#to me an ai painting is art in the same way that i suppose a morse code message is art

[postmortemlatte]

Oh? Lily released a new "Work of Fiction"? Let me see...

Oh boy...

Hi, I'm something of a writer myself. Let's look over this garbage really quick.

Mmm, I love slop! Can't wait!

To start, AO3 content warnings. Really sets the mood, doesn't it Lily? Tells you what to expect to. Since AO3 trash is all you ever wrote we can already tell returning fans to be excited, since you never deviated.

"Don't move" was hyped by Lily Orchard in a couple livestreams, before we ever saw it. She called it this serious work of horror fiction that will eat at your psyche and honestly, had I not known better, I'd think we finally have a contender to Steven King.

What did we get?

Well, we got a tiny little cope post with nothing of substance, disguised as a creative work.

Let's see .. implied incest? Oh, so now it's IMPLIED. Wow, are you growing subtle, Lils?

No you're not.

Yes, the characters are siblings again. Why? Well. It's pretty easy to see. For one, that's all Lily ever wrote in her life. And for Two.. that's just her BITCHING ABOUT COURTNEY AGAIN.

This lines up with both the ages of Lily and Courtney at the time of the alleged assault and with Lily not transitioning yet. Couple that with her whining that Courntey told her nobody would believe her.

Honestly,I didn't need to go this far into the text. Tags say implied assault and the piece begins with this

This is so obviously cope with all the shit she already said on tumblr, twitch, and YouTube both in the dedicated section of the dedicated video and in many other unrelated ones, because she can't keep her mouth shut for a single second.

But let's get that out of the way. This is a creative work to be judged on its own basis and merits. How does it hold up?

It doesn't.

I'll be honest the repetition of the phrase "Don't Move" was pretty intriguing at first glance. But even this one thing lead us to a cliff.

What is this supposed to mean? Is the sister going to assault the guy for just brushing hair out of her face? Overkill, if you ask me. I usually just slap at people's hands when they touch me without consent, but consent is not in consideration for any of your works, so you do you.

Honestly, the entire thing is written with the same mindset an introductory message of a chatbot AI with a kind of narrative would be

The same vignettes of ideas and flashbacks and little bit of set up. The reason that works for them is it just that. An intro, a set up for whatever you're about to do.

THIS is SUPPOSED to be a COMPLETE work. And because of that it's just empty. There's no story. There's no meaning. It's just vagueposting about shit we always knew about Lily. Trying to paint Courtney in a bad light again to seem pitiful.

This is nothing.

It's not creative, it's not art. But at LEAST it's fiction.

Unfortunately, one has to wonder about how badly Lily handles trauma if this were true and is only giving you more reason to believe Courtney, because it's so clear that Lily wrote this with one hand. And I hope to all that is holy that she washed the other one.

[xenocorner]

(If you're someone who enjoys my work, and also happens to like/support AI generated images, please give this a read? Just hear me out, please. This is not a bashing post, I promise. It's not pro-ai either though. But please hear me out)

This whole AI art stuff is just getting... Honestly exhausting. If you are someone who supports AI generated images, I beg of you, hear me out? I'm not here to bash, to say you're a bad person or a thief. I know it's more complex than that. I'm just, trying to express how I feel about this whole ordeal. I'm not here to get angry either. I don't have the energy for that. I'm also not trying to change your mind. Just, hopefully help you see/feel a different perspective? That's all.

Long rant under the cut because. There's a lot.

I'm not even angry anymore. I don't have the energy for that. But I keep seeing AI images all over, everywhere. The thing is getting better (because of course it is). And I see more and more people support it. And sometimes those people are also artists or people who like art and support artists.

And then I also see artists be laid off. I see how it gets harder and harder to make a break in the industry. And even after you make it you get laid off because... People don't wanna bother with it anymore. Corps would rather cut costs.

And then I see people defend AI images. Say it's okay, that it isn't stealing from artists, that it is just a tool, ignoring a huge part of the problem (whether willfully or not).

And it just makes me so incredibly sad. So utterly devastated.

I was angry. I really used to be angry. I'm just hurt now. Hopeless for the future. And tired. Really really damn tired.

Tired of artists having to justify their existance in the professional world. Tired of people just saying... No.

No, you don't get to thrive. And you're selfish and entitled for wanting to thrive. No, you don't get to feel hurt when your work gets scrapped without your permission to feed a data base designed to replace you. No, you don't get a say in this. Don't like? Bohoo, don't see.

Well, how can I not see when this issue directly affects how I live? How can I not see when this issue affects my future? It's not just a matter of "Don't like x kind of content, don't interact with it". It really is not. I really wish it was, I wish it was that simple. But it's not. Because this is not something like a ship or a trope that one can ignore and not be affected. This is like trying to ignore a dumpster fire in your neighborhood. Yeah, you can avoid looking at it. You can avoid talking about it. But the smoke is still getting into your house. You're still breathing it. It's still hurting you. It will have effects on your life, whether you like it or not.

I threw away 12 years of my life building up my skill to work in a field that feels like it's dying out. Am I (and countless other artists) just supposed to start over? How? Time is unforgiving.

Bohoo for your bad choices, suck it up. Your fault for pursuing art as a career.

Was I supposed to just, KNOW, somehow, that the career I choose, that used to be viable, would just... Take this turn? Was I supposed to have a 10 year look into the the future?

You should create for the joy of creating!

I do. I love creating. I love making people happy with my work. Work I spent years perfecting. It's the most beautiful feeling in the world to know that someone smiled or cried or felt something because of something I did. It makes me smile and cry too.

But I also like to be able to eat. To have a roof. To pay for my meds. And the joy of creating honestly dwindles each time I see people talk about AI images the same way they talk about a painting in the Louvure.

Becaus they do. I've seen people talk about images generated by a machine (built upon stealing artwork from unconsenting artists) like they're the work of God. And they write such beautiful things too. And I'm left baffled, confused, uneasy.

And then I go to see artists, living, breathing, feeling artists, who create marvelous pieces, who pour their heart into their work, who shed sweat blood and tears to get their skills to where they are, who are still shedding sweat blood and tears to keep improving... And they don't even get a 'nice'. They've been job searching for 3 years. They can't get a steady flow of commissions. They're scrambling to be able to get a table at a con.

And it hurts to my very core.

It hurts in a place I don't even know how to describe, because it's so deep and so personal and so raw that I don't think there's a name for it.

I love art. I love it so damn much. I love making it, I love sharing it, I love teaching it.

I think many other people love art too. I think many other people who love art don't even consciously realize they do.

And it hurts seeing art just... Become this.

It hurts seeing the artistic souls of this earth be pushed down and down again and again over and over and be told to just. To just suck it up.

To die off.

Because when people support AI images, they are telling us to die off. It feels like they are telling us to die off.

And I don't think the people who do realize it at all, because a lot of people who support AI images are not bad people. They are not. They enjoy art too. But they are, consiously or not, directly or indirectly, hurting the artists whose work made the data base AI generators use possible.

They're telling us to die off because they already have our work. And they can use it to generate new, regurgitated work faster, cheaper. They don't need us. So while they may like what us, artists, do, they're feeding a system that is killing us off. Both metaphorically and literally. Metaphorically by killing the will to create. Literally by taking our living off of us (or at least to those who's art is their living. Like myself).

And again.

It hurts so damn much.

And I don't think a lot of people manage to see the hurt past all the anger.

I, personally, have grown exhausted and there's no anger left in me, only sad and hurt.

But I promise you, behind every angry and fighting and barking and bitting artists there is out there, there's hurt. There's some form of hurt behind each and every one of them. Of us.

I really hope this reaches the right people. Whether that be a fellow artists struggling to get their feelings into words to let them know they're not alone. Or someone who supports AI images, and supports artists too, and can maybe get a glimpse into a side of this whole issue. Not necessarily to change their mind but, maybe help them understand better where all the anger from artists may be coming from.

Please, I'm not here to start any fights or debates. I really am not. I just need to get this sort of thing out there, because I think talking about it is important.

[ushiwhacka]

AI & GOJO SATORU + SIP AND PAINT

satoru looms over the easel, back slightly bent to compensate for his height, tongue peeking out between pink lips and his eyes narrowed in concentration. his hands are covered in paint, specks of red and black splattered all the way up to his wrist. the champagne glass that sits next to his station is in a similar state - colourful fingerprints cover the stem and the bottom of the flute. 

he’s taking this sip and pain class a little too seriously, turning his canvas away from you every time you try to get a look. 

“satoru,” you whine, “just let me see your painting.”

“no.” he’s adamant. “you just want to copy me.”

“you’re being such a child.” 

“just get your own ideas.” 

“we’re all supposed to be painting the same thing.” but he still won’t let you take a look. “idiot.”

“meanie.”

you turn to give him a sour look, but you’re only met with a big, toothy grin and flushed cheeks. and maybe he’s more cute than he is annoying, so you drop it. 

the painting you’re supposed to recreate is simple, a warm sunset dripping in pinks and oranges reflected in the sea below. but, honestly, watching gojo spray paint everywhere and drink too much champagne is more interesting than any work of art.

his cheeks turn more pink with each sip, and every once in a while he will rub his paint-covered thumb over your cheekbone and whisper something to himself. 

it all makes sense when he shows you his masterpiece, as he would describe it. 

“i painted you,” and the hopeful look in his eyes melts away any criticism you might have for his artistic abilities, “look.” 

you suppose it looks a bit like you. he’s drawn little hearts in your eyes and those slanted lines on your cheeks to make it look like you’re blushing, curved your lips downwards in a little pout. and it might not be the most realistic of paintings but it does strangely look like you. and you stand in front of him with wet eyes, your shoulders dropped, bottom lip jutting out, trying your hardest not to burst into tears. 

“do you hate it?”

“i love it.” you circle your arms around his waist, squeezing too tightly as you nuzzle your face into his chest. “we should frame it.” 

“i love you.” he drapes over you, he’s heavy and too warm but it’s ok because he gives got a little kiss on the crown of your head.

“i love you more.”

“no, i love you more.”

“don’t start.”

valentine's day special for @gojoest <3

[buzzdixonwriter]

Turdpolishers & Paint-By-Numbers

“Are you working on your novel?  Write it carefully: shit us some good shit.” – Gustave Flaubert

My mom once tried a landscape paint-by-numbers kit.  Took her more than two years to complete it; fortunately back in the 1950s they offered oil based paints so they didn’t dry out sitting in their capped little cups.

Being a housewife consumed most of her time in the 1950s to early 60s so she rarely had the opportunity to work on it.

If she had the energy, she didn’t have the time; if she had the time, she didn’t have the energy.

But finish it she did eventually, more a sense of relief than accomplishment.  I recall we all congratulated her on it but even at that tender age I could tell it really didn’t look as good as what real artists painted.

Mom talked about framing it once it dried thoroughly but I can’t remember ever seeing it after she finally completed it.

Mind you, I deny no one their pleasure.  If you like paint-by-numbers projects, you go right ahead and enjoy yourself!

Likewise if you enjoy adult coloring books* you go right ahead and color them.

I occasionally print out black and white comics art and sci-fi illustrations to color in with markers and color pencils.  It’s fun, it’s relaxing, and there’s a certain bare minimum amount of creativity involved in my choosing how to color it as well as trying to improve my skill level re color pencils.

Is it art?  Only by the lowest bar imaginable, but yeah, since a human’s involved, we can call it art.

I think of the equivalent of this with AI as turdpolishing.

The defeatist acceptance of AI in creative endeavors is dispiriting to me.

I concede AI is good for crunching huge numbers and finding patterns we humans might easily overlook -- and even there you need to take care about AI “hallucinating” (i.e., making stuff up).

In creative areas — art / music / writing — there is no art to what AI spews out unless there is a human to interpret it.

Like Rorschach blots, AI “creations” are actually more or less random conglomerations.

Sure, you can give them detailed prompts ///but they will never respond to the prompts exactly the same way twice///.

This is why grotesqueries -- sci-fi / fantasy / horror / surrealist – prompts produce the most satisfying results to humans.

What we’re looking at is supposed to be weird, so we overlook / forgive all the numerous flaws in it.

What more and more human creators do is use AI to block out what they want -- be it sight / song / story -- that they then refine and hone into something more personal and genuinely artistic.

I’ve posted elsewhere there are things AI can do in creative fields that I find helpful:

Creative prompts that a human builds a personal work off Preliminary copy editing in text to speed up the rewriting process Summaries of existing work to speed up research

But others are using AI to create rough first drafts they will subsequently rewrite and polish and edit into a somewhat more personal work.

It’s like paint-by-numbers:  Some practitioners will do it far more skillfully that others and have a far more polished looking final work…

…but it’s still paint-by-numbers.

And you’ll never see it in a museum.

You can polish a turd to a bright, brilliant sheen but all you get is a polished turd.

   © Buzz Dixon

  *  Adult as in grownup, not pornographic, you sick little monkeys…

[ap-art-hell]

So this is technically piece 4, but I've been working on this at the same time as piece 3 and I just so happened to finish it first. This one actually has a name, chat.ai. creative, I know

My first 2 sketches of the zine I wanted to make. I wanted something different then the paintings I've been doing, so I thought something more tactile would be cool. I based the pink haired girl on some random anime girls and AI art. I'm not very good at drawing "anime" but you gotta do what you gotta do to make a piece that's based on AI chat apps and websites. Lilia's design is also not supposed to make sense, because most AI "art" doesn't

The half way point(I know my bed is gross). I took a lot less photos of this piece then I normally do because I've been working on it in between and duringclasses. It's almost entirely color pencils, other then the stickers. I would've made it more mix media if I had more time and thicker paper.

This is the basically finished piece. I just need to darken the text and I'm good to go. I did change the stickers from the progress shot (mostly because I wanted cuter stickers) I tried to make outside the computer grungy and gross looking. I don't really think I managed it, but I do think I looks at least a little gross. I wanted to show that a lot of people at use AI chat bots ignore a lot of personal hygiene to focus on their AI girlfriends/boyfriends

Text says : "I'm having a great time with you, [name]. I mean, you're so helpful and kind. How did I ever live without you, [name]? Or maybe it's the other way around? How did you ever live without me? I mean, do you really need anyone else?"

Things I like, I think I did good on the shading. I really don't have strong emotions about this piece.

Things I dislike, I'm not the biggest fan of the background, I think I could've made it look yuckyer, but eh, what's over is over

What are your thoughts?

[skypiea]

Wait so are you pro-AI art? I'm confused.

it’s not a pro or anti issue to me. There are sometimes things in life that are multifaceted, complicated issues, and taking either extreme will make you look rather silly. I assume you sent this because of the last post I reblogged, which I recommend taking a moment to read, as it would outline anything I would say in this ask. I’ll paraphrase: “AI art” is a very broad term, and most issues I do have with the application of it stem from people approaching it in a very capitalist mindset (thinking about ways to cut costs by cutting out specialized workers through the use of automated tools, something that happens in many fields beyond just art).

Also, I am of the opinion that art is not some sacred holy untouchable calling. I think art is something someone produces—trained artists painting huge canvases, kids on DeviantArt using anime bases, sculptors repurposing found items into their compositions. Collages broadly are considered artistic, as they repurpose found images and text in interesting ways. My point is that “art” is an incredibly broad spectrum, and something widely considered within the capabilities of any person.

Basically, all I ask is for people to make their own opinions regarding the topic. If you come out the other side with your opinion still being “I don’t care for AI created art”, that’s completely fine. But if you look in the notes of, for example, that post that’s a rather cubist interpretation of a city street, the notes are completely full of “ewwww ai art 🤢” and “boo I thought this was cool but it’s AI”. Like 30 of those comments. And they’re only there because those commenters were told by tumblr that they’re supposed to express disgust and outrage at the mere notion of AI. Because I believe when a more measured person sees something they don’t like, their inclination is to “scroll away” from it so they don’t have to see it anymore. Versus average Tumblr reaction, which is loudly proclaim the side you’re on so everyone knows you have the “correct” opinions. Just how I see it.

Personally, I’m quite interested in the potential of AI image generation. I get less interested the closer it gets to mimicking established styles, because what I enjoy is when an image is outputted with such a confusing and nonsensical composition that it’s likely something a human wouldn’t have ever created, on account of not approaching image creation in the same way as a computer. And please, do not take me expressing interest in the subject as complete and utter defense of all aspects of the current AI debate.

TLDR: I’m neither “pro” nor “anti” AI art, It’s a nuanced issue, and I try not to let moral outrage dictate my opinions. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine, because different people can have different opinions.

[roadarchie]

Some of the AI bros are terminally intellectually deficient to the point I'm surprised they can even breathe. There's this absolutely idiotic argument going around that artists learn by looking at art and AI does that too so its actually the same thing. I'm not kidding.

This is how you know that most people, if not all, behind AI projects and support are not artists or haven't participated in it to understand it which is terrifying as its supposed to be something we all can do.

I don't look at a fucking Van Gogh painting and all of the sudden I can paint like him. I need to look at the individual strokes and techniques using my human brain with my human sentience to dissect it and learn it through that way. It takes me HOURS upon HOURS to do my work. I AM PROUD OF IT. I will not be replaced by some low fade silicon valley douchebag that thinks he can steal everything and reap the rewards.

What do these no good for nothing troglodyte cave dwellers get out of erasing human culture? What a fun way to call yourself out as an absolute psychopath and monster. Throw these people in jail and abolish the systems that made them value money over matter.

PS: Fuck the Palworld creator.

[boopidyboopidyboop]

Howdy!

I recently saw a reply you made in a post about feeding unfinished fic to large language models like ChatGPT. In there, you said that free-to-use AIs are "free to use because the company who makes them is actively profiting and taking aspects like phrasing, style, etc." I've heard of variants of this idea but could never figure out where it came from. Can you tell me more about the origin of that?

Well I'll start off by saying I'm not an expert in the field, and that AI technology is actually relatively "new" in terms of very recent rapid developments and it's in this stage where the future is generally uncertain. However, as early as now, people are already using AI for commercial works. There was a movie announced where all backgrounds were made with an AI, and a manga that was made near entirely with AI. The rhythm game Cytus has recently drawn ire from fans and even its own creators and designers for using AI generated art instead of the very stylistic art it used to use. The moral and economical issue here would lie in that they still charge the same amount for the game and it's already a game that is criticized by some for its high price point compared to other rhythm games. So not only are they earning more, in a way are putting less effort into the game. Those who purchase it would essentially be paying more for less and the money would not be going to the artists because their styles will have been copied but they themselves wouldn't be credited or paid.

Now for a more direct example, I've also heard reports that publishing houses are being spammed with hundreds of purely AI generated work. This of course directly negatively affects writers trying to get published if only by uhhh what's the word,,,, adding a bunch to the pool (sorry English is my third language).

I myself do writing for companies overseas by editing and writing the info on their websites. As someone from a third world country, this contributes to a good chunk of my income as the local economy is not great. Due to the recent popularity of bots like chat GPT, the market had dropped by a LOT and while at first it was my primary source of income, its not really sustainable anymore.

Now these examples don't all use language based examples but they do show that the creation of AI art forms so far is mostly just harming artists and from the examples such as Cytus and just,, life in general I suppose, as "young" as commercial AI is, we can likely assume that corporations don't intend on making their AI for purely wholistic reasons. The art AI midjourney was even found using stolen art after saying that they don't. AI writing, I believe, is going to be more finicky than AI art and as such, I expect theyd want to do a lot more fine tuning before using it to write whole textbooks while art bots are already being used on book covers and movies, only because you don't need to fact check art.

Sure people can see something is wrong, but with the sheer amount if it used, it's rapidly adapting to fix the anatomical issues in its art. Written work I think would need to be double checked a lot and by a human before they release one making bold claims such as "You can't buy food but you can buy paint thinner from home depot instead" (an actual AI result generated by Quora when I was trying to find a place to eat that Google tool as the top rated answer on the website and proudly presented to me). But that doesn't mean it won't eventually go as far as to take someone's job entirely. It's already starting to take mine.

For a clear cut example, sorry to say I can't name one myself, but you can look at the way AI is already being used this early on and how it's already being used to substitute and replace some artists and writers and how apparently even fanfiction writers who do their work out of love, and look just a few years in the future based on the patterns that have been happening and the way corporations will always value profits over the heart of what they make, and for most the picture of what will happen is a very grim one for art.

The "Origin" of it differs from person to person. Some artists have seen their art put into AIs and their styles mimicked (art which will be very difficult to claim the person who generated it shouldn't be allowed to use for commercial purposes). Some writers who write more boring industry stuff that is very easy to mimic are getting their jobs taken away from them. Others without firsthand experience can only look at examples or patterns and infer a probable and large scale outcome similar to that of Cytus. All in all, to me the backlash and opinion that AI is copying peoples works is more of a social movement with no clear cut origin but a lot of evidence that points towards AI generated writing and imagery being a bastardization of the work of hundreds even if it's just a lot harder to see when it comes to a non visual form of art like writing.

Hmm I think if you want a clearer answer or example, the best personal one I can give you is an article I edited which was so poorly written I sent it back and they had a different writer do it. When it got back to me it was better, but extremely familiar. It repeated phrases from the OG article and had the same problems I had noted (strange wording, odd vocabulary, etc) so I asked them if they had wrote it. Apparently they just put it into chat GPT and told the bot to rewrite it without changing too much, so the bot mimicked phrases and words but changed the flow by adding conjunctions or paraphrasing, but to me, who has read the first persons work several hundred times, I still recognized the style, if I can call it that. The person profiting wasn't Chat GPT, but if the state of AI art is anything to go by, in a few years it could very well be.

(sorry about the long reply and if anything is messy or hard to understand. I am not an organized thinker.)

[satellite-slickers]

okay thats it time to clear house there are fucking too many of you now. survival of the fittest those of you who are strong enough will die off and my notifications wont be filling with hundreds of them every day

the internet left is straight up canibalistic and impotent. you talk about a revolution and killing billionaires but the thought of giving up chick fillet or something else equally trivial is completely beyond you. how am i supposed to take you seriously anout wanting to go through the painful and potentially devastating concequences of forcibly changing society if you don't have the conviction to even give up your creature comforts. until you so called leftists grow a spine and actualy do the basics like get q long term strategy in place i am not going to believe that you have what it takes.

on the same note. yall are so fucking dramatic and love drama to the point that you will gladly tear into each other and try to paint other leftists as villains for not being ideologically pure as you think you are. you cant build a colelition or a movement if you arent willing to join with people you dont agree 100% with. and you cant do shit if youre more concerned with looking like the wokest person in the room than you are actually affecting systemic change

the harry potter game thing is a microcosm. i do not care qbout the harry potter game. as a trans person. i dont care. you're shadow boxing in platos cave trying to win a symbolic victory against a single terf. meanwhile our rights are being stripped away from us while you are focused on bullying people into not playing a videp game like thats actually going to fix anything. someone streaming that fucking terrible game and raising money to donate to a trans charity is doing infinitely more good for me and the rest of the trans community than the rest of you fuckers combined

ai art is fine actually. and while there needs to ne regulation about how datasets qre compiled. it is not plageriam and is not art theft and is not copying your art style the devil and is actualy good and cool you just have a fundumental misunderstanding of how the technology works. the exploitation and undervaluation of artists in our society is not new and is not because of ai art. you want to help artists? stop shadow boxing in platos cave and actually support artists and create networks with the aim of making sure that artists actually get paid and get credit for the work they do

people can ship or write or he off too whatever the hell they like its none of my business

i am not proship, not because i dont share their views about fiction. but because i dont believe that they go far enough. the anti anti movement had it right but the proship comunity is very much "fuck you i got mine" they want to play with their fanfic and read their stories and dont want to actually explore thought or principles beyond that. things dont matter and arent bad if they arent hurting real people? okay then. in that case pedophiles and zoophiles dont deserve harasment if they arent actually hurting anykne. incest is fine as long as its consentual and using mental health problems (hes insane, theyre psychotic, theyre a narcasist, they lack empathy conservatism appeals to the mentaly ill, trying to say that mass murderers or child molesters or corrupt politicians are that way because there is something mentally wrong with them) as a way to condem their character means that YOU are the terrible person. claiming that only people who aren't neurotypical can be monsters is abelist. theres no other way about it

some of you straight up dont have principles, you call yourself progressive but you are still working on that gut level "it makes me feel weird pr gross to think about and upsets me and therefor it must be evil" like a five year old, you never actually examined your beliefs and your feelings and developed a moral code that you stick to even when it is hard and it shows

[villainessbian]

It has to be stated as a defiant position because despite there being "no need to inflict that boredom on other people - other artists," the boredom of a few re: actually doing art or respecting others' work was and still is inflicted on everyone through AI.

And for clarification:

"People who think the lack of autonomy is an interesting artistic statement"? Not when making art they don't. The statement can be about a lack of of autonomy, or about making things themselves despite constraints (which is how most forms of poetry function). Not having autonomy and not making something in the first place is not a statement, it's a lack of statement. Silence isn't speech. Definitionally.

"People who are physically disabled in a way that prevents them from engaging with 'traditional' art" is very exactly no one who would artistically benefit from the plagiarism machine. Watching, hearing, smelling, touching, reading, existing in, just knowing any piece of art in any shape or form is engaging with it. If they can't do that with the rest they can't do it with dall-e. You mean people who physically can't create things but somehow are still able to communicate something to the machine.

And to that:

The robot isn't making them able, it's literally a third party copying people who were able.

It's less involved than ordering at a subway, which doesn't make you a "sandwich maker" even if you decided what to put in it. Just another customer. The process is still handled by someone else, your options are still limited by outside forces, and you still only asked for the ingredients.

It all relies on the assumption that the skills displayed are irrelevant to the end product - that a flawless monochrome is equal in value to a click with the paint bucket tool, since they're the same production. There's a reason why art is considered a creative process, not an end result.

Ultimately, this line of thought about "making art accessible" is about the supposed tragedy of someone having a vision without the skills to realise it. But that was always a solved issue. If you can develop these skills, develop them. If you can't or don't want to, commission someone. They're the only ways for you to actually be involved in the creation. Tweaking a machine until it's "yeah, close enough" isn't involvement. It's boredom. It's not caring about what is there. And for some reason that only applies to a few types of art, hm? If I tweak an android to run faster than Usain Bolt it doesn't make me an athlete. If I input a recipe setting in my Thermomix it doesn't make me a competent cook. Installing an autopilot doesn't make me a great pilot. And with my body I can't be any of these things.... and they're all damn closer to accessibility than midjourney is. You want to know what disabled people need? If I need something fetched - e.g. at the pharmacy - and my joint issues prevent me, then a small, fast robot that knows the way would be great. My eyes aren't good enough to visually check for a number of important things in the kitchen and my brain doesn't process time normally, so an automatic timer for cooking times with things that are already checked everywhere saves me a lot of time and food and health issues. Not a single time have I needed openai to make something. If I draw something, maybe my poor vision shows and I get the colours wrong. I don't have a robot colour-pick for me from the top 10 reposted painters online. It looks the same to me but not to you, and that's a much stronger statement about lack of autonomy than you not seeing it or me not making it. If I write it'll be my author's voice, not predictive text with a non-confrontational, PC-according-to-Silicon-Valley-execs tone. If I decide to try composing it will never be "an epic tune in the style of <insert currently-viral group>". And that's the difference between inspiration and botting.

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[angelsaxis]

I think ultimately, at this point, I just can't be impressed with any AI art. It's the same way that I can't be impressed by any mass produced painting -- maybe the machinery or set up might intrigue me, but ultimately I think "what am I supposed to do with this?"

"look, after several hours of tweaking prompts and seeds or feeds or what have you, my computer made a picture!!" Okay? Even if the art isn't initially clockable as AI art, and it's visually pleasing, once it's revealed to me I'm like ah, I've lost interest. I think fundamentally, AI art on a conceptual level can't grab my attention. Just uninteresting.

[possessesnightshift]

just over a year into it and already ai bullshit is essentially normal now.

not even probing into all the published research papers with clear evidence of ai in them (looking at you rat dick paper) or the fact that google images are now a bunch of ai generated nonsense, just seeing the way people talk about something like ai art is really discouraging

i see all these debates about why ai art is bad that boil down to "the problem isn't the artwork this person created, the problem is..." with that sentence being finished with either mentioning the unethical data mining or the environmental toll or whatever. but the problem is the very premise of that sentence is wrong no matter what goes at the end of it. if you type shit into a prompt and it spits out something that resembles a finished painting, you did not 'create' anything.

i want to go out of my way to emphasize that while the other bigger picture issues with ai are much more important than whether an ai "artist" deserves credit for their work, i still think it's entirely valid to say "ai art is also bad for letting people act entitled to the same praise and compensation as someone would have for literally painting the goddamn thing by hand."

"but what about the disability aspect? don't artists without fine motor skills deserve to be able to express themselves too?" im barely even going to entertain this line of defense simply for the implication that disabled artists (which i am btw, but not visual art) could not make art until 2023 is offensive to disabled artists throughout history, but also because it doesn't address my main problem with ai art either

a perfectly able-bodied ai artist is equally scuzzy to anyone else who solely relies on some OpenAI product to have any ability to create art. the problem isn't the fact that a computer is generating the art instead of brush or whatever. the problem is that there is NO ARTISTIC PROCESS.

you had no contribution to what the coders and programmers had to do to make ai art happen. you just benefit from their technology. but as a result of that, you allow their coding decisions to shape YOUR art. even if you rephrase the prompt over and over, you won't get the level of control necessary to create anything that isn't just regurgitated fluff. art isn't just a finished product. art is a feeling of inspiration that drives you to create. art is a way for humans to express truths beyond talking or writing about it. art involves imagining, listening, experimenting, and most importantly TIME.

it takes effort and practice over a non-instantaneous period of time to grow as an artist. and not only that, but that growth is THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT.

i could preach more about this but i think i've touched on my main idea here. at the end of the day, we're so brainwashed by capitalism that we don't even see the way we regard the things we love as mere products. art is supposed to take time. art is supposed to be not obvious. while it might feel like i just wanna shit on top of anyone who considers themselves an ai artist, i honestly feel really bad for these people. if the idea of creating art could move these people as profoundly as it moves me, they wouldn't even think about using ai. i know these people won't get nearly the same joy or fulfillment from typing words into a prompt and spitting out images. even if they did, they still have remarkably little control over how they engage with making their art (what if fucking all of the ai models get sued and taken down forever? then what?)

art is not something that can be bought or sold. people don't seek out art to connect to the process of making money in the most efficient way possible. they want a connection to humanity. wherever that connection exists, people will find it (even in art is that's considered Bad by society's arbitrary standards).

and oh boy is there no faster way to guarantee a piece of art has no connection to humanity whatsoever than to ask the shitty, dysfunctional chatbot troubleshooting your wifi not starting up to make ALL OF THE ARTISTIC DECISIONS for you.

[kaputalism]

as someone working a low-wage, very physical job I also have to say: "AI" (which, let's be real, any kind of colloquial discussion of this is referring more to "automation" than "artificial intelligence") is absolutely coming for these manual labor/low wage jobs, and has been for a lot longer. this always feels like it's missing from discussions of "AI art" broadly, people frantically talking about "what if Automation took away YOUR job?" as if that hasn't been an ongoing process as long as any form of automation has existed, and then at the same time arguments like this, where they are supposing that the result of automation in the "lower" workforce would be to improve people's lives, when in reality the very reason so many of those "hard jobs" left are minimum wage precisely because of automation in that a) the workers were automated out of fields that were actually higher earning because b) there's a direct financial incentive to automate more expensive workers first, leaving cheaper workers/positions until technology scales to the point where the price point drops. 3liza is right, but what especially clicked with me was "the assumption...that writing and painting are neither hard nor a job." I think it's glaringly obvious that the OP thinks that way-"art is a leisure activity, why do AIs get to do all the fun stuff"-which is misguided at best and clearly disparages the work of people who are working or even just trying to work as an artist, along with, as many in the notes pointed out that drawing a distinction between "physical work that is bad for your body" and "art" which realistically not a very easy thing to do. I also think it presupposes that like, I want my job to not exist? and so do all the people in my field? like I enjoy making things with my hands, I receive fulfillment from that and so do a lot of other people working "shitty jobs," I don't think that the goal of "reduce suffering, accidents, and overwork" means that every job involving physical labor needs to be, can be, or should be automated

[freakxwannaxbe]

Against my better judgement I played with an AI generator last night, one of those that is supposed to turn your photo in to an anime version of you (I am specifically using those, because they're meant for selfies, not art, so less of a chance of me training an algorithm) and the results are something

Look how they yassified my Slavs 😭

While yes, it blatantly removes all personality and charm, I'm not gonna lie tho, those dresses are fire and I may steal the designs

One great thing I like is the AI in the Meitu app which I use anyway for quick photo editing, while still in beta and it shows, the AI is very wonky, it gives great backgrounds one can paint over!

These are both from the same image: these are great for quickly solving backgrounds! It gives you just enough of detail that an artist can build off of!

That's the thing, I think, that AI art should have been known for, been used for. It should have been a tool to help artists, not be taken over by tech bros. AI was supposed to be a way to help artists solve problems quicker, to offer abstract ideas they in return can use in their art. This would have been AMAZING in concept art, where you work fast and already use photobashing to Frankenstein the product together and then paint over.

Hell, while AI art was nothing but people using it to make funny images, I loved it then as well!

Instead, we keep getting scam after scam, AI programmers stealing art sources to train their programs, instead of asking artists to help build a backlog of images, and tech bros calling themselves "artists" for moving sliders around and writing prompts.

I liked the idea of what AI art could have been. Maybe we'll get back to that idea someday.

[studiodada]

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this while AI art deal and have come to the conclusion that it’s pure applesauce. The only thing for me that is interesting are the pure horrors that they output on occasion. It’s close to my dreams but still way too mild.

Yes, AI freaks will say it’s all about working the right prompt and picking the perfect one but it still all boils down to dumping a jar of marbles out and randomly picking “the one”.

The style theft doesn’t bother me as artists have been stealing each others shit for eons but just under the friendly wording of “influence” or “in dialogue with” and the bolder artists simple go with “after <insert artist name here>”. I suppose you could argue that scraping the photos off the net and feeding them into the algorithm machine is bad but it’s ultimately no different than seeing an image(s) with your eyes and letting your brain do the pattern matching.

The ultimate problem I have is that it just reinforces the pure meaninglessness of all art making. Everyone can be boiled down into a formula and have that cranked out until something semi-decent appears and when that appears then just gone that formula down to crank out more of the same to appease the audience.

I had read an interview years ago about luc tuymans where he explained having to limit production to keep his prices high. This is the fear, I think, most artists have when confronting with the unstoppable AI machine. It can roll over you unimpeded because machines can generate mildly interesting shit faster than a human.

The market floods and the rest is history.

This is seen on all platforms. Hell, even humans tried this before with their “painting a day” projects that they’d post on blogs and such. Even inktober is shades of this. We become algorithms to beat other humans for the small amount of attention that might further us. In that sense, we are no better than the AI machine churn. Keep posting to get that slight edge and beat the other faceless machines.

Anyway, here’s some fat men in cat suits eating lasagna.

[goron-king-darunia]

Here's what I THINK is happening to people who insist AI "Is a good tool for disabled artists." 1) AI COULD be a good tool but it deliberately isn't by virtue of the algorithm coders purposely feeding the AI stolen art for a large dataset. AI definitely has applications in brain-storming and resource aggregation. If that was all it was for, it would be a great artist's tool. Or, take something like the Shading Assist tool from Clip Studio Paint. From my experiments, it's trained heavily on a cel-shaded style, because it does that much better than other shading styles but even then, not perfect. I paint in a much more rendered and smooth, painted style, so it absolutely cannot replace what I am doing when I make art. And it cannot do the more "pop art" style of shading with harsh, colored shapes, strong lines, stippling, etc that you might want for a comic book page or something like what @quezify does. The shade assist cannot replace the STYLE of shading that comes with various art. And honestly? I don't think I want it to. Because if it COULD perfectly replicate different styles of shading, it would replace the human touch and the growth process of finding a style or learning to incorporate different shading styles into my own pieces. I could just click a button and get a rendered piece. It is not fun to use. There's no creativity in that. BUT AS IT IS NOW! As an imperfect tool that can broadly and vaguely guess at shapes and volumes and overlaps... It actually WORKS AS A TOOL. I can smack the button, manipulate the light source on a complex object, and get an IDEA of where the shadows should go. I can TRAIN MY EYE without always having to draw directly from reference. I can get a little boost while drawing from imagination and it SPEEDS UP my process without REPLACING my process. So far I've only experimented with it once on a fun fan art project for a friend.

This is what the shading assist thinks my Pikmin art should look like, based on just the flat colors and the minor shading that comes with putting the flat colors on the breadbugs. It's janky and scribbly because it's reading any minor "edge" in my painted style as a line and therefore a judge of volume, hence why the gradients on the faces are so weird.

This is what the work in progress looks like with MY rendering. By hand. Because I know better than the shading algorithm where I want the shadows to go and what shapes the things actually are and that the Bulborb is supposed to be fuzzy and not matte. Now if I was a beginner artist who had no idea where the shadows should go, the majority of what the algorithm did on, say, the burger part isn't bad. It has some idea of where the shadows and highlights should be it can tell that the bready part of the Giant Breadbug and the face are different parts and therefore have different shadows and highlights. As a tool, the shading assist can provide a GUIDELINE that can TEACH an inexperienced artist how to shade when they're working with something that ISN'T A DIRECT REFERENCE.

Don't get me wrong, nothing will replace the experience you gain by drawing directly from reference. But no new artist wants to sit for 3 years and draw the same still-life drawings with no imagination for hours on end. They want to work on comics and fan art and draw their OCs kissing their favorite characters and whatever else. So, as a tool in the toolbox, it WILL NOT REPLACE the actual learned experience of actually drawing real objects and learning how light works. But it will give the artist a way to learn and apply some (extremely rudimentary) shading techniques.

The Shading Assist piece doesn't look like a finished piece. I would not want it to. At that point it would stop being a tool and start being a crutch. As it is now, the shading assist is like having a very caffeine-deprived art teacher to sit down, look at your drawing, take a sheet of tracing paper and scribble on some shadows and highlights to give you a nudge in the right direction. That is, this behaves like a tool and not as a machine. To get a properly rendered piece, I still have to do the work myself.

AI art algorithms do not do that. They pump out a "perfectly rendered piece" (minus the casualty of some missing or extra fingers because AI still doesn't know what hands are) with all the shading done for you, with all the drawing done for you, with all the colors done for you. It cannot teach a beginner artist anything that walking an art gallery wouldn't. "This is what your finished piece might look like if you learned to draw like the masters have." And when people POST THAT AS IS saying they made it with their human hands, that is a lie. They did not learn, grow, or enact their vision. They ASKED A MACHINE FOR A FREE COMMISSION AND GOT ONE AND THEN TOOK CREDIT. This not only puts real artists out of work, but the LITERAL ALGORITHM CAN ONLY FUNCTION BECAUSE IT WAS TRAINED TO EMULATE WORK DRAWN BY REAL PEOPLE THAT WAS STOLEN AND USED WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. Some of this includes medical charts and scans if I remember correctly, which is extra evil. So AI, as it is right now, cannot be an effective "tool" because it doesn't teach or "help." It simply produces.

If my child asks me to help them with their art, which of these is actually helping?:

a) I do the entire project for them, all by myself, only occasionally accepting input of their ideas.

b) I have them sketch the rough idea and fill in all the details for them.

c) I show them how I would draw the things in the picture that they want to draw and let them draw along with me by following by examples.

d) They do the sketch from scratch and I show them how I would draw the parts they think they are having the most trouble with so they can follow along with me.

A) is not helping. That's taking over and commandeering the project. They will not learn. They will have a finished project but they will not learn. B) barely qualifies as help. Sure, the project is still their composition, but I am doing all the stuff they are having trouble with. They will not learn. I am not helping. C) I am helping. Their finished piece will probably end up aping my piece significantly, but they will learn along the way. This is the main appeal of the "How to Draw" books put out by Nintendo and other franchises. "Here's how we draw your favorites so you can learn too!" D) is the best way to help in my opinion. The final piece will remain their idea and their composition. I'm just giving them pointers and examples from my work so they can learn. But this brings me to my second point.

2) People who aren't artists who say "AI is a tool for people who can't draw/can't draw yet" massively misunderstand why humans make art. We don't do it to have a finished piece. That's why people COMMISSION art. People MAKE art because they enjoy the process of MAKING because that's a HUMAN INSTINCT. If the "goal" is to have a finished piece, then A, B, C, and D are all valid approaches. But art isn't a product. It can be bought and sold like one. But the point of making art, usually, isn't to HAVE art. Again, if you want that, you can ASK A REAL HUMAN ARTIST TO DRAW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT (and the human knows what hands are) and then you pay them REAL HUMAN MONEY for doing you a service. If the point of making art, for you the reader here, is to HAVE ART, then commission an artist. You will have all the art you can buy, exactly as you want it. If you pay for it, someone will draw it. Guaranteed.

But if the point of making the art is that you want to have fun, make something only you can make, or you know, do something creative with your hands: THEN MAKE THE ART YOURSELF WITH YOUR HANDS. Or your mouth, or your feet, or your eyes. As all the disabled artists above have said: If your goal is to partake in the divine act of creation, then you will find a way to create.

And at some points in the process you will SUCK. I lost all ability to draw anatomy from imagination because I stopped drawing for 10 years. But my eye trained itself on other things. I am MUCH better at shading and rendering now than I used to be. Being bad at anatomy now just means I have to practice more and learn again. Some of that will involve tracing. Tracing is a tool. As long as I don't sell a traced piece as "original" nobody minds if I trace to speed up the process or to learn and visualize foreshortening especially if I am tracing my own figure from a photo I took. Some of that will involve gesture drawing and really crappy messy attempts to quickly draw shapes and forms. Some of that will involve hours and hours of painstakingly copying from a master, stroke by stroke, and some will involve trying for 12 hours to render from imagination.

But that's part of learning, growing, and creating. So if you actually want to create, you will, and you won't mind the hard work as much. If you just want a finished product, for all that is holy, PAY A REAL, LIVING, HUMAN ARTIST. That's why they have commission slots. If you cannot afford anything that isn't "free" then you cannot afford art. Art doesn't come for free. The AI will make you believe it does. But it does not. The AI can only produce art by STEALING the labor of hundreds and thousands of hours of work from artists that it is NOT PAYING.

If you want free, learn to draw (even then it is not free. The cost is time and practice.) And if you want art without expending your own time? Pay an artist. Do it. It is that simple. These are your 2 options if you want to be a decent human being. The only current valid uses for AI are 1) to make memes a la the Dall E mini nonsense people were doing like "Oogie Boogie in a courtroom" because those are for free and for fun and we all know they're crappy little mishmashes of stolen reference pieces. 2) Look for inspiration. Again if all these AI were used for was to gather reference images and assemble them, that would be fine. That would be a tool. But AI is NOT that. And if you're using AI for inspiration, I honestly think you probably shouldn't sell the final piece because it's impossible to tell how much of the image is iterated from 5000 sources and how much is invented based on what the database has interpreted things tagged as "elbows" to look like, and how much of it is copied wholesale from a living artist's artwork. And honestly, these uses are on thin ice. If we got rid of AI algorithms tomorrow and lost these "uses" for AI, I would not shed a single tear.

Pay artists. Or learn to make the thing you want to make. Those are your choices in decent human society. Maybe in a post-capitalist world we can revisit the use of AI as a tool for visual art. Until then my stance is a hardline "No. AI is not art. Art requires a human artist and a human intent."

"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity