Hey, I just read your essay. I appreciate your time to make a measured response. Earlier this year, I was ignorant of the situation and shared three AI images on Twitter without knowing the controversy around them. Since then, I have understood the controversy and don't support the use of 'AI' image generation. However, I have a few issues with some points you made and I hope it's okay for me to respond to a few here and share my own experiences.

In my somewhat limited opinion, I think your view of the fandom as a whole and empathy within comes from a position of survivor bias. For example (this is a bit heavy), in the past I made a suicide attempt and created a journal about it. What followed was several messages and comments calling me a liar, that I was attention seeking, etc. Despite the fact that I went through with the attempt.

More recently, when I shared the three AI images on Twitter, I was bombarded with comments calling me inbred, a moron, all manner of disgusting things, and even started receiving death threat DMs from dodgy accounts. Naturally, I responded with hostility to those responses. Why would I be polite in the face of that? But politely to people who were also polite (leading to me changing my mind). However, since then I have been blocked by several artists who I have supported financially, who I have known for decades, without any dialogue or conversation.

Up until that point, I had spent thousands of USD on art, supporting the community both financial, and individual members where I could when they were going through a hard time.

It's worth mentioning that I have ASD (and I'm open about this) and severe recurrent depression, and the symptoms of ASD make it particularly difficult to deal with the kind of large-scale pile on that I experienced earlier this year. More recently I lost my income and face homelessness in the near future. My life has been quite difficult and I had my own reasons for being excited about AI image generators at the time. For example, the future potential of these technologies to bring my characters to life and let me lead a life that brought me hope in a way that I had previously not had.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that furries largely support each other and that artists are the ones with empathy in this situation. The response I got exposed the fact that the majority of people in this dialogue have absolutely zero empathy or care about what the other person believes, regardless of their position. Since then it has left me (and others I have spoken to) in a position where we have stepped back from the furry community, and are unlikely to financially support it in the future.

Many furries are perfectly lovely and empathetic, and I have great friends in the community, but this whole experience has left me severely disillusioned with it, especially given my current circumstances.

I Feel you a lot here. When I first heard about it, as someone who gets a lot of commissions I was excited as a way of having stuff I would not normally get a commission for, or needed in a hurry for D&D. Luckily I had some friends explain the dubious morality and other cons of it before I actually got into it, and was able to avoid the problem before it really started. I am sad to see that a lot of people get piled on just for posting something, sometimes not even know it is AI art, or not really knowing what is wrong with that.

It is one thing when people who have been told how it uses art theft and skimming non-consensual artists work to make stuff and try to defend it anyway, but I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt at least at first. Glad that some level heads were able to talk to you and hope that the anger for a honest mistake has died down since then. I will never in my life understand how anyone can resort to death threats over art, AI or not.

I'm so glad to see a big name in furry writing address this. Honestly, a major issue I've been having with the state of the internet as a whole is how often people who are the cause of certain issues love to shift the blame onto the victims, as if the onus of change is on the victims rather than on those causing the issue in the first place. I'm so glad you addressed that in this essay, because it's been one of my biggest issues with AI techbros and their attitude towards artists and writers.

Additionally, when I saw the statement by "the OP", my immediate thought was that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of art, the art market, and why people buy art. "Just get better at art" will never solve the problem of artists losing jobs to AI, as it isn't amateur artists who stand to lose the most from AI -- it's high-skill artists who are at risk of losing their jobs & livelihood. I am firmly an amateur artist, and rarely do people pay for my art. If they do, it's more because they want to support me as a person rather than that they necessarily crave things in "my style". Thus, I do not feel threatened by AI. But I am terrified for my high-skill artist friends whose entire livelihood revolves around their art and ability to gain professional clients seeking book covers, interior illustrations, concept art, etc. It's their art that's being fed into the AI meat machine, and its their art it is trying to emulate, not the things that amateurs and hobbyists do for fun. They have every right to be terrified, and those who say otherwise do not understand business (we have already seen big companies cutting corners by using AI "art"!) or art.

I use it for fun. If people think I'm trying to sell a piece that's not I'm doing...Why would I make AI if i'm selling it?