#idk it like a hybrid of what i've done in the past and it pays REALLY well but im so scared they're gonna want it to be my personality

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had a nearly 2 hour long interview yesterday and when they asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years" i felt like crying

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So, a new anti-AI-art post is making the rounds because of course it is, and while I have not breached the paywall to read the paper, I do think the summarized version of it the author provides has some holes worth poking.

Past the break, because this gets long.

Anyhoo, their core argument is that AI art people are just capitalists who see art as a profitable object and do not exhibit those four fundamental values of But like... this is just casual observation, but I have seen a lot of those values in the AI art community amongst itself.

They share models and tips on how they use the tool! I rarely see them doing it for lucre! I see creators who've used AI art to integrate into other mediums they've worked with! I've seen people with major motor disabilities welcomed. I have seen authenticity in garbage AI art; in aggregate from singular creators.

There is a reason I say that to make good AI art, you need to approach it like an artist.

And like, AI art has genuine logistical issues that make it uniquely difficult to integrate into communities, the "flooding" that turbofucked Deviantart and the harassment problem that is "spite models,"

But beyond that I think it is not just, as they blithely dismiss, "AI art can be used for good" but I think it is even possible to integrate AI artists into communities that share those values. Because I have seen those values at work in AI art communities.

There are simple things that can be done, like normalizing charging as much for AI art commissions as traditional ones, or normalizing showing one's prompts when possible or observing DNP (Do not prompt) lists and so on!

But there's a desire to put up a wall there, specifically because of the fear of original sin, because of the unique nature of the process and the dubious origins of the programs; even if you didn't pay a dime to use them.

Which like... even if the privacy issues side of things is relevant and one I see validity in, in terms of the issue of "they didn't get permission," as friend of the blog @o-hybridity pointed out when we were discussing this, the assumption of the need for permission to adapt (Which is also what annoyed me in this post) is basically a cargo cult for how IP law treats art, attempting to integrate the framework of IP law into a system of communal production that IP law is more or less designed to kill.

Like, the idea that permission is required for derivative works (A notion also in this post I am very annoyed by) resembles none of how art has actually worked in-practice for all but the tiniest sliver of our species' existence, it's tunnel visioned in a way that ignores; say; the history of things like the blues, or jazz, or sampling, or folklore, or hell even fanfic.

Most art has historically been built on top of other art, without permission, because requiring a contract for every derivative work (Especially those "orphan works" without known originators) would make it unworkable.

IP rights becoming essentially inherent to art at the moment of creation and making those contracts almost entirely mandatory have basically killed a lot of models of how art is made within the commons via that sort of unauthorized-adaptation, and IDK about you, but this is an abomination, and the loss of those modes of production wouldn't be fixed by making it a tier system as the article proposes.

The notion of eternal tiered permission ignores that history of art by way of trying to shove the means of communal production into an ideological framework it can't exist in, due to the collective failure to produce better ways of helping creators make a living.

I would also say the idea of tiers system obfuscates the real issue; which is power not permission; and the need for collective organization of labor-power as well; by way of trying to hybridize it with that folk politics system of contracts that dilutes it, but that's its own digression.

But beyond that very long digression, inherent in that fear of the powerful working without permission, I feel there's a conflation of "small-scale creators shitposting or integrating AI art into their work" and "megacorps that want to replace you with an intern on Fiverr and a copy of Stablediffusion," which I think is best evidenced by the insistence on calling all AI art supporters techbros, conflating the small-scale users of the technology with the makers even though we don't do that with; say; artists who use fucking Adobe and the way they normalized walled gardens in their field.

I am not saying the techbro assholes don't exist or even that they aren't prominent, I probably don't run into them because I hate Twitter, but I am saying there are AI art communities and users that are not Like That, and that it is possible for AI art to exist within those norms.

It is not No True Scotsman because, even if it is not the norm (Which I am doubtful on) it is simply a demonstration that is possible and; with some effort and outreach akin to groups like @are-we-art-yet, doable.

But there's a further problem, that their argument heavily relies on the idea of moral rights, as evidenced by their image morally quantifying re-using art. But moral rights are not usually how we enforce most of these issues in a legal sense, in the US they do not even exist in a legal sense.

So their communal rules, drawing from moral rights, have no real material power. At least, aside from strikes, but the small online artisan community is not protected by them in a lot of ways I think are a part of the problem, but that's its own tangent so moving on.

Their argument on operating procedure, if it were to be truly materially effective by legal means, would be implemented by the mechanisms of copyright, which would be merrily smash those communal rules with a hammer, because those rules are scrublord shit in the world of raw power.

And if they don't... well, a wall can only hold for so long, and I think keeping workers within AI art away from the solidarity that is extremely doable is going to bite people in the long run. For an example of that, see how CGI's disrespect as an artform lead to it being wildly undercosted and used to drive out the union-run practical effects folks.

And they have no tools against it because, again, power does not give a shit about your communal rules, and conflating small creators with the assholes in power isn't helping.

Like, you're making the same argument artisans in things like the Arts and Crafts movement or the Luddites made back during the rise of factories, while forgetting that they fucking lost.

And Karl Marx had some ideas why wrt how mechanization uses raw power to make the displacement of individual artisans inevitable, even if I think the way people use them in response to this issue is... wildly unhelpful and cruel.

Like, it's still shitty to say "You're destined to lose your livelihood unless the revolution (Which we are bad at convincing you will happen) happens, no we won't help lol," as I've seen from those in my community.

I think the solution to traditional/digital art surviving if AI art is the existential threat it says it is (Which I have my doubts about) is unite or die, which dovetails into my ideas on the Creative Commons in a way I need to write on further one of these days.

But like... what I'm trying to say is, in all my experience, the way they describe the values of the art community are fundametally not opposed to the practice of AI art, not the people I have seen, and I think the efforts to treat that as untrue is unhelpful at best.