current "AI detectors" are mostly a scam. Even the best forensic-level AI image detectors struggle to stay above 70–80% accuracy across a wide range of models and image types. And that's in controlled lab conditions.

Free online tools often drop to near coin-flip accuracy (50–60%), especially with newer image generators and post-processing applied.

The best way to avoid AI imagery is to look at an artist's body of work. It's much harder to create consistent, non-obvious fake images in a large sample size. That is usually enough to have confidence in authenticity. Plus, if they have posted similar art before 2022, you can pretty much rule out any shenanigans.

Otis literally died before genAI was available.

But images you see in the wild, just let yourself enjoy them if that is what your brain wants to do. It'll be okay.

I just think we are attacking this backwards. If we want to protect artists, we need to support them.

Calling out random AI art does not support them.

It does not put money in their pockets.

It does not grow their audience.

Over a decade ago I tried to lead a fight to create better systems of attribution on websites like Reddit and Imgur. I even spoke to the Imgur team after an article was written about me.

I asked them to allow sources on their posts and to develop tech that would help people find where an image came from. They said they were "working on it" and it never manifested.

IMAGE SHARING SITES STEAL MORE FROM ARTISTS THAN AI.

But we just kind of accepted it. No one really joined me in my fight. The prevailing defeatist attitude was, "That's just the way it is."

I think now is the time to demand better attribution systems. We need to be vigilant about making sure as many posts as possible have good sourcing. If an image on Reddit goes viral, the top comment should be the source. And if it isn't, you should try to find it and add it.

Just to be clear, "credit to the original artist" is NOT proper attribution.

And perhaps we can lobby these image sharing sites to create better sourcing systems and tools. They could even use fucking AI to find the earliest posted version of an image.

And it would be nice if it didn't require people to go into the comments to find the source. It could just be in the headline. They could even create little badges "made by a human" for verified artists.

Good attribution helps artists grow their audience. It is one of the single most effective things you can do to help them.

I literally just got this message...

There are maybe 10 popular artists who I helped grow their audience early on. Just because I reblogged their work and added links to all of their social media. I even hired my best friend to add sourcing information to every post because I believed so much in good attribution.

Calling out AI art may feel good in the moment. You caught someone trying to trick people and it feels like justice. But, in most cases, the tangible benefits to real artists seem small. It impedes your ability to enjoy art without always being suspicious. And the risk of telling someone you think they make soulless slop doesn't seem worth it.

But putting that time and effort into attribution *would* be worth it. I have proven it time and time again.

I also think people should consider having a monthly art budget. I don't care if it is $5. But if we all commit to seeking out cool artists and being their collective patrons, we could really make a difference and keep real art alive. Just commit to finding a cool new artist every month and financially contributing to them in some way.

On a bigger scale I think advocating for universal basic income, art grants for education and creation, and government regulation of AI would all be helpful long term goals. Though I think our friends in Europe may have to take the lead on regulation at the moment.

So...

Stop worrying about enjoying or calling out AI art.

Demand better attribution from image sharing sites.

Make sure all art has a source listed.

Start an art budget.

Advocate for better regulations.

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Attack for RunningOof on artfight!!

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Attack for Deers on artfight!!

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attack #3 for sivsii of the resplendent omsi

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Fucked up little wet beast that I call my daughter

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is it just me or did YouTube and TikTok join forces in a unanimous decision to become the most godawfully annoying people about artfight this year. Like artfight has always had pockets of people who were Weird About It, but holy Shit the inherent toxicity of TikTok getting its grubby little hands on it and doing what TikTok does by amplifying it tenfold has me wanting to wither up and die. Imagine finding one of the last bastions of genuinely community-oriented creative platforms and deciding that you’re so drunk on toxicity that you need to immediately rake it through four fields of cow shit and a tar pit for good measure, thereby doing your damnest to ruin it not only for yourself but for everyone else too. could not be me!

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made myself a nitw sona in the devine spirit of artfight. amen

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not even catholic guilt can compare to the kind of guilt an artist experiences when they revisit an artfight attack they forgot to comment on two years ago

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Vi arcane they could never make me hate you

(13” tall, needlefelted with wool over a wire armature!)

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