Kickstarter bans AI-generated art enthusiast group "Unstable Diffusion" and refuses to deliver their successfully raised $56k funds

[NumLock21]

5 hours ago, Arika S said:

 

then why does it matter? if it's being sold as AI artwork, and the customer doesn't know who the original artist is so it's not like that would influence the buyer.

Probably won't matter to you or me as I would not know if they took that drawing from an actual artist or not. But I still won't buy it, when it's done by an AI. So you the seller is too lazy to even draw and yet you want to sell AI art.

5 hours ago, divito said:

Well, there is more than one person outlining that you keep saying contradictory things. It's wonderful that you've "stated what you've stated," but that doesn't help anything.

Humans have copied or assimilated styles of artwork for centuries, and while there have been issues of forgery or copyright issues, the art industry still advances forward with millions of artists drawing similar things, and those that are more unique with little attribution to how they learned or who inspired them. It's a very wide spectrum of talent, creativity, vision and entertainment.

An AI copying/assimilating examples of artwork is faster and more efficient than a human, but it doesn't change the core mechanics at play. If you have a problem with one, logically, you must have a problem with the other. And under that logic, new artists basically cannot happen under your worldview; there are only so many geometric shapes, shading options, or ways to draw an eye. Do you know the name of the first person to draw an eye? How should they be attributed or compensated? Can you trace the lineage of all the cave art that exists in the world to ensure no artist is infringing?

People have copy from one another be it intentional or not, we all get your inspiration from one another.  Basic shapes and such can't be copyright or protected, where it prevents other from using it, even I know that. The problem with AI art is those that uses them are taking the easy way out, at least pick up a pen and paper and start drawing on your own. It's may see difficult at first but. with time and practice you'll get better and better at it. 

To me AI art is acceptable only if the artist drew the picture first. it's okay if they use AI as a tool help make their picture look prettier. What I will not accept AI art is those that didn't draw the image themselves, they just tell AI to do everything for them.

 

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Probably won't matter to you or me as I would not know if they took that drawing from an actual artist or not. But I still won't buy it, when it's done by an AI. So you the seller is too lazy to even draw and yet you want to sell AI art.

i 100% agree. i think it's stupid that people try to sell AI art, hell i hate when people post AI art without saying it's AI. I use AI art a lot now in my own art to figure out poses, backgrounds, composition, clothing etc, but i would never post something made by the AI (even the models i've trained myself) and claim that i made the art.

 

some of my favourite tags and subreddits are now just flooded with AI art that has not been tagged as such and it really annoys me.

[NumLock21]

25 minutes ago, Kisai said:

snip

 

Heard some AI programs have added the word copyright, on works based by real artist. So that's a start.

3 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i 100% agree. i think it's stupid that people try to sell AI art, hell i hate when people post AI art without saying it's AI. I use AI art a lot now in my own art to figure out poses, backgrounds, composition, clothing etc, but i would never post something made by the AI (even the models i've trained myself) and claim that i made the art.

 

some of my favourite tags and subreddits are now just flooded with AI art that has not been tagged as such and it really annoys me.

Those that post AI art and don't disclosed them. Sooner or later their lies will eventually be find out and then they'll get cancelled.

Not directly quoting anyone here, just some articles to share

 

Theif steals work put into AI and demands credit

AI art cannot be copyrighted

AI inventions cannot be patented

[mr moose]

 

 

 

Damn it, this AI is committing heinous act of cultural appropriation and it must be cancelled before another poor marginalized person gets unprivileged. 

 

 

[LAwLz]

On 12/29/2022 at 11:47 PM, NumLock21 said:

I've already said stated what I've said. Can't really help with your over thinking.

I don't think I am overthinking things. I think the problem is that you are not thinking enough. As a result, you keep contradicting yourself and making very inconsistent posts. 

If you are going to claim that a human has to contribute the majority of the work and I suggest we actually scientifically measure and count how much a human contributes in for example a photograph then you can't just say I am "overthinking" things. I am merely measuring and quantifying what you claim is the most important thing. 

 

Anyway, if you're not going to answer my questions, which you are avoiding, then I don't think this conversation will go anywhere. 

 

 

On 12/30/2022 at 6:30 AM, NumLock21 said:

But I still won't buy it, when it's done by an AI. So you the seller is too lazy to even draw and yet you want to sell AI art.

You keep using the word "lazy". Am I "lazy" because I got into photography instead of learning how to paint? After all, mathematically, I am just leaving 99% of the creative process to be done by a machine automatically. 

 

Is a 3D modeller using Blender and then 3D printing "lazy" because they didn't learn sculpting in for example marble? 

How can anyone say they are an artist just because they tell a computer to spit out a figurine using a print rather than sculpting it themselves using their hands and rudimentary tools? 

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:30 AM, NumLock21 said:

Probably won't matter to you or me as I would not know if they took that drawing from an actual artist or not. But I still won't buy it, when it's done by an AI. So you the seller is too lazy to even draw and yet you want to sell AI art.

honestly,  while I know its a thing,  selling digital art is just weird, in most cases you probably could just download the thing from anywhere else... just saying it simply doesn't have great value, id rather buy an actual oil painting to hang on my wall tbh, doesn't have to be expensive either...

 

With this "AI art", digital art will be devalued even more... and again I know its a business for people but that doesn't mean it makes a lot of sense, you cant even tell if the person selling is the actual artist and didn't just steal it somewhere in many cases.

 

"Support the artist" yeah, sure, but why in such weird ways, why not just get an actual painting or print,  much more valuable and actually feels better to me too just as a concept. 

 

On 12/30/2022 at 11:18 AM, mr moose said:

 

 

 

Damn it, this AI is committing heinous act of cultural appropriation and it must be cancelled before another poor marginalized person gets unprivileged. 

 

 

id buy a Max Headroom painting,  i mean made by Max Headroom,  not of Max Headroom... well, although maybe...?  

 

On 12/30/2022 at 6:30 AM, NumLock21 said:

To me AI art is acceptable only if the artist drew the picture first.

To me it would be acceptable if its clearly labeled as AI,i still don't know why i would pay money for a jpg, in most cases that just makes no sense, what do you do with them?

[LAwLz]

22 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

To me it would be acceptable if its clearly labeled as AI,i still don't know why i would pay money for a jpg, in most cases that just makes no sense, what do you do with them?

One example I can think of would be D&D campaigns.

Having pictures of your characters, or locations, or NPCs, makes the whole experience a lot better. However, I know one person who can draw. She will more than happily draw the player-characters for some game, but not everyone is as lucky, and she does not exactly have the time or energy necessary to draw every single NPC or location that will be used in a game. A lot of people do not know anyone who can draw either, so they are stuck either paying for something (which a lot of people don't want), or they will be without art for their campaign. 

Or... AI art! Why spend hours upon hours to draw every single minor character that appears in a campaign? Just generate some images for the thing you need. It doesn't have to be perfect either, just good enough because it will be used once and then thrown away.

 

By the way, I think the state of subreddits like DnDart is quite sad. It really shows the true character of some of these upset artists. A lot of them do not give two craps about art, or what it means to be an artist. They are mad because they fear they will have a harder time making money. I went through the top 20 posts of the week, and 17 of them were from artists looking for work, and a lot of them want 50-100 dollars for a single picture.

2 out of the 3 posts that wasn't an artist looking for work was AI generated. Only a single artist in the top 20 posts from this month actually just posted art, without asking for work.

 

I find it hard to side with the people who "care for the craft and arts" when the overwhelming majority of artists I see are begging for work and advertise them being okay with drawing dragons having sex with cars.

 

And as far as the whole "artists don't copy others styles, or at the very least don't advertise it!" let me introduce you to this:

Spoiler

 

I found over 1000 artists on Fiverr (not just painters, but singers and other types of artists as well) specifically adverting that they copy Disney's style and will make you art "in the style of Disney".

So I don't think the whole "real artists don't copy, steal or imitate someone else's style!" holds any weight whatsoever. Unless you will try and claim that the 1000 artists I found aren't really artists.

[Mark Kaine]

44 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

One example I can think of would be D&D campaigns.

Having pictures of your characters, or locations, or NPCs, makes the whole experience a lot better. However, I know one person who can draw. She will more than happily draw the player-characters for some game, but not everyone is as lucky, and she does not exactly have the time or energy necessary to draw every single NPC or location that will be used in a game. A lot of people do not know anyone who can draw either, so they are stuck either paying for something (which a lot of people don't want), or they will be without art for their campaign. 

Or... AI art! Why spend hours upon hours to draw every single minor character that appears in a campaign? Just generate some images for the thing you need. It doesn't have to be perfect either, just good enough because it will be used once and then thrown away.

 

By the way, I think the state of subreddits like DnDart is quite sad. It really shows the true character of some of these upset artists. A lot of them do not give two craps about art, or what it means to be an artist. They are mad because they fear they will have a harder time making money. I went through the top 20 posts of the week, and 17 of them were from artists looking for work, and a lot of them want 50-100 dollars for a single picture.

2 out of the 3 posts that wasn't an artist looking for work was AI generated. Only a single artist in the top 20 posts from this month actually just posted art, without asking for work.

 

I find it hard to side with the people who "care for the craft and arts" when the overwhelming majority of artists I see are begging for work and advertise them being okay with drawing dragons having sex with cars.

 

And as far as the whole "artists don't copy others styles, or at the very least don't advertise it!" let me introduce you to this:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I found over 1000 artists on Fiverr (not just painters, but singers and other types of artists as well) specifically adverting that they copy Disney's style and will make you art "in the style of Disney".

So I don't think the whole "real artists don't copy, steal or imitate someone else's style!" holds any weight whatsoever. Unless you will try and claim that the 1000 artists I found aren't really artists.

 

Eh, i mean sure there *are* use cases for digital art, but as you may or may not have guessed i had a particular kind of digital art business in mind, like literally selling jpgs to "fans" (and i don't mean necessarily NSFW either, even though it often is NSFW stuff of course)

Like these kind of things are pretty much front center in my impression when talking about digital art, AI or not.

i don't know its an odd thing, i don't think the people actually use those images for something particular,  its just to have it and support the (supposed) artist . like i said, buying a print etc would be less weird and i would understand the purpose better lol.

 

Now for games etc, AI can make a lot of sense of course but i would guess that's mostly done by in-house artists (or simply the people who would make the graphical assets anyway) game companies aren't going to buy their art on patreon etc, i think not! : p

 

Also im not sure that hasnt been a thing since a long time, at least some processes surely have been automated since forever basically? 

 

Like i already said, it would make more sense to sell prints or actual paintings for many artists, with an oil painting pure plagiarism is kinda pretty unlikely...

 

Btw there are of course stores that sell "digital art" amongst more traditional art usually, printed on canvas etc, while it doesn't really matter if it's originally by a human or AI, i kinda feel AI art is somewhat "soulless" and probably wouldn't sell well .

 

43 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

So I don't think the whole "real artists don't copy, steal or imitate someone else's style!"

Who said that?  Copying, stealing,  imitating has always been a big part of art, the thing is though typically those copycats usually would add "something" thats different,  maybe even better,  just a slightly different interpretation,  in a way this is how art evolves since forever (romans copying greeks etc)

But i honestly feel AI doesn't do that? Not purposely at least, its not actually good enough for that...

 

As for your Disney guys, not sure what to say, maybe its art, but it doesn't seem particularly legal or , obviously, original... like you can be an artist and still have no own ideas etc, although they will transform the work at least somewhat anyways... And im not sure i would call disney art! Its kind of too generic,  but i suppose that's debatable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

Honestly these times are over, the old cartoon stuff sure, but is the new stuff even drawn by humans? Its soulless,  and with that im not sure AI art is "art" either.  i would say no, its an imitation of actual art, yes, but not actual art,  there's no creative process etc.

 

maybe in 100 years.

[LAwLz]

30 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Eh, i mean sure there *are* use cases for digital art, but as you may or may not have guessed i had a particular kind of digital art business in mind, like literally selling jpgs to "fans" (and i don't mean necessarily NSFW either, even though it often is NSFW stuff of course)

Like these kind of things are pretty much front center in my impression when talking about digital art, AI or not.

i don't know its an odd thing, i don't think the people actually use those images for something particular,  its just to have it and support the (supposed) artist . like i said, buying a print etc would be less weird and i would understand the purpose better lol.

I see. Personally, when I hear about Ai art I think of scenarios like the ones I described, not someone buying a painting to hang in their home. I think most images we consume these days are not created for the purpose of hanging on a wall. I think people will use AI art for a few things:

1) Fast prototyping. Just to get a concept out and play around with. This is what for example MKBHD says they have, and might continue to use AIs for. 

 

2) Creating something that will be used and then discarded (like showing someone a concept, or creating a throw-away NPC for a D&D session). This is what I mentioned earlier with my D&D campaign for example.

 

3) Just for fun, like how some people draw for fun. This is what I have done so far. It's really fun to just play around with. Like how a bunch of people are now playing around with the ChatGPT program.

 

4) Automating certain aspects. For example GearBox have said that they use AI to automate the stylization of some concept arts their artists makes. Games like the Borderlands series have a very specific art style, and they are currently using AI to help their artists transform the art into that style.

 

 

I think the people commissioning specific NSFW drawings is very small in comparison to these 4 categories.

 

 

 

 

 

37 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Btw there are of course stores that sell "digital art" amongst more traditional art usually, printed on canvas etc, while it doesn't really matter if it's originally by a human or AI, i kinda feel AI art is somewhat "soulless" and probably wouldn't sell well .

You can always add the keyword "soul" to the prompt if you want it to have more soul.  

But to be serious, I feel like 99% of the art I see in subreddits like DNDArt is completely "soulless" too. I mean, look at these people for example:

https://www.reddit.com/user/geraldopradoart/

https://www.reddit.com/user/anthonyMartins20_art/

https://www.reddit.com/user/pietropedriniart/

 

They spam the same images in like 20 different subreddits asking for people to hire them, and they are mostly looking for others to tell them what to draw.

But I find that the people who are the loudest about AI art are those who mostly care about money or some badge to wear. They don't to carry the badge of being "an artist" proudly an are now mad about that badge being tainted by people they see as less worthy. They don't give two shits about actually creating art, because if they did they wouldn't care about what other people make. If they truly cared about the soul and artform they would just keep doing their own thing. It's those that seek validation or monetary gains that seem to be the ones that are the most mad about AI art.

 

 

43 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Who said that?  Copying, stealing,  imitating has always been a big part of art, the thing is though typically those copycats usually would add "something" thats different,  maybe even better,  just a slightly different interpretation,  in a way this is how art evolves since forever (romans copying greeks etc)

A lot of people are saying AI art is bad because it learns from other peoples' art... and then they aren't understanding that humans do the exact same thing.

Just look around in this thread and you will find a bunch of people who say AI art is "stealing" the style of others and learning by looking at other's images and therefore it's bad.

But yeah, I agree with you that basically any art we see today was based upon the art that came before it, and that all artists are copying others.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I see. Personally, when I hear about Ai art I think of scenarios like the ones I described, not someone buying a painting to hang in their home. I think most images we consume these days are not created for the purpose of hanging on a wall. I think people will use AI art for a few things:

1) Fast prototyping. Just to get a concept out and play around with. This is what for example MKBHD says they have, and might continue to use AIs for. 

 

2) Creating something that will be used and then discarded (like showing someone a concept, or creating a throw-away NPC for a D&D session). This is what I mentioned earlier with my D&D campaign for example.

 

3) Just for fun, like how some people draw for fun. This is what I have done so far. It's really fun to just play around with. Like how a bunch of people are now playing around with the ChatGPT program.

 

4) Automating certain aspects. For example GearBox have said that they use AI to automate the stylization of some concept arts their artists makes. Games like the Borderlands series have a very specific art style, and they are currently using AI to help their artists transform the art into that style.

 

 

I think the people commissioning specific NSFW drawings is very small in comparison to these 4 categories.

 

Yeah as i said such applications AI makes sense and is suited in its current form.

And its weird how people see things different,  probably based on interests, profession, etc... i mean to me AI art isn't particularly interesting outside of the novelty aspect,  but i keep getting confronted with it mostly because of modding my games, there's a huge overlap in people who draw, create (err, typically steal lol) 3D character models, make digital art of all kinds and people who mod games... and there i notice a huge increase of "weird 3d/ai art" recently, also just a lot of regular stuff on patreon,  devart, etc , i wouldn't say its small, im always surprised how big of a following certain artists have (their art is often good usually, but again, what do the people who buy these jpgs do with it... its curious) and of course discussions like this one keep coming up... just saying because thats the angle I see this, it often feels weird when people sell their "art" thats basically based on other people's art too... i don't think one could really claim "fair use" in most of these cases either. 

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

lot of people are saying AI art is bad because it learns from other peoples' art... and then they aren't understanding that humans do the exact same thing.

Just look around in this thread and you will find a bunch of people who say AI art is "stealing" the style of others and learning by looking at other's images and therefore it's bad.

But yeah, I agree with you that basically any art we see today was based upon the art that came before it, and that all artists are copying others.

oh yeah, of course, but i think the main criticism should really be how generic these "art" pieces often are (sure depends on use case too though as you've mentioned) 

 

I think for me its like this:

 

I don't inherently care *how* art is created in most cases, i care about the quality,  and i obviously think AI art just isnt there yet, and it will take a long time (decades) for it to be... this is just the beginnings, and its frankly awful if you see those almost literal copies of already existing art.

 

Like i don't buy into the hype at all how far its all advanced,  in a way it reminds me a lot of NFTs, although AI art is certainly more substantial,  so probably wont go away anytime soon or ever - and thats not a bad thing i just think it needs to improve and evolve a lot.

 

Thats my point, if i have one, i don't think its such a big deal like many people seem to think it is.

 

this is only the beginnings...

 

ps: uh, idk his name (Japanese artist) but some of my favorite music is almost 100% computer generated as in not just the sounds but also the compositions... the guy basically just gave the computer a baseline of sounds and patterns... yet he is the artist,  not the computer... and you could probably call the music generic, even though it really isn't,  its also been highly influential despite maybe sounding generic on first glance... the difference to current AI art is it all made more sense imo, it had "soul" 

 

i guess it could be similar for AI art... but then it still somewhat depends on human input I'm guessing. 

 

Sorry, just something that came to mind (btw that composer made a lot of stuff for games like Dance Dance Revolution etc, so its kinda really popular music too, and weirdly timeless )

 

Think this could be a song, but not entirely sure... there so many in this style and since i don't remember the name...  (it "could" be "TaQ", i suppose) 

 

 

 

 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

They are mad because they fear they will have a harder time making money.

 

IMHO this is reasonable behavior. I do not believe anyone in any other industry will react differently. 

 

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I find it hard to side with the people who "care for the craft and arts" when the overwhelming majority of artists I see are begging for work and advertise them being okay with drawing dragons having sex with cars.

 

I really am not sure why artists trying their hardest to advertise their gig is an issue as long as they follow the rules of the subreddit. Where their boundaries lies is also up to each and every artist. If you take issue that some artist are willing to draw fetish art at the current scale then you will find AI even more of an issue. NSFW and frankly even some really heinous materials were generated en masse after AI art generators were made available to the public. 

 

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

id buy a Max Headroom painting,  i mean made by Max Headroom,  not of Max Headroom... well, although maybe...?  

 

If i could have a max headroom TV in the corner of my workshop connected to a siri or alexa or something like it, I would be the happiest man on the planet,  image asking max to do a google search or find the answer to a question?  I think I just cumed from the thought.

 

 

[Arika]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

If i could have a max headroom TV in the corner of my workshop connected to a siri or alexa or something like it, I would be the happiest man on the planet,  image asking max to do a google search or find the answer to a question?

"hey Max, what's the time?"

 

"I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-t-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-its fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-iiiiii-five thir-th-thi-thi-th-rrrrrrrrrrrrrt-irt-rt-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t--t-t-t-t-yyyy-irty-irty-irty-irty t-t-t-t-t-t--t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-w--w-w-w-t--t-t-tw--t-tw-tw---tw--w-t-t---o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-"

[NumLock21]

On 12/31/2022 at 12:53 PM, LAwLz said:

Anyway, if you're not going to answer my questions, which you are avoiding, then I don't think this conversation will go anywhere.

Not answering to your nonsense. I've already stated where I stand with AI art. As for photography, with your overthinking, looks like everyone isn't a true photographer, since no one here that ever used a camera, have invented the camera and film themselves.

 

21 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

honestly,  while I know its a thing,  selling digital art is just weird, in most cases you probably could just download the thing from anywhere else... just saying it simply doesn't have great value, id rather buy an actual oil painting to hang on my wall tbh, doesn't have to be expensive either...

 

With this "AI art", digital art will be devalued even more... and again I know its a business for people but that doesn't mean it makes a lot of sense, you cant even tell if the person selling is the actual artist and didn't just steal it somewhere in many cases.

 

"Support the artist" yeah, sure, but why in such weird ways, why not just get an actual painting or print,  much more valuable and actually feels better to me too just as a concept. 

Same, rather buy an actual oil painting, a charcoal sketch, etc  than some digital art.

 

21 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

To me it would be acceptable if its clearly labeled as AI,i still don't know why i would pay money for a jpg, in most cases that just makes no sense, what do you do with them?

They will have to disclosed their work when it's done by an AI or helped by an AI. Why people buy them, don't know, they have way too much $ in the pockets.

[LAwLz]

On 1/1/2023 at 4:32 AM, Kinda Bottlenecked said:

IMHO this is reasonable behavior. I do not believe anyone in any other industry will react differently. 

I think it undermines peoples' arguments that this is about "fair use", "the craft of painting" or any other such similar arguments.

To me, it's like McDonald's trying to champion a campaign against home cooking claiming that it's unethical to cook at home, that it might be dangerous, and pretending like they only have altruistic reasons. It becomes disingenuous.

 

I also think the monetary incentive makes the artists act less reasonable and more biased, because they are financially motivated rather than motivated for reasons such as evolving the craft, making it more accessible, giving more people the opportunity to create, increasing the amount of art in the world, and so on.

 

I understand why they act they way they do, but I feel like a lot of people aren't actually being honest about why they act the way they do. 

"I want to gatekeep so I can make more money!" is less persuasive of an argument than "I deeply care about the craft", so they go with the latter rather than the former even though they don't actually believe in it.

 

 

On 1/1/2023 at 4:32 AM, Kinda Bottlenecked said:

I really am not sure why artists trying their hardest to advertise their gig is an issue as long as they follow the rules of the subreddit. Where their boundaries lies is also up to each and every artist. If you take issue that some artist are willing to draw fetish art at the current scale then you will find AI even more of an issue. NSFW and frankly even some really heinous materials were generated en masse after AI art generators were made available to the public. 

Because a lot of arguments have been made regarding what "art is", about how much "soul" a piece contains, about the mentality of a human artist using pen and paper to create something. I find the logic and arguments from the anti-AI crowd to be very inconsistent when they pet human painters on a pedestal and describe them as altruistic creative geniuses that just want to create truly beautiful art and how AI programs are soulless shortcuts for lazy thieves. Then don't bat an eye when thousands upon thousands of human artists blatantly advertises their art as copying Disney and that they will draw anything you ask them to.

 

If the argument is that AI art is soulless, mass produced garbage that just copies other artists, then I think the same argument applies to the thousands of artists I mentioned earlier. The ones who doesn't think of what to draw themselves, the ones who do copy others and uses the fact that they copy others' styles as a selling point. And yet, I don't think the anti-AI crowd would try and claim that they aren't artists.

 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Not answering to your nonsense. I've already stated where I stand with AI art. As for photography, with your overthinking, looks like everyone isn't a true photographer, since no one here that ever used a camera, have invented the camera and film themselves.

First you claim that you did answer my question, and now you are saying you didn't answer it because it's nonsense. You sure like to flip flop don't you?

But how is my question nonsense? 

 

 

By your logic, the one you have extensively argued for in this thread, then yes, nobody is a true photographer anymore since they so heavily rely on automatic computation to create anything. I know you are being sarcastic when you write this, but that is what you would truly believe if you were consistent in your reasoning. The problem is that you aren't being consistent. You make special rules as soon as the subject of a particular style of program comes up. A camera doing 99,9% of the work of a photographer? Totally fine because it is seen as a traditional medium, even though it heavily uses AI these days to do things like repaint areas of a photo where the lighting might not be good.

A program doing 99,9% of the work of a painter? Total disgrace! What a bunch of lazy hack frauds those people are!

 

 

13 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

They will have to disclosed their work when it's done by an AI or helped by an AI. Why people buy them, don't know, they have way too much $ in the pockets.

What would you define as "helped by an AI"? Would you like the same rules applied to photographs for example? How many if a picture has been edited in Photoshop?

I think if those rules applies to all the times AI has been involved in the creation of a piece then the tag will soon be fairly useless since it's applied everywhere.

[Mark Kaine]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

A camera doing 99,9% of the work of a photographer? Totally fine because it is seen as a traditional medium, even though it heavily uses AI these days to do things like repaint areas of a photo where the lighting might not be good.

A program doing 99,9% of the work of a painter? Total disgrace!

i mean i guess you're exaggerating with "99%" and thats fine, but i feel most photographers that rely too much on tech are shit, and their photos are shit... i get some touching up after the fact, but i think a photo camera really shouldn't do too much to interfere with a picture,  plus all that tech doesn't even matter when the photographer doesn't know how to point a camera properly,  picture will still be bad and boring... also feels like the importance of high quality pictures came down quite a bit since most will be viewed on shitty services in tiny thumbnails with high levels of poor compression added as a bonus.

 

Program doing "99%"? well for 'drawings' thats just cheating - if not disclosed.

 

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If the argument is that AI art is soulless, mass produced garbage that just copies other artists

i mean didn't we already establish that a human copying something will usually add their own twist / interpretation?  the problem with "AI" is that it currently doesn't seem to be able to do that, or maybe its how it's used, the end result in the majority of cases is the same regardless. 

 

I also think calling it "intelligence" is actually misleading btw, its not intelligent,  at all, besides apparent lack of creativity. 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

i mean i guess you're exaggerating with "99%" and thats fine

I wasn't exaggerating. It depends on how we measure things.

If we take the final JPEG image and traces back the decisions that resulted in each individual pixel being colored a specific color, then I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that a computer did 99,9% of the work.

The only input a human had was pressing the button that sets off a massive chain of computation being done in the background for them.

 

 

When a picture is taken using a camera, the human gives some inputs to a computer. The inputs can be in the form of pointing the camera in a certain direction, or changing some settings, or pressing a button. These are all "inputs" that we give the camera (which is a computer).

 

After all the inputs are given, the actual process of creating an image begins. This stage is completely automatic both in the case of AI art generation, as well as photography.

In the case of photography, hundreds if not thousands of different functions will be executed in a Rube Goldberg machine fashion. A signal gets sent to the ISP, which tweaks the settings for the sensor, the shutter gets controlled, there might be some of the 3A (autofocus, autoexposure, autowhitebalance) going on, the ISP will run the demosaicing algorithm to actually gets some pleasant looking information out of the bayer color filter. The ISP will probably also correct for lens imperfections such a distortion, vignetting, lens shading and so on. Then it might apply some noise reduction and filtering. In the case of some cameras it might also merge several exposures to create wider HDR. The list of fucntions goes on and on. And when all that information is collected, the computer automatically formats the data into a format such as JPEG. Even when shooting in RAW a lot of these processes are still done in the background because we humans have no actual way of understanding the raw data a camera captures.

 

Then the output is created and displayed.

 

 

It is the same as with AI generated art. Us humans only give an input, we are not involved in the actual processes that creates the image.

When I take a picture with a camera I give the input in the form of holding the camera in a certain direction, tweaking some settings, and pressing a button.

When someone creates a picture with an AI, they give the input in the form of text, tweaking some settings, and pressing a button.

 

In both cases, turning the input the human gives into the output (the image) is completely automated and done by a computer, because we humans are not capable of doing it ourselves. Or well, we probably could (in both cases), but there is so much math that it would be extremely slow and painful. So we have computers do it for us.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

i mean didn't we already establish that a human copying something will usually add their own twist / interpretation?

No we didn't. Especially not when talking about the thousands of artists who explicitly say they will copy a certain style in their marketing material. Their entire business model is based on them not adding their own twist. They might inadvertently do so, but so will an AI because it uses data from multiple sources. Just like a human.

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

the problem with "AI" is that it currently doesn't seem to be able to do that, or maybe its how it's used, the end result in the majority of cases is the same regardless. 

 

I also think calling it "intelligence" is actually misleading btw, its not intelligent,  at all, besides apparent lack of creativity. 

I think this line of reasoning stems from a misunderstanding of how these programs work. They are not single-button programs that you just click and get a fantastic picture out of.

The AI program is just a tool for creating a representation of an idea. A camera has no inherent creativity either. It is also a tool used by a photographer to express their creativity through. The same applies to AI generated art. The ideas comes from a human in both cases. A human needs to feed the computer (both camera and AI art program) with their creativity and ideas in order to get something out of the machine.

 

I think the issue is that people seem to judge the AI program as the creator for some reason and completely dismisses all the input the human controlling the program puts in. People act like it's just the AI doing everything by itself and the human has no control at all. People don't see the AI art programs as a tool even though it is.

 

Yet as soon as photograph gets brought up then everyone completely dismisses all the work done by the camera and puts all the focus on the input the human gave it. People see the camera as a tool, not the creator, even though the camera does every single step in the process of creating the image by itself, without any help from a human.

 

A human spent an hour tweaking settings in a program to get a picture that matches their creative vision? Not an artist because I don't like the particular program they use and the way that program works. The human is just lazy and can't be bothered to learn "real" art. Doesn't matter what the picture looks like either, because we will dismiss it without even looking at it, because we "care" about "art" so much.

 

A human spent 2 seconds pressing a button on a camera that automatically tweaked the photo in thousands of different ways without the person even knowing? Totally art. It's so beautiful. I am glad a human can be so creative and in control of their tools to such an extent that we can appreciate such magnificent photograph.

 

 

 

Using an AI program to create an image, and using a camera to create an image is 99% the same thing.

Humans feed a machine some inputs, and the machine responds with an image. The way the programs arrive at the final image are different, but humans have no control over that part of the creation anyway. The same applies to all digital art works including things like music, but I think photography is the better comparison because it heavily relies on AI processes these days, yet people seem fine with it. 

 

[Moonzy]

On 12/24/2022 at 4:57 PM, jagdtigger said:

But those are a pretty far cry from real art since there is nothing creative or unique about them,  just a mish-mash of ideas from pre-existing work.

Reminded me of this

 

Which is BS lol

[jagdtigger]

37 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Which is BS lol

The only BS here is your post. Comparing books written by actual writers to what an AI is doing just because there is a book called "dictionary" that is a collection of words and their definitions intended to be used as a reference..... Even i could write a program that can string together words, but no-one would consider that art (password crackers actually doing this for example). An AI is essentially the same thing with a bunch of look-up tables derived from actual art fed to it.

[NumLock21]

11 hours ago, LAwLz said:

First you claim that you did answer my question, and now you are saying you didn't answer it because it's nonsense. You sure like to flip flop don't you?

But how is my question nonsense? 

 

 

By your logic, the one you have extensively argued for in this thread, then yes, nobody is a true photographer anymore since they so heavily rely on automatic computation to create anything. I know you are being sarcastic when you write this, but that is what you would truly believe if you were consistent in your reasoning. The problem is that you aren't being consistent. You make special rules as soon as the subject of a particular style of program comes up. A camera doing 99,9% of the work of a photographer? Totally fine because it is seen as a traditional medium, even though it heavily uses AI these days to do things like repaint areas of a photo where the lighting might not be good.

A program doing 99,9% of the work of a painter? Total disgrace! What a bunch of lazy hack frauds those people are!

 

You're way too focus on the technology side of things, have also focus on the human side. The reason why taking a photograph with a camera is acceptable, even though the camera does the work is because, the human itself has to physically go to the location in order for the camera to take that picture. If the human just stays home and never steps outside, then no matter how powerful the AI is inside that camera, it's still being wasted. The camera can't go out by itself to take pictures, it doesn't have arms and legs.

 

The reason why AI art is not acceptable, even when the machine does the work is because, the human did not physically create that drawing themselves. All they did was type in some commands on how they want a picture to look like, while the AI does the entire work for them. It's like a person ordering a dish as a restaurant and a chef (the AI) cooks the dish they ordered. Can the customer say I made this dish, no they can't because they never made it, all they did was order it, the chef made it. If the customer where to go in the kitchen and start taking the ingredients and start cooking on their own while the chef just stands and watch or offers a bit of help when the customer request, then the dish is done by the customer themselves. The same is apply to AI art, the AI can help a bit with the art work, but the human themselves have to do the majority of the art work on their own, in order to be acceptable, where they did do the work themselves, but they'll have to disclosed they used some help with an AI.

e.g. I drew a picture, with pen and paper, or in Photoshop using a stylus and a Wacom tablet. and colored it, it's about finished. I wanted add a lens flare into the drawing, but I do no know how to draw or color it so it looks actually look like one, so I ask AI for help to draw a lens flare for me. When the image is done, I can say I drew this, but with some help from an AI.

 

[SolarNova]

On 12/23/2022 at 4:32 PM, grg994 said:

#snip#

 

 

My thoughts

I believe in freedom of software, including AI technologies. To be clear this project did NOT wanted to sell AI art / AI NSFW art, only wanted to provide a software model and hardware resources to people - that they can use to make AI art / AI NSFW art / whatever. Community-driven tech project as such should not suffer from discrimination by "payment providers" and similar private companies.

#snip#

 

Kickstarter is currently 'run' by activists so its not surprising.

 

Unstable/Stable Diffusion is a software tool just like Photoshop, the only difference is that it makes things easier for the 'average joe' to create artworks, much like how digital tools created a new scene vs traditional painters. The fact that it can be used, like any other medium, to create NSFW works is irrelevant ...unless your the type of person who just has to get your way and wants to force other people to also think that way ..in which case you get the kind of people running kickstarter.

 

i highly doubt if a group kickstarted a traditional 'paint' program ..like photoshop ..it would be treated the same way , despite its possible uses. This is all down to how 'easy' it is to use and how much media coverage it (and its, loosely connected, topic of AI) is getting.

 

The program itself requires alot more input than people realize to get good output images, and even then those images usually require some manual work.  An artistic touch is required by the person behind the screen.

[tikker]

Just hooking in on the last few replies, but I have been lurking.

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

i mean didn't we already establish that a human copying something will usually add their own twist / interpretation?  the problem with "AI" is that it currently doesn't seem to be able to do that, or maybe its how it's used, the end result in the majority of cases is the same regardless. 

You can narrow down the comparison though. Compare asking a human "draw me X in the style of person Y" (explicitely adding not to put on their own twist if you will) with asking an AI "draw me X in the style of person Y".

56 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

The reason why AI art is not acceptable, even when the machine does the work is because, the human did not physically create that drawing themselves.

Not acceptable is a rather strong statement I'd say. That highlights to me where value often comes from: time spent on it.

56 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

e.g. I drew a picture, with pen and paper, or in Photoshop using a stylus and a Wacom tablet. and colored it, it's about finished. I wanted add a lens flare into the drawing, but I do no know how to draw or color it so it looks actually look like one, so I ask AI for help to draw a lens flare for me. When the image is done, I can say I drew this, but with some help from an AI.

But one could then argue that you can only claim you drew most of it and that you should've put in more effort to actually study up on and learn how to draw lens flares instead of "cheating" with an AI for it to be a proper drawing.

 

 

What I gather from this thread is that it is a value problem more than anything else. The fact that people find it important that the use of AI needs disclosing I interpret as a sign that at least some of the works that (can) come out of it are in fact beautiful, creative, artistic pieces and that the differentiating factor is human time spent on its creation. AI pieces have little or no value to some, because a human had less of a physical hand in the creation of said artwork. To not call those AI pieces art is too far I think, but I totally understand that it can be seen as low value due to the ease in certain apsects by which it can be created.

 

As an extreme thought I considered animation. You can see that same value bias there in the hand-drawn vs CG debate. How many frames are you allowed to interpolate from key frames, for example, before you are no longer considered to have created it? How much CG vs physically drawn is "acceptable"? What if the giants like MAPPA or Ufotable, highly praised for their impressive animations, came out and said most of the "work" was actually done by simply feeding some highly advanced animation AI the script with input about style, and only polishing the final result after iterating on it. Would all those shows' animation suddenly not be a work of art anymore? Their (monetary) value would probably drop indeed, since production becomes much easier and cheaper, but they would remain the cream of the animation crop until every studio starts using it and it becomes the norm. I noticed this myself the past months where so many shows started standing out to me in terms production quality that the biggest differentiator has become visual style instead of overall quality.

 

If we put aside the current flaws in the AIs regarding creativity and not being able to properly make dogs or whatever for a moment, the problem that their existence creates is, in my opinion, simply that both the bar for quality gets raised and that time as the value factor starts to be removed. Moving photography from film to digital took down a huge barrier. Making a photo in and of itself is no longer a feat, so you'll have to focus more on what it depicts, the composition etc. With the advent of typewriters and computers writing a long text is no longer impressive. The contents of what you write matter more. Now with AIs, certain types of art probably lose value simply because suddenly it needs more than your time spent on it to justify a high value.

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

If the human just stays home and never steps outside, 

…

Just so you know, not every photo is of landscapes or people or outdoors.

Most of my mine, have been indoors and macros at that. 

eg. 

Spoiler

These two (which I've only selected because I had already uploaded them to the forum in the past) have been taken indoors during the deep end of the Great Year, which again is the year that everyone just stayed at home and didn't step outside for the most part.

 

Note: This is only intended as a rebuttal of the quoted portion and not for the post nor the continued argument.

[Moonzy]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

That highlights to me where value often comes from: time spent on it.

I don't think this is a good metric to differentiate between AI and artist

 

For example, mass manufacturing vs handcrafted.

Mass manufactured goods often have more quality control than handcrafted, and sometimes they're better than handcrafted due to the consistency and research behind it

 

As an end consumer of goods (or art), as long as I enjoy the work, I don't really care where is coming from

In fact, I prefer art from AI because there are annoying people who hounds on others that don't credit the artist. You don't have to credit AI art that you made.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

You're way too focus on the technology side of things, have also focus on the human side. The reason why taking a photograph with a camera is acceptable, even though the camera does the work is because, the human itself has to physically go to the location in order for the camera to take that picture. If the human just stays home and never steps outside, then no matter how powerful the AI is inside that camera, it's still being wasted. The camera can't go out by itself to take pictures, it doesn't have arms and legs.

I am focusing on the technical side of things because you brought it up.

You tried to argue that what defines art is how much of the work is being done by a human. Then when I started trying to quantify that in an objective way you told me to shut my brain off and don't think about it. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? When your argument is "stop thinking" then maybe, just maybe, your argument is based on subjective feelings and isn't as logical as you might want it to be?

 

But let's keep thinking about this, because I refuse to plan dumb and not think about things.

Can pictures taken at home not be art? Is it art solely because a human went somewhere to take the picture? In other words, the actual motif in the picture doesn't matter, just the fact that a human had to go somewhere?

What about art created on a computer by someone sitting in a chair? Is an art piece entirely created in Photoshop not art because a human didn't leave their home?

 

 

 

 

Do you not see that you are changing the criteria to always fit exactly what you define as art, but changes the criteria as soon as it's something you don't think is art? Can you come up with a list of criteria for what "art" is, that includes all the various art forms you do think are legitimate, but excludes for example AI art? And please note that a definition should hold up even if someone thinks about it.

I don't think this is a ridiculous question so please don't dismiss it.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

The reason why AI art is not acceptable, even when the machine does the work is because, the human did not physically create that drawing themselves. All they did was type in some commands on how they want a picture to look like, while the AI does the entire work for them.

So why is a photograph considered art then? A machine does the work in that case as well. All the photographer did was tell the camera what they want the picture to look like, and then the machine does the entire work for them.

Isn't photographers just "cheating" and being "lazy" because they don't hand paint the picture they want? It's hell of a lot easier to just take a picture than to paint the same scene.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

It's like a person ordering a dish as a restaurant and a chef (the AI) cooks the dish they ordered. Can the customer say I made this dish, no they can't because they never made it, all they did was order it, the chef made it.

Can a photographer say they made the picture? All they did was order it through the camera. The camera made it.

 

 

 

I think we are once again hitting on this issue:

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think the issue is that people seem to judge the AI program as the creator for some reason and completely dismisses all the input the human controlling the program puts in. People act like it's just the AI doing everything by itself and the human has no control at all. People don't see the AI art programs as a tool even though it is.

 

Yet as soon as photograph gets brought up then everyone completely dismisses all the work done by the camera and puts all the focus on the input the human gave it. People see the camera as a tool, not the creator, even though the camera does every single step in the process of creating the image by itself, without any help from a human.

 

You judge AI programs as the "creator" of an image rather than a tool controlled by a human to create an image.

But once photography gets brought up you think of the human as the creator and the camera as a tool.

You have no logical explanation for why you judge these two differently, which is why you keep changing the argument and redefining things once you are faced with inconsistencies in your reasoning.

 

Is an AI the creator or a tool?

If it's the creator, why isn't the camera a creator? If it's a tool, then why isn't the human operating the program the creator?

 

 

 

1 hour ago, tikker said:

That highlights to me where value often comes from: time spent on it.

I just want to say that I agree with most of your post, although to varying degree. But we have been through this particular line of reasoning earlier in the thread and people like NumLock21 does not agree. The time spent on something is not a factor whether or not something is art or not in their eyes. A stick figure drawn by a child in less than a minute would be art, but someone spending several hours tweaking their AI program to make it generate the image someone envision would not be art.

See this comment:  

On 12/26/2022 at 4:13 PM, NumLock21 said:

On 12/26/2022 at 3:40 PM, LAwLz said:

Do I understand you both correctly that you make the distinction because of the amount of work required to create said piece?

In other words, you value an image more if someone had to practice their craft for 10 years before they could achieve something compared to if they didn't need to practice more than 1 hour. Correct? 

It seems you’re not getting the point of what it means to be an artist. It doesn’t matter how long that artist took to draw that artwork or how many years of art experience they have under their belt, it’s about actually picking up a tool and to start drawing with your own hands on a blank canvas, not to type a few keywords and have “someone or something else” do it for you.

 

To make it easier for you to comprehend, I value an artwork of stick figures that took a minute, drew by a kid with their own hands on a piece of paper, be it a physical or digital drawing, then some person who just type in some keyword and have an AI draw for them. If you drew a squiggly line on your own then I’ll say you are an artist, compared to someone who didn’t and uses AI to do it for them.

 

In their eyes, a stick figure drawn by a child would be