#which is ALSO full of the AI Art Scammers.

[nostalgia-tblr]

twice i've reported people doing that "i want to make art for your fic!" spam/scam to AO3 and both times they removed the comments i pointed to but did not ban the user. AO3 tends to assume good faith on the part of whoever's being reported for something, but for fuck's sake? this is a well known ongoing annoyance and they're just leaving the spammers to carry on with it? (i would assume that after another report they'd be gone, but...)

[leidensygdom]

Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists

Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.

For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.

These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)

So, how do they work? (in Social media)

In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.

They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).

In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.

They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.

2. How do they work? (on Discord)

On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.

Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.

3. What do they do?

They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money

4. How do I actually spot them?

Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.

Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.

Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.

Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.

As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)

You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.

As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.

Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.

5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?

If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.

If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.

You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.

6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?

Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.

Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.

Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!

Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.

Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.

I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.

You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.

I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.

Ending notes

This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.

If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!

[nephewinthewild]

ok so reading the letterboxd reviews of late night with the devil has really crystallised my feelings about ai art. because it's full of people complaining about the use of ai art and dismissing and calling for boycotts on the whole film based on nothing but its presence, with no regard for whether that choice actually affected the livelihoods of artists or the quality of the film itself.

I don't really know enough about the production to answer that question but like, my point is I'm now much more sympathetic to the argument that most anti-ai arguments are motivated entirely by vibes.

fwiw though here's my opinion:

I believe 'ai' generative art is often ugly or unpleasant to look at and I dislike the way it's implemented by scammers or spambots. however I also believe that much like every other tech innovation that has been called a danger to 'real' artistic creativity, it's really just a tool that may well lead to the creation of interesting and meaningful works.

in the case of lnwtd specifically I don't know that I have a fixed opinion. the directors described it as an 'experiment' which is something I think is reasonable if true. the production design of the other parts of the movie is excellent and I am sure that the artists involved were passionate and engaged and that is a positive sign regarding their relationship with the production, although I can't say for certain that they themselves feel good about the use of ai. the art itself is strange and while I agree with the people posting redraws that the human-created alternatives are objectively nicer to look at and more believable as something that would actually be produced for a tv broadcast in the 1970s, I found the uncanniness and strange proportions of the drawings to be very effective. It was unsettling and put me in mind of the strange idiosyncrasies of the low-budget, handmade children's tv of the 60s and 70s which I used to watch on vhs as a child, in which there was a lot of scope for creators to make mistakes, miss strange errors and simply imbue their own weirdness into the art they made.

could they make art just as good with humans? probably. but as an experiment I think it was worth doing and it's weird how people are dogpiling so heavily onto an interesting and creative indie horror film when larger and worse productions are looking for ways to implement ai in explicitly predatory and lazy ways.

[elvishdemigod]

Need commissioning advice

So I'm debating doing art commissions. But I've never done any before.

I know people will price things depending on the quality of the art, how colored and detailed it is like plain line art vs colored art vs fully rendered, head shot vs full body shot, etc

But I don't know about where to put it through I now some people use a thing called Ko-fi, but I don't know much about it, and my parents (I'm stuck with them) only know Paypal.

I don't know how to get it out there

I don't know if I should make a side blog for it

I don't know if I have to also try branching out to other sites (which doesn't sound fun, as the AI crap, and I do NOT envy hopping on Twitter)

I'm also nervous as Tumblr is kinda secret from my parents. (Not that they don't know about Tumblr itself, they just don't know I go on it). But if I do go with commissions, I can actually make some money (can't get a job)

I've literally NEVER done it before. Its new waters.

I know there will be jerks who try to negotiate for a piss poor price, scammers, or assholes throwing insults. I know how people are, especially over the internet. I know what to expect. And I know that it's not a sustainable job. I just need something that might help for a bit, maybe get some money to learn how to finally drive.

But other things, literally no clue.

[seedfinance]

Meet The Fintech Innovators Using AI To Reimagine The Financial Sector

The financial world as we know it is changing. From new currencies to new trading opportunities, innovation has been unlocked with a single key: artificial intelligence. Almost all new approaches to managing money have AI in their DNA.

Globally, the AI ​​financial technology (fintech) market is expected to reach $ 22.6 billion by 2025.

AI is key to fundamentally changing the way people interact and use money. With currencies being used on a daily basis and literally affecting every market and industry, the impact of financial innovation through AI cannot be underestimated.

There are two important points: the financial world is becoming more user-centric, but every single fintech company is facing a major threat.

The digitization and decentralization of finance

Fintech has become user-centered mainly through digitization and decentralization. In case you haven’t seen an online statement or used contactless to checkout, you should understand that finances are now digitized. The entire cryptocurrency industry is one of the least concrete systems imaginable, and its products are certainly intangible.

This reality has changed some forms of financial transactions. The digital nature of finance means that some of the power is taken away from the big banking institutions and passed directly to the people. Even historically interactive financial transactions, such as stock trading, have been several steps away from a portfolio owner. Now, however, a simple app can give a trader full access to their stocks and the autonomy to do whatever they want with them.

An illustration: price prediction games for cryptocurrencies

A good example of user centricity in retail can be found in the company YOLOrekt. Funded in February, YOLOrekt leverages gamification by offering price predictions (essentially smart gambling) in three-minute cycles. They are starting the second round of their platform with prizes for ETH, WBTC, Tesla, GameStop and others. Developed by Degens for Degens, this approach contradicts the painfully data-driven approach of traditional old-school commerce. It’s fun, easy to use, and based on AI.

Yogesh Srihari, co-founder of YOLOrekt

YOLOrect

Co-founder Yogesh Srihari explains, “We tried to build a cross-chain protocol like other companies, but with much less capital. Other companies had raised hundreds of millions of dollars and we had less than a million.

“However, we have found that even with so much capital these companies are not gaining acceptance. We had to be more user-oriented. Binary options and Nadex were two interesting things that I’ve been doing all along. That basically gave me the idea of ​​how to take traditional options trading to Gamify. “

AI fintech is typical of these types of startups, and Srihari’s efforts are a good example of how a small idea can get a lot of buzz, as long as it’s what people really want.

The world has adjusted to both digitization and decentralization. People who gamble with money are the opposite of the old school, “wear a tie to the bank” mentality. But disrespectful approaches and novel platforms have a big problem. Fortunately, there is an AI solution for this.

Finances as a Service + state-of-the-art AI tools

Online financial services owned by users are great: until they are plagued by fraud. Unfortunately, they often are: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported 4.7 million cases of identity theft, scams, and online shopping scams in 2020. This represented a loss of $ 3.3 billion in fraud. It’s great for people to be in power, but what about protecting them?

Financial services are known to be plagued by fraud, and a company is up to the challenge.

Fraud Prevention as a Service (FaaS)

We all know SaaS (Software as a Service), but Sardine.ai is here to embody a new term: Fraud Prevention as a Service or FaaS. Sardine.ai is based on AI and offers information that scammers catch because of their intrinsic behavior.

Imagine the following: A fraudster has a pile of fraudulently obtained (ie stolen) credit cards. You are starting to use these cards to spend money online. The algorithm developed by the Sardine.ai team can identify someone as a fraud using real credit card numbers and information.

It does this by tracking everything: the device, location, VPN, and even behavior. The latter goes on a granular level: the system can measure how hesitant or distracted the behavior is, compare typing patterns with those of legitimate users and observe how someone types or scrolls. In other words, it sees it all and is an effective line of defense against fraud. This first platform of its kind, specially developed for financial institutions, is a game changer.

Most fintech startups are so busy raising funds that they forget the real and current threat of fraud. In fact, Sardine.ai Co-Founder and CEO Soups Ranjan saw it firsthand: “I ran Data Science and Risk for CoinBase and ran financial crime for a UK bank. In both places there was fraud every time a new product or territory was introduced. In fact, a US launch was delayed by more than six months due to fraud.

The Sardine.ai team

Sardine.ai

“You have been careful and exercised great caution, but scammers are very hardworking. They put themselves on a waiting list years in advance and wait for them to be reached as soon as the fintech platform launches. We launched Sardine.ai to ensure that fintech and crypto companies can operate successfully without fraud in either start-up or growth mode. “

All of these innovations expand access to the entire financial sector, and most companies in the world can participate.

Every company is a fintech company

Any financial organization that wants to stay relevant has to transform itself into some kind of fintech company. This means technology can flow into every aspect of the business to create a better, streamlined customer experience. AI is just one technology that is part of the broader fintech movement: others include the blockchain, robotic process automation, and big data analytics.

Fintech funding is exploding. The COVID-19 pandemic has reanimated the market to such an extent that some analysts are calling it the second fintech wave. To be competitive, traditional players must make large investments in technology and human capital to be successful.

Not all fintech companies can secure massive rounds of funding, however, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their ideas are less valuable. Often, minority small business owners struggle to secure funding due to systemic biases and a lack of resources.

David Price is the CEO of financial services company Biz Pay, which levels the playing field between large and small businesses by allowing small businesses to meet all of their service provider payment needs, allowing small businesses to hire higher quality service providers – something that has only previously been possible So far, large companies have been able to afford this.

“If a company can afford a better recruiter, accountant, attorney, business consultant, or digital marketer, it will improve its business quickly. There is more money in and / or less out – usually much more than the cost of the service. So the problem is just the cash flow – its timing. “David Price continued,” Since Bizpay gives companies more time compensation by spending only one quarter each month, the cash flow or timing problem is resolved and they are better Use service providers and be able to take advantage of these advantages. ”

This innovative service ensures a more democratic and even distribution of talent in the labor market and is one of the few stabilizing forces that counteracts the perpetuation of powerful and wealthy companies that have been cornering top service providers as they have for centuries.

It also provides a framework for how other B2B companies can help strengthen and protect the American small business market, which has never been more vulnerable than it is today.

Who is there? An era of AI innovation in finance

Deloitte analysts describe three common characteristics of AI leaders in financial services:

Embed AI in strategic plans with a focus on organization-wide implementation

A focus on applying AI to customer loyalty and revenue opportunities

Adopting a portfolio approach to acquiring AI

AI is available and early adopters have an edge over the competition. It’s safe to say that the evolution of AI for fintech is less of a trend and more of a new reality. Innovation in the financial world is set to continue at a rapid pace and it is exciting to think about where the financial sector could be in 5 or 10 years. One thing is clear: a number of new technologies based on AI are beneficial for consumers and retail investors alike.

source https://seedfinance.net/2021/06/15/meet-the-fintech-innovators-using-ai-to-reimagine-the-financial-sector/