(if you want to see the tip of the iceberg, you can see a few of the less awful messages in the shouts on my FA page, but the worst have come from Twitter)

None of the attacks you've had to endure were justifiable, those people weren't fighting for artists or justice or integrity -- they were out for the thrill of self-righteous bashing on someone who'd been gotcha'ed stepping outside the performative bounds of the currently widespread anti-AI sentiment.

I'm saying this as someone who is sick and tired of people lumping every instance of public activism, awareness campaign or understandable outcry into the category of "Woke Cancel Culture", and also as someone who is creeped the heck out by some of the marketing, legal and philosophical implications of the neural network technology when it is applied to art.

It is heartbreaking to know the scope and severity of the abuse you've been subjected to, when you have so many other difficult issues to engage with. And despite the overwhelming harshness of it all, you have managed to stand your ground, coolly manage the inflow of outrage, establish communication with the more reasonable of your critics, and here -- transform the momentum of this attack into something that may change this community for the better.

I don't know if I could be of any help in the creation or contributing to this harassment prevention and victim support group, but I wholeheartedly approve of your initiative and its goals! Wishing all the luck to you and those who will be working on it together with you!

Hey,

Thank you for your kind comment. It's been difficult to deal with and I'm still taking a break from social media. There is only so much I can deal with, mentally, before I become exhausted, and I've exceeded my limit.

I agree, people yelling that this and other instances of activism are 'woke cancel culture' makes me cringe. Usually, when people are 'cancelled', they actually increase the reach of their brand or opinion, and in this case, I have doubled my number of Twitter followers... So, yeah, it's a useless phrase. The issue I have was the persistent bullying, including people I blocked coming back with second accounts to send more abuse. Typically, I find that 'woke' people do not do this level of harassment.

Have a good soothing time away from it all! Sometimes an Internet connection outage forces me to rummage around my hard drive, and just read something, or watch something I'd downloaded ages ago, and I end up grateful for that opportunity more than I'm annoyed at getting severed from the world.

* * *

There have been a few high profile instances of hounding done by predominantly left-leaning groups, and while the purpose and the overall style of those vigilante mobs is much less violent and sadistic, some death threats definitely have been flung around at that time.

When a large group bound by shared interests and ideals perceives a certain action or choice by an individual to be harmful, there would be people who would be trying to explain to the offending party the harm in their actions, there will be those who will come to politely register their disappointment, and sadly there will be a fraction who'd jump on the chance to enjoy a good righteous trashing, with no regard for end goals, the reputation of the group they claim to belong to, or any considerations for the mental health of their victim of convenience.

If you had been targeted for embracing something far more insidious than AI art, that kind of vile harassment still wouldn't have been acceptable. Today it's the AI art, yesterday it was the NFT's, and before then it was the cryptocurrency, and drawing heroic cop characters, or characters whose designs were inspired by the culture of Native American peoples, and having an FA account at all because the site's not managed right and has harmful content. And I may have issues with all of the above, but it is inconceivable to me how much misplaced rage can people generate over those topics.

On the one hand, this is our clumsy human way of figuring out and establishing ethical norms, on the other -- it is very difficult to take those accusations seriously, having seen some of the previous crusades.

I actually think all the death threats were from a single person with multiple accounts. The language was similar (poor grammar) in all of them.

An artist I talk to with a large following was harassed after supporting another artist who drew native American-inspired art a decade ago, actually. I actually think that native Americans should have more of a voice in what (predominantly) white people do with their culture, but the way that groups of people go after others with a different opinion on Twitter is just... Disgusting.

True, true.

Holy f***, death threats?! However much you might dislike someone, such ill-treatment is NEVER an acceptable response. Sorry you had to go through this.

Death threats is a tall claim. guy was asked to show proof of said death threats and did not provide. guy is well known for blowing things way out of proportion and playing the victim card.

You realise that you're saying this to people have have known me for more than a decade right? Coming from a guy who who has known me for 30 seconds. You guys need to get a life.

Also, look at how long I've been here Vs how many times I've done this. Oh yeah, 16 years and... Oh yeah, once. But sure, I must be well-known for this.

Yeaaah, so I'm taking some time off of social media, Matt. I've been in the fandom for 16 years and this is the first time I've received death threats. I'm starting to question whether I want to be here anymore.

Modern culture has become so disgusting and unaccepting despite claims that they champion fairness, tolerance, and equity.

I am sorry you had to deal with that. Don't let it get to you. You are not in a minority of people who think this behavior is inhumane.

It was a bit crazy and I'm still avoiding social media. It seems to be a very recent thing, especially since Muskrat took over Twitter. Firing most of their moderators does not seem like a smart move...

*Hugs*

*hug*

I read some of your tweet comments mainly one from an artist who i regularly watch who worked hard to improve. just looking comments while harsh did not see any threats wishing you death but from your responses from those tweets and some concerning one from artists come off very poorly.

I received about a dozen death threats through DMs and responded to comments as they arrived, including ones claiming that I had 'stolen' art, without saying whom from. I did not make the algorithm or the data it trained on. Sharing three outputs from the algorithm should not lead to a harassment and bullying campaign...

You do realize there's a reason that AI is banned here as well as on other sites like newgrounds (Which has several artists that came from there with their own unique art styles.) for a reason.

I've saw the retweets of your comments and to be honest i don't think you understand that art related things are a skill that takes years to practice and have to have patience for it. Considering i've been drawing for years traditionally even before doing digital art and i still do both to this day.

To me it seems like you want instant gratification for art which is really a dangerous thing to have Zigzak.

What a patronising thing to say. I understand it just fine.

If you don't like it, send an email to the owners of Stable Diffusion. What do you think talking to me is going to achieve?

I hope you don't have to deal with any death threats any more (if there were any), those are never okay. I am gonna say though that I understand artists in this community getting upset because you were actively pushing for something that eliminates the need for artists.
I don't think the situation would've gotten that out of hand either if you handled the responses a bit better, it was weird that you tried to turn it into a right-vs-left political issue when the upset artists who were quote-retweeting you were overwhelmingly leftist/progressive.

Whether or not a person has leftist views says nothing about whether a specific view that they hold is conservative in nature. By the definition of the word, I was receiving responses that were conservative in nature.

Disagreeing with a person about a single position does not entitle you to then harass, bully, and threaten that person.

Just another note, leftists do not typically attack individuals, that is the realm of right-wingers, who as an ideology value personal responsibility above collective responsibility, which is why right-wingers often go after people whilst leftists attack organisations and ideas.

If you're an alleged leftist and you're going after an individual using a tool and not the owners of the means of production of that tool, you're not exactly living up to your ideals. But then again, a lot of Americans don't know to seem to know what leftism is.

I still agree that no one was entitled to bully or threaten you, that's unfair and it's not conductive to anyone.
I still don't think the root of the conflict is a left vs right issue however. I'll say for the record that many leftists still love to attack people they perceive as being a part of a problematic organization, either with harassment or with doxxing or with bike locks. You can argue for hours and hours about how justified these attacks are, but they still happen. But regardless, I don't think anyone on either side of the political spectrum enjoys having their means of income replaced with by a machine, especially when the machine is using their preexisting work to replace them.

Oh no, I don't think that it's a left vs right issue at its core, I was just venting my frustration.

Has anyone actually lost work to these things, though? I've been in computing for over a decade and it's something that I hear all the time, but it doesn't seem as though any jobs are lost to this overall. My posts got a lot of reach and nobody came to me to say, 'Actually, I've lost work to this.' :/

Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever have some solid numbers to look at unless there's any statisticians doing studies on the fatfur community, but I think it can be reasonably inferred that some people see AI-generated art as a substitute to human-made art and see no reason to choose the more expensive option. This interest would only grow if the software improved, which is kind of a worrying thought for the future. Some elite few popular artists with unique styles are likely always going to find some business, but smaller artists would be shit out of luck in this scenario. Understandably, artists and people who like artists don't want this to happen.

I actually can't see that happening.

Why not? Automation happens to industries all the time. You don't think it's likely that even a small amount of people see AI-generated art as a substitute good?

Not with the models that currently exist. I don't know if you've tried them, but they're extremely limited and the stuff that exists in the 'lab', so to speak, is just more of the same.

It reminds me of the mid-2000s when artists were scared that digital art would make them obsolete (because it would be so easy for anyone to do art, they would not be needed). Obviously, that did not happen. In fact, it seems like the 'furry art' economy has grown massively since then.

Either way, I don't like to base my opinion on an unknown.

You think the example pictures you posted don't look anything like what someone might commission from a human artist? They've got some colors and shading that most people would pay a generous amount for. I'm not sure which program you used but I've seen a few people use NovelAI which is pretty dang quick to use. Even if you personally still find a reason to pay for a human artist, I think it's kinda silly to imagine there's 0 people on the planet who would've payed a human artist if there wasn't cheap/free software that gave similar or higher quality results.

Also, human competition is different from machine competition. The latter is exclusively harmful towards producers and is easily preventable; just stop supporting the machine.

(Many said that they *could* lose work to this, but is it actually happening? Like, I have access to these tools and I'm spending the same amount of money on commissions that I was last year, for example)

I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Take as much time as you need, and keep a level head.

In ancient times, some people hated the invention of writing / books, since they thought it would ruin a person's memory and threaten oral traditions. Before the age of writing, you had to physically meet and listen to a teacher, commit to memory what they said, or have them show you. All knowledge was passed down this way. However, instead of being damaging to memory, books have done the opposite: enhancing memory as well as the transmission and preservation of knowledge. In schools nowadays, students still have oral lectures, but also textbooks. Books enhance learning, but they don't replace the teacher.

As for art, there are purist traditional artists who scoff at digital art, but computers and tablets have been a great enhancement for artists imo. Instead of having to buy physical paint, carefully planning your piece, painting, and letting it dry, you can use digital paint and even undo your mistakes. Digital art hasn't replaced traditional art. Rather, it has offered a new medium of expression and lowered the barriers to entry for new artists.

I view AI in a similar way. It is new technology and a creative tool with great potential. AI depends on the data we train it with, and the majority of this data is human-made. AI will never replace human artists, but it could lower the barriers to entry for experimentation with art. Many artists take great pride and getting better through hard work. That type of learning won't disappear. Rather, I think AI art could have a place for sketching out ideas. If learning art yourself is the teacher, AI could be the sketchbook. The two can complement each other. AI need not eliminate the artist, but rather serve as a tool to help draft ideas.

There will always be those who fear change and hate new things that seem to threaten what they know. Change, however, is an inevitable property of our universe. With any groundbreaking new technology, there will always be growing pains as society adjusts. Online death threats have no power imo. If people ever acted on those threats, they would go to prison, since murder is a serious criminal offense. I don't see why anyone would serve a life sentence over some cute chubby dragons that happened to be AI-generated. The art brought me happiness to see. That's all that matters to me.

I think some people were upset by the way you phrased it, suggesting that commission prices are too high for lower income people, so maybe AI would be an easier option for them. Perhaps hardworking artists felt insulted by this, thinking you were devaluing their craft and trying to undercut their business, but I'm sure that wasn't your intent. I think the AI art posts would've been fine if you hadn't mentioned the price thing and started some controversy. Intellectual property and AI is another major concern. GitHub Copilot is facing some lawsuits over AI-autocompleted code that sampled from proprietary sources. When generating AI art, it would be ideal to check the data and ensure your AI art isn't copying another artist's style too closely.

I still stand by my comments that AI art is great for people without much money. Unfortunately, it's impossible to have a discussion on Twitter about anything.

I agree with you. AI is great for generating new ideas to a high level of quality, comparable to getting a commission. It makes it easier for people who have limited money to get some art that they enjoy.

However, AI still has limitations and can't yet equal a human. It shouldn't replace real commission artists or the hard work of learning art for yourself. I think that AI is not a threat to human art, but rather an alternative mode of expression, much like traditional vs. digital art. The new did not replace the old, but both can coexist.

I've considered getting into AI as a career direction, and I'm very excited and enthusiastic about its potential. If used responsibly, AI can be a great tool for expanding creativity. I think a little optimism about AI is what people need right now.

I love the artwork on Twitter but I'm not a fan of all the flame wars. People shouldn't try to silence you just because they disagree. Being able to disagree is a sign of healthy free speech. I think people like this are the loud minority. Most of the people in this fandom I've encountered have been very nice and friendly.