That was so well said, Alector! And I am totally agree with ya! ^^
I don't either like this AI, it really steal their identities!

Completely agree! Well said!

Its so sad, that A.I. profits illegally from all the amazing artists and then copys the work and make in the end real artists out of work. x.x I hope that the pressure will grow on the EU and other institutions to regulate these technologies.

It's not even ilegal! That's kinda the bad part about it. Those AIs are rellying on datasets which have been trained on millions of copy righted works used by non-profit organisations exploiting research priviliges which have been financed by corporations like Microsoft and individuals like Musk. Those datasets are then used for private companies to sell Apps and as subscribtion models for AI algorithms. Some use the term "data laundering" for it as referring to the practise of money laundering.
This is one of the reasons why there is legislature so needed to actually deal with this. Not only to protect the work of creatives though but actually beacuse data privacy is violated here too since you can even find private medical informations in those data sets. No one knows where, how and why those data have been collected from the internet. It all happens without consent.

I agree with this sentiment.
But it also brings up correlations with music--covers and remixes; when someone covers a song and puts it on YouTube and profits from it they've taken another artist's hard work (lyrics, arrangement, and everything that created it) and they've made it their own... even if a cover doesn't have a single original sound from the original, the DNA of that original is there.
I don't have an answer to this, but I'm thinking that our issue with folks using AI trained on/taking from other artist's work and using it for their own and claiming it their "original" opens up some interesting questions about other things we've accepted too, and maybe need to clarify or re-think.

Fair enough. But in such cases you can as original creator go and sue them if you feel they used your work. And if it turns out that there is some right violated the original content creator can get a compensation.
Right now, with the way how AI is being trained you have millions of copyrighted work being used by non-profit organisations without consent to feed private companies with data. One way to go is to make this public. Increase awareness. It's not only about creatives. The data privacy of a lot of people are violated here.
I think the links above are a good start to get the issue more publicity among those that can actually change legslation and impose regulations on companies as they are backing up the non-profit organisations which collect the data.
It seems that China - go figure! - might be actually even among the first to regulate it.

The nicest thing with IA is once your model is trained, you didn't need anymore the training material, just as you can throw away your books when you're graduate.
And as you can't reverse the training, you can't prove what was used to "train" it.

In regards to music, you cannot legally profit from covering another artist's song without a sample clearance or licensing agreement. If the video is not monetized, then you can post it for non-profit use and be fine. But in either case, a cover necessarily has to credit the original artist to be considered a cover. The case with these AI programs is totally different. There is no credit to the original artist and the artists didn't consent to having their work used. It's a blatant copyright violation. We already have CC licenses that allow explicity for derivative works, AI programs should have to obtain one of those licenses from every artist they pull from.

This is exactly right. Let me give my own example which is a bit more direct.

It was confirmed that an AI bot crawled e621. For years my work has been reposted there just like many others'. I didn't mind at all that people were reposting my work as long as they were CREDITING me and it remained unaltered. What I did take issue with was the fact that the AI bot was allowed to crawl the site; it was only then that I asked for my work to be taken down. An AI bot cannot credit me, but even if someone finds my unedited work on another site, they at least know how to find me.

In short, the DMCA needs to be drastically updated.

They used to say this about lithography and mass-production printing. Good luck, is all I can say.

as a printmaker, no, they absolutely didn't. this is not the same as new tech challenging old; it's not the same as photography chipping away at the market for paintings. photography and reproduction were treated as competition, but machine learning assisted art is /unfair/ competition, mass exploitation, copyright infringement, and spam... all in one.

2nd one seems kinda iffy.

It talks about making sure the data sets are clean of any unlicensed material but it also seems to want legal limits on how ML/AI can be used commercially which seems... hard to justify if the data isn't infringing?

Also it says they want membership with the Copyright alliance and that org is straight up run by a list of companies that are notorious for being anti-artist or just prone to coming down with legal action even in cases of fair use. I mean heck just Disney and WB having members on the BoD are big red flags.

Stirring up controversy to lead people towards empowering big orgs? Say it isn't so

You have to remember it isn't just art thats in that dataset. Its photos of children, celebrities, politicians, its medical photos. And you do need to consent for THAT. This is a security risk and misinformation threat in the making. Also remember their are open source versions of this now that someone who is saavy enough and train it enough can make some fairly damaging propaganda that less tech saavy people will fall for. While it sucks that big corporations are apart of the copyright alliance, the artists within them are still artists. Its better to get in there and work with them, because if they decide they are OK with AI art and push for it rather than against it, the fight is lost in that aspect.

These datasets have index locations to where they have acquire their data, is it a fucking hot spot target for a criminal hacker I've ever seen if in any form this shit gets compromised.
Now I love AI art, I think it has potential to be something great. But in its current form it is both dangerous and unethical without any real restraints.

I mean I get what your saying, but I don't know what that really has to do with this Gofundme. It seems squarely aimed at protecting human jobs from technological advancement/replacement. There is definitely stuff in the datasets that shouldn't be in there and definitely shouldn't be tagged but also those datasets are already in the wild and wouldn't likely be the ones that say... an indie dev would be using if they wanted to use ML/AI to generate art for their game.

So the existing AI out their are trained on those datasets. Thats the issue, they've already been trained on these datasets, and now using them is an entire ethics issue. The idea would be to kill the existing version and have them retrain the AI them on data that is more ethically sourced. (Typically they are using LAION-5B dataset, so the goal would be to make an entire new dataset with publically available images, and then allow people to opt in if they want to be in it or not) Considering you can look up if your data has been used to train the AI.

Considering that the illegal, racist and misinformation issue with AI art has already begun. If they don't get a handle on it now, its definitely going to come back and bite them later. Fighting for artist rights for this is step in this battle for our data protection. In particular I am waiting for EU to actually slap a fine onto these organizations, cause they are only using a clever loophole being a nonprofit to make datasets like this while bordering on actually breaching EU data privacy laws.

This is my biggest concern. I believe many artists are unknowingly being recruited to drum up enough noise to push incredibly advanced, expensive, open source technology into the hands of the already rich and powerful. Who will then just monetize it to death at rates normal people could never dream to access.

I don't really want to wade too deep into this debate or step on anyone's toes; I will simply say there's art and then there' Art. AI will likely increasingly replace the former but unlikely to replace the latter until some form of AGI. I think there is some validity on both side of this debate but ultimately once a technology arrives it is unlikely to go away. Likes craftsman of old whose jobs were replaced by machines and assembly lines, machines are now encroaching on territories humans previously didn't think it could do.

In so far as AI's impact on commercial art, I personally don't see a lot of fundamental difference between what is happening now and what is happening then. I think people are fearful right now because this very much impacts their livelihood and sense of identity. But eventually people will adjust, and who knows, may be very beautiful things will come out of it.

Anyway, the philosophy of it aside, the banner you made is quite beautiful. :)

Yeah while it is a legit frustration frankly a lot of this flashes me back to the origin of the word sabotage, the wooden shoes thrown into machines in protest the jobs they took.

I would say the philosophical aspect of it does not necessarily play a role when you look at the technical side. For example the details on how the data sets for the algorithm are created and trained. Right now, non-profit companies are collecting millions of copyrighted material, including even private medical informations to feed the algorithm that's used for the AI. Without consent. Or knowledge by the creators. Those data sets are used by private companies to sell Apps and offer subscribtion models for Ai image generators. I mean philsophical questions aside that's something which seems to me kinda fishy. Because I doubt the research priviliges granted to AI development have been meant to be misused like that and it's painfuly obvious that laws have to be updated to this new reality coming with the evolution of the technology. Something politics has ignored for years despite the warnings by experts. AI in one way or another might be the future. I see the potential of the technology.
But the way how it is developed and used shouldn't be to the disadvantage of millions of people. Not only content creators by the way. This is at the same time a huge data privacy issue. If data is the new oil then those algorithms for the AI will be the refinerys. And this begs the question who has the right to that data? Who should profit from it? Why is it happening without our consent? Do we really want to leave this all in the hands of a few corporations and ultra rich individuals that decide in the end what should or shouldn't be done with it? This has very serious and far reaching consequences when we look at how some companies like Google, Facbeook and others act. They often do not make decisions in the interest of their consumers or users. As scandals like cambridge analytica have shown. Which could even be a serious damage to our democracy. Imagine in a few years algorithms that might influence elections. Or used for manipulation of consumers without their knowledge by well crafted advertising apps.
I really don't want to sound alarmist here. But what this whole industry and development seriously lacks right now is transparancy and oversight.

It's already done with cambridge analytica and amazon use it to set their advert too.

The technical side is not as relevant as people make it out to be. Most applications of commercial art - and people who consume them - are not looking to form some sort of emotional connection to the artist, the creative process, how the art was acquired and used. I am talking about things that get printed on packaging, corporate logos, design drawings... yes, there are always enthusiasts who love to understand the creative process, but the vast majority really don't. Commercial art is very much treated as a product, because it frequently is. As far as that is concerned, if the "product" in this case does not bare sufficient resemblance to a copyrighted work, there's simply no ground for the copyright holder to sue.

Now, you brought up the issue of how the training data is acquired, I agree that can be a grey area, but it's also not as morally convoluted as people think. We humans learn from looking at other people's work, and often start out by copying and imitating. The vast majority of artists on FA for example fall into clear artistic camps, many you can easily discern whose styles they had influences from. Does it make their creations pointless? You can make all the arguments you want about how "AI has no idea what they are doing" and "humans create with intention" (both points are debatable - both when it comes to AI, and when it comes to humans, but that's a separate discussion), but ultimately all that matters is what is input, and what is output in the end. Posting your photos or artworks on the Internet, no matter how many "do not copy or redistribute" warnings you put under them, will not guarantee some little kid will not find your art inspiring and start tracing them for personal enjoyment, or some shop in China from printing them on T-shirts. At least the things created by image generator AI's are actually different from the source materials - not just a Photoshopped copy with a blurred out watermark.

Bottom line is if you don't want someone to use your work in some way - be it copying, taking inspiration from, or feed into AI training data - then don't post it on the Internet at all.

But then comes the real question: does this perceived "ownership" really matter more than just keep creating and sharing your art because you enjoy it?

>>We humans learn from looking at other people's work, and often start out by copying and imitating.<<

I've seen this argument so many times by now. Without going too much into the technicallity the way how the algorithm operates is not the same with how humans learn and process experience. There are similarities but also very clear differences. But for the question of legality this is actually not even the most important point.
Even if that was the case and the algorithm would be working exactly the same like a human does, it would still have the issue that a lot of copy righted work was used here, without consent and as basis for private companies to generate profit. In any other case a "human" would be eventually liable to copyright infringement.
The fact that our laws and regulations are inadequate to the current technological evolution does not mean that no damage has been done - or won't be done - to content creators and others. We are talking not only about the rights of content creators here but also data privacy. I do not believe that research priviliges which have been exploited for training the algorithm have been designed with this intention in mind. Hence why it is important that lawmakers and the appropiate authorities find a solution.
And I have to tell you that actually some images created by the AI have been found with visible watermarks on it. Seriously the whole situation right now is a legal minefield. It's also in the interest of those that are in favour of AI that regulations and laws are updated to the new reality if they want to avoid serious consquences in the future if things change. It is in everyones interest that this "gray" area does not remain a gray area.

I seriously advise to look into the opinions from high profile artists like Frank Zapata regarding AI and why it's such an issue, from the perspective of content creators, it really offers great explanations which are worth watching :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjS.....Ss&t=1874s

>>Posting your photos or artworks on the Internet, no matter how many "do not copy or redistribute" warnings you put under them, will not guarantee some little kid will not find your art inspiring and start tracing them for personal enjoyment, or some shop in China from printing them on T-shirts. <<

So? Do you seriously now suggest that copy right infringements don't matter anymore because you can never be 100% safe from it? Yes. Fraud, art forgery, identity theft, copy right violations and all that will always happen. But that doesn't stop us from going after those cases where you can and where a violation happend and can be persecuted. Just because not every crime can be solved doesn't mean we suddenly stop going after crime altogether. Or that we don't update laws and regulations when new situations appear or where it is necessary. This happens all the time.
The difference with AI right now is that it's on one side exploiting a gray area whith research priviliges and the scale where the work of millions(!) of creatives and content creators was used. And not only is it being used because some individual or some corporation is unwarrantedly using someones work to generate a profit which is already bad enough but an individual case, the algorithm is being developed with the intention to automatise, in other words "replace", the content creator alltogether. I would say this brings it to a whole new level. If you "steal" the work of an artist to sell it, that artist can still continue to create new content. You're not destroying his entire source of income. But with training an algorithm to do the work, that is a possibility.
We're talking about the livelihood of millions of people here that might be eventually impacted. That should be at least worth some considerations. And since you mentioned China, they will impose serious regulations on AI created content by the way. Do we really want to leave this decision only to China here? Do we want them to set the boundaries on what can and can't be done with AI in the future? Is that really a good solution?

>> "AI has no idea what they are doing" and "humans create with intention" (both points are debatable - both when it comes to AI, and when it comes to humans, but that's a separate discussion),<<

They are not debatable. They are facts. I don't want to sound condescending. This is what leading experts in that field say themself - see "limitations of AI". This isn't just merely a philosophical topic it is a hardware limitation due to the architecture of computers which limits the use of AI only to situations where abstract thinking and problem solving is not required. And that is exactly because an algorithm has no concept of what it does.

Technically speaking though there is no copyright violation in using establishment creative work for the purpose of research and study that includes putting it into data sets. The problem really occurs when they start charging you for generating from these data sets that's where the Gray line starts to appear

Its a tough one legally because from what I understand the way the datasets work is they basically train the AI how to create a similiar image or subject through an algorithm that can then be applied to noise to create new images. So what they aren't selling is "this dataset contains images from AlecetorFencer for use in your creations" its selling "Here is an series of algorithms that will turn noise into images that have a similar style to AlectorFencor and your paying for our time/gpu hours/server storage/programmers"

Which is... dickish? But also probably not going to end up being illegal

Yes which is part of the problem. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. Which is why there are currently attempts to get in contact with lawmakers so they can look in to it. While I am by no means an expert here I am pretty certain that that the purpose of the priviliges granted to research and study was surely not to be used in the end by private corporations to eventually profit on copyrighted material without the consent of artists. It would be be bad enough if this was a single case where the rights of someone would be violated. But we're talking about millions(!) of content creators out there. You, me, private data like medical informations. This is also a qustion of data privacy as well.

One does not even have to imagine it. This is what happend to Kim Jung Gi. And it is a travesty to him and his work.

"On October 3, renowned South Korean illustrator Kim Jung Gi passed away unexpectedly at the age of 47. He was beloved for his innovative ink-and-brushwork style of manhwa, or Korean comic-book art, and famous for captivating audiences by live-drawing huge, intricate scenes from memory.

Just days afterward, a former French game developer, known online as 5you, fed Jung Gi’s work into an AI model. He shared the model on Twitter as an homage to the artist, allowing any user to create Jung Gi-style art with a simple text prompt. The artworks showed dystopian battlefields and bustling food markets — eerily accurate in style, and, apart from some telltale warping, as detailed as Jung Gi’s own creations."

https://restofworld.org/2022/ai-bac.....anime-artists/

The way how those image generators and algorithms work, is a gift to grifters and art forgers. And it's somewhat disturbing how little awareness some have regarding the issue. How the datasets for the algorithm have been trained and what effect that has on creative content. The technology is evolving at a rapid pace and while I have been a strong advocate for AI development the way how it's being used right now is just outright despicable.
It shouldn't be baned. There is still great potential for machine learning and their algorithms. But there is definetly some form of regulation needed to protect people, their work and the ability to create income trough their work.

This is so well said I have nothing to add. And the worst thing is, it's not just about art or even AI. Whole world is moving "forward" so fast that we can't be sure with anything...and just wonder if we are really moving in correct direction or if everything is already rotten and keeping together with gluegun and ducttape.

any technology created under capitalism will inevitably be subsumed by it, and used to further the rotten corporate profit motive.

Fact of the matter is AI is a tool like the stencil, the tracing paper, the photocopier, the printing press, the projected image, it can be used to duplicate like so many of its predecessors, the only difference is that it is algorithmic in nature and capable of detecting patterns and duplicating them, quantifying the very calculable and measurable things which make up a 'style' which used to have to be done in analog by minds that might not have been able to literally parse out what they are doing in words. Forgeries have and always will exist and sure, this makes it easier, but it is also just like all the above tools can also be used by creative and inventive people to streamline their process and output more work. The genie is already out of the bottle, and the ethics are not really any different now as when all those other things came out.

Genetic engineering and GMO's are tightly regulated and human cloning is illegal. It is a similar powerful tool with a lot benefits but just because it's out of the bottle doesn't mean we shouldn't enforce ethics on technology.

Napster was also a new technology but that technology was also replaced similar ethical versions like Itunes or Spotify. While music piracy is still possible, piracy software isn't integrated or promoted by big tech companies.

You make good points. I happen to have prominent geneticist in my close family and I will say, in this case two big things keeping gmo from being toyed about with too much and under regulation are that the hardware itself is very difficult to procure and expensive, it is not like readily available x64 processors and freely distributed software, you need real hard samples and equipment to do splicing work and that is a very high barrier of entry compared to tinkering with AI, plus you have a lot of money in big agricultural industry owning copyrights to gene strands... far more money at stake than the graphic design or art industry, so their lobby is intense, believe me it is not for the good of the people that companies like Mosanto keep amateurs from messing with it, it is a revenue stream that they want to secure indefinitely.

Sure but both big companies and amateurs both need to follow the same regulations that mitigate Ecological and Health risks. Due to regulations in Europe most genetic modification of crops is still done through traditional plant breeding. Molecular techniques are only used to observe the progress but not to modify the crops.
Than there's ethical issues that are off the table entirely in a practical sense like human cloning or designer babies.

Patents on seeds or medicines I would consider a separate discussion. The general argument for patents is that research in the private sector costs a lot of money and the fruit of the research should belong to the investor. Which encourages further research. Of course there's more nuance issues with patents. Especially with vital products like insulin. There's also the ethical issues of profiting of individual human cell lines like Henrietta Lacks. Do companies and public research have a right to her cells or genome because it's been data laundered and public knowledge. Does consent and/or compensation play a roll? Just because these are complex problems to solve doesn't mean we should deregulate everything.

I think it's fair to regulate AI training data sets rather than the free for all situation we have now. It will benefit all parties involved. Artists, Photographers etc will be compensated. AI developers will also have to take the time to listen to artists, not just argue about the data set, but also how develop AI as tool for artists rather than as a replacement for artists which is what the stated intent of the technology was argued to be in the first place.

The quality of the image generator is of course based on the size and quality of art in the data base. So big intellectual property holders as usual will have a head start. It'll also be interesting to see who owns the intellectual property of individually produced art as a lot of art is produced through licensing of characters for third products. So once again big complex problems and nuance, but still better than no regulation at all.

in addition to what dare said, companies are already voluntarily restricting their data sets to respect copyright--with music. in order for visual art to receive the same treatment, these ML companies need to feel threatened if they go this route--so, lawsuits and policy.

That's the best one I've seen so far <3

Hid the comment above, I am an idiot who apparently can't read.

Take a look at stenographer, the job was first killed by magnetic tape recording.
Even worst, maybe you didn't even know what a stenographer was.
When words processor appears, older skilled secretary that was able to center or justify text on the fly was quickly replaced by cheaper ones with a word processor.
And same with secretary, speech recognition added, no need to have one.

As soon as something else can do what you do for cheaper and/or faster, the thing that did it before immediately lost a part if not all their value.

While thousand of people handling invoice and paiement are fired up slowly all replaced by computer, there is no problem, because it was always "boring" jobs, but now computer can handle "creatives jobs", the biggest question after this is more what are human are usable for ?
You now just asking the exact same question that the cashier replaced by a self care system.
Art just hit the "automatisable" point. what will be the next one ?

Yeah, I was considering whether or not to post about similar - how the automated motorized laundry washing machine, dishwasher etc really killed the majority of the demand for having a live-in maid. We don't weep for manual labor jobs replaced by the machine and yet creative work is considered sacred and to be protected. What makes an AI unfit for painting? That it paints like a human does? Is that copying? The value of art is, what exactly? That it is hard to reproduce? The artist's 'style' that is apparently easy to copy if you know the underlying formulas... I am not saying I have a solution but I wonder if many of the people commenting here are really prepared to consider the facts of the matter.

people are directly interested in limiting AI in order to preserve their own profits. I understand them perfectly, but I do not support them at all, since I am not an artist and, accordingly, it is more profitable for me to support as much as possible ... um, aggressive use and development of AI.

As you can see, it all comes down to money. The question is, why would an ordinary person pay a hundred dollars (for my country, for example, this is very, very big money) for a drawing, if AI can, or will be able to later, generate some nice options for any request?

Sorry for Google Translate, I don't speak english.

the problem is more than mere technological advancement or even automation--it is also mass exploitation, spam, violation of copyright, and more.

If you do something in the "style of" this didn't make a copyright infringement.

https://www.thelegalartist.com/blog.....opyright-style

In the other hand any copyrighted material like character from big company (like the copyright monster named Disney with all the company they vacuum up) produced will be an infringement.

Please note that 1928 mickey drawing (proportion and look) will fall in public domain in 2024, after this date any drawing of mickey in his 1928 look will be copyright free.

"you" as in you or i, yes. however, your use of the term anthropomorphizes digital reproduction algorithms, and automatic remixing. to paraphrase the article you linked, it might be [infringement] and it might not be. https://copyrightalliance.org/photo.....s-should-know/

I am in total agreement. As a writer, I understand what is going on. They have a writing AI now that emulates whatever writing style you choose - just name an author and feed in a sample.

In the same way robots now make cars with NO HUMAN ASSISTANCE, the same will be for all of the arts. I fully expect to see full moves using all our old favorite DEAD actors.

Vix

I mean personally I love the writing ais because, a: it's great to have a conversation with a non-existing entity and b: it's even better to get it to write saucy fanfiction that I honestly don't expect anyone to write for me especially this quickly because some of us like to keep those concepts hidden and out of public view.

As someone who works in an automotive manufacturing facility, I can safely say that there is a LOT that is done by human hands. Granted, yes, there is several processes that do require robots to handle certain things.. such as welding the body of the car together (in fact, seeing our weld department reminds me a lot of Factorio lol), installing the front and rear windows, and engine/suspension installation (just a few examples). But, a good chunk is all done by humans.

Now, I can't say thats true for all car makes. Just where I work for sure though. But, I totally understand it fully. Places that do have full automation, taking away the human touch... it makes it feel... empty. Very much like your mention of writing AI. I could see it used for perhaps getting ideas for writing... but to full generate things? It would lack the soul of the human touch.

Thanks for that. I saw where Tesla was quite proud of their robots. And yes they do have the writing AI and it’s supposed to be very good.

Vix

Art was dead long ago. from the first patrons, the church, and merchants of venice. to a modern YCH: a few colors relvent to your character, slapped on some mass copy and past mannequin by some poor artist in a near 3rd world country.

whenever art became more then a personal display to be measured and judged by the masses. when an unknowledgeable undeserving layman can usurp that hard work it took to create, **To create**, and order that art be made for them to feel some simulacrum of creativity and Pride that comes with it, art was already dead.

Art was meant to be a competition, to see who could Say something the beast, for public approval to be the judge. not a competition to win, but so that we may measure ourselves and learn and grow. Nah it hasn't been that for hundreds of years im sure when "gung" carved the lion man, someone els asked him "cool can you make me one."

we kept insisting art had no value, no measure, no purpose and that everyone could be creative. we were borne into that, it started waaaay before we were borne. you can point to the 50's abstract movement, or even impressionist but pointing to one event as to how we got hear, is rather simple minded. the fact is everything eroded art, and now AI can finally put all hope to rest.

fact is, the creative types always had mental issues. we always were outliers and we always didn't fit in. well Now AI is going to have every normie filling up the airway with the noise of generated art, and your hard work will be seen less, and less. and none will care. creativity is not the norm for humanity, and now thos who wold create, can finaly be punished for our abnormalcy.
"don't you know your obsolete, look at all the white men on the street."

Maby, as art can settle in to its little friends groups, shared around the smallest of community. the spirit of creativity can be preserved, get all pure, and burn bright for those who find it. maby that's for the better. Call me Judas, but i say our bed was made before we were born. maby this is the fire that brings new life.
thats as much hope as you will get out of me.

you completely misunderstand abstraction and have really strange, gatekeepy ideas about art and commerce.

That is, you want to say that the drawings that you posted on your own in the public domain are used for someone's education? Do you understand that no one steals the authorship of a particular drawing from you, it is only used as a teaching material? Your copyright is not violated in any way, remember that you yourself learned by looking at the styles and drawings of others, choosing the best features and creating something of your own from them. Moreover, you may have first learned from a textbook like Anatomy 101 or something similar.

I see nothing in your words but Luddism and fear for future profits. In any case, no one is going to stop the AI ​​because of all these cheers from the artists, which definitely makes me happy.

By the way, this text was translated using Google Translate, since I don't know English. This once again proves the benefits of AI.

AI does not study in order to improve itself and open new horizons in art. AI is taught to replace artists. So that by downloading the Van Gogh gallery, you could get drawings 100% similar to this artist. Except Van Gogh died, and we didn't.
So far, statements about replacing artists with AI have only been made by stupid people. But the same billionaire companies will be happy to replace 1,000 employees with one AI.
So I think the fears for future profits are also justified.

ИИ не должен учиться, чтобы какие-то горизонты открывать. Роботы должны служить людям.

Серьезно? Критиковать нейросетку за то, что ее используют, как инструмент? Вы же не будете осуждать человека за то, что он... ну, дышит, например?

Я же говорю: луддизм. Протесты против механизации. Конечно, заменят.

Ну вас это не коснётся, так что конечно, мы все дураки, а вы адепты цифровизации :/
Ладно бы этот ИИ помогал дома строить крепче и лучше, я бы не возражала.

Наоборот, меня коснется, со временем, только для меня это несет положительный момент.

Ага, возражали бы архитекторы, инженеры и прочая строительная братия. Это же их работа, а ее отнимают эти проклятые механизмы! Напоминаю, что вся конюшенная братия, от извозчиков до конюхов, которая сейчас осталась лишь как шуты для свадеб, тоже пытались остановить прогресс своими слезами, когда придумали автомобиль.

Ну вот от сюда и желание это развивать) Для себя же я вижу только негативные последствия.

Не возражали бы. Именно такие рассчеты обязательно проверялись и перепроверялись бы людьми. Машинам на 100% никто не доверит стоить дом.
Остальные примеры проигнорирую, вещи разные.

Конечно, придется снижать цены, чтобы составить конкуренцию машине. Ох как придется. Так, что, наверное, лет через 10, с текущим положением дел, я в теории заказать смогу.

Я и сейчас не могу позволить себе многие вещи. Если бы у меня небыло квартиры, которая досталась мне от родителей, то жить приходилось бы еще экономнее. А вы бы хотели чтобы художники продавали иллюстрации по цене пачки спагетти?
Теперь это звучит не как будто мы против технологии, а просто у вас существует обида на художников, за то что они не рисуют бесплатно. Так что не вижу смысла дальше с вами дискуссировать на эту тему, я свои выводы сделала.

Так что я надеюсь на обратный эффект. Сейчас большие компании начнут работать с ИИ. И все ИИ перестанут быть бесплатными и введут подписку по количествву генераций, а не по времени. И станут генерировать однотипную чушь. И искусство разделится на плебейское - с ИИ. И элитное с художниками, сттримами и традиционным искусством.

yes, unfortunately. you're right. the man above is not an artist, as she herself said. and lives in a low-income country. I am familiar with the market of this country, and so I’ll tell you, there are constant indignations that all drawings are expensive, even when artists set a price for them less than $ 1, they still write that it’s expensive. offended, they say that this is just a hobby and we should draw simply because we like to do it, because it's free. I think it's just mentality. not everyone! I had customers from this country and my friends too, who do not bargain, do not insult, do not try to humiliate and belittle the work. but there are those who will be happy if all the artists become free. now on the discussion platforms in tik tok, similar ones happily gurgle that now the artists will finally go to "real work" do you understand the attitude towards artists?)

Yes, I live in a similar situation and I understand that the people of my country are very poor. That's why I sometimes arrange raffles so that they can get art for free. But to want someone to become poorer, so that he had no choice and was forced to work for pennies, is shameless.

If you're seriously interested in educating your self, you could watch this excellent video by an artist where he highlights the issue from the perspective of content creators. I highly recommend it!

The End of Art: An Argument Against Image AIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjS.....Ss&t=1874s

why should I look at the problem from the point of view of the creator, if I am exclusively a consumer?

зачем нам озадачиваться проблемой вырубки лесов-производителей кислорода если мы только лишь его потребители?

это передергивание имело бы смысл, если бы я продавала кислород в баллонах. Ну, то есть, вы действительно могли бы прижать меня в вопросе "мораль или прибыль?". Здесь и масштаб явно не тот, и ситуация совершенно иная. Как бы это ни было парадоксально, но этот ваш "кислород от лесов-производителей" оказался натуральным и свежим, спору нет, но зачем мне платить за него бешеные деньги, если фабрика ОКСИГЕНН-Е синтезирует мне сколько надо кислорода совершенно бесплатно?

Вы не будете продавать, а кто-то другой будет. Для нас, не потребителей, это выглядит как "Ага, вы всю жизнь работали над тем чтобы развить навыки и получить то что умеете, спасибо, мы это возьмём и кинем в чан. А теперь валите от сюда, нечего считать искусство работой"

Why shouldn't you?

Empathy is valuable. And perspective is very, very valuable.

Of course, empathy is valuable. How about expressing condolences to someone who has 100 dollars, which is one sixth of the AVERAGE salary in her country?

I'll just call that entitled.

If you don't have enough to buy food and other life necessities, then of course I feel bad for you.

But whining because you can't afford art? You're not entitled to it. You're not entitled to stealing art simply because you can't afford it.

Artists have to eat, too!

It's the artists who whine. I'm glad that there was a way out for me.

"Artists have to eat, too!"
Is that you in the picture, mr. luddite?
https://banco.az/sites/default/file.....0674e4b051.jpg

404.

So no empathy, then? I thought not. I guess you're just here to troll. Too bad I'm well below the poverty line myself, we might have had something to talk about, if you were really serious about learning something new.

Sad, yet predictable, to see so many people twist themselves into logical knots to justify stealing the livelihood of artists. Even if you were to own up to it by saying something like, "I know this is wrong, but while it's openly available to me, I'm still going to use it for my own selfish reasons." Even that I'd have more respect for.

I've said my piece. Best of luck to you in life!

Troll? What for? I have much safer spaces for that.

Of course, no empathy. Am I seeing progress that I'm directly interested in and should empathize with the fact that there will be no way for anyone to make money? Seriously?

*ostentatiously sobs*

Because not only the copyrighted material of artists and creatives was used but also informations like private medical data. Lets say they used pictures of, your family or someone you know without their consent. Do you think that's alright? The potential violation of data privacy plays an important role here as well.

Everything that is posted in the public domain is not private information by definition. Resenting this is the same as asking "do not repost" in the gallery, it's useless and ridiculous

Are you sure? That's not how this works under EU law, as far s I know. But I am not an expert on copyright in the US. It can be quite complicated. Because even if something is published under public domain here, that still doesn't mean someone is free to do with it what ever they want. And I know that posting something "in public" here in Germany is not enough to make it "public domain". The content creator has to explicitly publish it under a public domain. Just me posting pictures on Facebook or what ever, doesn't make it free to use for all. In other words, copyright is "automatic". The moment you create something, you have it. Always. And you can't lose it by posting something in public. Makes no sense to me. And why do you think "do not repost" is ridiculous? Because people express their desire to not get their work "stolen" and reposted somewhere else without their consent?

copyright protects your work or photographs from being used for commercial purposes. Teaching something is not a commercial use because it does not directly generate profit. In Japan, they want to legitimize the existing situation, that is, to approve the use of any materials for AI training. In the US, they still cite existing fair use laws.

I even wonder if there will be any special reservations specifically for Belarus. It seems that when they are accepted, neural networks will already be trained in everything.

Yes, the request "do not repost" is like coming to a criminal area, hung with money, but with a sign "do not steal." Although, in case of such stupidity, the law still protects you from robbery.

>> Teaching something is not a commercial use because it does not directly generate profit.<<

If the current legal structure with fair use applies to the datasets and their use is still an open qustion. You don't have to take this from me. Legal experts themself say that it's a "gray" area for now. Hell even the developers behind MidJourney and other AI image generators cleary state on their websites that they are NOT liable for eventuall issues that could come up in the future when people use the content for business purpose. Fair use regulations as important as they are, are not meant to be exploited in a way where millions(!) of content creators have their rights violated.

I quote :

"IP law expert Bradley J Hulbert recently told TechCrunch that AI-generated images could cause various problems from a copyright perspective. He said that artwork that bears a resemblance to a “protected work” such as a Disney character or logo needs to be “transformative” to be legally protected.

If a piece of work qualifies as fair use under a legal defence such as this, then it would not be considered a copyright infringement.

However, the issue around fair use protection becomes confusing when AI is involved. An article by The Verge last year noted that “there is no direct legal precedent in the US that upholds publicly available training data as fair use”."

Something else that should be higlighted here is the whole issue of copyrights regarding content created by AI, I quote :

"Meanwhile, a decision issued by the US Copyright Office in February implies that AI-generated images can’t be copyrighted at all as an element of “human authorship” is required."

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/mac.....isks-copyright

As you can see this whole situation will be a legal and cultural challange regarding content and content creators. And is under no circumstances comparable to a situation where someone might use art for the purpose of studying or learning. The current legal framework is simply outdated.

>>Yes, the request "do not repost" is like coming to a criminal area, hung with money, but with a sign "do not steal."<<

Victim blaming much? No it is not. I have no clue why you would even think that. When someone is uploading content here on FurAffinity or some other art related website then they have every right to demand that people are not re-posting the content on other websites without their consent. Plain and simple. And they have right to take legal action and demand from the website to remove the content if someone would do it. Dude. That's illegal in most countries. And for good reason. Artists and content creators share a PRIVILIGE with others, the privilige to look at their work.

I hope that lawyers will decide in favor of neural networks. That's all I can say. But now you can prepare a Japanese proxy :D

No one can prevent you from reposting with attribution, because this is a non-commercial use. As long as you don't profit from your use or take credit for yourself, the law can't affect you. Plus, good luck tracking down everyone. The analogy with the money suit in the criminal district turned out to be surprisingly accurate, as I see it.

(Tell this Russian that she could be polite and look at my gender before calling me "he")

>>No one can prevent you from reposting with attribution, because this is a non-commercial use.<<

The moment I upload my work on a website like Furaffinity it's still my content and as long I don't give explicit permission you're not allowed to share the work without my consent. This is not fair use. You're gravely mistaken here if you tink it is. It's really that simple. And if you upload it on other websites, I have every legal right to get that content removed if I see it.

The fact that some people still decide to "steal" and share the content isn't changing the legality here. Some people steal cars and get away with it. That doesn't change the fact that it's illegal though. Yes people can and do sometimes upload the work of others. But it's still illegal. And honestly it's really a very shitty thing to do. I am not an expert on copy right violations in Russia or Belarus. But it seems to be very similar :

Russian copyright law offers moral and economic rights to its owner. The moral rights or paternity rights provide the owner with the following:

- recognition as author,
- the right to choose whether the work will be or won’t be disclosed to the public,
- the right to withdraw work from public view,
- the right to integrity that protects the author’s dignity.

https://www.lawyersrussia.com/intel.....creative%20art.

I do not know why you believe just posting something online would give you or anyone else the right to just take the content and upload it somewhere else or do what ever you want with it.

Don't pay any attention to this man. He doesn't respect the artist and is openly proud of it.
It is useless to convince such people of something, they have no conscience. "everything that is in the public domain can be used" is a phrase of people who absolutely do not understand copyright.

You're probably right. But what can I say. I am stubborn! :D

You literally indicate many times in the comments that you want to influence AI in order to forbid me to create content with it, because it will deprive you of profit. I take a diametrically opposite position: I need to create content using AI, because it is much cheaper (or just free) than creating content with the help of real people. Do you still think your stubbornness makes sense? You literally support the stratification of society, opposing the development of neural networks.

>>You literally indicate many times in the comments that you want to influence AI in order to forbid me to create content with it, because it will deprive you of profit.<<

Could be an issue with language and translation - you mentioned english is not your first language.

This is not what I am saying. At all.

What I am saying is that the current issue regarding AI and how the algorithm is trained is a big legal gray area. And this will be adressed one way or another. And if some law would prohibit the use of copy righted material the algorithm still exists. It just has to be trained differently. Sorry if you feel that this "prohibits" you from making content because it's "cheaper". But well. It is what is I am afraid. There are millions of content creators out there and they have to be protected as well.

Besides, doing "digital" art is not expensive at all. You already have a computer.

And I'm not afraid. I like the prospect of AI driving down artist prices. I already mentioned that a hundred bucks is 1/6 of the average salary in my country, not to mention the actual one, for which it can be a quarter, or even 1/3? I am directly benefiting from the development of AI.

"The intention of those algorithms so to speak, is to cut out creatives alltogether. ALL creatives and content creators. To make it so accessible that literaly everyone can use it and create what ever content they desire with what ever style the algorithm was trained with . If they will achieve with this is still debatable. The itention however is absolutely clear."

These are your words. To oppose that I can create any content in any style is reminiscent of fascism.

>>And I'm not afraid. I like the prospect of AI driving down artist prices.<<

As if. Right now it leads to the development of gimicks like the Leisa App. If that's what you're really looking for. Cool. But if you want furypron for 2 cents a picture that satisfies all your fetishes? Good luck with that. I think it will stake some time before that becomes a reality.

And yes. Those are my words. But we're talking about different situations here I am afraid. Are you a creative director at some indiecompany looking for concept artists or something like that? Or looking for graphic design and logos? Who knows. Those creatives might be in a tough spot in the near future. Who knows. Or the technology might still take another 10 years to really be in a place where it can completely replace creatives. I also said, if they will achieve that is still debatable.

Bit I am not sure what you're actually looking for when you say you want cheap art.

Anyway. I am not going to say more about this for now. This is tiresome.

I am not saying that I will get everything right now, I am ready to endure several years to get what I need. I have all the time in the world, but you should hurry to extract your profit from your work, because soon you will have to retrain for a more demanded profession.

Corporate issues don't bother me much, especially boss issues. The profession of a designer in our country is a meme.

I'm glad I was able to defend my position. Writing with Google Translate is tedious.

Shizuka has already given you all the arguments, then I can only copy and paste his/her messages.

Of course, let it be decided. I have already downloaded the Japanese proxy. If anything, then the authorities of Belarus, it seems, have not even heard of such a phenomenon as neural networks, so we are waiting for the hosting of neural networks to move to ".by".

Все твои комментарии выглядят так, будто ты борешься не за то чтобы тебе разрешили заниматься творчеством, посредством ИИ, а чтобы художники просто снизили цены, так как желание покупать картинки есть, а денег нет. И я кстати говоря так же не имею возможности заказывать рисунки, хоть и зарабатываю продажей арта.

Если бы ИИ обучались на разрешенном материале, никто бы не возражал. Но произошла кража чужой интеллектуальной собственности и таким как ты показали возможности манипуляций с украденным. И теперь вы стучите кулаками и кричите "хочу! хочу!" не задумываясь о том, что это украли.

Для меня это равнозначные понятия. Мне все равно, какой инструмент использовать для получения результата: художника или нейросетку. Отношение "цена к качеству" некто не отменил.

Тебе-то зачем заказывать рисунки? Зачем художнички платят за то, что они могут сделать сами? Чушь какая-то. Никогда этого не понимала: если бы я училась рисовать вместо того, чтобы книжки читать и нрг водить, у меня бы и мысли не появилось делегировать это еще на кого-то. Особенно за деньги.

Shizuka ниже уже таким, как ты, все объяснил(а) про обучение нейросеток.

И да, если что-то украли, то как мне может помешать это что-то хотеть? Не, я понимаю, что сытый голодного не разумеет, однако маздай украли с доса, например, и от лицензионных форточек на компе у каждого никаких воплей. Не вижу никаких проблем в том, чтобы пользоваться украденным, если кратко.

Нда, думать, что если я не смогу ответить, то "проигнорированные" комментарии будут выставлять меня в дурном свете? Тут нет мобильной верификации, я могу насоздавать сколько надо пустышек, чтобы не дать тебе такого удовольствия.

Художники заказывают картинки, потому что все рисуют по разному и видят мир по разному. И иногда хочется увидеть свою задумку чужими глазами.
Можешь мне не отвечать, эту страницу я тоже забаню. Я не хочу, чтобы в моих бесплатных рафлах участвовали люди, которые не уважают художников.

У меня теперь появилась цель выиграть в твоем раффле :D

Извини за то, что я считаю наемных работников наемными работниками и, логично, хочу платить им меньше. Это называется "капитализм".

Чмок-в-пупок, желаю удачи~ ❤

Чел, это называется не капитализм, это называется блядство! Любой труд должен быть достойно оплачен, и если ты не хочешь платить столько сколько просит исполнитель, то это ты идёшь на 3 буквы, а не он🙃

I respect your perseverance. :D
But as I understand it, this person is offended that he lives in a poor country, and would like everyone to become poorer and he was not so offended. Lol.

Yeah. I see that as well. But what can you do. There is no point in geting angry or frustrated about it. I just like to hold against such opinions.

machine learning algorithms do not learn the way a person does, it is mere mimicry, as evidenced by these algorithms copying signatures.

an important quality of the luddites were, they were not against technology--only technology that unfairly threatened their livelihood, which is the same issue.

And what happened to the luddites? Oh, they just disappeared. 😢😢😢

I like this perspective for similar personalities.

the textile industry also radically changed; most of it is now exported, nearly slave-labor from overseas.

I'm talking about all Luddites, not just English ones. History shows that no protest against technology has been successful. How glad I am that AI will dump prices.

> How glad I am that AI will dump prices.

this is extremely short-sighted and selfish. high artist prices exist because good art is a luxury. devaluing it down to a commodity means artists will abandon their craft in search of another way to exist under capitalism. if you want low-priced furry art, there are plenty of aspiring creators. ai will literally torpedo this niche industry.

The world is selfish. Deal with it.

Poor artists! What a pity! Does capitalism really work and employees for others are just employees who sell their labor? Take all my money immediately!

*theatrical sobs*

astonishing how willing people are to shoot themselves in the foot to gain a slight financial advantage.

Wow, shoot YOURSELF in the foot. If you bother to look at my profile, you will see that I am not an artist. And the size of the benefit is still unknown, to say that it is small. Maybe prices will drop 10 times?

i wish you as a non-artist would consider prices to be comparable to your wages--how would /you/ feel if your boss was complaining you make too much money and arguing that machine learning and automation was a means to pay you less?

I'm glad this didn't happen to me, right?

i need to see more of this on devient art. im seeing to many ppl selling ai generated adoptables

I like the idea of feeding an ai your own images or perhaps a 3D model to use. Like if I wanted a picture of my character doing something, it would produce it pretty accurately. Some clean up and adjusting in my end, and boom! I can now finally do that epic comic I'll never do because it's too big.

They need to sell the ai, not the ai's product.

I'm not defending it, I really wish the whole thing was done differently but corporate greed (unsurprisingly again) messed it up.

You can already do that, and the program is free as long as your computer is powerful enough to run it.

I know. I really wish it wasn't that way. Like I could create an account and have access to a blank slate ai service that I can upload/mass upload to a style profile then use it to create art. Bonus points if the service allows 3D models to be uploaded for reference as well. I would pay handsomely for an artist to model one of my characters for an ai to sample from so I can quickly make specific character art.

Anyway, the whole issue is not the ai, it's the human capitalism element. All art made with an ai is public domain, so anyone that sells it, even sells access to an ai, is certainly in the wrong. Wombo Dream ai is free, and you only pay for premium styles, even on their discord you can make your own styles and add an ai art bot to your own discord server. Their policy is that you own the art, it cannot be sold, and you must credit wombo at least. It uses VQGAN and CLIP so it's one of the more ethical models for generation. It's not the best, but some good input images can really make it shine. It's the one I use.

AI should be banned from the literally stealing arts and images and ideas from authors
It is quite illegal and can be used to silently steal property without noticing the original creator
Also can we call immitation of art an art at all? In my honest opinion - it cannot be called that
AI didn't create new. It created something that immitates new based on bunch of images and pieces
It just yet another step into the abyss of techno-fascism where the machines will become more and more subjugating but not liberating
If it will continue like that the only way it will be is to return to the root, to tradional arts. Canvas, brush, pencils, crayons and markers... Let the monster starve

I do appreciate a good argument against AI stealing people's are and profiting off it I absolutely do but I'd still do not understand the argument people have against imitating work we as artists already do that. There's already a bunch of clones there's already a bunch of anti-dev artists out there.
There's several artists that draw like zentiger there are several artists that draw like chunie because they're all studied and copied and learned how to draw like artists that they enjoyed. I understand the general consensus against ai art I just don't understand this particular point since mimicry after all is considered one of the greatest forms of artistry

The thing is that neither of those artist that you mention which either imitate a certain style or learn from someone by copying are putting their ability to make a living in jeopardy. They are not going to impersonante Zentiger - which would be illegal by the way - or claim "his" style is now theirs. Nor are they going to replace him.
The intention of those algorithms so to speak, is to cut out creatives alltogether. ALL creatives and content creators. To make it so accessible that literaly everyone can use it and create what ever content they desire with what ever style the algorithm was trained with. If they will achieve with this is still debatable. The itention however is absolutely clear.
Besides if you actually "steal" someones work and it has extremely strong similarities you could sue them if you feel that your rights have been violated. So it's not like this is a field where everything goes just because we're talking about human artists. There are countless of legal lawsuits out there, from corporations to individuals which protected their intellectual property. You can not put a copyright on a specific style. But you can still get it in a court room and a judge might decide that you as original content creator can get compensation.

I don't think it's illegal to base your style around another artist.
I mean that's kind of how you learn to draw even going to high school and growing up like not only would you have books that teach you how to draw and it teaches you from a certain perspective but they tell you to imitate the Masters because it's an essential part of learning artistry. So in terms of that particular argument I disagree.

In terms of the whole AI debate realistically I just want to see some sort of holodeck in the future and if that means teaching AI to recognize certain things sure.

I'm really interested in AIS that either write or answer questions or recreate photographic scenes, I'm not sure how much of ai is copy paste or inspired by, but it certainly shouldn't be taking exact copies of someone's art and then selling it. That said my perspectives on copyright probably wouldn't fit in right here but also my perspectives on capitalism are not compatible with my thoughts on copyright currently lol

>>I don't think it's illegal to base your style around another artist.<<

Hard to say. This has to be decided probably from case to case. There are several questions and issues which would have to be considered here. How close does the work resemble the original? Has there been some damage done to the original creator? Whas the copied work used under fairshare or was it used to create profit? Was the original content creator named at some point? Is there enough difference between the two pieces so they are not confused for each other?

I am not a laywer with a focus on copyright infringements. But I would be surprised if there haven't been cases settled in curts with similar issues like how much of someones "style" was used. There isn't a copyright on a specific style. But it is certainly quite complicated when it comes to content creation and how much the original creator should be honored.

One issue that is very important here is how the work is being treated I think. Like, what is the intent? No one has an issue with taking someones else work and to copy it for the purpose of learning. That's understood. Or even adapting someones work. As long as you give credit to the original and the work you used. Things get complicated though when you start to claim something as your own. Like a certain style. I can not take the style of someone, learn it and then claim it is "mine", like as I invented that style. I can not paint something like H.R. Giger and say that is my style. Or Dali's paintings are my style. You know what I mean? That would be identity theft. It would be disrespectful to the original work. And many people would call me out on it and say, that I merely adopted their style. A whole different situation. And if I would now start selling work while claiming I invented a certain style while I only copied it then it gets really problematic. You can actually get into the issue of art forgery here. People have gone to jail for that actually.

Like Wolfgang Beltracchi, he painted and sold works in the style of Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin while claiming it would be their work. He didn't copy existing paintings by the way. He actually created whole new paintings with new subjects by using old frames and paper from a time when the artist was still alive. But he copied their style to such perfection that he tricked people into believing it was some long lost work by Picasso or Gauguin. I must admit though, the way how he (and his wife) did it was pretty ingenious, you can read more about it here :

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/g.....us-art-forger/

But once the authorities found out about it he was convincted for art forgery. So as you can see this is certainly a complicated subject.

And this is an issue with AI art. Because people type a text into something where they say paint something in the style of Kim Jung GI or Rutkowski and claim it's "their" style.

I think essentially trying to prevent people from making money off of AI generated ary whose data sets contain artwork belonging to other people would be a good step.

Cuz I really don't want to hold back the progress on AI I think it's essential piece of our future. Personally I do find it difficult to find the evil in creating data sets of art then generate art from those data sets I feel that it sort of exists in a weird gray area between parody and edits cuz we see edits all the time all the time. provided that someone's not profiting off it or it's damaging the original Creator I don't seem too much of an issue with that. I do think a Creator should be able to pull their examples from data sets. Right now nothing is stopping any of us from saving all the art that we see on the internet on our computer and then showing other people what we do with it for our own entertainment really doesn't Factor too much into any illegal activity. It should really just come down to the type of damages that it can cause financial loss loss of reputation damaging of character etc

Of course it is progress. And it will be around and it's good to have development. But the moment it really starts to hurt a lot of people it becomes a perversion of what its meant to be I think.
Albeit I think it is a good moment to maybe stop and actually think if progress is the same as technological evolution. I don't believe that's always the same. And while AI has the potential to liberate us from hard, boring and tedious work I am not sure if the creative process was really in such need of automatition to be honest. It's like as if someone would come around the corner with an idea to build nuclear weapons that cost a penny and can be done in someones garage with household items. Would that be a progress we want?
Yeah I guess that's something we really don't ask our self often enough.

See I have one selfish issue wit hthe blowback/
Im a big fan of star trek especially the holodeck. I understand it would take a computer with billions of datasets to do what it does... but its also maybe the only judgement free way to experience fantasy situations that are entirely private... and I would.. love that. >_>;; To get carried away by sam and max would be a dream XD

Yeah. I fear it will end more in a revision of the industrial revolution when automatition lead to mass poverty, starvation wages, devalue of labour, social and civil unrest and political instability. Who knows in 100 years Ai might bring us to that Star-Trek like Utopia where all our needs are cared for and humans can look at the stars or what ever. But with our current society? And the current economic model? I am not so sure that we will get there any time soon. People are required to have incomes in our consumerist society. And the main source for income is to sell your time for money. But if automatition devalues labour for a large portion of the work forces this could become very disruptive. Funny enough Star Trek also mentioned a period in earths time line with mass unemployment where the unemployed where forced into ghettos and rounded up.
As much potential as there is in AI I am not so optimstic about it for the short term.

Yeah I remember that in Star Trek I think Benjamin sysco visit one of those gulags at one point.

You would think that there would be some sort of stopgap like universal income which is something a few countries including up here in Canada. I also guess we don't have the cultural fiber at this point in a majority of societies where people will be able to find productive things to do if they're not working


I imagine all of this will probably head towards the direction of the movie Elysium

the utopias of star trek can't exist while people's labor is exploited under capitalism. machine learning in its current form is the latest method of automating that exploitation.

I mean no one in the right mind would want a utopia for humanity. Change and progress is incremental.

As for the technology like nearly every technology there are going to be people use it to exploit but that doesn't mean the technology is detrimental to society itself. Society is detrimental to society.

i remember when people sold modern computers, and the internet with the same logic. technology /is/ a tool, but a tool with /context/: the corporate state /will/ use their enormous leverage to further entrench their advantage and exploit us. they have done it all throughout our history, and so we must consider the ethical consequences *as the technology is being developed*, not afterwards.

And modern computers have been both good and bad for society, that's fair but I argue it's in human nature to build newer ways to discover their capacity for good and evil. I hope good always wins out and it's encourage people to try... But stopping that chaotic progress, seems harder than stopping a mountain from shaking.

i'm not talking about stopping progress, but rather guiding its direction to not enable our exploitation. while it is natural for us to develop technology to make our lives easier, it remains unevenly distributed due to class, and prone to be misused.

I say no to AI generated art because such a thing is not physically and logically possible using binary computer code, and is just a well crafted delusion used to trick people who don't know how computers work. So different reasons but same result? Would be a cool technology if it ever ACTUALLY existed, but likely not in our lifetimes.

Hold on now you and I are binary computer code my friend.

Couldn't agree with you more. I'm no artist , but many of my friends are , and its disgusting how its legal for these AIs to just steal from artists. Ive even seen evidence of them stealing real photos of people , which is terrifying. Many of my friends , myself included are having to take down and remove all the artwork we've drawn or bought , from public sites , and deactivate their platform where they get customers from

If thats where they get customers from, isn't that just basically killings ones career out of fear that ones career will possibly be killed?

Just feels a wee bit too keen to move out of the way for AI.

I don't follow. Artists get their clients by advertising their art and having a portfolio. If an artist has to remove their work , it affects business

Right. You said you and many of your friends are taking down your portfolios and accounts from where you get customers from which I gathered was because you were afraid of the art being scrapped by AIs. But also if you take down the art and can't get customers then you don't really have business... and the only way to get a piece in your style at that point is now the AIs which, if the accounts were with any major art site, probably were already scraped.

Basically I don't get the point in removing the art and lowering your chances of being hired to avoid a technology that is expected to lower your chances to get hired. It feels like that just expounds the problem, not relieves it.

Oh! my bad , my brain is fried from work. I , myself , am not an artist , so i don't have to worry about losing clients. I'd just rather not have art i paid for , used by an AI. As for my artist friends , some of them have had their art stolen for AIs already , and they're just trying to protect tgeir work

Even when you're fucking with thieves it's beautiful.

This isn't really how the AI behind these programs works.

AI isn't copying any artist's work and building a library of images, and then getting a prompt and creating some Frankenstein pastiche using the arm from your picture and the face from someone else's and the clothes from a third person's.

What is happening is the AI is being trained -- for years, in many cases -- to "recognize" abstractions. What is a face, what is an arm, what are clothes? How are these things depicted in art, and how do they relate to one another?

You know how you open a photo app on your phone and it puts boxes around people's faces? Same idea.

How does it learn these things? By "looking" at a lot of art, being guided by humans (rather heavily, at the beginning, and much so later on), and by analyzing disparate images to find points of similarity that it can describe algorithmically.

The same way that a human does.

If you look at a piece of art, are inspired by it, and decide to create your own piece of art based upon the theme or composition that inspired you, are you copying? No.

Neither is the AI.

Wrong. Those datasets contain copyrighted works, and the AI spits out a face by making an amalgamation of the copies of faces that it has stored. Some of the disclaimers even mention how these AI programs could spit out an exact copy of of their training images.

This isn't even remotely similar to how a human processes information.

Why the hell do you think AI images spit out badly mangled faces, limbs, etc.? They aren't learning abstractions. They are throwing patterns they see into a blender then spitting out the results.

Don't confuse a CYA disclaimer for what's beneath the hood. There's a reason entertainment media today all says something to the effect of "Any resemblance to real persons living or deceased is unintended." It's not because they were intentionally putting dead-ringers of various people into their films. A well-trained AI isn't going to spit out exact copies of its training images. Also, it doesn't contain copyrighted works. It doesn't store discrete images.

AI produces mangled faces and limbs because one, it's just not that good yet, and two, those are hard. How many human artists do you know who have trouble with fingers or lips? It doesn't help that anatomical distortion for effect is so common in art.

As far as being similar to how a human processes information... eh. It's not a perfect match, but it's pretty close given what we have to work with at the moment. It'll improve.

If it isn't storing images and frankenstein-ing them together, how come some of the generated images have already been caught having partial watermarks/signatures within the generated image? You can literally compare the original image with it's signature and where the signature got warped in the generated image.

That's a heck of a good question, and a hard one to answer. A full answer means explaining a lot about how Machine Learning works (I say "machine learning" / "ML" because it's a much more appropriate technical term than "artificial intelligence"). And the depths of a FurAffinity comment tree isn't really the place for that.

So if you want a full answer then I'd have to say, "Shizuka is correct: that's just not how it works, and if you need to know more then any of the YouTube search results for 'how machine learning works' will explain far better than I can."

But a basic answer is that, "Yes, ML can do that if you do it wrong." The technical term is "overfitting". It's kind of like when a teacher accidentally teaches a student to answer exam questions rather than understand the material, so the student answers questions by reciting chunks of stuff they've learned by rote.

(My qualifications: I wouldn't call myself an ML expert, but I both live and work with people who are, and I've written minor ML applications of my own for real-world purposes.)

I appreciate that abbreviated answer and that makes sense, but if we concede that these machines are /meant/ to learn rather than store, I would still argue that we need regulation then. Because "they can do that if you do it wrong" is concerning when you're dealing with tech bro companies with a deep history of cutting corners and putting morals aside for the sake of advancement. I've got no problem with AI anything in a vacuum, but like any other extremely powerful tool, we need legal protections and regulation. It can't be a free for all. Imo it should not be learning by being allowed to crawl through any part of the online. These companies could suck it up and pay like, what $100 total, for like - tons of "image stock" subscriptions for a month, and learn that way. And they can have a program for artists to willing allow it to learn from their work. There's an ethical way to go about this and from my eyes, they aren't doing that.

I emphatically agree with the general shape of that, though I need to think more about some of the specifics. For example, there are some people who seem to be saying that ML models shouldn't be trained on copyrighted materials at all, and I think that's an overreaction. We're going to need a discussion about the interests of the creators, the potential benefits in other directions, and so on.

On my previous remarks, it occurred to me that if a badly-tuned ML model just regurgitates one of its input images, then its behaviour is covered by traditional copyright legislation -- it's basically acting as a glorified floppy disk.

Exactly.

Although In fairness under the law it is perfectly legal to use copyrighted works for the purpose of data sets so long as the data sets are being used in research and study.

That's where the gray area is because a lot of these companies are actually trying to make a profit off of this now LOL which is where I start to draw the line

" Those datasets contain copyrighted works," I mean this part I know has to be wrong because the datasets are supposed to have millions of images saved to them but only come in at a couple gigs. Unless OpenAi has discovered and is sitting on some amazing new compression technology there is no way the models have the actual works in them

Well, you are wrong. Try going and doing even a few seconds of research next time. Cheers.

I mean I have done the research? More than you have apparently. The SD and its branches don't have actual works saved into them. They learned off of works, but the distributed files don't actually contain any of the works nor do any of the associated model files.

I know there are a lot of 'infographs' going around depicting it splicing cakes together or talking about it stealing wheat from fields but thats... not how it works.

Wrong.

https://waxy.org/2022/08/exploring-.....age-generator/

And yet the link says I'm right? This is all the Liaon database they trained off of, not the actual model files in use or having been downloaded many many times.

Either there is a miscommunication here or your not really informed on the subject in a way that justifies your attitude.

No, you’re just clueless, or more likely, just looking for a convenient excuse to justify your immoral actions.

No I've honestly looked into things and the more and more I look into how the technology works and what it actually does the more I've come to realize that there is a lot of misinformation out there on what is actually going on.

It's definitely rubbing up a grey line to be sure, and it is concerning. But its also not helpful in the slightest to converse about it with false or misleading information because thats great for getting people riled up but often leads to complete disappointment when actual decisions have to be made and those decisions don't go the way people want because the facts don't actually line up.

Bruh, just because it doesn't include full sized training images in the program client doesn't mean they aren't being used without artists' permissions. Just because they are using low resolution, compressed versions of the training images doesn't make the issue go away.

There is no gray area. These are copyrighted works being used without permission. They only reason it was allowed in the first place was because it was done under the guise of education/research, which gets extra weigh in far use exceptions, then they weaseled their way into turning that into a commercial product.

Decisions aren't going against artists because "the facts don't line up;" artists are just being screwed because copyright laws are ancient and don't fit the modern world. There are also multiple lawsuits in court right now on this very issue, so claiming the decisions are already against them just further betrays how clueless you are on the matter.

But they aren't using low resolution compresses versions. Thats the point. to fit all those images in the file hey would have to be under 1.6k or smaller. My icon is 5 times more data than that. People have pulled the file apart, its not storing actual images. its storing information on how to convert random noise into shapes so they can feed it other random noise and get other different shapes from it. Thats how the entire technology works

And it very much is a grey area, because the whole issue IS that they aren't actually distributing or actually using the images it trained off of to make the images the AI generates. Thats the whole 101 basic issue with the whole thing and why its legality isn't currently in question only its ethics. This is.. this is basic information about the entire technology that your uninformed upon but acting like you are educated upon.

There are also, at least to my knowledge and searching, no cases in court yet. The only case I could find was verses google and the courts decision was that not, it was not illegal to use copyrighted work to train machine learning algorithms. This was in regards to search engines but as I said its the only one that I could find let alone there was a decision on.

How am I being accused of being the clueless one here when your the one with all the wrong information?

From the link I provided earlier:

"Stable Diffusion’s initial training was on low-resolution 256×256 images from LAION-2B-EN, a set of 2.3 billion English-captioned images from LAION-5B‘s full collection of 5.85 billion image-text pairs, as well as LAION-High-Resolution, another subset of LAION-5B with 170 million images greater than 1024×1024 resolution (downsampled to 512×512)."

>>What is happening is the AI is being trained -- for years, in many cases -- to "recognize" abstractions. What is a face, what is an arm, what are clothes? How are these things depicted in art, and how do they relate to one another?<<

And how do they get access to all the material to train it? By leting the algorithm sift trough the net collecting millions of images and private data, of which many are copy righted, without the consent of those that own the data. Some have even found private medical data in those data sets. Companies like Microsoft finance non-profit organisations like OpenAI with billions which use research priviliges to collect that data which then is used to form the data sets for the AI that sells the algorithm in apps and as subscription models. If they wouldn't exploit research priviliges as non profit organisations they couldn't do it. Which shows that the current laws and regulations are not dealing well with the current situation. Something that experts in data privacy have criticsed for years by the way because what we're seeing right now is not only a matter of copy right violations but also a serious breach of data privacy.

There are different versions of machine learning out there, but to make it short it is not "learning" by actually looking at those images or data. One way how it works is trough statiststics for example. It works by exploring data and identifying patterns. Which is a similar process to how a human learns but with the difference that the algorithm has no value of what it learns. To the algorithm it makes no difference if the subject is a cat or a chair. They are all informations. This is why it requires an insane amount of data and examples to "learn" from. A human learns intuitively what a char or a cat is and can make abstractions. The algorithm can't. Which is also why it can give you sometimes crap as results. It can only give you the things it has in its data set. Machine learning was already a reality 20 years ago. But only now has the access to data and powerfull hardware allowed it to be used more effectively.

Certainly. AI isn't sapient. Perhaps never will be.

But the current generation of it does learn in much the same way humans do, when you dig down. The difference is that people are not generally aware of what they're doing when they're internalizing a concept. A person who sketches a cat doesn't have an algorithm representing "cat" running through his head. The math is still there, though, even if the person isn't consciously aware of it.

This is easier to see in music than in visual art, as the math-music relationship isn't buried quite as deeply beneath the surface.

Back to the learning... it depends on what you mean when you say "learning," I suppose. Lacking sapience, an AI can't produce anything truly novel. But then, most humans can't, either. Nihil sub sole novum, and all that. Still, it's a machine, in the end. It requires human intervention, to some extent. As you say, it can only give you the things it has in its data set. Which is practically irrelevant, if the data set grows large enough and the algorithms are tweaked well enough.

But at the same time, these sorts of algorithms can do things most humans wouldn't credit. For instance, they can evaluate the creativity of an art piece, accurately enough that their judgment falls reasonably in line with that of many art historians. (A similar algorithm is used in search engines, to determine "relevance")

No, if you want to look for areas where AI art falls short, technique is not generally the place. Occasional odd faces and disturbing hands aside... the real gap is in social context. The AI doesn't understand people, places, politics, or history. It can create an image, but it can't tell a story with it. It can't do allegory or metaphor. A careful enough prompt might manage to produce a piece that successfully fakes it, I guess, but this is artifice and accident. It can't imbue its work with meaning or message.

At least, not yet.

The statement that, "the current generation of it does learn in much the same way humans do," is sharply at odds with my understanding of ML. My understanding is that ML's internal representations are inscrutable to humans. In fact I would have said that's one of the two points of ML:

- first, it can model situations which are human-comprehensible in principle, but too complex for humans to encode in reasonable time, and

- second, it can capture relationships which are simply not accessible to humans in any human-meaningful conceptual framework.

On the other hand, you say "current generation," and I'm not even sure how many generations behind I am! If you give me any search terms to clue myself up a bit, I'll be grateful.

That might be a little misleading in its phrasing. Holistically, what machines do in ML isn't the same as what humans do in education, of course. With art in particular, though, the processes have a decent degree of similarity, and work is moving toward making them more similar.

There's a pretty good layman's overview of the general process behind AICAN, one of the art AIs, in Scientific American: https://www.americanscientist.org/a.....tion-of-artist This particular art AI caused a bit of a stir in the middle of the last decade, so it's not on the cutting edge now, but it's among the first to use the generative adversarial network approach. Another thousand-foot overview in a more academic format: https://www.researchgate.net/public.....ew_and_Outlook

A recent innovation is Stable Diffusion's compression-diffusion-upscaling approach, which cuts the processing power required. Stability's code is open-source, so can be downloaded and examined directly if you're looking for technical specifications. I think this is a decent walkthrough/explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lz30by8-sU

>>But the current generation of it does learn in much the same way humans do, when you dig down. <<

Well. It's complicated. It's been quite a few years that I actually got in to the technicallity of it when I had programing classes - machine learning is not a new concept it's rather that our hardware is only now powerfull enough that millions of data can be collected and processed for it to be effective. And without going too much in to the details let us just say, there are similarities. But there are also huge differences. Machine learning is more an imitation if anything. Not to mention that there are different models of machine learning of which some work very different to how humans learn and create content. You can look up Numberhile on Youtube which explain some of them. It's very informative :

How AI Image Generators Work (Stable Diffusion / Dall-E) - Computerphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CI.....xIhU&t=51s

But to put it simple regarding the differences, I quote :

"Humans acquire knowledge through experience either directly or shared by others. Machines acquire knowledge through experience shared in the form of past data.
(...)
Machine intelligence is limited to the areas in which they are trained. But human intelligence is independent of his domain of training. An intelligent human being will be able to solve problems related to unforeseen domains, whereas a machine will not be able to do that."

https://www.datasciencecentral.com/.....%20past%20data.

Fair. I'm speaking of learning art in particular, though, not of learning in general. I could have been more clear, that's on me.

The full scope is a bit too large for a comment thread, but the machine imitates in much the same way a human who's learning to draw does. The differences lie in the types of reasoning and association that can be applied by the human, which the machine doesn't grasp yet. Computers have trouble with inductive reasoning in many cases, and association of unrelated concepts is fairly difficult for it to develop. On the other hand, it excels in what you might call deductive reasoning, as well as high-level analysis of the technical aspects involved. It works with great precision, but it will rarely surprise. (When it does, it's generally a quirk of its training.)

But if you've ever gone to an art museum and seen a roomful of students with sketchbooks sketching the old masters, you've seen something akin, on a very small scale, to the process by which a machine learns.

Just a quick question have you ever developed a program? Like actually working with source code, adressing hardware and the like? Do you know any programing language?

I am a professional software developer. I don't work with AI now, but I have in the past.

Then I am honestly baffled how you come to conclussions like those :

>>But if you've ever gone to an art museum and seen a roomful of students with sketchbooks sketching the old masters, you've seen something akin, on a very small scale, to the process by which a machine learns.<<

Because a machine learns nothing like this. You don't have to believe me by the way. Computerphile and other IT experts explain the principle of it pretty well.

For example I never "learned" a skill trough generating "noice" in my head with gaussian formulas. Nor have I to be trained on millions of data sets just to learn what a cat is. Which probably has also to do with the fact that our brain is not working on the binary system or the Von Neumann Architecture and Logic circuits. Brings me back to the horrors of stack overflow and assambler. *shudders*

I see in some very broad instance where you're coming from though when comparing calculators with how complicated math problems have been solved in the past by a room full of women working on small portions of logarithmic equations which is similar to how a computer does it today. But that's such an abstraction of the process as a whole that I am not sure if it's actually relevant to the discussion. As I said previously. What computers do, AI or not, is an immitation of the human ability. There are similarities. But they are not even nearly as important as the differencens.

You're the type of person who goes in for a checkup and then argues with their doctor, aren't you? Let me try it this way:

Imagine you have an 18-year-old human. She is a blank slate. Through some freak accident, she has no knowledge of the world and no memory beyond waking up this morning, in a featureless room.

Your responsibility is to teach this 18-year-old to paint a cat. How do you go about it?

Yes, I like having discussions.

>>Your responsibility is to teach this 18-year-old to paint a cat. How do you go about it?<<

That's not the point. To get back to the issue at hand. What ever if those AI image generators have been trained like a human isn't relevant to the question what ever if rights are violated or not. Hence why I find such a hypothetical question how some 18 year old blank slate would learn or not irrelevant to the situation at hand.

That millions of creatives might be potentially exploited for an algorithm that could eventually replace them in the future and thus remove their source in income. I am NOT saying that this has to happen. But it is for now a possibility. And that's simply something that has to be dealt with one way or another. We can talk about technicalities, philsophy, moral or ethics all day long. But the issue stands. Copyrighted work and private data has been used to train those algorithms which are now used by Apps you can buy and for AI with subscribtion models. And in my opinion that's a misuse (intentional or not) by fair use and research priviliges. Because those have never been made with this technological invention in mind. Simply because it didn't exist when those regulations and legalities have been made.

But it does now. And sooner or later lawmakers will have to deal with that. What more can I say? I am not sure.

Really? You're going to post a comment getting pedantic at me for my framing of a point, and then just dismiss my illustration of that point as irrelevant?

Okay then.

Being pedantic is one thing and I don't object to the fact that I often can be pedantic. But I am not sure the point is in discussing a hypothetical situation what I would do to an 18 year old blank slate considering the issue at hand. You could always englighten me mind you what your intention here is or what (new) insight that example could offer. I am not trying to be condescending here. But even if we both would agree for some reason that the AI learns "exactly" like a human does.
What difference would that make in the end? That's my grief with this anolgy/example. Humans can be subject to copyright violations too. Humans can brake laws. Humans can be subject to old and new regulations. Is that pendantic? I don't know. That's for you to decide. But what difference does it make on the question of how AI image generation is being developed and used in the end? Or how it should be treated by our society and lawmakers?

While it's true the AI are not literally collaging the images they're trained on, I don't think it matters very much. A human has a fundamentally limited capacity. You can only take in so much, and practice so much, and output so much. No matter how much art you study, you will never be a serious problem to the potential employment of artists, and probably not even the specific ones you studied. On the other hand, industrializing the harvesting of art as data to train machines with output limited only by the computing power you have access to is a whole other thing. It's like the difference between Joe going fishing at the beach after work, or winning the lottery and buying his own personal trawler fleet. We must, by necessity, regulate what he can do with that fleet differently than what we let him do with his fishing rod and tackle box.

Should we also regulate what can be done with a printing press vs. monks copying by hand? How about an excavator vs. a guy with a shovel? An assembly line vs. a guy with a wrench? A search engine vs. a single librarian?

To be clear... are you suggesting that if we want to automate away tedious tasks people perform out of necessity—perform because we'll let them live in squalor, or just die, if they don't—then it should also be acceptable for corporations to scrape people's data en masse and attempt to train a mechanical replacement for a creative field people actually want to work in, despite it already tending to pay pretty poorly? Because I do happen to think that is worth stopping.

Is that because this time it happens to affect you, and those other cases didn't?

Funny enough, I have been the guy with a shovel, yet I am not and have not been a professional artist—a choice for which I am increasingly glad the more I see of their industry and customers alike.

I hope this was only some poor attempt at a gotcha, and you don't genuinely find it hard to see a difference between eliminating creative work and tedious manual labour. That would be very sad.

It's not eliminating creative work, any more than CAD tools did. It's eliminating the technical part of the process. If anything, I believe it will result in more creative work, as those people who lack the time to develop the skill to paint themselves will be able to make use of AI to help realize their visions. You know, much like every other automation process people ever feared.

Art generation algorithms have existed for half a century now. It's a bit late to try to shove that genie back in the bottle.

And to go back to your original comparison: art isn't fish. The evil AIs aren't going to use up all the art and make it go extinct, I promise.

As far as eliminating it goes, I know that right now it isn't doing that. Whether it can in the foreseeable future, I don't know. Whether they would do it if they could, I don't doubt for a second.

For the record I have tried AI. I would not use it as a substitute for developing skill, even if it worked well enough. Generating a hose of ideas to pick the bits you like and reconfigure them yourself, sure, but there's a degree of control you will not get from prompts and low-skilled edits. Even having someone else do something for you can't really replace doing it yourself. IMO the best thing it could do for someone who wants to be creative would be to train on their own work and assist them in doing it faster, without giving up their own expression and skill development by replacing it with what it picked up from other people.

And if you want to free people to be more creative because they haven't the time to develop those skills, there are probably other things they need to do, but don't really want to be doing, which they'd love to have automated out of their lives.

Also, I was not implying it would 'go extinct'. The point was simply to illustrate that we can, and do, make distinctions between a person doing something with a human capacity and someone doing the same with a machine, because the scale is different. Letting kids dig holes in the beach with little plastic spades doesn't mean you have to let someone rock up with an excavator because both are fundamentally digging. Nor do I buy into the idea that because something exists we must let people do whatever they wish with it.

Yes, and there's a degree of control you get from hand-building a piece of furniture that you won't get from an assembly line. There's a degree of control you get from tilling soil with a hoe that you won't get from a tractor. But you know, a lot of people settle for the mechanical process. It's faster, easier, sometimes cheaper, and it's good enough for the purpose those people want it for. If you're already a skilled artist, AI isn't going to do much for you at this point (although it might soon -- a lot of the professionals I know in the graphic art field are very excited about its potential), but if you have no skill, it's huge. It makes image production accessible to a greater population, and that can only be a good thing.

I note your examples are all destructive in nature. We don't let people strip-mine the beach because it damages the land. We (in theory, at least -- not really going to go into this debate here) don't let people overfish because it destroys fish populations. But we do allow people to use word processors or CAD software or Paint or a music program to create as they like, generally. Why not AI? What quantifiable harm is being done that justifies restricting it? The only argument along these lines is "it might take work from artists," but any technological advance might take work from someone. We don't stop technological progress because of it. The saboteurs and the Luddites never muster much of an argument.

People settle for those processes when they want a functional product, yes. A machine that produces pretty pictures might likewise be fine for a consumer of art, who likes to look at it but would not have produced it with all the time in the world. To them, lacking control doesn't matter, because they never had or wanted any. But if we're talking about letting them be creative, I don't think someone who wanted to create furniture would be going to IKEA, unless as mentioned previously they wanted the hose of ideas. Control does matter if you want to make something, because that is your opportunity to be creative.

Note that I am not talking about forbidding someone from using an AI. That comparison was in reference to the companies taking data freely and using it to train their product, compared to a human learning from other artists. That is where the capacity matters. I do not care if some private consumer is sitting in their home having a machine spit out images rather than browsing pinterest for the same effect.

How I love your arguments. You are beautiful.

TBF while its in the minority I have seen a few artists embracing AI into their workflow. I've also seen a couple indie devs on twitter comment on how much time it saved them for concept art although I've also seen professionals working for Ubisoft and others saying the output is worthless to them because its not properly formatted and layered.

I do also have to disagree a bit with Wolflich, there are plenty of instances where art is tedious manual labor and not a creative endeavor. Art is not somehow different or more special simply because one is more open to creativity. The fact that art can be creative and expressive doesn't change the fact that labor is labor and people are always going to look for ways to reduce labor through technology.

There are times when I would say it is both, to some extent, and that's why in my other post I suggested it would better serve people by learning from them and helping them create their work in essentially the way they would have themselves. Speeding up the process without replacing it. Unfortunately, that seems like too narrow a dataset for any current art AI to work with from what I have seen.

That does seem like something that would only really benefit big corps. I could see for example Disney putting all their star wars art and concepts through it and then being able to generate stuff that they can be confident looks "on brand" for the star wars universe but given how much pure data it would be hard for say, Alector, to use it for their own work unless they got recusive with the AI. Feed it everything, generate a hundred images, take the best and touch them up, feed them and the prior data in over and over. Probably not easily done.

Really It would probably shine with a double model solution. a style guideline of the artist and then a generic dataset that would guide the AI on proper anatomy or shapes. Still it depends on the model. I saw today someone using scenario to generate isometric tiles and apparently they only started with a few dozen sample images to get their desired style. Then there is NerF which is outputting 3d models... the tech is evolving so fast that in 6 months maybe the smaller user problems will be worked out.

To me as a content creator there are two things that I find very disturbing here :

First, the way how the algorithm was trained and applied. A lot of people had their work and even private medical data used for it. Without their consent. And that is something a lot of people think is not right, when they see their work popping up in those data sets. Data sets which are now used by private companies to make profit.

Second, that it leads to identify theft. It happens already now. By countless of people that open up those algorithms and type in in "Give me xyz in the stlye of Rutkowski" and then posting it as their work. It gets even worse. One can even directly train the algorithm with the mages from an artist on their work even. Which is what someone has done with the art of Kim Jung GI who recently died. And considering how many images exist one could get even relatively close to the original content creator.

While the algorithm can be a great tool in removing the "stupid" labour that every "job" comes with it has also a lot of issues that are as of right now, not treated properly.

The problem I see with the style thing is that, legally, you can already do that. If Hasbro say commisioned concept art from Rutkowski for use in their new book but he couldn't output the amount of art they need in the time given they could as easily hire artists to do the rest of the work for them so long as they could mimic his style well enough to pass.

Then there is the animation industry where copying an artists style is pretty much a mandatory skill to make sure every frame and scene matches.

But here is the thing. Rutkowski could sue them if he feels his rights as content creator have been violated. What ever if they are is, as I already said, definetly debatable and has to be decided from case to case.

In any case though you can always go and say, give me work in the style of XYZ. And that's ok. A certain amount of similarities are to be expected. But the important aspect here is, that you're not going to "remove" the content creator entirely.
AI algorithms as how they are developed right now are intended as tool for automatition. This can not be mentioned enough. One artist using the work of another artist does not take that artists ability away to continue doing art as means for income. The algorithm though might actually do that though - what ever if it will succeed is a different debate. And it is being "trained" on the works of millions of artists and content creators out there.

If I may -- it's because your examples are a false equivalence, in light of copyright law.

In before "copyright law only benefits larger corporations." It does benefit large corporations, but not exclusively. Not by a longshot. Copyright law protects little guys every single day.

Again, AIs are not taking parts of existing pictures and stitching them together. There is unlikely to be any copyright issue -- although of course copyright laws vary by country, and I'm not familiar enough with all of them to say with certainty that this is globally true. I do know that Japan has rather strict copyright law... but AI modeling doesn't constitute a violation there.

Unlikely, you say? You're guessing. And I'm knowing. And I know enough to know that there will be a reckoning of copyright law over this development. It may come from Disney or it may come from a class action or from some other unknown corner, but it will happen. You mark my words.

Let me put it to you this way. I'm not phobic of AI art technology. Heck, I've actually got a friend with a MidJourney account who sometimes shows me stuff. I've tried to have a conversation with them about this subject, but while they do have a great respect for artists, they have a very similar position that you do. I disagree with them but I agree to disagree. They're my friend, I care for them, they're not a Nazi, I have no reason to cut off a friendship over this. I'm actually glad they can have a little bit of fun in such a cheap way because times are tough, and the subscription has been bought, the deed is done. I wish they wouldn't continue it, but such is life.

It's not the technology I'm phobic of. It's got great potential, even for other working artists. I wouldn't use it myself and I've declined my friend's offer to suggest prompts, but I still concede it could be useful.

It's the *FACT* that it's already been trained on so much copyrighted material, when it could just as easily be done exclusively with CC/public domain. You can't deny any part of that.

Oh, there will be lawsuits, I don't doubt that. That doesn't mean that copyright was violated, though. Anyone can sue for anything, that doesn't mean there's merit to it.

The decisions will be interesting, for sure. I suspect most judges are not overly familiar with the way in which AI works, so it might even be found infringing. We'll see.

It doesn't matter if it's trained on copyrighted material, though. Copyright doesn't stop you from looking at or studying a piece someone uploaded to the internet, and it doesn't stop a computer from doing it either. It's just that the computer is much faster at doing it than a human is.

>>Oh, there will be lawsuits, I don't doubt that. That doesn't mean that copyright was violated, though. Anyone can sue for anything, that doesn't mean there's merit to it<<

But there is also no guarantee that copyright laws won't be changed in the future in a way where AI generated content will be regulated an the current models, data sets and the way how the AI is used by some private companies might become illegal. The same way what happend to Napster after it lost several lawsuits. I am pretty certain that right now a lot of people are thinking very hard about all of this and how it will affect them. From law firms to corporations like Disney. Simply because it concerns their intellectual property and content creation and because there might be a lot of money involved. As someone has put it, the legaility of AI created content is a legal minefield that simply hasn't been laid yet but it is there.

Napster was in violation from the beginning. Different situation. It actually tried to "go straight" later on, but it failed.

It's kind of pointless to speculate about what law changes might occur. There's a chance it could go either way... but at this point, I'm not sure it matters. Except perhaps for the hobbyists who are developing customized Stable Diffusion offshoots and the like...

>>Napster was in violation from the beginning. Different situation. It actually tried to "go straight" later on, but it failed.<<

There was a bit more it than just that, I quote "Although it was clear that Napster could have commercially significant non-infringing uses, the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's decision.".
It's not only about laws. It also about how they are interpreted. There is the text of the law and there is the spirit of the law. If it was always only about the text, we wouldn't need courts, lawyers and judges. For example it could very well happen that judges could come to the decisions that the way the data was collected was an (unwilling) misuse of fair-use and research priviliges due to the fact how millions of content creators have seen their copyrighted content used without their consent or even their knowledge and the data base has been used by private companies to make profit.

But you're right. Unless all of this regarding AI and the content created trough it has been actually challanged in a court room it's just speculation. But this will happen at some point. And lawmakers will have to look in to it as well. Not only because it's touching on the question of copyrights but also on the question of data privacy in general. So this is really a very far reaching issue.

All I am trying to say is that anyone who's right now using AI created content for their business could find them self in a very problematic spott in the near future.

The issue with Napster is that it was hosting the files for download. There are non-infringing uses for the technology, just as there were for VCRs (whose court case had the opposite outcome), but Napster's providing the unlicensed copies pushed it over. Compare with BitTorrent, which is purely a method for transferring files -- it doesn't host the files, so the responsibility rests fully on the seeders and downloaders.

Legal issues for users are possible, sure. That's nothing new though.

>>Legal issues for users are possible, sure. That's nothing new though.<<

That's my point. What ever if any of the current legal frameworks and copyright laws apply to the algorithms and Ai as we see now, simply has to be seen in the future. And if they are inadequate then we might see new ones and updates or leading cases and so on.

machine learning algorithms are mere mimicry; there's a reason they use human-assisted prompts. learning and referencing involve directed creativity. i get that people like to anthropomorphize these algorithms, but this isn't AGI--at best, it's a really good mechanical art turk.

"Learns the same way a human does."

Here's some examples from the Furry Diffusion discord, showcasing how some of these models work and learn. And you still wouldn't call it theft? The only reason why the AI output looks so impressive is because it's literally copying select artists.
https://imgur.com/a/rihoCvZ

Nope. What you've got there is a training issue, most likely a too-limited dataset. From the name I'm assuming it's a Stable Diffusion spinoff, so it could be poor CLIP association too. Hard to say from a small sample at this remove.

It's not a training issue; training the model on a limited dataset (i.e. a single artist) is completely intentional, and is one of many ways of how the tool is and will continue to be used.

It is a training issue. What's probably going on is called overfitting, and it means that the statistical model is too attuned to the data on which it was trained.

And the data it was trained is copyrighted.

And? Copyright doesn't prevent anyone from looking at a piece of art.

It might not apply at all to the data, actually. Can you copyright a string of 1s and 0s?

But it isn't just "looking" here. It's actually collecting, processing and reusing content.

>>Can you copyright a string of 1s and 0s?<<

That's not relevant to the issue. What ever if it is a stream of data or a real picture isn't relevant to the question if the original content creator has rights. As I worked in graphic design I had to gain a bit of knowledge regarding copy rights, fair use and the like because using the works of others (like images) is your bread and butter here. And even though a lot of people use and re-use all sorts of content these days - most of the time with no substantial harm to the content creator - one still can not do as how they please. Most nations, like members of the EU and the US have copyright laws. For example, you are allowed to make pictures of art in public exhibitions under fair use. However the use of those pictures may require permission. I quote :

"Photographing public art is always allowed. It’s the USE of that photograph, however, that may require your permission. This is where the concept of copyright comes in. In the U.S., we value the ability of artists and other creative people to make money from their own work. Therefore, artworks that were created since 1976 are automatically copyrighted by the original artist as soon as they are completed, and only the artist can determine who else can make money from their work. Its placement in public doesn’t matter. This means that although someone can always take a photo of the artwork, the artist (you) must give permission for them to receive income from that photo—also called a “commercial use.” Even so-called “illegal” or unauthorized art—graffiti or street art—is copyrighted from the moment of its creation and the artist must give permission. "
https://indyarts.org/docman/artist-.....opyrights/file

What I noticed reading many of the comments and arguments is that many people are actually not well acquainted with the intricacies of copyright protection, fair use and the many forms regarding content creation and when it is alright to use it for your business. And when it is not. Hell. Even my knowledge is probably somewhat outdated at this point.

And it is certainly a complicated field. But what ever if the work has been digitalised or not as a stream of 1s and 0s is irrelevant in this case. Relvant is that someone created the content and that it was uploaded and the creator that uploaded it has the copyright to his content. And that some software or algorithm was sifting trough the net collecting it. It happend under research priviliges by non-profit organisations. However in which way the end use of the data was legal or illegal as it has been used as basis for Apps and algorithms which now make a profit, has yet to be challanged in an actuall lawsuit. Up to that point it remains unclear.

But considering the attention it is gaining rapidly I am pretty certain that it will be challanged sooner or later and lawmakers will have to to deal with the new reality of those algorithms that operate under research priviliges in collecting data which private companies use as basis for their products. I personaly though don't believe that the intention behind fair use and research priviliges was meant to be used in a way where products can be "trained" with copyrighted data without compensation for those that created those data in the first place.

I'm familiar with copyright and fair use, thanks. I'm also familiar with the inner workings of some of the recent AI programs. They process content, yes. They do not reuse it.

It is, of course, *possible* that a well-trained AI will happen to exactly reproduce one of the works it's examined, in the same way it's possible a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters will produce all the works of Shakespeare. Although many AIs have second confounding algorithms running concurrently to attempt to prevent this outcome.

What it really comes down to in the end is the question if there has been damage done and rights violated. Million monkeys or million transistors at work here doing something randomly. Who cares? As long as there are humans involved. Involved in the content creation, involved in the mining/collecting of the data and the selling of the algorithm/apps.
I have a feeling we're kinda starting to talk past each other here where as the actual issue is being ignored. Namely that a very large number of people are very concerend and affected right now. And that this will become more serious as the technology is progressing and more people become affected. Including questions regarding data privacy.

Data privacy is more what you might call an ideal than a reality, unfortunately.

Maybe. But that doesn't change the fact that it will become a serious issue in the near future that has to be tackled by lawmakers one way or another.

Exactly. "The gun isn't the problem, it's a training (human) issue!" -yeah, and by now we must have realized humans are unreliable, untrustworthy and sometimes downright cruel.

I, for one, find it rather concerning that average Joe now has unrestricted access to a tool with which to produce deepfakes (be it for porn or propaganda) and (as a sweet aside) happily put multiple creative professions out of their jobs.

My question here is... shouldn't the evidence be a little more damning if the AI is copying the artists?

Like an AI trained on art is going to notice "oh hey stuff tagged Chunie always has something that looks kinda like this in the corner" and then try and put that in the corner. If its copying art, especially if its trained on a limited enough dataset to get readable signatures" then shouldn't the evidence of copying be damning enough that someone could compare what the AI signed with Chunie and something Chunie actually did and find the place it copied?

While the Diffusion model can produce direct copies of original works, on which you can read the research paper (Diffusion Art or Digital Forgery? Investigating Data Replication in Diffusion Models), that's not even the main issue that artists have with it. The reason I pointed out those fake signatures was because they act as proof that the model is training on that artist, which means scraping their gallery for images and then providing them for the model's dataset, all without the original creator's permission, or any credit or compensation. At the point where you can actually trace the AI output back to a particular piece from the artist, the copying would be extremely blatant, but artists have a problem with it at more of a root level.

Unfortunately, it seems many people/artists so ply refuse to acknowledge this. I just posted this as a main comment to the post, but figured you might like it as well to share with others when this issue comes up. It'd a good ELI5 way if understanding what it is and is not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiff.....ed_of_arguing/

I saw this earlier and its really is interesting to see how the technology works. I shouldn't be surprised the methodology is so alien, leave it to software engineers to find the most mystifying way to solve a problem

Agreed.

Who's Al?

Archimedes Inimitus. One of those secretive billionaire industrialists who's formed a master plan to enslave the world's creative minds.

(or if you want a less dumb answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artif.....ism_and_issues)

no it clearly says Al, as in A L

I approve. :) A1!

Expectations for future: machines do the routine or hard labour, people do the creativity and enjoy it
Real future: machines do the creativity, people do what’s hard and routine

(Sorry for my speaking skills)

I’m scared that my non-artist friends don’t understand how bad things are

So sad and so agree with you... horizon is announced dark like this....

Maybe a nice hefty class action lawsuit from all the artists whose art they stole will stop them.

thankfully, this is already in progress.

I have often in the past condemned the word "Talent" because I believe anyone can learn art. Hey now, we have push of the button satisfaction. It's hysterical that the images often lack hands because not even AI understands the mechanics.

I have no doubt that major companies will use this instead of hiring artists.
Yes, they will steal.

There will always be theft. We will always be struggling not only against our own limitations but also our fellow human beings. I don't want to be a downer, but the politicians will be bought easily, and they don't give a damn about us.

The only way is that when someone's art has been stolen, they need to take it to court.

beautiful addition to the protest!

Thank you, dear!

I'm really glad the FA enshrined the ban on AI images in the site rules. Every time I am amazed at the sincere love and respect from the site owners for their community.

Wish ArtStation would act that quickly!
Also, this very community is so focused on art and the love of it. I'm happy to be part of it. ^^

I wouldn't count on Artstation's discretion anyway. They have already shown their true face and intentions. I think they'll just change their profile to AI in the future, even if they pretend to support artists now.

Hear hear.

Well said !

AI is the main reason why I don't post any of my arts or paintings any longer, I do not want someone to steal my hard work.

I mean humans are already doing an excellent job of that already beer freestyle copying or simply rebranding or tiling works already created and posting elsewhere.

I would perhaps look into the ability to use watermarks because I do not see AI going away anytime soon

Traditional forms of IP infringement were never as effective, cheap and widespread as what's happening right now. A painter imitating someone else's style can only churn out so much art in a year. Furthermore, these types of theft usually get noticed soon an taken down -because there are laws in place in most countries to fight it.

This is at a whole new scale and a whole new kind of exploitation. It's a theft of data, not of a particular artwork or a style. It affects not only visual artists but anyone who ever put content on the internet (filmmakers, musicians, authors, private persons posting family pictures on their Instagram account -everybody) -and because it's so new, there is currently no legal tool available to anyone actively or passively harmed.

For these reasons, putting ML on the same level as the inception of photography/photoshop etc. or previous forms of theft undercuts the depth of the challenge we are facing here (not as artists but as society as a whole) imo.

Watermarks simply get removed. Unless they're complex and span the whole image.

Well then we f***** then eh

We need more artists with such open stance on this issue. Beautifully said!

Well I agree with the majority of what you said especially in regards to directly taking an artist's work and profiting from it there's a few key things to keep in mind.


Personally and ultimately I would like to see an AI capable of generating situations similar to the the holodeck in Star Trek. But in order to do so AI has to understand the concept of the human creativity and the objectifying eye of the human interpretation and the only real way to go about doing that is to expose it to human created Perspectives.

Ultimately what I don't like about the whole AI generated art scene is the fact that companies are able to profit off of their AI systems taking other artists work as opposed to it simply being a realm of research and improvement. That I think is entering into not just a gray zone but a red zone.
For one the replication of works by Masters and the replication of skills through works by Masters in the art trade is considered one of the key stepping points of becoming an artist. Not saying it's right for an AI to simply steal another artist's work but I would like to point out that other artists already attempt to copy styles of other artists as is. I'd like to point out that not every AI system uses other artists input to generate its content some AI systems actually use photography in non copyrighted works.

You're right! Not everyone realize this, unfortunately

Your post all resum so well what i think anf feel. Thank you for your message writen with all your heart...
I dont know where is the solution... but it's worrying... but never stop your awesome art.
Your art have a soul, computer will never can stolen our soul...

What’s wrong with vowels?

There is always going to be disposable art. Its too bad that its borne on the creativity of others but such is the nature of it. Idle, non-aesthetic art is disposable art and it might as well be made by machines. People have to decide which is which but so much is just social media repetition and preaching to the choir. Most of the discussions seem to center around art as a commodity. Its a tool just like anything else and this dialogue will probably end up as everything else depending on what artists one is referring to.

This perfectly and eloquently puts to words everything I loathe about the abundance of AI generated imagery. If it ONLY used public domain art in its algorithms, maybe I wouldn't hate it so much, but that is not the case.

I'm just gonna leave this here, as I think it really helps explain how the technology works, and why it isn't what so many artists are claiming. Whether you are in support of or opposed to AI generated art, this is a good ELI5 was of learning about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiff.....ed_of_arguing/

But does it really make a difference? I thought about this and honestly to me it doesn't. Lets face it. Without the work of others, this wouldn't exist. Regardless if someone understands the technology or not. The issue was never and will never be the technology. It is the fact that millions of images and information have been used without the consent of those that provided those images and information. A lot of people are pissed and many are worried. And I believe, rightfully so. But considering what a lot of experts say, this was foreseeable because our laws and protections regarding data privacy and copyrights are inadequate and outdated.

"Without the work of others, this wouldn't exist." I do have a problem with this line. Mostly because all art is built upon the art that came before it. Theft is a very real and very big part of art history. I mean fuck you wanna talk about consent Michelangelo and Da Vinci straight up stole bodies to improve their work. Very much didn't have consent from those people. Or their families. Or the local government... but artists built upon what they learned and discovered all the same.

The entire human history of art is built off borrowing, copying, and stealing from other people and adding ones own improvements. When faced with that I have to ask, does it really make a difference if this technology only exists because it did the same?

A couple of serious issue with this.

1. The technology is not doing "the same" as what many artists and content creators do.
The Dataset created by non-profits like OpenAi contain like 650 million(!) images. And that's just the one we know. There is a serious lack of transparancy here. The sher volume of it is simply unprecedented. It's like claiming a bag of dynamite and a nuclear bomb are exactly the same because both are "explosive devices". That's crazy. One has an inherently much higher potential for damage. And that's only the legality of it. We haven't even talked about potential misuse or side effects. Imagine AI image generators eventually ending up scraping trough the net for images from children to create pornography. The idea that all of this would not see regulations at some point is sorry, ludicrous.

2. And even if it did exactly the same it wouldn't change any of the issues regarding legality.
We're not living in a 14th century society. The modern world has regulations, laws and a different culture and technology regarding content creation and how that content is shared and treated. People can and do sue each other for copy right violations. Sometimes sucessfully. Sometimes not. Why the hell should it be different here? Fair use and other legal frame works are not some kind of umbrealla that allows everything. The internet is a fre-for-all place where everything goes. It neve was. It never will be.

3. Just because something "bad" happens all the time doesn't mean something "new" that's bad is suddenly alright too.
Two wrongs don't make one right. What ever if the current situation is "good" or "bad" still remains to be seen. This will be one way or another challanged and settled in courts I think. The more people are effected and the more coporations, individuals and lawmakers become aware of the situation. And to be fair. I do not give a flying fuck what others "steal" to "progress" their art or what ever. It's not an excuse for creating datasets with millions of copy righted content without consent. Not in my book. Sorry. Particularly when that content is used to create private companies that sell their algorithm for profit.
And copying work to build your artistic foundation is definetly not the same like what we see with the current techology. No matter how many times someone might say that. But it simply isn't.

Comparing what people did in the 14th century (with all the tools and capabilities they had back then) with today's technologies and tools. Is not wish. nor something that you can do without it just falling apart.

If I got my paws on the newest most effective AI and just type in your username. I could have literary all the information about you in less than a second. This is not me slowly having to WORK in order to steal from you and then slowly WORK on something. I can do it. Any time. Anywhere. And within less time that it took you to put something on paper. I would not be just stealing it. I would make YOU as an artist obsolete. And you wouldn't see a penny.
And if you don't have a trillion dollar AI to your disposal. well … bad luck for you. You will never be able to counter it. you would never even be able to produce anything again, because now I can clam that I am the one making your work. the AI already learned everything you can. why would people believe it is your work? if I can just keep on selling stuff that is identical to your style, your creativity and for a leach of a better term, your soul?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Fzqvx1jxI
this video talks more about the identities theft concept surrounding AI art. I highly recommend you watch this when you want to have a better understanding why artist are so mad at this.

I think the problem here is that Neo capitalistic systems/people fuck it up for everyone. They use this amazing tool and capitalize it. So that everyone else sees it as a product or as a danger to themself.

AI and the systems/other tools they evolve with, aren't bad. They may change the way we look at ourself and the world in a good way. But it is being used for profit instead of evolution.
So now a lot of artist see the AI as the problem. They blame the knife instead of the person who is holding the knif. And is also keeping all the good knives for themself.

And the other side then keeps saying that we as people shouldn't "slow down evolution" because it is unpleasant. Keeping technology for yourself and then try to use it to use people without their consent and or knowledge. THAT is what is really slowing down evolution.

I'm sorry, and I don't mean this as an insult or in a negative, confronting way. But the person who made this post on Reddit, has no idea what he is talking about when he answers those broad questions people have. The global environment of for artist is changing because of new technology. Nothing wrong with that. That happens all the time. But claiming that people should just stop complaning and ast like the situation isn't changed for them and that they should just treat a extremely new and complex tool, as if it was just the same tool as what they are using now.

Could you imagine how many people would just not try to make something if some random person can steal all your hard work (and not just the thing you make. But every little thing of yourself that you put in it and in the process of it. Your time. Your money, your energy, your effort, your missed opportunities.) just like that. It would make the idea of trying alone not worth it. And in the mean time, those random people will still "produce" content and get easy cash from it.
That is not just extremely insulting, and in human. it is destructive beyond comprehension. "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. More like, don't bring a knife to a atom bomb, drone war .. in outer space"!

having accurate information helps. It does seem that a lot of people have it very twisted up on what an AI actually does based upon some very edge cases of people purposefully manipulating the technology to produce the exact results people feared.

Things like this always happen with new technologies. just look at the industrial revolution. a small few uses it to use and abuse people. But on the positive side. People get to use that tech too. but later. But with every new technological revolution, that gab between being used and starting to use the tool themselves, becomes smaller and smaller. Now we can have conversations about it as soon as even one person notices something is not right.

Insane how technological advancement becomes less and less about improving our lives (reducing inequality, poverty, back-breaking labour, food/water shortages, climate crisis), and more about getting rid of things humans actually love -shoving even more people down into poverty/jobs they hate.

This goes for art as much as for programming and other professions up on the chopping block, and reaching into how modern tech is being used for surveillance and subversion of democracy. It increases the power of the already wealthy and grinds the rest of us into the fucking dust.

It's sickening.

You said this so clear and to the point. And yes! What you are saying is completely true.

This is just companies and scammers, abusing a new technology to steal from artists. In deeper was then previously was postie.
Instead of AI being used for the betterment of mediums like we artist make. It is used by straight-up human parasites, to squeeze out what they can out of others. And the worst part here is that they try to "pain" (like they know how) a picture of AI that would create the illusion that THIS is the NATURAL outcome of what AI will do. That is bull. It is harmful when it is used by closed-minded and egocentric people.

We can't let this happen. If we don't advocate against his. It will become the norm. Just like how stuff like social media has been shaped more by mentally unstable people who own a company, then actual people who use set platforms. Instead of AI been giving the objecting "Make sure people are treated well and that they are safe, by using their data" it became "Keep their attention by using their data in order to sale their data".
(Small note. The moment people start using AI to make their own knock-off Disney movies. A lot of complaints will suddenly have a hard time, with art theft from AIs.

Keep on creating, any and all artist out there. And try to advocate against the misuse of AI's like this.
And thank you, @AlectorFencer, for making us aware of also educating ourselves more on this topic.

In my opinion, AI can be useful as a tool for references and simply inspiration but it should never completely replace the artist

OK, this comment is probably going to be universally panned (and possibly deleted...and maybe get me banned), but I'm trying to get thoughts moving in heads...

I think this is a very nuanced situation that can't be answered with a hard "yes" or "no."

Consider this: if it's wrong to feed the works of others into an algorithm, and then have that algorithm spit out original artwork based on the stylings of the artwork fed to it, then isn't it also wrong for a human artist to admire the works of others and use them as inspiration for their own works? What if a human artist studies the work of another human artist intently for years, and then creates their own art based on the inspiration from their studies? Is that wrong?

Is your objection to AI artwork really how the artwork is being created or about whether the "artist" is human or machine? Vincent Van Gogh cited Gauguin, Cormon, Courbet, and Van Rappard as inspirations for his works. Did Vincent steal from these other artists by doing so? Did he lessen their works in any way by using them to create something new? The same can be said for Monet and Picasso. Art doesn't exist in—or spring from—a vacuum. Every artist draws inspiration from something or someone—usually multiple somethings and someones.

From my perspective, this whole pro-anti-AI art debate has been based not on whether the AI-generated artwork has merit or value in its own right, but upon fear. Everyone has their own reasons behind this fear, and these reasons are entirely valid. But I worry that we're allowing our emotions to gain the upper hand over our better—read, logical—judgment. An artist's work is in no way diminished when another artist—human or machine—uses it as inspiration. Indeed, it may very well cause "cross pollination" of art enjoyment, so to speak.

Now, if your beef is whether someone has the right to feed someone else's artwork into their algorithm, then that's a separate issue entirely. But it's really the same idea as an artist looking at someone else's artwork, then feeding that information in their human brain analog of an algorithm.

I actually totally agree, I can definitely understand why people are concerned about AI art (especially when it is vulnerable to misuse/abuse) but I feel like the worry that it will "ruin" artwork forever is an exaggeration as feeding other people's artistic talent into an algorithm is something that has been going on all throughout the history of art (obviously not a technological algorithm but a social one). People are still able to contribute to the world of art just in a way that allows more artists to express themselves than before. But of course, the ethical issues of AI art are a whole other controversy.

>>Consider this: if it's wrong to feed the works of others into an algorithm, and then have that algorithm spit out original artwork based on the stylings of the artwork fed to it, then isn't it also wrong for a human artist to admire the works of others and use them as inspiration for their own works? <<

One individual using the creative content of someone else to "learn" is not comparable with a company creating datasets including 650 Million(!) images of which no one knows how many are copy righted to create the foundation for their algorithm.

The way how the technology works and is set up, is not how it works with humans.

If an AI is actually using 650 million pieces of art as input, then there's no way all of those were given to it by humans. Humans taught it where to get it and how to look at it, but that's exactly how humans go about it, too. How does a 5 year-old know that he can see art in a gallery unless someone tells him he can see art in a gallery? Once he learns where to get this art, he can then use logic to deduce that more art can be gained from other galleries.

Let's use a simpler example. Say someone (or some company) points both you and an AI to an online gallery containing a thousand pieces of art. Both you and the AI create original works based on the art you saw in that gallery. Are you saying the human's artwork is OK, but the AI's artwork is not OK? You both learned of the gallery from the same source. You both used the same artwork as inspiration/input.

This whole debate, I think, isn't about what is art so much as it is about what can be considered an "artist." Technically, the term is not limited to humans, but should it be? Why (or why not)? Again, it all goes back to fear. AI is an emerging technology with a lot of variables and a lot of unknowns. Humans (and most other animals) fear the unknown, so they instinctively try to avoid it, leading to the unknown being labelled as "bad." People are afraid of what AI might be able to do in the art world. Why? For the same reason our ancestors were afraid of the dark.

Look for the destination of this crime. This Machine Learning, as it is not an AI nor will there be one for "another XX years", but created average of artwork... or any product, with fine tuning of the average allowing it to slowly crawl up to 70~90% quality out of 100% leaving majority of people in the dust for quick progress followed by stagnation as it is a machine learned average, not an AI.

The investment into people then dies and the world will no longer have the top 10% cream or 1% geniuses making breakthroughs or changes. A few generations of averages upon averages will then be followed by a degradation. Where will be the talent to fix the issue?

This theft feeds the average to make a quick buck. This provides a short term gain of cheap service with a rapid dislocation of talent into a society which isn't ready to handle the dislocated load of people and unlike historic trends, the rapidity of the dislocation will not allow a transition of livelihood. In dislocation of so many, there is no Royalty programs to allow a semblance of living above destitute poverty. Killing attempts to transition to a new livelihood with said, undesired transition being made yet more difficult with the pervasiveness of Machine Learning removing the remaining opportunities.

The few ways to 'remain ahead' of this curve is develop into the 10%, the areas machine learning will struggle to meet the most while forcing the issue of how machine learning will be leveraged, how the fruits of it will be distributed, or join the legion an begin leveraging it yourself.

My stamp of what I see as blatant mass depravity to make the ultra wealthy ride higher on the backs of slaves in the short term while sacrificing future progress.

No matter what images are fed in to it, AI generated images are soulless and therefore valueless.

Compare AI "art" to cheese: There are machine-produced Velteeta slices, and then there is a wedge of imported artisan blue cheese painstakingly created by real human hands that you found at a farmer's market.

The value we place on it comes from time, skill, scarcity, and limits that went into its creation. If I prompt an AI to generate a thousand pictures "in the style" of Da Vinci, they may resemble them in some way like a human reproduction might, but they aren't authentic. Like reproductions, they are never valued by anyone over the real thing. There is no pride in having them.

Another attempt for me to put it to words:

Gordon Ramsey posts his recipes online. Anyone can make them, but it's not the same as having Gordon himself cook for for you. He can't cook for everyone and going to his restaurant comes at a premium. Others may attempt his recipes, but they are not him. It's not the same experience having your friend make a Ramsey dish compared to having Gordon himself in your kitchen.

I think there will always be human artisans, even if automation becomes a thing, and this has the potential to make human craftsmanship all the more lucrative. I agree with you that there should be regulations on AI-generated art, though.

So sad, and so true. :(

I think this will help some people who have a lot of fears surrounding this topic.
No AI is not a bad thing, and it will not replace artist. But if we don't make sure NOW that there are regulations set in place for this new technologies. in order to make sure that people can't misuse it. things can get out of hand. But the Tool itself is a good thing.
It are the once using the tool, who are at the core of the problem and the solution.

We need to have open conversations about it. and not let a small group of people “clam” it as their own and make sure that some really damaging stuff can be done with it and becomes to norm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jatjz80wD4

I fear I see many artists talking to other artists. And not many artists talking to engineers. A has chasm has formed. First created by engineers not notifying or gaining the consent of the content creators they trained their software on. And now widened by the creators, allowing themselves to be gathered and herded into the "protective" hands of grifters and corporations who promise to help them protect their IP. People are so focused on making sure they get theirs, that they lose sight of the other side.

Seeing what some of the AI-bros are saying to defend their actions, makes me quite depressed. They are so devoid of morality. So willfully ignorant of what art should be, just so they can continue with their unethical actions.

Reading strong statements from all the REAL artists here, Deviant Art, ArtStation and more, rekindles hope and zeal to fight on and never see AI images appreciated at the same level as human made art.

It's good to see that practically everyone has the same concerns and the backlash is far reaching. Also quite telling how the defenders of this are going about it, don't you think? Especially the AI-bros. There seems to be this inherent refusal to actually engage with the criticisms beyond "but they don't DIRECTLY copy!".

This is very likely going to be buried here, but, what the hell.
Shad does raise up some very nice points in favor of AI assisted artwork. Keyword: "Assisted".
https://youtu.be/7PszF9Upan8

And it certainly is correct, we humans have used other people's art for thousands of years, the AI does the same and with the human input, makes something new.
Just doing a few tests with some images for reference and I can say with 100% certainty:
Any artist that suddenly suffers from lack of inspiration or "art-blocks" will benefit immensely from AI providing assistance to fix the lack of inspiration.

AI is not going to steal your artistic jobs, AI is not going to steal your art, but if you do not embrace AI technology, other artists that do will take your jobs away.

My opinion on the AI art topic is this. It is an amazing tool that could send us into the next stage of exploration of art and the faster development of it.
BUT, there is a big but here. If people use the AI, to compensate for their own shortcoming of skills, knowledge, effort and or time spent to develop set skills. to create a art peace, and then earn money from it without making sure some of the earnings goes to the still living artist who are responsible for the AI's learning stages. That is just theft. Identity theft, to be precise.

This could be amazing. what if for every artist's work that gets used for a image to be developed by the AI. The artist in question gets like 1 cent. That is not much. but if a artist is popular (because people put value in them and their work) they would get a steady stream of income. With would make their efforts of making art, not obsolete. quite the opposite, actually. It would make people more enthusiasts about trying out art or developing art. (Adding to the information pile the AI can use, and therefore not become stagnated)
And it would not make it so that the person using the AI has to pay a insane amount of money for just finding a good image or inspiration.

well said

I know I'm a bit late here, but I have quite some emotions on this as well and I am glad I fell over this.
It bothers me severly that none of the pro-AI people can say what these mechanisms are actually good FOR.
I went a bit over the comments above and all I ever see is "that the AI doesn't ACTUALLY directly copy the work". It's not like these engineers engaged with the concerns of so many very well either, the arrogance of some of them is an open character-reveal in my opinion that this is not being made in good spirit at all.

I saw nobody actually making a good point in favor of the AI, other than what I just mentioned. For all I can figure out, it only promotes corporate level theft and lazyness, not to mention to utter disrespect towards anybody who is even remotely serious with their craft.

And last not least, the very heart-filled arguments you brought up in the description are extremely close to what I said to an AI defender on e621. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY seems to want to actually engage in the human side of this matter AT ALL.
In fact, I had laid out all my concerns, which got then shrugged off with "insert rant here" (yes I am serious).

Well thanks for nothing. The people here who try (extremely poorly and unconvincing btw) to defend these ai-art generators are doing a piss poor job and only make it worse and I believe that is because it really is THAT indefensible.

Our issue is not how the AI exactly works, so spare us at least with this please. Explaining HOW you steal doesn't make the theft justifiable; plus the sheepishness of the defenders is pretty telling, almost as if they subtly know that they're taking the hits for trying to speak in favor of shady business practices disguised as "science". It's soulless and empty.

Thank you for raising your voice~

When it comes to AI generated art, I think I got a SOLUTION.

The Ai is a tool. Just that, a tool that creates more and new opportunities, for more people to use it for art expression. The fact that it steals information (intellectual property) of millions of artists all round the internet, Is not a bad thing, per see. That is how art evolves, after all. It is what the people using the AI do with set stolen information, that counts. If you are transparent and show that it was made by using a AI. And just use it to express yourself. That is completely fine.

But if you try to sell it. Without crediting and compensating the artist who's intellectual property got used in order to create the images the AI produces. You are committing fraud. Identity fraud, to be exact. Just from multiple people at once.

Right now a lot of artists are rightfully afraid because this new incredible tool, blurs the line for people, that makes clear if something is made a certain way.
For example, it is easy to know the difference between a picture and a real life paining, just by looking at them, most of the time. Because they are different mediums.
And the more effort, skill, and time was needed in order to make the art. That makes it more valuable (in values of monkey/credit. Not personal or emotional value. Because that difference too much between each person to put a set or comprehensive value on it)
But this tool makes it so that someone can just claim it was made by hand, or by using less modern/efficient tools. Without the general public being able to notice/see the differences.

And the people who made the AI art generators, clearly didn't care, if this tool could be abused to commit fraud. Became they didn't put in any guidelines on what art is. Or how to use the AI responsibly. Just to make a quick bug.

And the people who are now advocating that the Ai art generator should be made illegal, are not helping either. They are falling into the trappings of
“blaming the knife (a multi tool) instead of the irresponsible and or damaging behavior of the person holding the knife"
We can't band this technology. The genie is already out of the flask. And people WILL get their hands on it. and will use it. It is up to us to make sure that rules are set in place, and existing laws are respected. And new laws surrounding this potential unlimited new technology.

And the people claiming that AI art is “the future” and that they should be using it however they want. Are not helping. Because if you acknowledge the extremely new and almost incomprehensible potential these AI's have. Then you also need to acknowledge that there is good and bad potential there. And you should listen to the concerns and advice of the people who study art and are artist for their profession. Because they should be part of the conversations. Especially if they are part of the collective information that AI needs to be the way it is.

SOLUTION:
The people who have made the AI generators public, with no regard of possible fraud. should be held responsible for their actions and harm they have caused.
And the new and old AI's should have a system that not only credits the artist, who got used for every single image. But also compensate them, if they choose to let their art be used to improve the AI.
I'm not talking about big numbers. Again, it is a different medium, so it should be treated as such. So I would say a very small amount per images. And the AI shoulder NOT be free to use. (“free” just means, you are the product. Or someone else had to pay for it) But definitely affordable for most people. And I mean most people. like, this amazing new tool should be able to be used by anybody with 5 cent to their name, at least once.

This would be a new revolution for artist, instead of a threat for them, as well as art itself.
It would motivate new beginner artist to work on their craft. Because, the more popular your specific art style is, the more it will be used in the AI. Creating a actual income by just making and posting it. Apart from commissions. It would also push people to experiment more, and give them a reason to choose art as their profession.

This is not done in a day. This should be a collective effort. And needs people from all sides, to have a open discussion. But this is more than just positive thinking. It is a real possibility. We already have the tools to make this happen. The internet, the studies surrounding art and the art industries. and AI's that can find and inform artist of this. as well as connect them if they so choose to. If they don't. Then their art should not be able to be used.

What so you think of this?

I have followed the text and the point with copyright I have 3 points. But first my opinion about copyright itself.
I share the view of the American-Russian writer Ayn Rand on the subject of intellectual property. Everybody should have the right to reap the fruits of the work derived from the natural law*.

Intellectual property should not be preserved for 70 years after the death of the owner of the intellectual property, as is the case in Germany, for example. But the intellectual property after the death of the owner should become puplic domain.
So that it is clear what I mean by natural law. Here is a Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

a) That the AI examines other images and on the basis of it designs something itself is not a violation of intellectual property, but to get inspiration is the normal case (If you do not want others to be inspired by your art, even no AIs, then do not show it publicly, or do not post it on platforms where AIs can access, or only on platforms where that would be forbidden to AIs).
b) Everything generated by the AI belongs to the owner of the AI first
c) The owner can then sell it as he likes, or give others the right to use the AI to create property.

Also, I'll give you something else. A podcast where a historian and social scientist expresses his view on the AI Art topic and poses the thesis Why AI Art is good for Artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNU4FPhmOtA

Is the example art your doing or the AI's.