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"AI art tools bad - Fear the AI"
a year ago
General
EDIT NOTE:
I realize that I should EMPHISIZE that I understand a lot of the anger towards AI is the ethics behind how a lot of them at developed, by companies just TAKING SHIT. I'm not trying to upset anyone with this post. I think the general idea of AI when used with art CAN BE a good thing, not that ALL AI ART/MUSIC all is. Content generating farms with it is generally what I'm against. I was trying to have a nuanced opinion about this.
The general idea and concept of AI as a TOOL for artists is what I'm defending. I am not endorsing the outright theft and exploitation that goes into the way some of these companies have developed them. It also hasn't just happened to artists. Some of these companies are in a huge rush to outpace each other in the completion and have indeed done some sleezy shit to make them. Lawsuits and such have been on the table over this type of stuff. I know music generating ones apparently have lawsuits being thrown at them for copyright related reasons. Sadly, it gets into this murky, gross area of what is "fair use" and "transformative" and what is theft.
AI models them selves can be trained different ways and there are a ton of them out there, some more fairly sourced than others. It's new and it's going to unfortunately take a while for laws to regulate this sort of thing. That shit is slow. The tech development race is advancing fast.
AI ART IS STILL NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR REAL ARTISTS. I am simply stating that I, as an artist, don't feel directly threatened by it, but I to see the dilemas of how my craft can be cheapened by it. So I felt the need to expand even more on my thoughts, up here.
I had a very brief chat that someone overheard while I was drunk and running to the bathroom at FurPoc24, that I didn't get a chance to finish to the overhearer.
(This year's FurPoc was fucking FANTASTIC by the way!)
I wanted to defend my point of while AI is an exploitable problem against artists, it's also a tool that artists themselves can use in their workflow.
Maybe I'm gonna step on a landmine with this one from some fellow artists, but hopefully my stupid rambling is understood.
I wanted to make a point that just having AI generate you shit and using that as is, is bullshit, yes. Like, the shit I've noticed a lot of printed canvases at stores that have that suspicious AI art style to them.... you know the style... it's easy to spot if you know what to look for. I think it's been a lowsy cash grab for companies to just have AI make shit for them to sell, and most normies are none-the-wiser. It's shitty. I get it.
I understand why some folks hate AI, and there's a lot of ethical questions about how these companies are training their AI, basically through art and photo theft.
I'm not defending that, at all.
BUT, AI tools, like that built into Photoshop can be extremely useful when helping an artist construct ideas for painting up backgrounds and such.
What I do sometimes when I'm stuck on what to paint in parts of a background, is I roughly draw in a basic idea, then select it and give PS's AI a prompt for what I might be looking for, sometimes I'm just looking for pattern ideas, maybe a window style on a building, maybe different styles of fences, ionno, I'm just spit-balling.
I look through all the shit PS's AI comes up with and use that as a refence to paint over. While the AI attempts to mimic the style of what I painted around it, it always does fucky things that are busted, but it's a great jumping point when I'm stuck. I think I kinda suck ass at coming up with man-made scenes unless it's pixel art where I can kinda "tile" my way into something decent, or work with the simpler aspects of painting in pixel art. Nature is always a lot easier to just flow through naturally, but buildings and such, I feel like I just make blocky shit, or obvious patterns that I tiled together as if it were pixelart, but not pixel art. It's sometimes structurally questionable renderings have at least helped with with coming up with nicer looking stuff.
It is kinda funny because when I try it out, sometimes the AI knows what I'm trying to do. If I draw something like an alley way with a rough set of stairs, it gets it, works into my style and what I already drew down. Other times it shits the bed and I get a good giggle out of it. Like, one time I was feeling out ideas for filling up a park area. I wanted it to come up with some bush ideas. It shit the bed bad on that one, but in a very interesting way. One of it's results saw that I already drew a bench nearby, so it said fuck your prompt and made another bench with an indistinguishable figure sitting on it. Spooky figure judging what I was drawing in the foreground c..c. I'm honestly fascinated with how it works.
Just when I say an artist can embrace it as a tool, I don't mean that bullshit some big companies seem to be doing. AS AN ARTIST, you can still use it to your advantage.
Look, I'm very slow at my art (other times mega fast), ADHD be like that. If I find something that can help me wrangle in my focus and get me past things I'm stuck on, I'm using it.
I'm already waiting for the day my hard work at making smooth pixel animations manually is overshadowed by AI. I know something like that has already been in the works, an "interpolator" that basically adds extra frames into an animation to make it even smoother (which often needs clean up, because the AI fucks up a lot from what I've seen). It's coming, I know it is. Should I just keep struggling at my slow pace while others are just having key-frames auto-tweened for them? Me not using it isn't gonna stop others from blowing past me using it. It's a tough spot to be in and it sucks, because I do work hard on my stuff manually, using it will cheapen my effort. I do like the flex of how good I am at it, but what the fuck do I do when that day comes?
Another thought that I'm reminded of just now while typing this is that I remember being heckled by a traditional art teacher and a few painting students for liking using digital art back in high school. I was told "digital art is cheating" and that shit kinda stuck with me, it's one thing that the kids said it to me, but for the teacher to back up that notion to me kinda stuck with me for a while and it's a big reason I stuck to graphite work as my primary medium, only using digital to color it, so there was that "original" edge to everything I made. Digital is just easier to manage, and I guess it "cheapens" my work leaning on it more than ever before, and I guess I'm "cheating" more that I'm using PS's generative AI to help me with ideas for backgrounds.
That being called a "cheater" for liking digital fucked with me as a teenager, especially from the teacher... in a high school that also had digital art classes I was taking, the traditional area had a chips on their shoulders about it and I feel kind of the same energy now coming from some people about the AI stuff. People don't seem to understand the difference between just taking what AI gives you and using AI prompted material to base your own work on.
The unfortunate truth is that, yeah, some companies are going to continue using it for an ultra-cheap way to shit out computer slop that look pretty based on preexisting work it was trained on to slap on a canvas and sell for $10 a pop. It sucks. But I don't think it's existence is going to kill the REAL artist.
AI can give you general bullshit on prompts.
A real artist can actually give you the SPECIFICS of what you want, in a style you want.
A real artist can use it as an inspiration generator, and make something of their own and unique and based on what AI shits out. There's gotta be an artist out there that had AI make a critter that they themselves redrew with their own style and details.
I've had people give me AI generated reference material, the AI helped to more visually explain what they wanted from me. "do something like this, but with this thing from this one, and this thing for this other one". Some folks just grabbed cropped portions from various generations and ask for the concepts to be combined by a real artist. People have also done this with art from other real artists many times.
Like it or not, I think we're stuck with it. While it is used for bad, I think it can still be used for good. My art is a passion to me anyway, so even if DEY TUK ER JERBS, it's not gonna stop me from drawing all the silly shit I like to draw, I don't feel any less valued as an artist coexisting on the Internet with it.
I donno, I just randomly remembered this short conversation and I felt compelled to ramble about it.
I was against it for a while and I know some others that are very strongly against it, but I've kinda just personally hit the "I can't be bothered" part of the sentiment. If I'm putting my work out there, it'll be done, but the mugen shit is a whole other can of worms.
Its also to me similar to the 'don't use character for rp' thing. You can't really actually do anything about it at the end of the day for someone who is determined to do it.
AI has its place, generally as reference material. IMO, AI should never be included as-is - even as a background or just a cropped part of a generated image - and it should never be traced either. Just like an artist can look at something IRL and draw a picture of it, a similar thing can be okay with AI. Helping figure out poses better or maybe fill in some background "idea" gaps, something like that. But not the actual content it generates.
And of course imaging-related AI isn't just for lazy deviantART users coming up with pictures. The company I work for has been making breakthroughs in breast cancer research using AI to assist doctors in discovering cancerous tissue while reducing false positives. It's really cool stuff! https://www.hologic.com/hologic-pro.....ion-technology
Definitely, AI has its place, but it's limited and should REMAIN limited, lol.
The same kind of applies with AI: At work, I use Grammrly, but sometimes the suggestions even the AI comes up with has problems. I have enough skill that I can look that over and fix it up. If I screw up on something, the tool points it out. In essence, I use it as a tool to enhance what I already do and take some strain off so I can continue working at a good pace. This is very noticeable when compared to some co-workers, who strictly use the AI outputs with minimal correction.
There's a YouTuber, Joel Haver, who had a really good quote at the end of "How I Animated This Video." It came out 3 years ago, a bit before the AI craze, and at no point were people upset with what they were doing.
"Ebsynth does have some quirks that, you know, if you play around with it, you'll get used to it pretty quickly. But, you know, other than that: I love it! It's such a great tool. It lets me create rotoscoped animations alone, which is something I never would have had the time or patience for otherwise.
And, uh, you know for that reason, there are some skeptics in the comments, like, 'Oh, is it REALLY rotoscoping?' Like, yeah it's like Ai assisted rotoscoping; It's like a cheat code. You know, all technology is a cheat code, you know, like filming on a digital camera rather than a film camera or editing on a computer rather than splicing film together was a cheat code, you know? Anytime technology makes art easier to learn, more accessible, more efficient: we should applaud it, because, you know, art should be in the hands of everyone and we shouldn't have to break our backs and our wallets and waste our lives to make it, you know? We should be able to feel good while making art and Ebsynth is one of those tools that lets you do that."
EDIT: I do want to add a bit of my own take: I think generative AI could be used more if artists took time to train their own models. AI is kind of like a student, and if you take what you ask it, and fix it up later, you can use that to help train you own tool to better give you more rough sketches. It'll slowly become more like yourself and the style you do, and it can shave a major chunk of time off. Equally speaking, it's not as simple as 'push button and receive art.' You have to TEACH a system, an over eager student, what the correct answers are.
Then, like, it's just you. No other sources, which is the generally accepted issue people have.
I'm focused on characters, this stuff is helping me with the area my ADHD goes full blown on and keeping me engaged with it.
So yes, this is why it's hated.
I know for programmers there's been a big issue as well one some code sharing platforms. everything they posted was just outright used to train a code-writing AI, no body gave consent to it, it was just done, taken for free and that sucks.
I'm completely understand the frustration and exploitation involved with how a lot of them are made.
I respect that it might help you but I can't support you for trying to paint it in a better light.
I agree with this. I know it's pissing off people with the furry bot art generators that are having there style ripped off. Deep into my post, I also expressed my concerns with how it will eventually creep in and cheapen the work that I do with animation, and that sucks. I didn't try to paint it in purely a good light, I was trying to look at it from different angles rather than having a hardline stance. I tend to think a lot on things like this. I just don't have the opinion that ALL AI is bad. I think it could have it's uses, but I for sure think the sourcing and content issue is a big problem.
I'm not trying to upset anyone with this, if anything, your input is valuable. I'm open to discussing and learning more. I feel kinda bummed that some folks are just takin off, but it is what it is. I understand.
I also think it's a slippery slope, right now you're using it to help backgrounds, then maybe you realise it helps with poses, then maybe it's taking over the entire creative process and you're just colouring for it.
This is entirely speculative and not accusatory, I don't know you or your values, but I've seen artists take the same stance you have and I've noticed their art starting to look more and more like AI generated images.
Also other people are bringing up using it for references, AI gets stuff wrong, and using it for refs is just making people learn all it's mistakes.
Another thing I'm seeing is people generate refs for artists to use but artists refuse to work with them. They could just search Google or art websites to get actual art from artists for refs, if ai generated it then it already exists.
I feel like I'm rambling now but all in all I don't think AI has any place in the creative process.
As an animator I would not use AI for anything pose related. AI screws that up all the time and you can tell. I reference other animation from things that I like that I've seen done well or I act out poses or motions myself to see how they feel.
As far as my value stand I don't want AI to replace artists. Nor do I want AI to do all of my work for me. In particular the work I put into my characters is a passion of mine.
It just kind of hits a gray area for me with the AI debate because various tools have been used to remix other people's work all along and it's always existed and people didn't throw too much shade at that. Like the YouTube poop community took lots of pre-existing material and remixed it into something different. There was a big debate about that being fair use that a lot of stuff ended up getting solidified to defend people doing transformative work with pre-existing material. The same thing happened with movie reviewers who are technically standing on someone else's work to create their own material. DJs have made an entire living doing that with other people's music.
There are unfortunately always people out there who are going to be thieves or edit or modify pre-existing material with or without consent I know this very well as somebody who is developed for the MUGEN and the plethora of people who without consent make tons of fetish and porn edits of characters. I have asked in the past to not be done and defended other artists and character owners to not have it done to them and people go and do it anyway. I've caught people in the act. It sucks.
Thing is the existence of people and tools like this I do not think it undervalues the original artist. There will always be people there who want to support the real artist AI is no replacement for that The people who are using AI if people who probably aren't going to support your work in the first place.
And even in your case I don't think that they meant to insult you I think that they were just playing around with what they saw as a toy. I don't think that they meant to hurt you I just think that they don't understand the dilemma that creative types face with it.
I mean I've even thrown my artwork into some of the AI programs that exist out there just to see what it would do to it cuz I am fascinated with the idea. The technology is interesting.
Believe me there's a lot of things about it I don't like I just know that it's here to stay and I'm trying to see the potential good in it as much as there is a lot of bad.
GenAI doesn't affect me financially but it ain't doin' any good for me and the majority of artists, not to mention how bleak the future is looking because of it, google image results are 50% or more of just generated images now, even when looking for simple things.
And what of future artists, are they gonna be inspired by what it creates and think "wow, I wanna draw as good as that" when they could just generate it and remove the effort of even bothering to learn.
To me, using it is supporting it's rotten practices. Sure, using it doesn't affect anyone and I can see why you'd not see an issue with it, but do you wanna use something that's built around exploiting artists.
We've both made our points pretty clear and agree to disagree on it's use, GenAI in all forms upsets me and I don't wanna discuss any further.
But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that there are both good and bad aspects to it.
If you want to say that that's a bad aspect of it, that's fine. Plenty of people agree with you.
Ionno. I understand both sides of it.
I currently am trying to build a world with tons of different species, and I'm sorry but it would take weeks to talk to an artist to design characters to become exactly what I want through my words alone. I actually have some generations with interesting species combinations in them that make me really want to go to an artist to refine the ideas that the AI managed to rough out in a way I like, but I'm scared to because I think an artist might take great offense that I want to present AI related stuff to pull from and save a metric ton of time instead of taking weeks upon weeks to make small changes here and there and possibly not be entirely happy with the outcome because it is often difficult to have a clear vision for a species design without pulling from other sources, or hard to pin down the exact mix I want without visual references that are more left or right of a 50/50 mix.
Like, it sucks that knives are used to hurt people, but they are also used to help feed people. Its a tool, and its up to the people to use it correctly. I never post anything anywhere. its just to feed my own imagination and creativity, and possibly commission ideas, but I only have one artist that I know of currently that wholeheartedly supports me bringing them AI as reference material to pull ideas from. The whole situation is just so murky and AI is hated more than it deserves to be thanks to a bunch of bad actors.
Is it okay if I share this with others?
This applies to ALL fields.
(pretty much how you would use photos online in the same way.
1) To obtain a specific pose to present to an artist when commissioning them. (Usually done after flipping through mulitple search pages on Google images and not finding what I want)
2) To generate fantasy landscape art, or fantasy themed building art that I can use as a personal reference to aid me while I write a description.
There has been an instance where I've wanted a character designed, but couldn't find appropriate refs without pulling together a massive sheet of individual pics. I have used AI twice in this scenario, but solely to serve as aid when describing an idea to an artist that I am commissioning. In both instances, the artist has levied an extra fee for the use of an AI ref, which I am completely understanding of.
Once I have used said refs, I delete them.
^this
this is what ive been doing as of late. ive been finding it helpful when it comes to drawing certain characters of just wanting to see what it spits out. if its good, i end up drawing it myself *or at least trying to anyways XD* and making a character out of it. and as youve said, its great for people who use it to make ref sheets and such, and its helped me out a good bit when im lacking inspiration or just testing out ideas and whatnot.
Alas... the people who do that are only hurting themselves with this. Just like when photoshop existed, it didn't stop people from painting traditionally, or when typewriters existed, it didn't stop people from handwriting books. AI (a randomized weighted algorithm) shouldn't stop people from creating exactly what people want (heck I WISH I could use AI to replicate my style, but it'd take so much effort to train it, I'm still forced to manually draw my art anyway) but if people would learn how to use it to enhance thier work, they could find themselves making MORE commissions faster instead of doing the common "SOrry it's taking 3 months to do what you all paid for, but art takes so much time!" while at the same time spending all day railing about the ills of AI and flooding thier page with propaganda.... that $200 we paid 3 months ago wasn't charity...we expect a result and AI's existence just means we'll get what we want faster, MORE people are going to pay for AI generated work.... There's no reason to support human artists if the human artists are going to complain about the work they were paid for. Like that money WE worked for to pay them in the first place was gotten by just sleeping and watching our bank accounts grow. So the hypocrisy needs to be called out, there's NO excusing that behavior.
Anyway I'm glad to see this journal. NOW more than ever, artists need to stop ripping each other off and start trying to make art more accomodating for everyone. Artists already have a TERRIBLE reputation among the general population, and their online attitudes reinforce that no one wants to invest in them, forced to raise their expenses because these guys want to draw for a living. Their art is beautiful, and they should make the most of what they want to do, but they shouldn't drag others down because THEY don't like how others do things. Customers (with money) do NOT have to buy their art.... Nor are they obligated to.... But to those who aren't trying to make politics out of HOW people make art, THANK YOU.... those are the artists who continue to make great things for the world (and frankly still get business).
and Thank you again for this journal. All people want, artists or not, is just to understand and move on. We don't need more unnecessary discrimination. FA has enough of that as is.... No one wants to pay for that.
I understand the fear that AI will take over, but it's not. Companies have dumped too much into it, not realizing it doesn't do what they need it to do, and now all we have to do is wait for it to implode on itself, leaving the true artists to reap the spoils of AI assistance whilst generation shuts down. I was using AI long before it was "cool" and before ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion even went beta. I know the systems inside and out, and they don't understand, like, they don't have the capacity to understand understanding itself. Humans can understand, AI can not, no AI will replace us without us doing that to ourselves.