Photography has made art obsolete. Nobody can make a living as an artist these days. We should really smash all cameras, for art.
You may have guessed, this is yet another post defending the use of AI art tools. They are a revolutionary advance in art technology on par with the invention of photography. How fortunate are we to bear witness to this remarkable creation? How you’re acting in response to the advent of this tool is exactly the same as you would have reacted to the invention of photography. Chew on that for a minute.
I’ll keep posting these things for as long as I keep seeing cold liquid shit takes from AI art opponents. I know it’s a tall order for people like us who have the thoughtless confidence to post our opinions on the internet (unlike the more circumspect unspeaking hordes of lurkers out there), but maybe try to think before you opine.
Just one question not enough people are asking themselves, as in most areas of discourse: How could I be wrong about this issue? I have done that. The more you actually know about this subject, the less any of the arguments against AI art hold up. Elucidate a position that withstands educated scrutiny, or if you’re too lazy to get educated or scrutinize, just keep embarrassing yourself.
I find that annoying because most AI art opponents are on my side of the political aisle, so they’re embarrassing me while they’re at it. (The original Luddites were on my side of the aisle as well, so fair enough.) I like to think our blog network values skepticism and reason though. Over time, perhaps it will.
–
PS: I’ll keep adding responses to other BS I see, just to keep from making my posts nothing but this topic.
I keep seeing artists whining about people trying to do AI art in their style. You know you can’t actually copyright a style, right? And that you’ve benefited from that yourselves? And that this only differs from an artist directly imitating your style by the tool they use to do that imitation? I agree it’s tasteless for AI kids to imitate living artists, but even with the best AI results ever, they can’t do what you can do, can they? As an artist, are you nothing but a style?
–
PPS: If I ever get around to making a more comprehensive article on this, and I might because I’m still rather steamed about it, do try to respond to what I’m actually saying before you come with the usual endlessly reiterated glurge. You’re on my article, in my house. Respond to me, or fuck entirely off. I will do my best to make my points more clear, concise, and eloquent than usual. If my argument still isn’t compelling enough to answer to, then there’s no point in talking to me with your usual three talking points gussied up into giant walls of text.
PPPS: When I say all existing art jobs are fucked and not worth preserving, don’t take that as a “give up the ship, why bother with labor activism” nihilism. Please. Listen to me. You can form a union and keep fighting over and over and over again for the same crumbs, at least in those jobs where there’s even an employer to organize against. Or you can embrace real radicalism.
It’s hilarious to me the kind of out-of-touch socialist who dreams that I can form mutual aid within my ghetto cannot imagine a world in which there are different and better ways to make art happen than the ones people currently pursue. Artistic mutual aid. Art outside of capitalism is possible. Or am I just a better radical where art is concerned than 99% of the internet?
PPPPS: Storing a thought for future use. The comparison to cameras is even more apt than I’d initially thought. Cameras point at reality and the artist chooses what of that reality to use or discard for their composition. You can use AI and just take the first result, the same way you can lazily snap a pic of anything. Or you can do like a photographer and tease the inputs, curate the results. Your art is whatever the final form takes, after your thought and and creativity is applied. The chief difference is that with photography you take pics from the physical world, in AI you take pics from computer output. Given the current, imperfect state of the tech, it’s like photography of a very surreal virtual reality.
There are a lot of silly arguments about art. Many use shaky logic, try to cloak gatekeeping as some sort of honorable vigilance, and generally engage in quite a lot of dishonest weaseling. Don’t take it too personally. I suspect a not necessarily small amount of it is people reacting badly to how laws around art are structured. Those seem to make corporations rich for many decades whlie starving most artists.
If you want more content to add when you reply to the next one you can probably look at music history and what people thought would happen as well. Sounds can be recorded? End of music entertainment. Radio? End of music entertainment. If these things don’t end music entertainment, they will end live music venues. That seems to be the rough thought process of the naysayers.
How will all this turn out? Not real sure. But frankly I think most people will be happy as long as they can still make little internet icons with animated sparkles on them and not get sued.
Probably the primary argument I see at this point is the most current add-on to the post, that people trying to imitate the styles of specific artists are trying to specifically steal work from them, in this or that way. The other main argument – that direct theft of their art is happening – holds less weight. Both arguments can be dissected in a lot more depth than I got into here.
That’s when they bother to have a thought process. Some are so jumped up and doomery they’re acting like this is the beginning of the Terminator franchise in IRL.
GAS, you are right, but it’s kinda tilting at windmills, isn’t it? I mean, what are the luddites going to do about AI art, smash all the server farms in the world? They can scream into the void all they want. All the people who rioted at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring are dead, but the Rite is still being performed, and AI art will still be made a century from now.
lanir is right that the real fight that needs to happen is the absurd stretching of copyright protections solely for the benefit of corporations, particularly Disney. THAT is where our passion for art should be focused.
I saw a good take re: copyright law from a rando. Basically all the indie artists were fans of making copyright more liberal when it was to protect their ability to sell fan art, then when it became more possible to monetize your work through services like Patreon, they became more protective of their own stuff and want copyright to be more strict. Principles flex situationally.
The most “own goal” aspects of the anti-AI crowd are these: When scumbags use AI – which does not actually copy your art – they will be less inclined to directly steal your art. So more AI use = less art theft. And second, if they do manage to get stricter rules for copyright, any money they’re making for fanart is history.
Also if styles became copyrightable? Let’s just replace half of our civilization with lawyers and judges and get ready for LitigationWorld. Newsflash: Poor artists will not win. Good times.
GAS, I have several thoughts regarding your comment #4, but it’s probably gonna take me a few days to get them in a cogent form.
this is the reason i haven’t gone into depth on it. any given aspect of this discourse has the potential to turn into a giant essay project. but hit us up if you get the chance.
Not much to say about this but I enjoy your comments on AI art!
AI Art: I’ve used it to illustrate characters for my own personal use and to show to cover designers. I’m holding off on AI cover art until the legal issues are sorted. That said, if the studio I get my covers from uses AI Art, I’ll trust their judgement. Besides, all but one AI program can’t handle my prompts.
AI Audiobook Narration: I like the human narrator I hired for Pathways better than the AI one I used. I’ll keep using AI narration because some people need an audiobook option. Right now I can’t afford to hire narrators for works longer than a few thousand words. I don’t see AI replacing human narrators. Instead, human narrated audiobooks will be a high-end offering, just like Hardcover books are today.
AI can be abused, but can also be a very powerful tool.
That’s the problem with the anti-AI movement: they don’t understand what it even is well enough to make actionable legal complaints. The most reasonable legislative agendas to push would be:
1) Compel all who do business in USA to delete any datasets derived from “unethically” sourced images. The AI users affected would then just rebuild from scratch and be back up to snuff within 2 years tops, with one less concern for the people who don’t / won’t / can’t understand the AI isn’t reproducing their shit. Or just have a quasi-religious objection, which is less embarrassing.
2) Compel all who do business in USA to forbid use of any names in AI art prompts except for artists in the public domain. Annoying to AI art producers, but I think most would find that an acceptable compromise to slow down the stream of death threats and abuse they get.
Practically anything else the anti-AI crowd might wish they could do is, as moar mentioned at 3, tilting at windmills. You can’t ban something you can’t even define, you can’t unmake technological advances, can’t reverse the flow of time.
–
You must understand that this technology isn’t as great as you seem to believe it is. It isn’t some feeling or thinking being as the venture capitalists who funded this technology would have people believe. It isn’t in any way analogous to the human brain and it’s ability to learn. It is a problem if they take people’s art to ‘train’ these algorithms because the problem is the right to prepare licensed content for use in creating derivatives no matter if it’s done through an algorithm or a person attempting to create a forgery of the artwork. Fair use is only for parody, (which the machine can’t do) commentary about the work, for research purposes or for education, and it is not fair use to make derivatives for commercial use. The datasets contain also private photographs, medical photos, and illegal content and there is concern that it’s being used to produce child pornography. The technology can further be used to create various deepfakes that can harmful on a social scale if governments do not regulate this technology soon. As you know there is a growing problem of fascism in the United States and the world, and these generative technologies will make it all too easy to deceive people into thinking events that didn’t happen seem real, and so there is a possibility in the future that there could be more violence against marginalized groups, and attacks against anyone fascists view as the enemy. It will be very difficult to know which images, audio or videos are real or not if there are no regulation s place on this technology like most of the things we use or consume in society.
I would also add that this isn’t like the development of photography because it is just a tool that capture reality unlike the algorithms that rely on the data to recreate images. Also the images can’t be copyrighted at moment due to the U.S. copyright office not believing it to be sufficiently made from a person. Many people have various views on what is art, but the thing to understand is that when your using it, It’s process of ‘learning’ and ‘expression’ isn’t in any way like an artist’s method (and this is true for many types of skills) because we can certainly learn the fundamentals of art, and the principles and elements of art and design. As humans we can thoroughly learn something with great depth, and then apply it with our own unique experience and emotions to come up with unique and meaningful things. Yes we use what’s in our environment, but also what we absorb from various sources of media, and from people we love, but remember that the algorithms are not actually able to do any of this. It’s dependant on data. It’s not actually able to understand concepts and then develop it’s own style of creating art, or writing in it’s own unique way. It can’t use influences outside of the data that it ultimately just mixes and mashed together randomly without any deliberate consideration to the meaning behind each and part of it’s attempt at expression. What I and others want is for the datasets to be disgourged, something that the FTC already does with datasets containing private images, and that there will be some form of regulations on the use of generative technologies to allow artists to be able to have more of a chance at creating their own independent studio or sole proprietary business, and not just allowing mega corporations like open ai for example to have a massive monopoly in the creative field. With the speed the technology is progressing and and how easy it is to use by various people, there’s a possibility that It will absolutely flood out some artists who are currently working. Their presence on social media and anywhere else on the internet could lost due to an overabundance of generative art. There can be new technology, but not all new technologies need to exist in a way that just harms society in many ways.
I believe I already addressed some of your arguments here in the body of my post and in the comments above. I would appreciate it if you read what I posted, for comprehension. I am an artist, I’ve had art be my sole income before, my boyfriend worked as an artist including full-time in the video game industry. I understand where the artists are coming from on this, and I think the anti-AI crowd are just being ignorant, elitist, exclusionary, and ableist about the whole thing.
I don’t usually allow comments I find disagreeable out of moderation because most of them come from nazis and trolls, but I believe you’re earnest and think of yourself as progressive, so I’ll let these ones see the light of day. I don’t have time to point-by-point your foolery right now, very involved in IRL projects this weekend, but I might give this some time in a few days.
In the meantime, if somebody wants to engage this clownery, go right ahead. If you don’t, that’s fine too.
–
By the way, if a swarm follows you here and just repeats the same talking points ad nauseam, I will not be letting them out of moderation.
“You must understand that this technology isn’t as great as you seem to believe it is.”
pretentious opener but ok.
–
“It isn’t some feeling or thinking being as the venture capitalists who funded this technology would have people believe.”
i know it isn’t. it’s a fucking tool. i used the word tool in my post. also regardless of who funded it, right now it is as cheap as free depending on which one you’re using. if you had the right tech knowledge and computer rig at home, you could start training an AI art generator of your own. Everything you say after that point is belaboring the argument against a nonsense assertion i never made.
–
“It is a problem if they take people’s art to ‘train’ these algorithms because the problem is the right to prepare licensed content for use in creating derivatives no matter if it’s done through an algorithm or a person attempting to create a forgery of the artwork.”
you’re wrong. using the artwork to train the AI actually is analogous to human brain function in this one respect. the AI does NOT FUCKING STORE THE IMAGE IT USES. the AI datasets are too small to actually be containing the art that was supposedly jacked. they’d have to be thousands of times larger than they are to do that. they just used the – i grant, unethically obtained – art to give the software a mathematic idea of where pixels would fall with the given inputs. you only see warped snippets of the original inputs, in cases where the image was repeated thousands of times in the original data, like the mona lisa or the shutterstock logo.
–
“Fair use”
…isn’t fucking relevant in the first place because the AI is NOT FUCKING COPYING THE IMAGES IT USED.
–
“The datasets contain also private photographs, medical photos, and illegal content and there is concern that it’s being used to produce child pornography.”
well, that’s an actionable complaint. if y’all have evidence of these things, hit up your local democratic representatives with proposed legislation to have any AI trained using that content expunged. what happens next you aren’t going to like though. the people who built the AIs in the first place can just build up a new AI without those images, and you’ll have no argument against it.
–
“The technology can further be used to create various deepfakes that can harmful on a social scale if governments do not regulate this technology soon.”
without AI art people were already making deepfakes. but you don’t need anything so fancy to hurt somebody with fakery. somebody photoshopped up a jenny nicholson tweet to say something racist and got it retweeted by a mob of schmucks. people like you. we’re in the age when fakery abounds, can’t be meaningfully prevented with legislation, and y’all just gotta learn to deal with it.
–
“As you know there is a growing problem of fascism in the United States and the world…”
dude, fascist propaganda can be as simple as words typed. this will not make things worse because even without it there is a whole engine of propaganda working 24-7 to encourage a fash worldview that has never relied on it. fox news, clearchannel, all those bitches will be in no way curtailed by stopping AI art tools.
–
“It will be very difficult to know which images, audio or videos are real or not if there are no regulations…”
you mean like the same complaint people had about Photoshop when it came out? and yet that was such a useful tool for so many people in so many industries it still wasn’t curtailed or regulated like you’re suggesting. we just have to live in a world where photoshop exists. like we have been. fucking deal with it.
–
“I would also add that this isn’t like the development of photography because it is just a tool that capture reality unlike the algorithms that rely on the data to recreate images.”
it isn’t exactly the same as photography. it IS exactly as revolutionary as photography. photography let people create images in a way they had never done before, in a way that immediately cut into the market for original artwork, and upset a lot of people who called it the death of art. and yet over a century later, photography is regarded as just another tool that can be used to generate images or to create art. which is all AI tools are, despite the furor.
–
“Also the images can’t be copyrighted at moment due to the U.S. copyright office not believing it to be sufficiently made from a person.”
interesting legal claim. i wouldn’t mind seeing a source on that. however even if that is true of an image as produced directly by the AI, hardly anybody uses AI art unmodified, when they need it for specific purposes. we collage it, we trace it, we use it to extrapolate on images we directly fed to it, we photoshop the shit out of it, and we curate results. there are many easily demonstrated ways that the average serious artist uses AI tools in work that is absolutely *worked on* and by your definition copyrightable.
–
“the thing to understand is that when your using it, It’s process of ‘learning’ and ‘expression’ isn’t in any way like an artist’s method”
again arguing against something i never said. AI generated art can be real art, because a human gave it the instructions that it used, then curated the results, and in many cases modified the results further using other digital art tools. the AI didn’t express anything just because it generated an image from a pile of math trained on a zillion images. the person who gave it the instructions made the tool produce art, like annie leibovitz made art when she pointed a camera. the camera didn’t do fucking shit.
everything you said after that point is belaboring an argument against nothing anyone in favor of AI has ever said, to my knowledge, anywhere. we’re not saying AI is an artist, we’re saying it’s a tool that can be used by artists.
–
“What I and others want is for the datasets to be disgourged”
I agree! I mean, I don’t think that word is spelled like that or means what you think it does, but from context. Yes I agree! Because if we go back to square one and build the AI with “ethically harvested” images, you and others will have to shut the fuck up.
–
“…and that there will be some form of regulations on the use of generative technologies to allow artists to be able to have more of a chance at creating their own independent studio or sole proprietary business”
no. fuck you, luddite. you’re arguing for cars to be outlawed because they harm the buggy industry. art, as a career, has been a fucked-apart dead thing for decades now. everyone working in art right now is a hobo rattling their change cup, or a getting the creativity ground out of them by any of a half dozen creative industries ruled by soulless business majors.
if this speeds the day when all artists forgo capitalist entanglement in their creativity, work toward jobs where they can make art freely in their spare time, then good. i hate to see people crying about jobs being lost when those jobs are as wonderful as being a kansas starlet raped on a hollywood casting room couch.
–
“allowing mega corporations like open ai for example to have a massive monopoly in the creative field.”
again, AI is cheap as free my guy. the tech is out there now where anyone can and will use it. if a corporation locks down a specific AI art generator, indie ones will spring into existence around it. they’re already there!
–
“It will absolutely flood out some artists who are currently working. Their presence on social media and anywhere else on the internet could lost due to an overabundance of generative art.”
one, i don’t think this is true. i could argue that one at length but don’t feel up to it right now. either way, it has not been demonstrated as true on any level. in fact, you fucking harassing stormtroopers have poisoned the idea of AI art in the general public’s eye so much that anything that even looks like AI art will net the creators death threats. so eat shit with that.
–
OK, I did it. I’m out.
more stuff:
At the end of the day, if you think AI art will edge out traditional artists, what you’re arguing is that it’s better than traditional artists. I call bullshit on that. Traditional artists are making a certain kind of art, usually a narrow style they pursue, and if somebody wants that, they cannot get it from somebody just pushing buttons on AI art. If they can get something sorta close, it really isn’t the same. Traditional artist has their own narrative or creative sense that goes beyond what the machine can do.
That’s exactly why the best people to use AI art are already traditional artists, just speeding up their workflow with a cool new tool. Don’t like to draw backgrounds? Let a machine do it for you, and stick your cool OC in the foreground. Want to get some ideas for variants on your own design? Have the AI make those for you. Want to mock up some ideas in hurry for a client, without taking hours with your markers? AI can do the boring parts of your job and you do the rest.
Hell, as it stands, it can be a real challenge to get AI art to do something specific. “Black haired boy holding hands with red-haired girl” you might have to run 500 times before you got enough correct results to choose a good one. Or create all the elements of the image in AI separately, then merge them into a digital painting with a lot of additional work required anyway. Traditional art is usually a faster way to get a specific desired result, and has the added benefit of creating a physical object with properties you won’t see in a print.
And there’s value in a feat of skill. If somebody can make an oil painting, we’re always more impressed by that than a digital painting that might look better on a computer. It took a rare skill to make that oil painting happen, something that has value, something people will still seek.
I got a bit into AI art this year and I still paid about $2000 to a traditional artist for a painting. Why did I do that if I could just push a button? I wanted that painting. People will still want artist’s works. Get real.
–
I didn’t mean to be aggressive, but if it seems that way then I apologize. Your comment ” I think the anti-AI crowd are just being ignorant, elitist, and exclusionary, and ableist about the whole thing”, is very uncharitable, and it’s missing the point that this technology clearly has issues in regards to the unlicensed use of people’s artworks, personal data, medical data etc. It’s absurd to claim elitism of artists against this technology because there are plenty of them willing to help people to learn how to make art and be encouraging towards anyone who wants to learn. I do think it’s better if people can learn a skill and not become dependent on ML technology because people tend to value people who do develop a skill, and also it’s still good for people to use their minds to figure out creative problems instead of just going to the ML tool for everything. Whether we live in a capitalist society or a communist one, shouldn’t we value people’s ability to produce their own intellectual properties? The technology just appeared recently, and honestly people didn’t need it before because they can just learn how to make art or pay someone within their budget ( In the later case, they are essentially doing the same thing but only using ML technology to do it instead). You must understand that not all technology needs to exist. For example at one point, people would use leaded gasoline and they would use lead in paints and for water pipes. Some could make the argument that nuclear weapons are a form of technology we as humans didn’t need. There’s also cloning which was banned back in the 90’s. At least in certain parts of the world. Many were very concerned about the ethics behind it. This technology was released out into the wild without any consideration on the impact it would have on society. Much the same way Tesla didn’t properly test and quality check it’s autopilot system for their driverless cars along with problems with how the electric cars’ batteries would catch on fire.There is a pattern within the tech industry with them creating scams or they have a problem with ensuring the safety of their products. I personally don’t really see any reason for this technology to exist other than for certain scientific or research purposes, but it looks like it’s here to stay. Yes, there are some disabled people who could use the technology, but they aren’t making art themselves still. They are just using a service that creates images from the datasets. You can describe it as being similar to using a vending machine. Remember also that there are plenty of disabled people who do make art without using ML technology, and they rely heavily on their income from making art. This technology will hurt them greatly in the future.
“I know it isn’t. It’s a fucking tool”. I felt that I had to place that part of the comments because you have stated that, ” And that you’ve benefited from that yourselves?” I know you’ve mentioned in the next sentence that there is a difference between an artist doing it and the machine doing it, but I do think it’s unnecessary to add the “and that you’ve benefited from that yourselves?” because no, artists do learn how to create art in a different way from the way the generative tool ‘learns’. It’s much harder for an artist to learn how to mimic a style than it is for the ML tool because for the artist their own touch will shine through, but for the ML tool it can more perfectly copy the elements that make the style. Also artist don’t just copy other artist to just copy, but to do learn and improve at art. What people using this technology are doing is just straight up copying and in many cases, they are reselling the artwork in someway or another. That problem is rampant on sites like Artstation, Deviantart, Pixiv, and others. Especially when the technology improves, why bother with hiring any artists for commissioned art or buy any of their products if anyone can just mass produce similar work? Being hostile and dismissive with ” I keep seeing artists whining about people trying to do AI art in their style” misses the point that this technology will greatly impact all artists . It’s just so very cold and uncaring about the ways this tech will impact the creative industry.
” also regardless of who funded it, right now it is as cheap as free depending on which one you’re using”. It does matter whose funding this tech because many proponents of AI including yourself seem to believe the rhetoric from the AI developers. I’m sure you understand that they do not care about the disabled, artists or the people using these tools because they do not see themselves liable if artists were to go after users of their products. Whether or not they have a gimmick that allows people to try their tool, it’s still commercializing their product, if their still expecting payments from the public, that’s a major issue. If they wanted to do actual research with the ML technology, then there was no real reason to just put it out there, and then allow for the various issues that I’ve mentioned to result. They clearly want to profit from this and I’m sure they will increase the price for these tools. Also ” if you had the right tech knowledge and computer rig at home, you could start training an AI art generator of you own” is true; however, that’s all the more reason to have regulations in-place, to ensure people aren’t just using this tech n a way that damages the industry, and hopefully prevents other misuses of the technology. Even if it isn’t for commercial use, the courts can determine whether it’s “effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work”, and it is derivative works not transformative. works.
I got that quote from the Copyrightalliance.org. You say here ” you’re wrong. using the artwork to train the AI actually is analogous to human brain function in this one respect”. That is why I made that statement at the start of the comments about how and why artists don’t learn the same way a ML app does. It’s a common talking point that developers of this tech want people to believe to sell a product and receive lots of funding. They pretend to be doing it for the good of humanity and claim it’s for research but are hoping to make billions from it. There is the problem of data laundering.https://waxy.org/2022/09/ai-data-laundering-how-academic-and-nonprofit-researchers-shield-tech-companies-from-accountability/. I’ll reiterate again that, no, that this tech is not the same as the human brain. There are experts that do acknowledge this very fact. Here’s one video that cautions against this belief. Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQP1gPTk0FI or go type “youtube future ai machine learning is not like your brain” on your search engine. The developers should not get a pass from legal troubles just because they’re using a complex tool to allow for the creation of derivatives and are hiding behind fair use. You wrote ” the AI does not fucking store the image it uses. That isn’t really the issue here because like I wrote before it’s the developers ability to use the images for machine learning in the first place, and they are in fact still utilizing a dataset to allow the generative tech to function, that is the problem. Also the fact that the machines spit out near replicas of the art is an issue, and the product Dance diffusion was made without using copyrighted content because of risk of copying the data to closely, and it’s understood that unauthorized use of copyrighted material can be a legal issue. https://wandb.ai/wandb_gen/audio/reports/Harmonai-s-Dance-Diffusion-Open-Source-AI-Audio-Generation-Tool-For-Music-Producers–VmlldzoyNjkwOTM. If all of the ML developers can create their products the way Dance diffusion was made it then that would address one issue. They knew it would be bad to allow that problem in there datasets for that particular product. Here’s further sources that point towards the problem of the the ML tools tendency for just making copies and derivatives that are similar to the images. https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/36ce838f-eb8d-4a47-91d2-9d20eb1d2180 you can go to 14:59:20. Also theres a study about how the ML tech tends to copy too much. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.03860. You wrote ” I grant, unethically obtained.” If you acknowledge that, then why be upset at artists who are concerned about this technology being used without their consent or any form of attempt at compensating them? There are certainly jerks that do take things too far and engage in harassment and abuse, but their are a lot of AI proponents who do like wise and are actively harassing and threatening people who are concerned about the technology. I’ve seen plenty of cases of the later than the former.
You posted ” Isn’t fucking relevant in the first place because the Ai is not fucking copying the images it used.” Yes it does and I provided the above sources about this problem. The fact that they reference peoples names and can use the likeness of their artwork is a problem. Fair use is the common argument used by proponents of this technology and an argument made by the developers. It’s the only defense for them to attempt to get out of legal trouble. Like I’ve written it’s the problem of using unlicensed material to train their ML technology. It does not matter what marketing gimmick they use to get out of trouble.
You posted ” without AI art people were already making deepfakes but you don’t need anything so fancy to hurt somebody with fakery”. I believe I wrote that it will make the process of creating deepfakes easier. Please understand that this technology will make it easier for many people to do this. You stated that your an artist so you should realize how hard it is for any random person to make deepfake videos with convincing audio and visuals, and using technology other than ML generators makes that process rather difficult. This technology allows for quick and easy fraud, deepfakes depicting fake events or people. Why would you not want to at least try to regulate it. Why add “people like you”? I’m not what you think I am, but I guess your referring to artists. why allow anyone to be able to produce fakes to hurt people?
Your post ” We’re in an age when fakery abounds, can’t be meaningfully prevented with legislation, and y’all just gotta learn to deal with it” That just comes off as cold and uncaring about the effects of this technology. As you know, we have laws against various things, but that never stops people from committing crimes. What’s wrong with trying? There’s a lot of technology out there that has laws preventing it from harming people. As I’m sure you understand, people can claim “free speech” on the internet for things like threats, harassment, and just spreading bigotry. Social media companies do have a responsibility to not allow illegal stuff, and they don’t want bigotry and sometimes they don’t want misinformation that could potentially hurt people. Though yeah, they may do some of the stuff to appeal to the advertisers, but I do think it’s good for them to regulate their social media sites, and I think it’s good overall if all websites don’t allow illegal content and dangerous misinformation, deepfakes etc. Unless your fine with illegal content and dangerous misinformation deepfakes revenge porn etc on various websites, and people not facing any consequences for that. I think that it’s fine for Youtube to take down all those things, and it takes down copyrighted material if it isn’t fair use. Of course, there are flaws with such a system, but just throwing your hands up and not caring shouldn’t be an option. You can say tough deal with with the issue of deepfakes that can be easily produced and quickly to actually hurt people, but your upset about disabled people not being able to use the ML tech.
Your post “dude, fascist propaganda can be as simple as words typed. Yeah and with ML tech, it will be so much easier for them to create a whole new reality to rile up their base, confuse non-fascists, and leave the non-fascists who are skeptical unable to effectively prove if the images, videos, audio are even real. Once again, Legislation on this technology should be pursued. The legislation will be in place to try and stop the supercharging of their conspiracy theories and fear mongering, and once again, we can try to do something. Technology isn’t some force of nature that humans can’t control. We can mitigate damage. Do you feel that we shouldn’t do anything about websites that harass and doxx people? It’s unfortunate that law enforcement doesn’t always act against it, but I think it’s more an issue of just regulating companies that host the websites, and just taking them down. I don’t understand the skepticism towards government regulation to try to mitigate harm. It seems to be the position of leftists to support effective and fair regulation that benefits all people.
jesus fucking christ that’s a wall of text. here’s a rule of thumb – if you don’t like something but find yourself composing epic poetry about it every day of your life, you are making your own life worse. get off the fucking internet bro. if you look at the history of articles on my blog, you may find examples of me venting from time to time – especially in bad times like when trump was just elected – but a lot of my posts are calm reflection on my day-to-day life, or expressions of interest in things that I enjoy.
I’m gonna take some time to respond to these, but that’s the last of my emotional energy i’ll give to you or your ilk. don’t even bother responding past this point because you’re blacklisted and it won’t make it out of my spam filter. The last word on this subject on my blog will be my word, and unlike hellscapes like twitter, that’s how it is for people I don’t like. Peace out with your beast out, emeffer.
–
“Your comment ‘I think the anti-AI crowd are just being ignorant, elitist, and exclusionary, and ableist about the whole thing’, is very uncharitable, and it’s missing the point”
It’s a preface to my own opinion and while it’s not directly addressing what you’re talking about, it is absolutely relevant because it’s THE ONLY REASON I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIS SUBJECT. I don’t care about the magical march of progress, technology, or the rights of robots. I care about people who will be helped by this – people who either couldn’t make art before AI or could only make it with great difficulty.
the vast majority of AI art people are just making images for fun that they are not going to use commercially. i support them, but i’m only involved in this subject because people i care about are being slandered by the dickweeds that see “art” and “technology” and then jump to seeing this as equivalent to fucking NFTs.
some people using AI might fit the negative stereotype in some way. they might use prompts on the pattern of “big boob anime girl in style of sad independent artist i would have otherwise commissioned,” tho I have serious doubts anybody who prompts like that would have ever paid any artist one thin dime. they almost certainly do NOT represent profit lost.
the people I know prompt more like “ideas for images interesting in their own right, mashing up the style of artist X who has been dead for a hundred years and artist Y who died more recently,” or even feeding their own art intentionally to the AI (zomg can you imagine?) and seeing what it does with different combinations of inputs.
They look over the results and tweak the prompts, do this dozens or hundreds of times, and use only the results that best fit their own personal aesthetic or aims, and that is art, at least as much as collage or photography, both of which are legal I might add. anti-AI people sometimes call this “digital collage” as if that means it’s violating copyright, but a) it isn’t even collage, and b) COLLAGE IS LEGAL. you know what’s funny? collage artists aren’t even required to credit their sources. there are probably some legal tests that could be applied to that, like if the collage image was 90% that of a specific living working artist with a few stickers put on it might not pass muster, but broadly speaking? collage has been acknowledged as legitimate art for over a hundred years now.
“this technology clearly has issues in regards to the unlicensed use of people’s artworks, personal data, medical data etc.”
You spelled out what those issues are and I addressed them.
“It’s absurd to claim elitism of artists against this technology because there are plenty of them willing to help people to learn how to make art and be encouraging towards anyone who wants to learn.”
That’s missing my point. Some people will never be able to make art like I can, with my own formal training and years of practice, for various reasons – natural talent, disability, etc – and I’d like them to be able to make art. With this tech they can, and y’all wanna kill it. Not that you’ll be able to, so I probably shouldn’t even be wasting my own time with this.
and you know what ? after this I will. this comment will be my last word on the subject. people like you don’t deserve my emotional energy.
ah, but I distract myself.
Ignorance: Refuse to take the time to understand what the AI tech is ACTUALLY doing
Elitism: Only we who made art in specific ways can be considered true artists
Exclusionary: Only we who make art in a specific way should even be allowed to make art
Ableist: Here’s a tool that can help the disabled make art. Fuck them completely.
“it’s still good for people to use their minds to figure out creative problems instead of just going to the ML tool for everything.”
ML? Whatever. Here’s the thing. The way an artist looks at the world and sees things that inspire them? AI results are food for inspiration. And if they, from the prompts *they created* chance upon a result good enough to use unmodified as the final form of the art? Good for them. but mostly that’s not what they’re going to do. they’ll modify it to use in their own ways.
Actually, you know what’s interesting? There’s a sizable subset of AI artists who pride themselves on making final output AI art with no additional photoshop or other manipulations. those are people who spend hours tweaking their prompts and curating results to get ones that suit their aims. that’s work done to create an artistic image, even if it didn’t involve a brush or wacom tablet, and therefore the fruit of that work is motherfuckin art, buddy.
In fact, it’s very comparable to a photographer who sets up his subject, takes thousands of pics with a high speed camera, and chooses the cream to be his final output!
Back to the subject of creativity tho. If somebody is not being an artist and just uses prompts and takes whatever it gets, that’s not using creativity, sure. But if somebody is curating the results, which even jokers usually will, they are using their creativity to curate the prompt results. that’s art!
“Whether we live in a capitalist society or a communist one, shouldn’t we value people’s ability to produce their own intellectual properties?”
This is what I mean when I say anti-AI art brain rot is turning y’all into capitalist stooges. Intellectual Property as a concept only serves one class of people: not artists, lawyers.
“The technology just appeared recently, and honestly people didn’t need it before because they can just learn how to make art or pay someone within their budget”
But what if they can’t, on either of those counts, and the technology lets them make art? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Guess what? It is true, on both counts. Not everyone can learn to be an artist at the level they desire, not everyone can afford commission, hell not all artists are even fucking available for commission.
“You must understand that not all technology needs to exist.”
You keep using this condescending phrasing. Get on my level scrub. Just use swears. 😉
“For example at one point, people would use lead”
Not all tech needs to exist, but if a tech does exist and passes a certain threshold of usefulness to large enough sections of the populace, you will never be able to quash its existence. the demand will overwhelm your objections. that, in itself, isn’t always a good thing. i wouldn’t argue it was.
But I am absolutely arguing that this technology has not been demonstrated to cause the harms your side alleges, and that it HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED to cause the benefits that our side alleges! I have personally watched a person – an ARTIST – use AI art to overcome a disability!
“There’s also cloning which was banned back in the 90’s.”
you guys are hilarious. somebody invents a cool new visual art tool and you immediately thing of every question of scientific ethics in the last couple decades, no matter how far afield of the subject it is.
“This technology was released out into the wild without any consideration on the impact it would have on society.”
You’re questioning it now. Or rather, spouting off unproven assertions to try to kill a useful new technology, to defend against its imagined effect on a certain sector of jobs.
If AI takes all of our jobs FUCKING GOOD. Let’s speed the onset of a world where all work is optional and we don’t have to justify our fucking existences with labor. FUUUUUUUUUCKCCCCCCKKK WORRRRRKKKKKKK. FUck any and all jobs. I fucking hate that we have to work. Do you like that we have to work? FUCK YOU.
“driverless cars along with problems with how the electric cars’ batteries would catch on fire.”
That’s lives on the line, not dollars. Apples and oranges, jimmy.
“I personally don’t really see any reason for this technology to exist other than…”
Dude, it
A) makes the creation of images and art easier
B) does that so well it has created pants-shidding terror in the hearts of capitalist artists
C) does that so well it can serve as an accessibility aid
“Yes, there are some disabled people who could use the technology, but they aren’t making art themselves still.:
Eat my entire cock if you believe this, or maybe just read the explanations I’ve now offered repeatedly for why it can be considered art, and take that shit on board.
“You can describe it as being similar to using a vending machine.”
Sure. If you’re an asswipe. People don’t spend time carefully cultivating the right inputs and curating the outputs of a vending machine to achieve their own artistic visions.
“Remember also that there are plenty of disabled people who do make art without using ML technology, and they rely heavily on their income from making art.”
These are the art hobos I mentioned, rattling their tin cans for peanuts. How about, instead of throwing other disabled artists who use this tech under the bus, they put all that energy into advocating for UBI or better social services? I’m waiting.
Seriously, if even half the energy was invested in pushing UBI on legislators as has been spent on your cause, we’d at least see some bills being drafted by now. Pick your causes right. Tech ain’t the enemy of the disabled, a lack of social services is.
“I do think it’s unnecessary to add the ‘and that you’ve benefited from that yourselves?’ because no, artists do learn how to create art in a different way from the way the generative tool ‘learns’.”
It doesn’t matter to the argument I was addressing, not one fucking jot. I was saying YOU CAN’T COPYRIGHT STYLES. That was the whole argument I was addressing with that point, and it stands. When you’re an artist you play at the styles of works you admire, on your way to establishing your own style. Or, in less innovative fields like manga, the vast majority of artists basically copy somebody else’s style wholesale, and that’s fine, because it makes them part of the style themselves – it becomes a school of art – and they are doing their own stories and subjects with that style.
The fact that AI copies a style differently from how a human does it makes NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL to the fact humans benefit from copying styles, and that STYLES CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED.
“What people using this technology are doing is just straight up copying and in many cases, they are reselling the artwork in someway or another.”
If what they’re copying is a style, then THEY CAN DO THAT AND YOU CAN’T DO SHIT ABOUT THAT AND THAT’S HOW IT’S BEEN FOR ALL OF HISTORY. If they are copying a specific image, that’s something you can take legal action on. And fine, if you can prove it, go for it.
There’s people that have established a case now where they are asserting that very thing. Now here’s the problem for that legal case and for your side: The AI is not actually copying specific images. Once you’re in court you’re going to have to prove that it does.
I’m going to be laughing my ass off from the sidelines.
“Especially when the technology improves, why bother with hiring any artists for commissioned art or buy any of their products if anyone can just mass produce similar work?”
Then the artists, like the fucking buggy drivers, will have to get new jobs. You don’t get to decide which jobs are obsolete or not, you have to deal with the world as it is. That said, I still don’t think y’all have established this is actually an issue.
Somebody wants a specific type of art, but doesn’t care enough about artists to pay somebody for it, so they use AI. That person was never gonna pay you in the first place. They would have just stolen the art or tricked you into making it and then stiffed you on payment, or stolen it from a poor artist who couldn’t afford a lawyer to do something about it! All artists are losing are the “clients from hell.”
“Being hostile and dismissive with ‘ I keep seeing artists whining about people trying to do AI art in their style’ misses the point that this technology will greatly impact all artists . It’s just so very cold and uncaring about the ways this tech will impact the creative industry.
All creative industries right this very minute are fucked-apart wastelands of abuse and despair. Why do you think your side is so quick to apocalyptic angst? Take those industries apart. Fuck them. Get a different job.
”also regardless of who funded it, right now it is as cheap as free depending on which one you’re using”. It does matter whose funding this tech because many proponents of AI including yourself seem to believe the rhetoric from the AI developers.”
I’ve never even read their materials. I’m watching from the sidelines babey. I’m too busy doing an actually necessary day job to spend much time making art these days.
“still commercializing their product, if their still expecting payments from the public, that’s a major issue.”
Y’all bitches love capitalism when it comes to the valuation of your own art, but complain about it when a tech company wants to sell a tool.
“Also ‘if you had the right tech knowledge and computer rig at home, you could start training an AI art generator of you own’ is true”
Then you agree it’s meaningless to argue against Midjourney making a profit, since at this point it’s impossible to monopolize tech that people can always create independent alternatives for. Cool.
“however, that’s all the more reason to have regulations in-place, to ensure people aren’t just using this tech n a way that damages the industry, and hopefully prevents other misuses of the technology.”
Decide what those regulations can be, format a coherent legal argument, and take it to the courts or your representatives. But if the recent class-action lawsuit your side filed is any indication of the quality of your arguments, you’re in for a reality check, haha.
“Even if it isn’t for commercial use, the courts can determine whether it’s ‘effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work’, and it is derivative works not transformative. works.”
Only relevant if the AI copies people’s art, and this is where your legal cases will most assuredly fail. I can’t wait.
“You say here ‘you’re wrong. using the artwork to train the AI actually is analogous to human brain function in this one respect’.”
You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. Because it’s conceding a point people more knowledgeable about AI than myself would never have conceded, because they know more about how this tech works than I do.
“There is the problem of data laundering.-(article link)”
You’re right-esque. That’s a coherent legal argument upon which action can be taken. But like I said before, you expunge the legally questionable source material and set the AI back to square one, now that the tech has been established, they can rebuild with every last one of those questionable sources omitted, and then what’s your argument?
I’d love to see that happen. Make it happen, babes. But if the courts decide in their wisdom, taking a deeper look at the facts than I am, that your case fucking sucks? I won’t be terribly surprised, given the quality of your other arguments.
“You wrote ‘ the AI does not fucking store the image it uses.’ That isn’t really the issue here because like I wrote before it’s the developers ability to use the images for machine learning in the first place, and they are in fact still utilizing a dataset to allow the generative tech to function, that is the problem.”
If it isn’t storing the images HOW IN THE NAME OF FUCK IS IT COPYING THEM, GENIUS? I don’t care enough to listen for an answer. I’m done with your foolery. I’m sure it will all come out in the courts.
As for the rest of the argument, it still boils down to “original dataset unethically used” to which I’ve already said, “sure. get rid of it. then what, bitches?”
“You wrote ‘I grant, unethically obtained.’ If you acknowledge that, then why be upset at artists who are concerned about this technology being used without their consent or any form of attempt at compensating them?”
That’s not all your side is talking about. I guess I’m most upset about people I care about being slandered as evil for using a tool in their own quite unimpeachable ways. But you know, as much as I don’t like the rhetoric around your side, I’m quite OK with you inconveniencing the shit out of AI companies by forcing them to start over with ethically obtained data. Make it happen, if you can.
And as I just said, I’m not knowledgeable enough about the ins and outs of the tech to say if that’s even a legally or ethically coherent position to take. It makes intuitive sense for basic bitches like you and I, which is why this is one area of agreement we have.
But people who know better how this stuff actually works, well, they might have an airtight argument against that. And I’d be more inclined to believe them than people who call my lovin man every slur under the sun, throw out concerns of ableism with zero regard, and send harassment and death threats.
“There are certainly jerks that do take things too far and engage in harassment and abuse, but their are a lot of AI proponents who do like wise and are actively harassing and threatening people”
If that’s true, alright then. I guess it’s even-stevens and I feel more justified in letting the subject drop. But you know what? I don’t even fucking believe you. People who are against a thing will always be more motivated to aggression than the defenders.
“You posted ”’Isn’t fucking relevant in the first place because the Ai is not fucking copying the images it used.’ Yes it does and I provided the above sources about this problem.”
Given your side’s conduct – I have seen blatant lies and fabrications from y’all – I find sources suspect. ESPECIALLY youtube videos. The articles about the source images for training the AI are more believable, and I’ve already conceded that point repeatedly.
“The fact that they reference peoples names and can use the likeness of their artwork is a problem.”
Bullshit, for the same reason I’ve mentioned repeatedly. Style. Even the style of an individual. Cannot. Be. Copyrighted. But at comment number 9 point 2, I already granted you could make that a rule of using AI! If AI didn’t allow the proper names of living persons or deceased persons whose estates still held copyright, then this issue evaporates as well. I’d allow it. Would that shut you bitches up?
“Fair use is the common argument used by proponents of this technology”
We don’t even need Fair Use and I haven’t used it and I don’t have to argue with you about it, for the same reason you don’t have to engage with what I’ve said about ableism and elitism. You never personally said anything ableist or elitist, (aside from being dismissive of its use as an accessibility tool), so you don’t have to argue against those points if you don’t want to.
“You posted ‘without AI art people were already making deepfakes but you don’t need anything so fancy to hurt somebody with fakery’. I believe I wrote that it will make the process of creating deepfakes easier.”
That’s the funny thing about accessibility tech. A guy with a powered wheelchair will find it easier to shoot you than a guy who has to push himself. You don’t get to say no powered wheelchairs though.
Video deepfakes existed before AI art generators. It was already easy enough it was a trend for a few months, like, what was that, a year ago? That makes this irrelevant to the subject at hand.
“technology allows for quick and easy fraud,”
Again, that’s already out there in spades and this tech will make negligible difference in the fascist agenda.
“Why add ‘people like you’?”
Because I’m mad at you, and it expresses my personal hostility, dehumanizing you through lumping you in with a faceless mass of people I perceive as hostile to me and my loved ones. Does that help?
“I’m not what you think I am”
I think you talk too fucken much. Learn to distill your arguments to something less than the length of the Iliad.
“Your post ‘We’re in an age when fakery abounds, can’t be meaningfully prevented with legislation, and y’all just gotta learn to deal with it’ That just comes off as cold and uncaring about the effects of this technology. As you know, we have laws against various things, but that never stops people from committing crimes. What’s wrong with trying?”
The laws already exist. They’re slander and libel laws. Laws against incitement to violence. They could use some amendment and refinement, sure. Especially with regard to how social media companies moderate themselves.
But a flat fiat “Don’t use useful technology even for harmless purposes” law, as a response to these possibilities? That’s kinda fucken ludicrous, dude.
“I think that it’s fine for Youtube to take down all those things, and it takes down copyrighted material if it isn’t fair use. Of course, there are flaws with such a system, but just throwing your hands up and not caring shouldn’t be an option.”
Plenty of youtubers have been burned by the way those policies favor corporations over small creators. This is getting extremely far afield of the point of this debate tho. So much so I can’t even think how it relates to AI art at all.
“You can say tough deal with with the issue of deepfakes that can be easily produced and quickly to actually hurt people, but your upset about disabled people not being able to use the ML tech.”
Yeah. Because somebody who has a deepfake done to harm them already has legal recourse through laws about slander harassment and defamation, and if your side gets a sufficiently ignorant democrat to successfully push through a flat ban on AI image tech, to establish the side of ignorance and gatekeeping as law of the land, that closes the conversation in your favor.
People will still be able to use AI tech, albeit from foreign servers or by setting up their own rigs, but that will allow you butt vapor huffing arrogant ignorant assholes to claim, in broader culture, that you’ve been vindicated, you were always right, when all you’ve ever been is reactionary and luddite.
I’d rather not see that happen. Certainly I don’t think you’re ever going to win a court case about this bc your arguments just won’t float in a context where they can be nailed down and dissected, but you could potentially get two legislative branches full of reactionary neoliberal dipshits to see the popularity of your side, see this as an easy victory, and sign into law a total travesty.
“easier”
We don’t generally rate crimes on how easy they are. Besides, the US government will never pass legislation against fascist propaganda. Just ain’t gonna happen.
“Do you feel that we shouldn’t do anything about websites that harass and doxx people?”
We can, and again, massively fucking off topic. You’re saying attack the tech. Banning AI art to prevent harmful deepfakes is like banning the internet to prevent doxxing. It’s fuckling absurd.
As you can see, I either agree with you in some way that we already agreed, or disagree with you in a major way, on every other issue. Neither of us has achieved a greater purpose and neither of us has changed our minds about anything. Was this worth our time? I doubt it.
Now never speak to me again.
–
I read one sentence of your new walls of text: “you must respond”
No I mustn’t. I’ve left your words here unaltered for all to see. If they were wise, they speak for themselves and nothing I’ve said will prevent people from recognizing their wisdom. But I do get the last word on my blog because that’s just how this fucking works, man. I’m sorry.
As I said, I gave this all the attention I’m going to give it. Go complain about it somewhere that you’re allowed to post. That is no longer here.
–