I wanted to open up about this sooner, but has taken me time to process what I have done, and what I feel I must do.

I have posted images that have AI assistance tainting them. There were three, but I'll be only leaving up my personal image** to protect the privacy and innocence of my clients - I hadn't told them that I used it on their images. Before I'd learned what goes into making and training generative AI models and how data scraping works, I took it as just another tool, and thought it similar to like any other adaptive automated process that modern painting programs have. I didn't know that the tool I was using (an app in a program called Krita) was essentially laying stolen works over mine to achieve the look those images have. It was so seamless and simple that I didn't even bat an eye at it at the time, felt like this was just a natural experiment for the tech, and felt like "man, everyone's probably already doing this" once I tried it. Holy. Moly. I was so catastrophically wrong... and I want to take full responsibility for my ignorance.

About a month ago, I discovered a talk by an artist named Steven Zapata on generative AI models. He's very knowledgeable, and goes in depth about data scraping, stolen art, and how companies use it. It was eye opening. He has a lot to say about the ethics behind its creation, and I'd strongly encourage that if you're an artist, someone who likes art, or someone who's on the fence about AI in general, please watch This. He distracts you with some absolutely incredible pencil art while thoroughly explaining how AI works and deconstructing many of the issues with it - some of which I was guilty of thinking at one point. It's not harmless. Once I learned just how bad of a tool this was and what I'd done, I was kinda in a state of denial for a bit over it. I'd never thought the notion of morality in a creative program would apply to anything I would use. I felt, and still feel, and likely will feel gross about it for a while.

Generative AI in it's current (and probably forever) form is evil - It's being utilized by big companies with the intent of completely removing the need for a human element to the creation of art and enabling said companies to blindly rob talent from people they'd rather not even acknowledge. I'm intensely ashamed that any of my work includes it at all and I heavily lament my lack of foresight and negligence for doing my research. I will be reaching out to the affected clients of mine tonight to offer them full refunds for their images. I still want to honor those agreements I made, so I am re-finishing the REAL versions of those images in the event they'd like them reposted, clean, and at the level of finish they deserve to be at. I have no intent to bury this, so I will also be leaving my personal AI assisted image up** - As I type this I am changing the image title to make sure it's obvious that AI was used, making sure it's tagged, and am appending a link to this journal in the description so that newcomers can find how I truly feel about it now that I'm a wiser man. I didn't mean to arrive to this so late, nor take this long to come out about it - It's been a hard few months and when it dawned on me just how bad this was, and subsequently did more research to find other artists getting absolutely removed from play for stuff like this, I just needed time to come to grips with the reality of the situation, and decide for myself what I needed to do to make amends. It was never my intent to betray the trust of those who've thus far enjoyed my art, and I intend to continue to produce real work from the crew. I can't post this without saying how sorry I am in the event this is the last post you decide to read from me - I know this will happen to some who read this and deeply regret it, but I also understand; I feel pretty severe in my own opinion of my actions.

To any long time viewers, fellow artist, or friends who've made it this far: I'm really, truly sorry to have this stain on my record and to have let you down. I want to own it, not hide from it, and move forward so that this can just be a bad memory of a lapse in judgement. That was not who I want to be.

I'll be temporarily pausing work on any projects while I just kind of come back from this moment. Comments will be left open, but I'm going to take a day or two to try and steel myself before I have the courage to post any art. If you are or were a potential commissioner and would like to talk about the future of your projects with me as a result of this, please feel free to DM me privately. I look forward to moving on, and never want to touch AI again. I really do tire of hearing about it. To those of you who decide to stick around after all this - thank you for reading, and I'll try and Wander again soon.

**(EDIT: Its come to my attention that and AI related work on FA is strictly forbidden - don't know how I missed that. In order to stay in accordance with those rules I have removed the images from the site.)**