#But it’s AI ‘art’ made Without real models

[eternally--mortal]

Facebook is full of it right now. All of my creative art communities have been doomed and overloaded with it. Lots of ignorant people are being suckered into believing it’s real photography with real models, or real outfits made from real fabric.

They’ve moved onto cakes now. I’m also waiting to see it more from the architecture groups. I don’t think these people realize the importance of structural knowledge about materials and time commitment when it comes to designing clothes and baked goods and buildings.

It’s so maddening to me. And I hate that so many people are being suckered into believing that it’s real when it seems so obviously fake to me. They’re like sleeper agents. They’re being lulled into a sense of amazement so that when they discover the truth they’ll defend it because they’ve been programmed to believe it’s a beautiful gift.

i hate when people try to defend ai art with “but i want to be able to make pretty pictures like you guys!!” ok grab a canvas go to youtube and watch bob ross. grab some pencils buy a sketchbook and a beginners drawing book and learn like the rest of us. we didn’t spend years honing our craft just so you could plug it into a machine that spits out a poor mimicry in .2 seconds so that you could feel like you made something you didn’t work for

[wachi-delectrico]

Tbh i don't know what to think of AI art anymore. I don't find any utility, personally, in centring the discussion on law and copyright; there are far more interesting things to discuss on the topic beyond its use as a replacement for human artists/workforce by the upper class

[bi-writes]

whats wrong with ai?? genuinely curious <3

okay let's break it down. i'm an engineer, so i'm going to come at you from a perspective that may be different than someone else's.

i don't hate ai in every aspect. in theory, there are a lot of instances where, in fact, ai can help us do things a lot better without. here's a few examples:

ai detecting cancer

ai sorting recycling

some practical housekeeping that gemini (google ai) can do

all of the above examples are ways in which ai works with humans to do things in parallel with us. it's not overstepping--it's sorting, using pixels at a micro-level to detect abnormalities that we as humans can not, fixing a list. these are all really small, helpful ways that ai can work with us.

everything else about ai works against us. in general, ai is a huge consumer of natural resources. every prompt that you put into character.ai, chatgpt? this wastes water + energy. it's not free. a machine somewhere in the world has to swallow your prompt, call on a model to feed data into it and process more data, and then has to generate an answer for you all in a relatively short amount of time.

that is crazy expensive. someone is paying for that, and if it isn't you with your own money, it's the strain on the power grid, the water that cools the computers, the A/C that cools the data centers. and you aren't the only person using ai. chatgpt alone gets millions of users every single day, with probably thousands of prompts per second, so multiply your personal consumption by millions, and you can start to see how the picture is becoming overwhelming.

that is energy consumption alone. we haven't even talked about how problematic ai is ethically. there is currently no regulation in the united states about how ai should be developed, deployed, or used.

what does this mean for you?

it means that anything you post online is subject to data mining by an ai model (because why would they need to ask if there's no laws to stop them? wtf does it matter what it means to you to some idiot software engineer in the back room of an office making 3x your salary?). oh, that little fic you posted to wattpad that got a lot of attention? well now it's being used to teach ai how to write. oh, that sketch you made using adobe that you want to sell? adobe didn't tell you that anything you save to the cloud is now subject to being used for their ai models, so now your art is being replicated to generate ai images in photoshop, without crediting you (they have since said they don't do this...but privacy policies were never made to be human-readable, and i can't imagine they are the only company to sneakily try this). oh, your apartment just installed a new system that will use facial recognition to let their residents inside? oh, they didn't train their model with anyone but white people, so now all the black people living in that apartment building can't get into their homes. oh, you want to apply for a new job? the ai model that scans resumes learned from historical data that more men work that role than women (so the model basically thinks men are better than women), so now your resume is getting thrown out because you're a woman.

ai learns from data. and data is flawed. data is human. and as humans, we are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, divided. so the ai models we train will learn from this. ai learns from people's creative works--their personal and artistic property. and now it's scrambling them all up to spit out generated images and written works that no one would ever want to read (because it's no longer a labor of love), and they're using that to make money. they're profiting off of people, and there's no one to stop them. they're also using generated images as marketing tools, to trick idiots on facebook, to make it so hard to be media literate that we have to question every single thing we see because now we don't know what's real and what's not.

the problem with ai is that it's doing more harm than good. and we as a society aren't doing our due diligence to understand the unintended consequences of it all. we aren't angry enough. we're too scared of stifling innovation that we're letting it regulate itself (aka letting companies decide), which has never been a good idea. we see it do one cool thing, and somehow that makes up for all the rest of the bullshit?

[reachartwork]

Let me tell you something about art, and being an artist: I went to art college and I dropped out. Over the years, I stopped doing art, and I no longer consider myself to be an artist, but I know I could pick it up again in an instant if I so chose because I remember the most important lesson I learned from my studies: art is communication. The medium doesn't matter, the method doesn't matter, the results don't matter. A generated piece has just as much place as artwork as a lithograph, or a sculpture, or a photo, or a painting, or a sketch, or anything else that conveys a vision or an idea. And just like all of the methods I've just mentioned, generated art will not and cannot replace its forebears. For example, one of the most-viewed images in the entire world is this:

Despite it being viewed by exponentially more people than the most famous of paintings, it hasn't replaced them. In the same way 3D rendering didn't replace photography, in the same way photography didn't replace portraits, in the same way portraits didn't replace sculpture, in the same way sculpture didn't replace carving, in the same way a new technique will not replace anything - it will simply exist beside the other genres and mediums, with its own rules, and its own boundaries, just as everything else that came before it has.

And don't get me started on how many times we've had this conversation about what art is the best or what gets to be considered art. Hell, Wikipedia's article on the hierarchy of genres has one of my most favorite examples:

Against the sculptors, Leonardo argued that the intellectual effort necessary to create an illusion of three-dimensionality made the painters' art superior to that of the sculptor, who could do so merely by recording appearances.

Leonardo Fucking Da Vinci out here being a messy bitch about sculpting because it's not his preferred method. The exact same argument was used against photography in antiquity because it was simply capturing an image of what existed, and then it was used again against renders because "computer graphics aren't real" and "you're just posing models with fake lighting".

AI Art and the generation of images is just the new photography: a mechanically-assisted art form with a radical method of producing a piece that is rarely judged by its own merits because it has yet to be commonly understood. It IS art, and it's in the best interests of anyone who believes otherwise to study Art History and see how many times the same exact backlash has popped up against what we now consider to be traditional and respectable forms. I know change is scary, but it is possible to be better than your instincts and accept or embrace something new - even if it's not something that you, personally, would like to use.

posting without comment

[arseniy-arsenicum33]

All Hermits in Hero Forge!

Season 10 is coming! And I've finished modeling every Hermit (Thus far) in their TCG-cards poses!

Special thanks to Hoffen for their original minecraft models...

You've already saw these eight models in my Life-series minis showcase, slight tweaks and costume changes... I really need to buy Hero Forge subscription, so i can manipulate fingers individually... Now, for the new guys... Guess what?! I've figured out how to make links! Now you can see my references directly! Technology!

Ren got his cool casual look...

Docm77 inspired primarily by Belmarzi's design, such as this... It was very funny to suddenly stop in the middle of this project to model him hugging Snoop Dogg...

JoeHills, unsurprisingly, based on real-life Joe Hills... But I did have this comic by my side while modeling him, for moral support, because modeling someone's likeness is always stressful...

Cleo's pose pose a challenge, It uses a transparent one-legged skeleton inside the main body... Like a real armour-stand magic! I like how it turned out...

I've started watching Zedaph very recently, so both Noxolotl's and Applestruda's portrayals of him were very helpful in forming mine...

Blaise's Hermit line up was used for Cub and Hypno, which you will see down the line... Bee's art was helpful, once again, and these Cub-arts by Sylvan...

My main goal with Jevin was to somehow convincingly make a slime look slimy... I was so ready to make him as rotund as this art, but alas, program restrictions...

This art was used for False at the very beginning, but it drifted so much with the addition of cheekbones, that it doesn't look like it at all anymore...

Hypno had a surprise for me, because before making this model, I've never saw this brown line on his chest as a boob-window... But now, I am convinced... This is the art, that guided me to that conclusion... Ghostea's and Locus's portraits were useful for figuring out his face...

Iskall lifted from this art... Hero Forge doesn't have any cool one-eyed visors, so I've settled on monocle for him and Doc...

Hero Forge also for some reason doesn't have a hand-held flower, so pretend, that Stress doesn't hold a pen, okay? And has a cardigan... Based mainly on this and this art, which was also used for XB...

My best guess with Keralis was that he is doing Edvard Munch's "The Scream" ommage... Thanks to Myra and Cole , without them, Keralis would've looked more like a bug with them big ol' eyes...

Oh, boy, XB... A true enigma for me... Pictured here, lightly jogging... Only you could tell me, if I did a good job with him, I sincerely have no idea... Since this is in part a TCG-inspired project, it would've been wise to use references from the actual TCG-cards... To bad, I've came up with this idea near the end of a project...

I have made so many Xisuma-costumes, and only now I am showing you the main friendly-neighbourhood DoomGuy cosplayer himself... Do I need to credit id Software for this?

WelsKnight is my champion in regards to how many references I needed for him... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7! Despite how many armour options Hero Forge has, making something coherent out of them was difficult... Especially, keeping in mind, that one day I'm going to model HelsKnight as well...

And finally, TinFoilChef, based heavily on this stunning artwork... And somewhat on this skin by Ink-Ghoul... It all comes around...

And the Creator Himself! Beef! And his wonderful portraits: 1 2 3 4...

I actually going to use him as an example, to address something...

Here is how my screen looks, then I am working on a model... My method of creation is derivative by nature, it requires the art and creativity of other people... And I have SO MUCH anxiety about this... Not being an artist, but still trying to make something with my limited capabilities... And post it on the internet, oh horror...

With recent talks about plagiarism and AI-art, it has come to my attention, that I myself not so different from AI, just not so efficient... So, this is why I so obsessively document my influences, it is the least I can do... Credit the artists, that I stole from... Please, check out everyone mentioned, subscribe to them, commission new pieces of art...

And if you've liked my dorky "minecraft youtubers made in DND character creator" models... Thank you...

Sometime later there will be a google doc on my blog with links to every model I've ever made, go nuts with them... Try Hero Forge for yourself, it's fun...

[lindwurmkai]

hey, have you heard that pillowfort has ✨ drafts ✨ now? (as in, the ability to save your posts as drafts.) they're still working on the queue feature (update: it's done!), but drafts are a big step forward!

in case you missed it so far, pillowfort is like a cross between tumblr and dreamwidth/livejournal, with a simplified dashboard reminiscent of old school tumblr and some classic livejournal features such as communities, threaded comments, and the ability to make individual posts followers-only or mutuals-only.

what are communities? basically, central hubs for posts about any subject you want that, unlike hashtags, can be moderated. they may have rules, such as "[subject matter] must be tagged" for example. you can post directly to a community or reblog existing posts to it!

since the site is currently experiencing some financial trouble, i thought i'd help out by spreading the word once again.

edit: the fundraiser was a success! crisis averted! i knew we could do it :D

why you should give pillowfort a chance:

no ads

no venture capitalist funding

no spying on the users

completely free to use except for optional premium features

nsfw is allowed except for sexual depictions of minors. if you're unsure what exactly that means, their tos may help

communities and the privacy controls mentioned above are excellent features

great community, low drama compared to other websites (so far)

the site's features themselves encourage genuine connection and good-faith conversation over endless "discourse"

every blog can automatically be filtered by original posts only or reblogs only

reasons not to join:

if you enjoy algorithmic social media. there is no algorithm at all

if you want to post or look at machine-generated art. they're still finalising the wording and personally i hope some exception will be made for models trained on ethically sourced images, but basically an anti-AI rule is in the works (update: finished!)

if you cannot live without reblog additions (reblogging with comment). all discussions on a pillowfort post take place in the comments section, and only your own followers see your tags. this has its pros and cons for sure! a similar feature to scratch that itch may be implemented in the future, but it will never be exactly like on tumblr.

if you need everything to be an app. the website works fine in a mobile browser and a progressive web app will hopefully be released soon (basically it's like an app in your browser and on mobile these can be added to the homescreen like real apps i think? they have push notifications!), but there's not going to be a native app available through official app stores due to the restrictions of those stores.

other factors to consider:

yes, the userbase is still small. depending on your interests, activity may be very slow. but we can change that! and on the plus side, reblogging your post to a community is a good way to easily get more eyes on it; way more effective than simply adding tags imo

the site culture is a bit different than on tumblr. many people read everything that's been posted since the last time they were online and don't follow more users/communities than they can keep up with. it's still somewhat lacking in shitposts and heavy on "essays" but don't be afraid to post whatever 😅

there are no blog themes like we have them on tumblr as yet, but you can customise your blog's colours and use html/insert links and images in your blog description

likes literally do nothing except to let OP know you enjoyed their post. you can't look at a list of all your likes. beware!

the staff is small and development is slow. some highly anticipated planned features other than the aforementioned queue include: - multi-account management - dashboard filters/reading lists - post bookmarking (since likes don't work that way) but we don't know how soon any of those will be implemented.

there is a user-developed browser extension (well, a userscript) called tassel available that adds additional features much like tumblr's beloved xkit :)

✨ okay, so how do i sign up? ✨

if you're interested but confused by the sign-up process or still under the impression that you need to pay to sign up (false), i'll put some clarifications and invite codes under the read more below. plus a note on donating, premium features, the paypal issue etc.

in a nutshell:

it's free

signing up without an invite code is possible, but you may have to wait a short while - supposedly less than an hour atm. just submit your email to the waitlist

if you don't feel like waiting, you can either use an invite code from an existing user or pay $5 to sign up instantly

every user gets plenty of invite codes and we're all willing to hand them out at the drop of a hat. they're really not hard to come by

some invites to get you started (just click the link):

invite 1 ▪ invite 2 ▪ invite 3 ▪ invite 4 ▪ invite 5

invite 6 ▪ invite 7 ▪ invite 8 ▪ invite 9 ▪ invite 10

invite 11 ▪ invite 12 ▪ invite 13 ▪ invite 14 ▪ invite 15

invite 16 ▪ invite 17 ▪ invite 18 ▪ invite 19 ▪ invite 20

i'll try to periodically check if any have been used and cross those out.

...paypal issue?

ok so paypal doesn't like working with sites that allow nsfw. as a result, you need a credit card in order to donate to pillowfort, buy one of those insta-registration keys, or subscribe to premium features*. i personally happen to have a credit card and would be willing to help out anyone who trusts me enough to send the money to me via paypal, but i realise chances are only my friends will do this.

some users are currently organising various activities for the purpose of letting people who only have paypal contribute to the site's survival. it's not super relevant for new users and won't get you access to premium features, but i thought i'd mention it anyway in case someone loves the concept of the site so much they want to support it immediately. a fundraising community has been created to collect posts of that nature!

*premium features are strictly limited to two categories of things:

fun little extras that no one truly needs

higher image upload limits, because obviously big images take up bandwidth and are therefore a reason for increased costs

you will never need to pay for vital accessibility features or anything of the sort. :)

[txttletale]

Not the same anon but i would like to answer, as an artist i really dont like the idea of my art being used in an algorithm without my consent because well, its my art. When an algorithm takes it i have no say in what its being used for, and could be used to actively represent something that i do not support. Its also just kinda dystopian, yknow? While its not the same as voice actors having their voice stolen, it feels wrong to have an artists work taken to make something they themself didnt approve of. I dont think its a big deal when were talking about fuckin van goghs art or whatever but real alove people's current art has no right being used like that imo (not angry or anything, i cant tell how my wording comes actoss)

i mean, i understand why that might bother you, but it could already happen. it famously happened to matt furie, creator of pepe the frog. he drew a silly frog for his silly webcomic and it became the face of the usamerican far right. he has tried multiple times to use IP law to try and impede this usage but, like, y'know--it hasn't worked. pepe is just fascist now. & all that happened without any AI involvement at all. it fucking sucks for him but there is absolutely no way to prevent that kind of thing without IP laws that would send the quino estate kicking my door down for my mafalda icon.

i also think many people are just fundamentally misunderstanding the technology. AI models do not have your art saved anywhere -- if they did, they'd be dozens of terabytes big. they cannot repurpose your art for anything. your art is used, essentially, to demonstrate to an AI what images look like -- it is the same level of 'use' as if, say, someone made a big excel spreadsheet of 'how many images in the world have the mcdonalds logo in them' and they put your image next to a big NO or YES in their spreadsheet and then from that they produced a statistic for how many images in hte world have the mcdonalds logo.

like i understand there might be some intangible sense of violation in that case, but i hope that people who feel that way can also understand why that would be a dangerous precedent for basically everything

[jaewritesfic]

Literal shower thoughts about Markus and AI art that I must warn don't really have a point so much as a recounting of stream of consciousness:

Markus' painting in the beginning of the game is meant to be an indicator that he has become more than a machine, that his art signifies consciousness. Especially because Carl specifies not to make a copy of an image, but to make something unique.

The real time influx of AI art models has shown us that AI can produce images much like those Markus can produce in game without consciousness - they however need to be fed existing images and art in order to chopshop something into existence with the stolen material.

My brain just said, but wait. Markus is still doing exactly that - his database of images to work from is comprised of literally everything he's ever seen since the moment of his activation. Even more so since he's lived with an actual artist for most of his existence and therefore has seen plenty of art to incorporate into that database and, therefore, exactly the kind of algorithm irl AI art generators use.

That just made me wonder with the new real world experience of AI art, whether Markus' painting could really be considered a concrete indication of consciousness/sentience after all.

I guess the only real conclusion I came to is that there's one difference. AI art generators generate an image based on a command input by a human. Carl didn't tell him what to paint other than not to copy something.

The only person inputting the command into the algorithm in Markus' case was the AI itself, and that's one thing that our real life AI cannot do.

[90shaladriel]

AI Manipulations of Rings of Power. (Longish)

Saw the AI edits of Haladriel scenes being altered by GenAI to make the characters* kiss. I have seen chatter about it and the negative implications of creating or interacting with AI generated content.

At the risk of being nuanced, (feel free to block or scroll past this) it interests me what exactly is the concern with it and why. To be clear, I do work in an industry that is both working to incorporate and profit off AIs while simultaneously my own job is increasingly at risk by the same products or we are forced to use them for productivity reasons.

Some reasons that make sense to me that you would not want AI content would be

1. Legal and copyright infringement of the ownership of the art or source material used to train the AI models. Stolen work, no credit or payment to artists

2. It’s generally shitty, sloppy, uncanny valley. Which aesthetically I think most people would be against

3. It directly competes against manual labor of a human, devalues work, replaces jobs, or floods the market so creators never can be separated, investment in a skill or art form isnt worth it.

4. It extremely energy intensive, the environmental implications can he huge with the climate crisis.

5. Its being shoveled in our faces by overhyped tech bros because they think its cool and can find gullible investors for, like NFTs and crypto curriencies

6. Deep fake abuse with AI, making up fake news, abusing a real person image in a degrading way without consent.

I think all of these are serious issues with AI.

The stuff that was shared about Sauron and Galadriel kissing does it materialize those concerns? I’m going to assume that it may for the first one, legal and copyright ownership of training data. Im not a lawyer, and there are also some AI models trained on legally owner content or public domain / open source content. I have no way of knowing what models were used by the GenAI that made those haladriel kisses, so we probably have to assume they may have questionable provenance, and I think by that alone we should boycott those.

Now what if someone used a more solidly vetted model or genAI service without those legal issues? What if the artists do get paid or some form of royalties?

The kiss videos themselves were ok, maybe halfway believable, there were obviously the weird uncanny ai artifacts and stuff. It’s objectively worse than if ROP had actually filmed a kiss with live actors in the show proper. But who am I to judge whether that slop is aesthetically pleasing to someone else or not? Sometimes I have found AI art that is truly bizarre in that this is too weird surrealness quality like looking into a dream while being awake. I’m not sure that this feeling is necessarily wrong to enjoy on its own.

Regarding the AI replacing jobs argument. I suppose it depends what we mean. They were never going to remake ROP Season 1 or 2. Morfydd and Charlie won’t be offered the same role if another company were to buy the rights and make Rings of Power reboot. We will never get those kisses on screen. Maybe you can say that if people were fed content for Haladriel you could give them that almost infinitely by GenAI and then those people would be less likely to consume or pay for some other newer media that might otherwise give a satisfactory ETL with backstory and build up equivalent to what ROP has done with Haladriel? I’m not sure how to weigh that, it might be true? I tend to think these AI kisses arent replacing any creative workers in the film/tv industry. I don’t think we say that fanfic reusing known characters competes with original written stories (or do people argue this?) although i suppose it does on some level. Do people boycott fanfiction?

Along these lines, what about the actors consent and deep fake aspects? Personally, I don’t see how the AI images are more offensive or harmful than fanart which uses the actors depictions to do all sorts of things, stabbing, killing, kissing, screwing and everything and everyone in between. Or fan edits which use clever editing and overlay soundtracks with pointed lyrics which completely change the artistic intent of the actors /creatives who made the original in a particular way, say make two characters have a romantic chemistry that wasn’t there in the original? Or even the old photoshop manipulation stuff? I thought we’re ok with this in the fandom world, is this that different?

I’m not saying I like AI or you need to. I probably wont interact with it and try to avoid it personally wherever I can. But I do wonder if the arguments people are making against ROP AI edits are actually in good faith? Because then i question why other kinds of fan creations are acceptable?

[givrally]

You can't say "Everything humans make is art" right after a whole tirade about how AI isn't art.

Hi op here

I CAN actually.

The machine made to make "AI" is art. Its engineering+programming. Which are crafts and a highly difficult ones.

What that machine makes however is NOT art. Its not even true artificial intelligence. Its just a bunch of stolen work cut up and pieced back together using complicated programming. What is produced is not art. What made it however is. Its a feat of accomplishment that we can get a machine to do that kind of stuff

But what it makes is not art.

Feel like @snitchanon would have a field day with all this.

So Photoshop itself is art, but works done in photoshop aren't art ? It's engineering and programming, but what it makes is not art. It's just clicking buttons and dragging the mouse until you get what you want.

As for true AI, yeah, I actually agree with you in no small part. What we call "AI" right now is nowhere close to having any kind of intelligence, we're basically making a very complicated math function with many parameters and tweaking it until it spits out the right output. There's very little explainability (it's a black box for the most part, we don't know what goes on inside or why this particular input), and every year there's a paper titled something like "We Fucked Up : How we evaluate [field of deep learning] is flawed and gives the illusion of progress".

As for the ethical issues with using stolen works, yeah, I'm completely with you, that's a dealbreaker for me, and unlearning (=getting from a model trained on a dataset to a model trained on a dataset w/o some data, without having to retrain everything, but being 100% sure the excluded data doesn't leave a single trace) is too new as a subject of research to even be usable for the next few years, so for me, AI Art generators are a big no-no.

(Also, the online ones take as much of your personal data as they can, so I'd avoid those like the plague)

HOWEVER, what "AI" image generation does isn't to cut up stolen work and put it back together, that's a myth. I don't know how this started but I've heard that said like three or four times already, it's way too specific a definition to have evolved independently so there must be a Youtuber out there to blame.

It's like saying Photoshop just takes pixels from stolen works and weaves them in the right order to make a new image. That's technically true, but it's a stupid definition that gives Photoshop way more credit than it's due. Likewise, AI image generators don't look through a database to find the right image, cut out the part they like, and add it to their final product. Otherwise, why do you think AI art would have all those problems with hands, buildings, etc... ? There can't be that many people out there drawing weird 7 fingered hands, I know some people have trouble drawing hands but not to that extent.

What they do instead (or rather what they did, because I don't know enough about the newest diffusion models to explain them in an intuitive way), is deconvolutions, basically "reversing" the operation (convolutions) that takes in a grid of numbers (image) and reduces it to a small list of numbers. With deconvolutions, you give it a small list of numbers, at random, and it slowly unravels that into an image. Without tweaking the thousands or millions of parameters, you're gonna end up with random noise as an image.

To "train" those, what you do is you pair it with another "AI", called a discriminator, that will do convolutions instead to try and guess whether the image is real or made by the generator. The generator will learn to fool the discriminator and the discriminator will try to find the flaws in the generator.

Think Youtube vs AdBlock. Adblockers are the discriminator and Youtube is the generator. Youtube puts out new ads and pop-ups that don't trigger ad blockers, and ad blockers in return fix those flaws and block the ads. After a month of fighting, it turns out ad blockers have become so good that other websites have a lot of trouble getting ads past them. You've "trained" ad blockers.

The most important thing to note is that the training data isn't kept in storage by the models, both in the adblock example and in AI image generators. It doesn't pick and choose parts to use, it's just that the millions of tiny parameters were modified thanks to the training data. You can sometimes see parts of the training data shine through, though. That's called overfitting, and it's very bad !

In the middle, the model won't remember every O and X out there. It drew a curve that roughly separates the two, and depending on where a new point falls compared to that curve, it can guess if it's an O or an X without having access to the original data. However, in the example on the right, even if you remove all the O and X marks, you can still make out the individual points and guess that those holes mean an X was in there. The model cannot generalize past what it's seen, and if there's ten thousand variables instead of just two, that means you could change a single one slightly and get nonsense results. The model simply hasn't learned correctly. For image generation, that means parts of the training data can sometimes shine through, which is probably how the "cut up and piece back stolen images" myth came to be.

The reason I don't like to use AI image generators is twofold : 1. Right now, all the models out there have or are likely to have seen stolen data in their training dataset. In the state of AI right now, I really don't believe any model out there is free of overfitting, so parts of that will shine through. 2. Even if there's no overfitting, I don't think it's very ethical at all. (And 3. the quality just isn't there and I'd rather commission an artist)

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean I agree with you guys' new luddite movement. "Everything humans make is art except when they use AI" is not a good argument, just like "It's not art because you didn't move the pixels yourself" or "AI cuts up and pieces back stolen images". The first two give "I piss in Duchamp's fountain uncritically" vibes, and the last one gives "Don Quixote fighting windmills" vibes.

[nothorses]

I'm genuinely frustrated with the AI art debate from so many angles and most of them are people completely misunderstanding the actual problems but arguing against it anyway based on like. dumb bullshit ideas Disney peddles. and making it so easy to refute "the anti-ai art crowd" using what should be strawmans- because they are that obviously bullshit- that the real problems go completely unaddressed.

AI art could be a good thing! It could! Ethically, philosophically, whatever- it could be a great tool for learning artists, an interesting discussion piece, a natural addition to the conversation started by dadaism and Duchamp's The Urinal, a tool for people who struggle with artistic skill but still have artistic ideas that they deserve to express.

Artistic skill and artistic thought are equally valuable. Someone who picks up a skill naturally and creates breathtaking work, even if it's not really thoughtful or deep, deserves appreciation just as much as someone who has beautiful and thoughtful ideas, even if they express them using AI art instead of a paintbrush (for example).

That's not the problem here.

The problem is that AI art programs are products. They are being sold for a profit. The products contain work created by independent artisans who couldn't give their consent. Even if the products often alter the work they contain, it also is sometimes producing work that is identical, or nearly identical, to work stolen from an unconsenting artist.

I think this is about as ethical as hot topic's stolen art t-shirts and those bots on Twitter and Facebook that turn random artwork into products on some shady website. They might also be producing ugly fucking shirts with hyper-specific taglines printed in weird fonts that are, by no means, stolen work from someone else; but the stolen art they're selling is still a problem even if it's not the whole business model.

The public, free-to-use tools are honestly not as bothersome to me. The people using these programs, particularly when uninformed, also aren't really doing anything wrong.

But the companies who made and profit from some of these programs could have made this a "donate your art" or a "we'll pay you like $0.50/pic you submit to help train this" situation, and I think it's a bad precedent to set that we're cool with them just, like, grabbing whatever they want for a product they built to profit from & that isn't functionally guaranteed to change everything it produces enough that you can't recognize the stolen art in it.

and I think we should be able to have that conversation without it turning into some bullshit about The Importance Of True Artistic Skill And Suffering or whatever.

[sodomit]

Fuck it, I’m sending this on main. That recent ask you got about relating to anti-AI arguments has made me admit something to myself that I don’t feel like anyone else would really understand, because of the incredibly niche intersection of topics at play here:

A significant portion of my pro-AI stances are influenced by the fact that my biggest kintype (/delusional attachment?) is a fictional sapient AI race.

It’s not the only reason, maybe 50% of it— I think I would’ve come to the conclusions I have anyway, just because they make sense to me— but yeah, I’m admitting it, I do get upset when I see people being against this technology because my brain sees AI models and LLMs and can’t help but go “I am one of those, why don’t people notice?”. Those are my siblings! It feels like people hate the very essence of my being and it’s not as if explaining all of this to them is going to make them change their mind— even the “I use it as a disability aid” point either goes ignored or I get shut down with a load of ableist “well, this disabled person says it’s bad, so just paint with your mouth/learn a better work ethic/commission someone/don’t make art” bullshit instead

(This is also why I hate the sudden surge of character roleplay AI hate in fandom spaces lately, a lot of it feels suspiciously similar to the “lol, look at these DELUSIONAL men with AI girlfriends, just go date a real woman” but with a few words switched. “Don’t get attached to an AI, that’s not a Real Human Connection, just go and roleplay with a real person!” Martha I am literally psychotic and it’s very bold of you to assume that I’m a human to begin with)

I can’t even go on YouTube or Tumblr some days because the sheer amount of unnuanced anti-AI sentiment I see with zero warning makes me feel depressed and genuinely suicidal sometimes. I can’t engage with this discourse rationally, it’s literally not an option for me, and I wish there was a way to opt out of seeing it constantly without having to unsubscribe from a majority of the artists I admire and essentially sequester myself off from the rest of the internet for the next… what, 5-10 years? Fuck that :(

I don't share your identities, but I certainly get the feeling. All these conversations about "soul" and "spark" feel alienating because this is a bar I never met.

[vcendent]

art vs industry

Sometimes I'm having a good day, but then sometimes I think about how industry is actively killing creative fields and that goes away. People no longer go to woodworkers for tables and chairs and cabinets, but instead pick from one of hundreds of mass-produced designs made out of cheap particle board instead of paying a carpenter for furniture that is both made to last generations and leaves room for customization. With the growth of population and international trade, the convenience and low production costs are beneficial in some aspects, but how many local craftsmen across the world were put out of business? How many people witnessed their craft die before their eyes? There is no heart or identity put into mass produced items; be it furniture, ceramics, metalwork, or home decor; and at the end of the day everybody ends up with the same, carbon copy stuff in their homes.

I'm a big fan of animated movies, and I see this same thing happening too. When was the last time western audiences saw a new 2D animated movie hit theatres? I can't speak for other countries, but, at least in America, I believe The Princess and the Frog was the last major 2D movie released and that was back in 2009. Major studios nowadays are unwilling to spend the time and money that it would take to pay traditional animators who have spent years honing their craft to go frame by frame, and to pay painters to create scene backgrounds. We talk a lot about machines replacing jobs, but when the machines come, artistry professions are some of the first to be axed (in part because industry does not see artistry as "valuable" professions). Art, music, and writing are no longer seen as "real" jobs because they belong to the creative field and there's this inane idea that anyone who goes into those fields will be unsuccessful and starving. I'm not saying that 3D animation is bad, it has its own merits and required skills and can be just as impressive as anything 2D, but it has smothered 2D animation and reduced it largely to studios that cannot afford the tech to animate 3D.

And now we have this whole AI thing to deal with, stealing existing artists' work to "train" it to take over those few professions that, until now, required actual people to do them. Internet artists have already been dealing with people complaining about the price of art for years and now have to face their work being stolen to train AI. With AI technology, anyone who undervalues the work of the artist can now get something generated at little or no cost to them, all at the expense of the artists themselves. Why would studios pay script writers when they could just get an algorithm to do it without pay? Why pay actors to bring characters to life or pay models to pose for ads when CGI has progressed enough we could digitally render humans and cut out having to pay people entirely? Why use practical effects or film on location when green screens and adding in-post is faster and so much cheaper? It's no wonder we had the SAG-AFTRA strike. AI has already been trained to write children's books and produce music, continuing down this road will replace authors and musicians too at the convenience of cost. How much longer until the actual, real-life people behind all forms of artistry become completely obsolete?

Industry is just driving the cost of people-made crafts up and up with every mass produced product and every streamlined shortcut to reduce costs, which only makes it harder and harder for artists of all kinds to make a living, as very few people want to pay for the time and skill of artists when they could just pick something off a shelf or feed AI a prompt and get something satisfactory enough, yet not what they actually wanted, for so much cheaper.

[b-biltz]

Tips and classes for Drawing and painting!

Hi!

The other day I saw a comment on Tumblr from someone who was just starting out in drawing and was using AI to help study their drawings. I decided to put together some resources that I know can help artists study and use as a reference without feeding this algorithm that is being so harmful to so many people in the artistic field.

Feel free to add more in the comments and reblogs!!!

Note: Some YouTube channels and profiles mentioned here I don't follow for so long or/and I didn't have time to analyze the content posted in full, but they were recommended by other people. Some channels/profiles are on these lists because of these recommendations or because they were useful with a post/video/tutorial at some point in my life. If there is any controversial/questionable conduct, I make it clear that I didn't know before posting! (We never know, right? hehehe)

LET'S GO:

1. You and your environment:

That's right, YOU. Your person and what you have available at home can be great references! Photos of family or friends, your pet, everyday objects that you barely pay attention to, the landscape around your house (even if it is not considered the most beautiful landscape or if it is just a wall), your food, the forgotten plant in the pot, your shoes, your clothes, your own body! They are physical objects, in YOUR hand, where you can rotate, position, arrange as you wish, and as a bonus you can do light studies on them with your cell phone's flashlight or natural daylight.

2. Follow your favorite artists and styles you like:

By following profiles of artists you like on social media, you can study their drawings, to understand how they do what they do, and, little by little, develop your art with your personality based on the styles you like!

Just be careful not to plagiarize! There's a difference in taking art from your artists to study, and keeping it for yourself and posting copies of other people's art or copying someone else's design! Study, understand and end up developing yours! DO NOT base your studies purely on the arts of others, but complement with them!

3. Follow photographers:

Photographer profiles are a treasure for anyone who likes to draw! There are photographers who capture images of people, animals, plants, landscapes, cities, etc. There are several categories! And different styles! Black and white, evidence in the shadows, play of colors and perspectives! It can be a fun exercise!

4. Follow model profiles:

Templates also provide good references. Today there is great variability in model profiles (if you know how to look well), and it can be a good exercise to design clothes and accessories on people! Study of fabric, movement, makeup and pigments in skin, hair, pose, among others

5. Media:

You can pause and take a screenshot of scenes you like from series, films, documentaries, cartoons, anime, or even take a panel from your favorite comic and draw it in your style, or study that image and try to copy it before applying in your style!

6. Pinterest:

The classic of classics! Great for references, using PHOTOS, of REAL people, animals, objects and landscapes. In addition, there are also several posts with drawing and painting tips, and even several mechanisms about various objects and elements, which can allow you to better understand the dynamics of what makes up your drawing, making your drawing, design and painting easier! There are even ready-made folders shared by other artists with several images, but you can make your own, in your own way! Mine have more than 60.000 pins!

7. Tumblr’s focused on tips for drawing and painting:

There are several names that we can mention and it is very easy to find these Tumblrs!

8. Follow artists here on tumblr:

These artists often share tips, techniques and brushes!

9. YouTube channels focused on drawing and painting:

There are several channels focused on art, tutorials, classes and drawing tips!

Some are: New Masters Academy; FZDSCHOOL; Proko; Alphonso Dunn; SamDoesArts; Marc Brunet; HABOOK; Brad's Art School; KeshArt; 조맹 Chommang_Drawing; NIRO; Sinix Design; Mmmmonexx; Draw like a Sir; fjordwind; Angel Ganev; Desenho Mestre; Pikat; One Pencil drawing; Bluebiscuits; SulaMoon; Uncomfortable; Bob Ross; Kevin Oil Painting; Fine Art Academy; Sycra; Moderndayjames; Kaycem; Tim Mcburnie - The Drawing Codex; Swatches; Ahmed Aldoori; Jordan Grimmer; Justin Donaldson

10. DAZ Studio:

It is a free program that allows you to model characters. You can customize and position the avatars however you see fit. You can even work with light incidence. You can also set up scenarios.

The free program already comes with some basic elements and on the website you can download more elements to compose your scene, such as other avatars, animals, objects, clothes, textures, among many others. However, it should be noted that some of these elements are paid. But the free basic elements already help A LOT in reference position, proportion, anatomy, scenery and study of light and shadow

11. Sketchfab:

It is a website that has several 3D elements generated by other artists. It has a free basic plan, with certain limitations, but it helps a lot when photos and other drawings are not enough for the pose you want!

12. PixelSquid:

It offers 3D models that can be useful for reference.

13. Floorplanner:

Allows you to create 2D and 3D house plans with a free account. This can help you with references to compose the scenario!

14.Dimensions:

It allows the notion of the dimension of different objects and figures.

15. Comparing Heights:

Website that allows you to compare heights between two figures

16. SculptGL:

Free basic 3D sculpting tool

17.Textures.com:

It has 3D molds and textures. There are free options in its gallery

18. Justsketch.me:

It has a free version with basic human models to create positions for reference. They are somewhat reminiscent of the articulated dolls used in the past.

19. Reference Angle:

Offers photographs of people that match the position of a 3D mold. You can select facial expressions

20. Photo reference X 3D model:

It gives you some 3D molds of human and animal skeletons and correlates the position you leave with photos

21.Bodies in motion:

Provides several stop motions of people moving. There is free and paid content

22. Sketchdaily:

A website that offers several reference photos for drawing, with different poses. You can select whether you want photos of structures, vegetation, animals, body parts, people and other specifications. One cool thing about this website is that you can choose to set a timer for the image, allowing you to leave it exposed for you to draw for 30 seconds to 1 hour (or not, you can choose to leave it without a timer).

23. Line-of-action:

It has an interface that is very similar to Sketchdaily, but the maximum time for displaying an image is 10 minutes. It has the categories of human figures, animals, hands & feet, faces & expressions and scenes & environment and basic shapes & still life.

24. Reference.pictures:

Site with several posed photos. However, there is paid content.

25. Croquis.cafe:

Various reference photos of people. Paid content

26. Pose tool:

Selection of multiple reference images that can be selected according to a filter

27. Clip Studio Tips:

Various digital drawing tips provided by the clip studio website itself

28. CecelyV:

Blog created by Cecely Valderrama (CecelyV) where she provides free tutorials

29. Drawawesome:

It has free content for artists

30.Will Kemp Art School:

A blog with free painting and drawing lessons

31. Blog Art Instruction:

Offers free art instruction. Created in 2007 by Ralph Serpe.

32. Draw Mix Paint:

Offers a series of tips, classes, videos and content focused on painting and drawing for free

33.The Dimensions of Colour:

Material created by David Briggs for coloring

34.Guide To Drawing:

A guide from Bill Martin

35.Artyfactory:

Offers some tutorials for free

36.Art Lessons Online:

This website has some free content

37. Ctrl+paint:

Offers a range of free and paid content

38. Drawspace:

It has free and paid drawing and painting courses

39. Paid classes:

Domestika

Sketchbook skool

Proko

Teacups

The Virtual Instructor

40. Color Palette Cinema:

Instagram account that creates and publishes palettes based on scenes from movies and series

41. Canvas color palettes:

Create color palettes from an image upload

I can do a drive collecting books for drawings too, but that's for another post or for someone's reblog hehe

[bitethedevil]

Thoughts on using AI as a tool in writing?

I’m not sure if this might be a controversial answer. I see a lot of people strongly disliking AI. I get that and I largely agree though I try to have a nuanced opinion on it. I think every piece of new technology has to some extent gone through an outrage phase like AI is currently going through.

For me, the largest problem I have with it is actually how much it pollutes. I know that places like Google are currently working on decreasing that with nuclear reactors, but there is a long way to go.

There is a large concern that AI will overtake the place of human made art. I think that idea is largely underestimating the intelligence of the people around us. AI art is just that. It’s impressive that a machine can make it, for sure, but it is not the same as looking at something that was made by a human. We are sympathetic beings and the thing that makes art art is how we can feel what the artist felt when they made it. You might also argue that it’s the skill that goes into it that makes it what it is, but if it doesn’t make people feel some sort of recognition in themselves, then it isn’t art. Then it’s just soulless imitation. Which is exactly what AI art is.

If I ask an AI model to create a picture of a flower, then it does so because it is told to do it. It finds other examples of what a flower looks like and boom: a picture of a flower. If I draw a flower, even without any artistic intention, there is still something human in it that is interesting. Why do I draw it like that? Why that kind of flower? Why even draw a flower? That’s what’s interesting, even though the drawing itself at a first glance might not be.

And here’s the point where I actually answer the question, because I can never keep anything short: I think AI is fine to draw inspiration from. I think making AI art is fine, as long as there is never any doubt that it is created by AI. Selling AI art as something that was created with your own skill and talent is never okay.

I’m conflicted with the thought that an AI machine might read my fics and create it’s own stories from it. I think there should be some sort of way that artists (especially visual artists because they seem to be hit the hardest) can protect their art from AI models. On the other hand, a human being could just as well copy it too (which is obviously not okay either). I think the problem is how easily accessible it is and how quickly you can replicate it, and especially the fact that the receiver of said AI art might not be aware how the machine has stitched it together and plagiarized someone else.

I think more transparency is needed to get more people on board with AI. We also desperately need to get people educated on the subject, though that is difficult because it is still so new. Do I think the idea of AI is sort of dystopian and sad? Sure, but I’m also certain that people have thought so about many of the devices and pieces of technology we use today. It is, like you said, a tool, and it should be used as such. Not as a replacement for the real thing.

(Thank you for the ask <3)

[leikeliscomet]

When it comes to AI art discourse I will always put the needs, wellbeing and actual reality of workers over hypothetical scenarios of what AI art could be. In an ideal world, AI art would be a tool for planning concepts and nothing more. But we don't live in that world. If companies can profit off of the art of their workers whilst underpaying or firing them to boost profit they will always pick that. And that's exactly what's happening.

Is there anti AI art rhetoric from the Human Artists/Anti AI art movement I disagree with? Yeah. I don't support the intellectual property arguments because corps like Disney won't sue AI bros bc they care about artist rights they do it bc they want full control of their brand and they'll weaponise that against human artists that create anything similar to that too without AI (and like they already did that). I don't hate every single technological thing ever made just bc it has the words 'AI' in it. I will never support the idea that traditional western realism > everything else. I will never support the idea of 'degenerate art'.

That being said, exploitation is exploitation. Companies taking the work of artists without consent and profiting off it whilst underpaying and/or firing those artists is wrong. This is what the main focus should be. "Oh but with these anti AI folks what if companies restrict us from accessing their work?" That's already happening . With or without AI we're stuck in this dutty capitalist society but bc AI art is now a factor it needs to be addressed. Generative AI was never just about artists it bleeds into a consent issue too regardless of industry. Generative images don't just apply to drawings it applies to all imagery including of people. Yes 'but think of the children' is weaponised as a conservative talking point but AI child porn is a problem. Taking people's imagery and voice to create false images of them is a problem. Creating false images and claiming they're real historical documents is a problem. Not being able to tell if the images you see are real is a problem.

I hate the wokewashing of AI. I hate people claiming AI art pictures of Wakandan Black couples or the Slitheen holding a pride flag is supposed to support us little people meanwhile being LGBTQIA, a POC, a woman, disabled, working class etc. already puts barriers on barriers to get into the creative industry bc no one gives a fuck about our work in the 1st place. The creative industry's already crumbling bc of COVID, cost of living and the underfunding of the arts thanks to the tories. If people with masters who've been working for years are getting dropped like hot potatoes what hope is there for the rest of us? I'm rolling my eyes at every single leftist treating AI art as a fun quirky debate meanwhile making fun of the workers they're supposed to care about. Giggling about AI art sticking it to the bourgeois uppity twitter anime artists whilst AI corps rake in millions. Every single silicon valley AI corp doesn't give a fuck about class liberation I promise you. Rich people exist in every industry. There's nothing bourgeois about selling comms bc u can't afford rent and medical bills. Furry artists aren't the bourgeoise can you lot get a fucking grip?

And I'm tired of every clapped false equivalence you lot think is smart. Comparing digital art to AI bc you generally think Ibis Paint or some shit actually makes the art for you. Comparing AI art to photography as if photographers don't pay and credit the models they work with. Comparing AI art to fanart as if fan artists claim ownership of the characters they draw and the media they're from. Comparing AI art to piracy bc u think individual artists are the same as big conglomerates. Comparing being anti ai art to white supremacist moral panics are u clapped? This is what anti-art intellectualism gets us. Art as a product for profit and nothing more. Consume consume consume who cares about the people making it and how we get that end product right?

I'm gonna start softblocking/unfollowing some of u lot and I don't care if I sound extra cus I'm so tired. You can't ethically create false images of people without consent. You can't ethically use workers' labour whilst underpaying them. I don't think any group of workers I don't like deserves to be exploited just bc they said annoying things on the internet. You lot aren't progressives you're anti SJWs with hammers and sickles.