Re: the protests against Napster in the 1990s.

And yet no one bats an eye over any of those "80s dark fantasy" pictures created using Midjourney. Then again, I guess that's because that particular AI doesn't steal from artists.

AI building work on existing images isn't theft. It steals nothing, it only builds on it. It's an inevitable result of digital technology. It isn't significantly different from any artist building on existing work or their surrounding culture. There are many types of art such as photography, collage, detournement, sampling, etc. That already do essentially the same thing.

AI art systems are here, they're just another tool, and people need to stop panicking and being apocalyptic about it and instead deal with actual issues it raises sensibly as they come up, because the genie will not be put back into the bottle.

AI art will never be a substitute for hand made human art. And most of it is laughable at this point.

All information must be purchased, or it is theft.

I couldn't disagree more. All information must be free, or it's discriminatory as well as fascistic.

A WEF approved mentality.

The WEF is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. I'm seriously dubious about the sincerity or true interests most of the corporate participants involved, for instance.

I don't think that many of it's participants would agree with all information being free, either.

Forcing people to have to pay for information leads us down a truly dangerous road.

Well, if you don't want people to paid for work then you better be prepared to kick the ass of people who don't work.

Sorry, but resources have limits and people will kill you for power.

See my reply to you below: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal.....6#cid:59685075

I make art as well. Of course artists should be paid for their original work if that's the reason that they do it. But derivative work takes absolutely nothing away from that.

Your last sentence there is hyperbolic at the very least, and really just wrong where it comes to the duplication of things by digital means.

I'm just stating the obvious. Politicians don't bat an eye at murder for power and they will fuck us plebs for a corporation. Maybe even for a bunch of rich hedge funders.

It is ever thus. Fuck capitalism.

yeah, communism never kills.

Communism is hardly the only alternative to capitalism. It's a good idea that seems to usually break down when people try to implement it, especially on a large scale. Greed seems to take over. It's a human problem.

And most of the governments that were labeled as communist never really were. That was at least part of the problem as well.

I am happy you acknowledge greed. That is always the threat.

Without the incentive of rewards, people don't create or labor, and things start to break down when those who DO what other people mooch off, stop producing.

This has been reproduced in the micro (classrooms where the entire class was based off the average of all the students), and has been reproduced in the macro (USSR, for instance). It always fails, eventually, when those who were supporting it get tired of getting the same as those who don't support it.

Incentives and reward systems are more important then most people think :)

Eh, people are always driven to produce art. I don't think that AI technology will ultimately have a significant effect on this, or it's related commerce. It's at least as likely to have positive effects as negative ones.

but can AI fight Goku?

Take heart in not being part of the problem.
I am in favor of this sentiment... and have been wondering whether the lunkheaded increase in "collective guilt"'s popularity has been encouraged / put in place on purpose in order to dishearten, instead of genuine (even ideological) belief.

The AI writing systems are already here. They can write simple stories and are killer at things like making reports and filling in forms. I wonder why I get out of bed in the morning.

This is life under capitalism, P-B.

If things were just, we'd all be working less and making more instead of a handful of people benefiting from the fruits of our labor.

But you want large companies to have free art.....

Art should always be free. And it always will be, no matter what greedy people try to do about it, particularly in the digital age, where forms of reproduction become ever more inexpensive and democratized. And most of the influence and use of art is not by large companies.

Of course artists deserve to make money off of their art, and they always have. derivative work just spreads an artists work farther and makes them more famous, benefiting them in the long run, if not the short run.

Look at sampling in music, for example. It just ends up spreading artist's work further, even reinvigorating people's careers or rescuing people's work from obscurity.

Artists will always use the tools at hand. It just makes whole new things possible. And trying to forbid art or make it illegal never works. Burying your head in the sand is futile. AI art is here. Deal with it.

Send me a hundred bucks...

Heh.

Sure, if you send me a hundred bucks as well. You go first.

How about we just do our work and get paid for it according to our rights?

We already are?

The panic over AI art is overrated, mark my words.

Howzabout you let me know when AI art actually takes something away from you. Maybe then we'll have something to talk about.

Ok, but chill with the comments.

Gotta disagree. AI being trained with images is no more stealing than looking at other people's art for inspiration. If you've ever borrowed a pose, practiced someone else's shading or coloring technique, or done fanart of someone else's character, you're just as guilty of 'theft' as AI.

You cannot change anatomy, unless you know about anatomy. That's why Ai fucks up hands.

Of course, I used to draw using reference anatomy 95% then over time it dropped. The Ai bypasses the learning process because that hurtle was overcome by the artist.

AI is also still learning. The fact that it continues to screw up so really undermines the claims of art theft, as a copy would not have such flaws and errors.

Ironically, if AI were better at creating, it'd be harder to demonstrate that it's not stealing art.

So, they will continue to feed art into the program so it can change bits here and there. Nothing changes the fact that it needs human artists. So did those artists give consent?

Of course not.
They were never even asked.

Consent was implied when art was posted publicly. It is there to be observed. You may as well get angry someone saw your art and was inspired to try your techniques or take their own spin on subject matter.

They would have to learn some anatomy skills wouldn’t they?

Artists who trace have been found and when that happened they lost any support.

Look, just pay for what is fed into the computer.

Copying and imitating things is exactly how most people learn anatomy, and many types of art don't require that because they don't involve any.

But the guys using a program don't have to learn shit.

That completely depends on what they do with the output. There are plenty of applications where it can be fun or useful in creating art. Ultimately it just opens up more possibilities.

For instance, when I've played with it I almost always did extensive edits, often putting more work into it than many people do with original pieces, or I just enjoyed it for it's inherent wonkiness.

If you display said art just be sure to tell people it’s Ai.

Of course. I always do. I even credit the original source.

I strait up hate AI art not -just- because of theft, but because of how strait up toxic people have become towards artists over it. i see the same tired "your overreacting" and "its just a tool" unsympathetically thrown at us a million times and its like trying to punch a brick wall that robs you with every swing.

If you think people are being toxic for pointing out that AI art is just a tool and that people are overreacting to it, you're being too sensitive.

I make art, and I agree with those things, in spite of greatly preferring hand made art. People will always make art, that art will always be in demand, and it will never be replaced by any sort of automation.

AI generated art can be fun, or useful in creating things, but it will never be a real substitute for something hand made.

In the end,it's just another tool. It doesn't replace creativity and imagination. And it doesn't have a wallet to pry money out of. The synthesizer didn't replace real instruments. The factory didn't replace hand made items. And the 3D printer won't replace any number of industries.

This will be no different. It might allow some nerd to do something amazing that they normally wouldn't be able to do,but real artists will always be needed. Just like paint programs didn't stop anyone from drawing with pen and paper. So yeah,I'd stop worrying about it. At least don't let it keep you up at night.

Personally,I don't like things that are "too perfect". They don't seem real. I like a little jank to make it more real. But if it really bothers you,it'll probably be deleted soon for being sexist and racist.

In other news, have you noticed the ad popping up in FA about Adobe now including AI in their programs?

AI doesn't stand for Adobe Illustrator anymore, it now stands for Artificial Intelligence!

AI art is getting so good people are starting to complain about it... this is a total win for AI art i guess

"When the machine cannot draw hands that means it cannot draw anything else."

*looks at the pitiful examples of hands she manages* ..... o_o (Sad song here) beep beep bzzt....aahhhhh.......... *powers down in sadness*

"We draw and write to tell stories. That is something the great Ai can't do any more than a hack artist and writer can create greatness."

Yeah but... Does Bruno Mars is Gay?

Serious question here. I do art as a hobby, and honestly suck in some areas. I was thinking of looking into AI art not as an 'art generator' but rather as a tool to assist in my art in the same fashion of say, a tool assisted video game. (rewind buttons, or save states) as many casual gamers use. Maybe 'clean up my lines' or 'improve my shading please' kind of thing.

What would your opinion be on hand drawn art with some ai editing?

No, because it foregoes the learning experience.

Fair. ^_^ For me I just dont' have the time to dedicate to it right now. Perhaps, when I get back on my ADHD meds, I'll be able to focus well enough again. We'll see on that front I suppose.

I do agree with your assessment, but what if the person isn't trying to learn the art rather just mess around a bit, have some fun. Not peddling it for profit, or hiding the fact they are using AI to assist?

From what I've seen, AI programs are better at creating images (Broken as they often are) than at finishing or tweaking them in the way you're thinking. I've heard that there are some programs where you can work on things iteratively to improve or change them, but I haven't played with that yet. I'm dubious how well those would work at this point, but the tech is advancing with incredible rapidity.

I've been using AI art and text based generators to get or generate bases to edit in an effort to learn Krita, and it's been fun, and good for that.

And any art you study, create or play with is a learning experience. have fun with it!

I would assume the absolute vast majority of people messing with AI art generation, are non artists. ;) So there wouldn't be many examples of an artist using them to assist in a picture, rather than generate from scratch.

Most of what's available now is largely used as a toy by amateurs, no doubt.

And as far as I know, there are programs that are at least experimenting with or trying to create tools to help with finishing touches like you referred to, but They're mostly not really there yet. But as I said, the tech is advancing really quickly.

(Thumbs up!) ^_^ We shall see.

best of luck. Have fun with it!

From a legal standpoint at least, I don't see the artists winning the court case.
"Web scraping is completely legal if you scrape data publicly available on the internet. But some kinds of data are protected by international regulations, so be careful scraping personal data, intellectual property, or confidential data."
Sites such as FA, IB, e621, DA and so on are publicly available. They are smart going for the tech companies at least, as you can't sue the AI, and unless they fed the training art in directly, they can't sue the end users. Then you've got fair use. Artists can't own a pose, a concept, a style, so on, they can only own the copyright on the finished composition as a whole.
Can AI art be copywritable? It depends, based on a countries laws. For the US, not yet. For the UK, or NZ, the answer is yes.

Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's right, obviously. And I fully agree with sites like FA, IB and e621 refusing to host AI art on the principle of "if every user can post a hundred pictures a day, the services will be overloaded". That's a serious problem.

But I think AI art is here to stay, and that may lead to fewer artists posting their art publicly for fear of it being scraped.

As a few small counterpoints, just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong, either.

And whether people would post floods of purely AI generated work is something that's not an actual problem, just a possibility, and could be dealt with without instituting blanket bans. It's not like FA isn't already flooded with crap or low effort art as it is. Just look at the front page at any given time. The real question is who makes the judgments, and on what basis? I'd say be generous, but not indiscriminate, and the same rules should apply to AI based work as any other kind.

It no doubt brings up thorny issues and complicates things. I think the current policy is lazy and regressive, though.

And by instituting a blanket ban on anything based on AI generated art, FA is encouraging people to lie about it, which FA will more likely often miss or be unable to prove, as well as shutting themselves off from legitimately good art, to the detriment of artists and viewers.

Well, if someone made a song that was 95% original but then added cords from another song they would still get sued.

Vanilla Ice Ice Baby...

But that's sort of why the artists are suing the AI companies themselves. They're the only viable target to be sued. The question is from a legal standing, is AI straight up copying art, or is it like a tattoo artist taking a photo off the internet and turning it into a tattoo for a customer?

Obviously, the other thing to consider is what different countries do to the law. The fact that UK, NZ and some other countries automatically grant copyright to AI generated art implies that those countries are likely to rule AI art to be non-infringing. For New Zealand at least, mod chips for consoles were ruled legal as they were just a tool. Napster was ruled legal for similar reasons. MEGA.co.nz is hosted in New Zealand because we're less strict on copyright enforcement (at least we're not China.) Wahapedia has a .ru domain so Games Workshop can't shut them down.

I will agree with art hosting sites refusing to host AI art for technical issues, as I mentioned before. If they want to refuse to host it for ethical issues, that's fine too. But when it comes to legal battles, I'm going to have to paraphrase Mr. Goldblum.
"Tech, uh... tech... finds a way."

I'm not anti-AI, but I'll agree there are some issues that need to be sorted out. Overall, it's a tool and it will impact some artist, just like the emergence of fast food had an impact on resturants.

Belatedly, a large portion of Dr. Ian Malcolm's rant early in Jurassic Park against cloning, can probably be applied to AI art... At least the AI isn't eating anyone... Yet.

Belatedly, a large portion of Dr. Ian Malcolm's rant early in Jurassic Park against cloning, can probably be applied to AI art... At least the AI isn't eating anyone... Yet.

I can't believe I'm writing this, but I agree with Alex on this topic.

BANNED!!!

I said I agreed with you on this topic! You don't have to go overboard about it!

I mean, just because A.I. is still learning doesn't mean it will eventually become an artist. It takes years of experience, adaptability and the ability to see beauty everywhere, which A.I. doesn't have.

You can believe they will work to create a program...that will remove the work.