#I'm not gonna let the fact that I'm a traditional artist stop me from making 'trendy' videos

[arttsuka]

I made something....

The drawings:

[transrevolutions]

I take an issue with your new AI post (this is not an attack just the other perspective to that argument)

1. The "people who have copyright" are not lording it over others, people aren't mad at acts against Disney, but small artists who already have a difficult entry being targeted by AI that scraped their work without payment, permission, or even telling the artist

2. Generative AI isn't ethical, it takes so much water to even run, it scraped information and art without crediting the human labour put into those things, also it is terrible for the global south, where workers are often taken from refuge camps for little to no pay to sift through and process the data

3. The innovations target artists, we do not need to digitize, synthesize, and cheapen the basis of our culture. Art, writing, painting have long been ties to humanity, and resistance (there is a reason that in many genocides like Stalin's genocide of the Ukrainian People first target art and artists)

sorry this post isn't the most elegant or complete, I am a very tired student who has done so much research into AI (also if you are a visual artist you can destroy AI from within if they illegally use your work, look up nightshading your artwork, writers can use tools like Ellipsus that won't let AI have your writing,)

Hi! Thank you for being respectful in this ask. I'm gonna address a few points here.

1) The issue, in my view, isn't really with the specific people filing the suits so much as it is the precedent it can set legally. Oftentimes, approaching these legal issues from the copyright law perspective can result in making copyright law stricter, which harms all artists and causes more problems than it fixes.

2) The water use of generative AI is a problem, but it's not a problem unique to generative AI. A lot of new technology is very inefficient when it comes to energy/water use/etc. That's a problem with capitalism, specifically how products get pushed out before they can be actually optimized.

Also, I can't find any sources claiming that refugees are being made to manually process the generative AI data- in fact, everything I'm seeing points to a process that is mostly done automatically through algorithms. The way that's worded plus the lack of documentation makes me wonder if perhaps you've stumbled across a conspiracy theory. If anyone has any proof that this is a thing feel free to let me know, otherwise that specific claim feels rather improbable.

3) This is the point I take the most issue with. Art is not some sort of sacred revolutionary act. Art is a tool and a mode of expression. Art can be used to further revolutionary and humanitarian causes, but it can also be used to promote fascism, capitalism, racism, misogyny, etc. There is no morality inherently associated with doing art or being an artist. Art is what we make it. And it's very dangerous to get it into your head that because someone's an artist they'll also be a political ally.

And from what I've heard, AI models have generally adapted to compensate for programs like Glaze and Nightshade. If you don't want models being trained on your art, unfortunately your best bet to reduce that likelihood is not to post on sites that AIs generally scrape (in some cases there are also toggle settings you can turn off on your account).

Again, I believe the greatest issue with generative AI is that it's harming working artists when companies, eager to cut costs, begin to use it in place of hiring artists who already struggle to get by in many cases. This issue will remain even as generative AI likely grows more optimized and might stop causing as much water waste. Fundamentally, this is a problem with capitalism, not with AI specifically. It's with corporations and bosses being greedy, not with the fact that a technology exists.

As an artist (who creates and distributes art outside of online spaces! I'm not going into the details of my personal life on here but I do a lot of traditional art as well), I am far, far more concerned about the labor rights implications of generative AI than I am about my "art style being stolen" or "the sacredness of art being destroyed" or what-have-you.

[duskvortex]

I do not believe AI generated images can be considered art and here is why

(Images have ALT text.)

On top of this, lemme also tell you another reason why AI generated images cannot be considered art, and for that I'll have to explain what creativity is in my eyes.

My definition of creativity is "The ability to solve abstract problems." Machines aren't capable of abstract thinking, but human beings are. A machine doesn't put any thought into what it's doing, it has no understanding of intent. But human beings do.

It's really telling that a lot of people arguing against artists aren't artists themselves and thus don't get the nuances of art. For them it doesn't matter. A picture is a picture, what's the deal? But there's so much behind art, so many nuances, so many creative decisions and intents, there's so much underneath the journey. It's not about the final piece itself but the journey. There's no journey behind an AI generated image. Nothing. It's soulless. It's mass produced and incredibly cheaply so. You can see the seams where the molds met, the lacking quality of the materials, the badly applied paint, every single hallmark of a cheaply mass produced item.

"But photography killed painting/digital art killed traditional art/3D animation killed 2D animation" I have a box full of alcohol markers and other traditional art supplies, and I also own a camera as I'm an amateur photographer, AND I OWN A BUNCH OF SKETCHBOOKS AND PENCILS WHICH I USE REGULARLY DESPITE BEING A PREDOMINANTLY DIGITAL ARTIST. And guess what? Blender, a 3D modelling package, also has tools that lets you create 2D animations and blend them with 3D. And on top of that, did you forget how big the anime industry is? Y'know, the industry that produces 2D animations?

You have NO idea what you're talking about. Actually, stop speaking over artists if you're not one. Please. We provide you all this art for you to enjoy and what do we get in return? We get trampled on for seemingly no reason when we beg people to have basic respect for us. Why do you do this? Did we ever do anything to hurt you personally? Are you jealous bc we were born with some kind of a superpower and are special when we actually aren't?

No amount of inability to draw will change the fact that AI generated images aren't art. This isn't gatekeeping. I'm not physically restraining you from picking up a pencil to draw. This is fact. What you perceive as gatekeeping is artists simply defending their rights and integrity.

No, artists aren't gatekeepers. Never have been. A lot of us are more than happy when someone expresses interest in getting into art. We put out tutorials, timelapses, tips and other resources to make the learning progress less of a bumpy road. We love sharing art with each other.

The reality is, one of the biggest gatekeepers in art is nothing else but YOUR OWN mindset to approaching it. This belief that only people born with the talent can do it. You think we came out of the womb drawing the way we do? We didn't. It's a skill we're constantly practicing and improving. All of us have produced bad stuff but we kept going. We got up over and over again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Tell me, of the skills you have learned, have you ever gotten anything perfect on your first try? Was your first attempt at cooking perfect? When you learned to ride the bike did you skip the training wheels and get it perfectly? Did you get perfect grades in school? Did you skip driving classes to get a driver's license immediately? (And if you immediately counter this with "duh you need driving classes so you aren't dangerous in traffic" you missed the point, hell I'm gonna assume you missed it on PURPOSE.)

Art isn't talent. It's a skill. Artists aren't special. We're just people who kept persevering, who kept believing in ourselves, that we could one day be great, and perhaps even greater. Kill the idea it's an inherent talent. Kill it for once and for all. It has dealt an unimaginable amount of damage to society and culture.

One more thing. If visual art isn't your thing or is completely inaccessible for you but you develop a knack for writing, you can just do that. Writing is a form of art. People have written vividly beautiful descriptions of things. And if prose isn't your thing, you can simply do scriptwriting instead. It's still art. You're still telling a story. One that is deeply personal to you.

To finish this post off, here's Guillermo Del Toro's stance on AI "art". (Source.)