Doesn't that seem just a LITTLE harsh? Believe me, I think this is a pandoras box opening with a lot of conflict to be had. And the part about it stealing images is BEYOND sucky and definitely needs to be reigned in. But all the AI art I've seen has the same style and look. It's extremely generic with it's shading and lighting. It has one style that is completely unremarkable.

The whole thing isn't completely evil, it's just tacky. And honestly I don't see it replacing genuine artists with talent anytime soon. Plus while it might be getting 'smarter' all it can do is spit out variations on what it knows. If it's not in it's databank then it can't make something the same way I can ask an artist 'hey, could I commission you for something like this?'

A.I. art is going to become the 'fast food' of the art world. Cheap and easy, but hardly nutritious or stimulating. The real artists in the form or gourmet chefs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

No, I think I may not be harsh enough.
It is allready putting artists out of work as I have seen artdirectors using algorithms because they are faster and cheaper. Yes, this Pandoras box has unfortunatly been opend, but that doesn´t mean we have to accept this trash without a fight. It is not just a tool, it is a technology that has been created to replace human artists, and I think we need to take a stand.

Well I can't think what, if anything, can be done about it. It's not like we can 'un-invent' the programs. Even if they were all deleted someone would just find a way to recreate them or copy and hoast them somewhere else.

I'm not saying I don't see plenty wrong with this, but stonewalling the technological progress is as shortsighted as people who insist on ignoring the newest technology like it's all just a fad that will fade in a few months.

There is no doubt we need better regulation so as not to harm artists and make their skills seem trivial. I'm just saying we can't undo what's been created and working with or at least around somehow it is about the only option rather than being marginalized by openly hating and denying it.

So A.I doesn't actually make art it just slightly alters already existing art?

It takes elements from existing artworks and photos and mashes them together. So far it is stil very uncanny, but those programmes are slowly getting better.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but also somewhat disagree
for me, it really depends on how people try to use it, example, using just the A.I. to create the full art piece, it doesn't work, like, at all, because the A.I. can't replicate two things, originality and style
you look at certain artworks on here and can instantly know who the artist is without having to look at the profile, like your art for example, no matter where i see it, i can always tell it's yours from the style
A.I. art all looks the same when it's just the bot, however, if an artist was to use the bot's art as a base to build an art piece from, you get stuff like this: https://derpibooru.org/images/29648.....rated%2C+macro

No matter how good this A.I. gets, it will never replace artists, because of the fact that it all looks generic and the same, but if used correctly, it can become a great tool for artists, like if an artist struggles to make backgrounds, they could generate a base from an A.I. bot, then use whatever art program they use to change it until it fits the foreground, thus, creating great artwork

also, just because the original makers of the A.I. wanted to make human artists obsolete, doesn't mean it'll happen, take another bot for example 15.ai, made to replace human voice actors, yet, you can always tell when it's being used, sounding so tinny and lacking any real emotion, it will never be as good as an actual VA like Tara Strong or Rob Paulson

so i get where your coming from, but i don't think we have anything to really worry about <3

Oh I am not worried. A.I. Art will not replace real artists, but it will damage real art and hurt artists. It is a disgusting, insidious technology that creates souless pseudoart. One may argue that it can be used as just another tool. Even in that case it is still stealing elements from other artists. I understand that Pandoras box is open and that we can´t uninvent this technology, but at least we can shun the pseudoart it "creates" and the people who use it.

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction.

Firstly, nobody wants to make "human artists" obsolete. It's like saying "dadaism and surrealism is dead" and expecting artists to stop producing this artstyle. Art is part of freedom of expression and as long as humans live, there always will be artists. You can't erode this part of human nature. So to me that's conspiracy theory territory. Especially since A.I. can create impressive pieces of art, but usually only with a random chance. I tried out several A.I.s out of curiosity and they hillariously fail to understand even simple ideas that could be easily communicated to a real life artist. At least the free A.I.s fail. I guess pay to use A.I.s might work a bit better, but I can't speak from experience there. So I don't see any reason to fear A.I.s to replace artists at all. Most A.I.s fail to reproduce the simplest of concepts, which would never be the case with a real life artist.

Yes, A.I. uses images to "learn". That's what is necessary. You can't train any system that works with visual imputs without showing them what a specific thing looks like. Otherwise the result would be nonsensical. Remember the meme, where an A.I. tags a cat as "dog"? That would happen if you wouldn't train it properly.

But the human brain (any brain really) works similar. A brain requires input in order to learn. You have probably seen many types of artwork in your life and learned from those how specific things have to look. A.I.s do the same, the main and vital difference is, while your memories aren't digital files, they are abstract entities inaccessible to anyone but you, so nobody would ever dare to assume you did copyright infringement just by making a mental picture of a piece of artwork you see and memorize. At least as long as we don't live in a dystopian society that embraces thought police.

A.I.s however are programs, they don't have physical brains that form memories, they have hardware that they require to exist and it is this hardware, where files and information are stored. And those files are accessible by anybody and can easily be shared or manipulated. This makes the subject matter of A.I. art generators so blurry.

I however agree with you, that A.I.s kinda operate in a shady grey area when it comes to copyright. I think they should operate with black- and whitelists and should only utilize photos and artwork that is either in the public domain already or that has been released with the GNU (general public) license. Using artwork without consent and without giving credit shouldn't be a thing. But that's hardly the A.I.s fault, it just does what it is programmed to do, that's the job of the people who create the sample compilations that those A.I.s have access to.

As to how the A.I.s put together artwork I can't say. But I find it similarly harmless as using an intelligent photoshop filter on photos or digital artwork to correct minor mistakes or an background in an image. The moralist grey zone again only arises from who uses the technology and to which extend. So I also would demand clear and transparent rules on how those A.I.s operate and which sample material would be okay for them to be trained with.

As to A.I. art looking like garbage... Yeah, kinda. Heavily depends on the A.I. and artstyle though. I have seen an A.I. doing wonderful jobs (although not remotely close to what I requested it to produce) and seeing how the image quality heavily varied when requesting different art styles. Some look like garbage, some look okay...ish and some honestly look stunning, but none of them ever looked remotely like I pictured them inside my head. So A.I. art really just is a mixed bag.

I wouldn't condemn the technology or the people who'd love to use it for their own projects, but I would still hold the developers responsible for ensuring that copyright infringement doesn't happen.

I disagre with you.
A.I. art is soulless rubbish and the people who use it are frauds at best and art thiefs at worst. What really pisses me of is when they have the audacity of calling themselves artists. They are not artists. Saying a person using one of those infernal machines is an artist is like saying somebody is a chef when he warms up food in the microwave. I´m sorry, I can´t accept this. It is a disgusting technology and while we can´t uninvent it, this "art" and the people who make it should be marginalized.

People said the same about the advent of CGI, as well as digital art, while now its use is widely embraced and accepted as a tool for artists to express themselves. I kinda see it similar to what  zerosonicdrive previously described. As a good stepping stone and canvas for a proper artist to improve upon. Taking something like an A.I. generated image as a base and then improving upon it makes it original in the end, so it might be a good tool and asset for artists to have.

That said, I have to agree with you in the regard of how people falsly see themself as artists if they don't produce art on their own. People who just use A.I. to create artwork, take the end result and call it a day while calling themself artists is ridiculous. They are merely commissioners, not artists. So in this regard I agree with you. If people use unaltered A.I. art to put in their gallery and call themselves artists is like someone who just commissions artists to draw something for them, collecting the art, putting it into a gallery and calling themselves artists. They are not. To be an artist requires even the slightest amount of personal creative effort or imput. So I'm totally agreeing with you if you can't accept people considering themself artists if they only order art from a machine and don't alter it further in any way.

If they however use it to create something original out of it and alter it further, I tend to agree more with zerosonicdrive above.

Yeah, AI is just a cheap shortcut for people to become an "artist" and it also give crappy results.
I would be amused to give the "artists" pen and paper and ask them to draw by hand to see their "talent".

People who call themselves artist while using these A.I. generators are frauds, plain and simple.

I had no idea that A I art did all this. Dang I feel some kind of way about this. I’m no artist but, I sure don’t want now one replaced or put out cause of this.