I'll take it a step further and say everyone deserves a universal basic income! That way artists can make art without worrying about AI sapping money from their livelihoods 🤷♀️
That post seems to be missing.
ElectricAirship 82 points 3 years ago
unreasonabro 12 points 3 years ago
bro you're talking to a collection of people who are here because they hate something
Sabre363 18 points 3 years ago
Then don't pay for it. But if you are going to pay for it, isn't it better to pay a real person that worked to create something over a corporation that automated the process?
Ataraxia 4 points 3 years ago
Until we don't have to work to live then no, you can't just make art because. What is stifling creativity is being trapped in a system that doesn't allow you to even have health care as a basic right. I don't make any art most of the time because I cannot live off of that. You're welcome to buy up things I make at prices high enough to pay my bills but you won't.
Toes 13 points 3 years ago
I fail to see how your plan is going to make the overlords more money. Can't you accept life is only about securing profit for someone else? You've been fairly compensated for your efforts according to the standards written by the overlords. Be happy™
Mango 77 points 3 years ago
Did you ever quit because someone else was better? Then you're not an artist. You're in it for business or attention. I don't dance because someone's gonna pay me or because I need to stand out. I dance because I like it.
ocassionallyaduck 97 points 3 years ago
Spoken like someone who doesn't rely on that skill to eat. Well done.
itslilith 84 points 3 years ago
And we arrive back at the root of the problem: Capitalism! Who would've thought.
AI is a tool, and not inherently evil or good. But the current trend, that it is used to undercut human artists (and other workers, let's not pretend this is limited to artists anymore) is unequivocally bad.
Immersive_Matthew 1 point 3 years ago
Most people shop where the prices are best which contributes to the problem and has for a very long time. Capitalism just serves that human need.
ocassionallyaduck 14 points 3 years ago
More accurately: Should we ban someone from launching a new TV show called Smashing Bad that stars Wally Witten, a high school chemistry teacher who turns to crime to make fentanyl and...
Yes I think we should. That is derivative work. The AI projects are not a tool, they are automated derivation made on models based on stolen art.
These tools need to be trained on data sets that were not stolen, first off. And the results need to be a tool, like generative fill in photoshop, that is based on the rest of the image. Not a replacement for the image itself.
gmtom 15 points 3 years ago
Yes I think we should. That is derivative work. The AI projects are not a tool, they are automated derivation made on models based on stolen art.
Tell me you don't know how AI works without telling me.
The actualy program that creates AI art (in a stable diffusion model) has literally no memory of any sort from the trained data. So to call it derivative is just factually incorrect.
Also photoshop generative fill makes full images too.
257m 10 points 3 years ago
Good luck telling multi billion dollar companies to give up their datasets. All you can manage to accomplish is pull up the ladder on newer startups and secure their monopoly. A better solution might be to make AI accessible and free (like llama) so that small artists can take advantage of it and not all the big wigs make all the money. AI is perfectly good tool to speed up artist efficiency.
fallingcats 3 points 3 years ago
OT faunfact: most worn fabrics are machine-knit and not woven, because knitting produces a stretchier fabric
Zoboomafoo 1 point 3 years ago
TIL, neat!
Mr_Blott 2 points 3 years ago
Sorry to be blunt, but maybe "Spoken like someone that is fully aware that the vast majority of people don't have enough skill in that particular profession to succeed financially, so should probably try to be successful in something a bit less artistic and more mainstream, despite them thinking they're special and above menial jobs"
unreasonabro 17 points 3 years ago
if only we were an actually intelligent species and not a barrel of monkeys
photonic_sorcerer 54 points 3 years ago
Whenever machines have become better than humans at anything, we've still placed more value on the handmade items. Same applies here. Keep creating! People love your original stuff.
PeleSpirit 21 points 3 years ago path: 0 5601114 5601274, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 17
Even_Adder 35 points 3 years ago
I recommend reading this article by Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the EFF if you haven't already. The EFF is a digital rights group who most recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone.
Also remember that AI training isn’t only for mega-corporations. We can already train open source models, we shouldn't put up barriers that only benefit the ultra-wealthy. If we weaken fair use, we hand corporations a monopoly of a public technology by making it prohibitively expensive to for regular people to keep up. Mega corporations already own datasets, and have the money to buy more. And that's before they make users sign predatory ToS allowing them exclusive access to user data, effectively selling our own data back to us. Regular people, who could have had access to a competitive, corporate-independent tool for creativity, education, entertainment, and social mobility, would instead be left worse off and with fewer rights than where they started.
PeleSpirit 9 points 3 years ago path: 0 5601114 5601274 5601795 5602089, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 13
Even_Adder 11 points 3 years ago
I disagree with that article 100%. They’re missing the spirit of copyright law which is to protect artists that create original work. They already try to protect musicians and do this in music with sampling. But instead of one artist stealing parts of your song or the spirit of the song, they’re coming after visual art from every angle because it’s a computer and like 10,000 people doing that. We should be able to copyright our work and have to agree for it to be used, the end. It’s ridiculous and greedy of these huge companies to do anything else.
To quote the article:
Just to be clear, I don't give a shit about corporations, but what you want will hurt all artists and give corporations the unprecedented legal tools to take down anything they don't feel like having around.
What part are you referencing here:
Also, how fucked up is it that they liken it to the little guy competing with big companies, that’s not a thing. If they used public domain art, I don’t think any of this would be an issue. Do we own our own voice, imagination, likeness? I say yeah, we do. The corporations shouldn’t have the rights to those.
I'm not really sure what this is about.
QuaternionsRock 2 points 3 years ago
It’s probably easier and more correct to make the argument that AI is capable of generating both original and derivative works, just like a human is.
A sufficiently large number of humans would be capable of performing the exact same calculations as a generative AI, a pokes a hole in the idea that it is incapable of generating original works. That being said, there does seem to be a subjective cutoff after which the generated work is no longer transformative. If I create some arbitrarily complex model that happens to recreate the latest Banksy given a specific prompt, to the point where replacing the model with Google Images would yield the same result, it’s difficult to see how the work shouldn’t be copyrighted.
I’m fine with this conclusion because it’s pretty much where we are now. As an artist, I could study a piece of art and (a) create something original based on what I see, or (b) imitate it as closely as possible, and if you think the result is too close to (b), you take it to court.
Zoboomafoo 1 point 3 years ago
The article didn't say, but doea that ruling cover the many mile wide "border" zone?
Melatonin 48 points 3 years ago
Photography already killed art. It's nowhere near as popular as it was before photography. It's now becoming a time when commissioned works can be popularized as well. So art made by humans becomes even more niche.
Hey, I'm sorry for the roof thatchers and knife sharpeners out there, and what happened to their profession. The Appalachians and West Virginia is dirt poor because coal mining isn't what it used to be.
Why do "artists" think they're holy and should be protected?
Ledivin 56 points 3 years ago
Why do "artists" think they're holy and should be protected?
Has anyone ever implied that it's just artists? Automation putting people out of work has always been a major fear, and has been realized over and over again. It's not "just artists," it just so happens that art is the domino that is currently falling.
Melatonin 21 points 3 years ago
Oh my goodness, do I need to spell this out?
IT'S THE POST. The very post we're commenting on is an example of how art is trying to be shielded from the advances of technology whereas coal miners knife sharpeners roof thatchers... everybody watched them starve and nobody cared.
They were clapping while the miners were sent into starvation. People were dying and we were clapping because an industry we didn't like went away. It's all because "Art Lovers" are rich and elitist that they want an outcry. Which of us has a collection of art, or even one piece? Nobody who thinks about paying bills I'll bet.
4am 25 points 3 years ago
Maybe it’s time we automate all the work away and realize that our individual existence doesn’t need to depend on our contributions to society (*based on availability, time of year, race, luck-of-birthplace, shareholder whims)
If art is dead, it’s because it wasn’t readily manufacturable enough for capital. Most things aren’t. Why do we continue to let them rule everything? It’s clearly not working.
AVincentInSpace 2 points 3 years ago
...and as long as we're dreaming, I'd like a pony.
If it was possible to automate all jobs, capitalism would've done it by now. Robots are always cheaper than human workers.
Kolanaki 9 points 3 years ago
Oh my goodness, do I need to spell this out?
Yes.
Context and subtext aren't things people actually think about anymore these days. Also be sure to choose your words extremely carefully, because they all only have 1 definition now and it's whatever the other person reading thinks it is and not what it says in a dictionary or what has been established by the majority of people for hundreds of years.
Also don't be subtle, don't use euphemisms, don't be sarcastic, and never exaggerate or else you'll be accused of "spreading misinformation." Despite the fact that 90% of the interaction on the internet is still text, too many people joining in forums like this have absolutely zero reading comprehension skills.
They take a single line from your post and write up a huge post of their own just to argue with th- Wait... Fuck! Now I'm doing it!
Jomega 6 points 3 years ago
Art wasn't melting the ice caps. That's why we were cheering the coal mining industry getting some. Because the coal industry is choking the goddamn planet to death. What did you want from us? Are we supposed to feel bad because the people raping mother earth for profit are going to get a job doing something that won't kill us?
fallingcats 1 point 3 years ago
I'm not sure what you mean by that
AVincentInSpace 0 points 3 years ago
Why are YOU arguing that AI generated art isn't art?
Kolrami 3 points 3 years ago
I think this whole post basically works on that assumption.
The OP says "If you're an art lover, now is the best time to support your favourite smaller artists."
It's heavily implied that those "smaller artists" aren't untrained painters who are using text prompts to generate an image.
LemmysMum 48 points 3 years ago
Sketch artists gave way to photographs, traditional artists gave way to digital artists, now photography will give way to AI. AI is still enhanced by traditional art, as is our culture, and it's value won't change because the value is in the expression not the medium. AI is just another tool in the digital art tool-set. I've been a digital artist for 25 years, and if you're threatened by AI instead of embracing it's ability to improve and enhance your work then I'm sorry, welcome to the past, this is you:
This is an AI generated image made with copyright free community resources. Each AI generated image made contributes further to a global wealth of artistic knowledge at the fingertips of all. If you're interested seek out FOSS AIgen software like Stable Diffusion and community resources as linked below, or visit the various AIgen communities here on Lemmy.
See more: https://civitai.com/user/lorom
Referral link: https://civitai.com/login?ref_code=LOR-IYG
TotallynotJessica 17 points 3 years ago
In the long run, perhaps, but this is a sudden change that affects people's livelihoods. It's a tool that requires significant artistic input to even be copyrightable for the time being. This means it can't fully replace big money projects, but can negatively impact some commission based art. They must focus on providing things that AI can't easily replicate, which takes effort and time that struggling artists trying to make a living don't have. It's our system where people must maximize their direct economic value to survive that's the biggest issue, not the advances in technology themselves.
LemmysMum 10 points 3 years ago
Copyright will be forced to crumble or be enforced with physical force. The fact is we're moving to a society where information recording and reproduction is improving to the point where physical likeness is a contributing factor in the socialisation of all knowledge and information. Anything that can be represented in the physical world can have a visual facsimile created. Our time is temporary but for the first time in human history something as little as having a photo taken of yourself can literally contribute to the advancement of all humanity.
Don't let the corpos steal the right to your likeness, everyone deserves to see your beauty.
VinesNFluff 4 points 3 years ago
It's FUNNY that an AI white knight thinks he is standing against Corpos when he is towing the line of exactly what corpos want.
HerbalGamer 2 points 3 years ago
everyone deserves to see your beauty.
the Algorithm disagrees.
ShrimpCurler 9 points 3 years ago
I don't find this argument very convincing. All artists draw some inspiration from previous artwork, that doesn't make it plagiarism. Even if it's heavily influenced by other artwork it's not plagiarism if it's something original.
LemmysMum 6 points 3 years ago
When real artists make art without tools made by someone else, or knowledge gained form someone else, I'll agree with you.
We stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us so we can reach higher than they ever did.
lepinkainen 11 points 3 years ago
The problem is that AI can't create anything new, it can just remix old stuff.
Here's a test: Try to make your AI system of choice create a picture of New York's streets without cars.
HerbalGamer 20 points 3 years ago
Like how every populair song either uses the same four chords or is just a remix of Pachelbel?
HerbalGamer 5 points 3 years ago
path: 0 5612760 5616746 5617635 5617924, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 3
HerbalGamer 3 points 3 years ago
my second point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
PipedLinkBot 1 point 3 years ago
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Honytawk 19 points 3 years ago
The problem is that AI can’t create anything new, it can just remix old stuff.
Oh, so you mean exactly like humans?
Even if we try to imagine anything we have never seen, we still use things we know.
That is why the indescribable cosmic horror of Cthulhu still are mostly eyes, teeth and tentacles.
VinesNFluff 8 points 3 years ago
Yes yes we should all give up on human expression and let machines do everything. AI art is great and totally not an unethical monstrosity generated on plagiarism of people's actual efforts.
VinesNFluff 8 points 3 years ago
No you're just asking a robot to make shit for you. That is not expression, that is, at best, a more modern version of grabbing shit off google images and calling it "expression"
PersnickityPenguin 4 points 3 years ago
Your just using an auto collaging tool.
Like if you were to go to art school, but outsourced all the art making to some Photoshop artist in I dia for $3. And claimed it as your own.
If you don't put in the sweat and tears, you aren't creating. I'd go farther and say prompting is closer to story boarding at a marketing firm, and you're the boss/project manager.
It's pretty neat technology, but it's so far from actual content creation through the artistic process.
LemmysMum 1 point 3 years ago
It’s pretty neat technology, but it’s so far from actual content creation through the artistic process.
And this right here shows just how expansive your lack of understanding is.
Ataraxia 2 points 3 years ago
This IS human expression. I can finally express what I see in my mind. I can't sculpt or draw everything. This gives me inspiration. You don't want my art. You don't want my music. You never bought anything I created.
You want a slave in a machine called Warner Brothers or Disney to produce your entertainment and heaven forbid an AI had a hand in making her job easier. Such bad faith arguing!
VinesNFluff 4 points 3 years ago
I mean, fuck yeah I don't want your art because by your own admission it's AI generated trash and therefore not art.
Yet I buy art from artists. All the time. I have framed and printed pieces from a couple furry artists I know.
Also corporations have been positively frothing with joy at AI's growth because it means they don't need to hire actual people anymore. Already they are looking to replace writers and actors with AI generated facsimiles. That was the entire basis of the writers' strike a few months ago. So the whole "AI ART WILL FREE US FROM CORPORATIONS" argument is a non-starter.
pinkdrunkenelephants 6 points 3 years ago
Lol no honey, AI isn't the way of the future and some troglodyte like yourself certainly isn't going to dictate what social and moral path we take as a people. You are not in control here.
pinkdrunkenelephants 4 points 3 years ago
You're the chaff.
Transporter_Room_3 8 points 3 years ago
"no u"
GOTTEM
Dreadfighter23 40 points 3 years ago
People that simp for AI art just don't want to pay artists. Pricing for commissions can vary depending on the artist and what's being asked. Then to make it worse, some of the more popular artists either don't take commissions or they are always sold out almost immediately. So some people decide instead of paying or learning to draw themselves, they will just let the AI do it. They steal other people's work and feed it to the AI so it can emulate the desired artist. Some even have the audacity to sell it.
Krauerking 4 points 3 years ago
Yup. Thats actually it. And then some of those people decide they care enough to pay for it themselves and then possibly spend more than paying for it from the big guys funny enough. But i do understand wanting to own what you do and have rather than rent it.
But we really got to get back to paying for what we do, and decide with more care who and how. But like good luck getting everyone else to even consider less or slowing down for that.
agressivelyPassive 9 points 3 years ago
And how many of those people you think would be willing to pay for some drawings if AI wouldn't exist?
If artists can't compete with AI, they're bad artists or produce bad art, simple as that.
It's actually pretty arrogant of all those "artists" to think that they somehow deserve to be paid and praised just because they call themselves artists. A DeviantArt account doesn't entitle you to be paid for every drawing.
Sabre363 17 points 3 years ago
Artists can't compete with an AI that can pump out thousands of images a day, regardless of how good they are.
Also, I have never known a single artist that expects to get paid or praised just for making something. We don't feel entitled to anything, we just don't want every attempt we make to be marginalized and our artworks constantly stolen.
LemmysMum 5 points 3 years ago
"Sketch artists can't compete with photography!" - 1850's
"Painters can't compete with colour photography!" - 1950's
"Traditional artists cant compete with Photoshop!" - 2000's
"Traditional/Digital artists can't compete with AI!" - 2020's
No one is taking art away, because it's the expression that matters, not the medium. Mass production will always go the way of maximum efficiency, and even then experts in the appropriate skills rise to the top.
Source: Digital artist for 25 years now using FOSS AIgen tools.
QuaternionsRock 3 points 3 years ago
I don’t necessarily disagree with you here, but
We don't feel entitled to anything, we just don't want every attempt we make to be marginalized and our artworks constantly stolen.
is contradictory. You believe that you are entitled to publish and distribute your work while retaining some control over how it is used. Again, I don’t disagree with that take, but you either feel as though you deserve something (be it payment, credit, control, or something else) for the art you disseminate, or you don’t.
Sabre363 5 points 3 years ago
Its not really a contradiction, just poor wording on my part.
By "we don't feel entitled" I meant that we don't generally go around making art and expecting everyone to give us a thumbs up and a bunch of money for it. With the marginalized part I was talking about when we do share our artwork, there needs to safe places to do so without having our work taken without consent and used for something we didn't agree to. The vast majority of the time artists post online, not to make money or even get recognized, but to share something they are proud of with their community and get invaluable feedback from them. Its kinda building a box fort as a kid, you don't expect everyone to praise or pay you for making it, but your still proud of it and want to show it off to your friends. It sure feels like shit when the adults come, take it all down, and tell you to grow up. And it feels even worse when the bullies take credit and everyone praises them for the amazing box fort they "made".
When it comes to retaining control, that shouldn't be something that we deserve or feel entitled to like its a box of Lego in the toy store. Control of their creation should be an automatic right and expectation for anyone that makes something, regardless of whether or not they are an artist.
agressivelyPassive 1 point 3 years ago
Also, I have never known a single artist that expects to get paid or praised just for making something
Yeah, that's a lie.
Artists can't compete with an AI that can pump out thousands of images a day, regardless of how good they are.
Ok, so they are obsolete. Simple as that.
Sabre363 11 points 3 years ago
Your precious little AI would not exist without those "obsolete" artist making the art that AI is trained on, and if they ever stop making art then you will never an original, creative work of art again.
agressivelyPassive 1 point 3 years ago
If nobody "values" it, maybe it's not that valuable?
This is again the arrogance I pointed at. If art is subjective and the majority of the subjects decide that this art doesn't matter, how can you claim to be the all knowing art authority who can judge them and their taste in art?
Let's be honest, 99% of art is used to fill bank spaces, nothing more.
AstridWipenaugh 8 points 3 years ago
I wouldn't call them bad artists for being outpaced by AI. No human can produce content by hand as fast as a computer. AI is just another tool in an extremely long list of tools that have changed how art is made.
If you go back far enough, I bet cavemen had arguments when someone invented the first brush and could paint all day long without bloodying their fingers scraping them against cave walls. Half joking there, but new and better tools are always being developed. Cameras are a great example of a new tool for art that made art a lot more accessible and affordable and we now accept as a normal artistic tool and not a threat. This attitude against AI will also pass over time.
AstridWipenaugh 4 points 3 years ago
You're mad at the wrong thing. AI, when used ethically and responsibly, can increase a human's output in many tasks. This is a good thing and is how we advance as a society. AI does not hurt people. We're not talking about Skynet.
What does hurt people is when unethical companies exploit their workforce by capturing their increased output without also compensating them for producing that additional output. That's theft, and it has always happened whenever new tools are invented. But that theft isn't perpetrated by the tool; it's the employer that's at fault. This is why unions are so important.
agressivelyPassive 3 points 3 years ago
Is that a statement? A question?
Dreadfighter23 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 5603337 5604609 5605090, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Sophia7Inches -1 points 3 years ago
I mean, yeah I wouldn't wanna pay someone if I can get an art of the same quality for free. Love me my automated hentai!
Mr_Mofu 32 points 3 years ago
The absolute Toxicity in this thread is just so depressing the see. Lemmy, I thought you where better then this... I thought this was supposed to be reddit without the petty toxicity in every comment section...
Ataraxia 0 points 3 years ago
Stop labeling people something that has nothing to do with this. We aren't peddling some obscure crypto. I'm no bro. It's just so weird to me people on lemmy of all places are all fearful of AI... something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. It's fucking amazing.
VinesNFluff 6 points 3 years ago
These are not the same thing and you know it, despite your gaslighting.
People using technology to express themselves is not the same as asking a fully automated plagiarism device to create shit by copying other shit.
It never will be.
The human input is where we go from 'reproduction' to 'art', and is why photography counts as art despite just capturing real things, because a human is behind it. Sets what's on camera. Expression.
AI "Art" is not expression and never will be. It's just tracing with extra steps.
Ataraxia 1 point 3 years ago
These complainers sound like people speaking for Japanese people when they scream cultural appropriation when a white woman wears a kimono her host mother in Japan gave her.
Stop speaking for us, we have absolutely no problem with AI, our art is not threatened.
Kedly 4 points 3 years ago
Dude my credit card's have been maxxed out for the last 3 paychecks and I live alone in a sardine can, but yeah, sure I'm an elite. And btw idiot, Elitist is the word to pull off elitism, not Elite, we dont call people who engage in racism races. I've not once brought up elites, being poor or low class does not stop one from being elitist. Fuckin go commission some artists if you care so much about them instead of harrassing AI Artists
SkippingRelax 2 points 3 years ago
What a stupid take what does that even mean?
SkippingRelax 2 points 3 years ago
Edgy, did you come up with that all by yourself?
HerbalGamer 2 points 3 years ago
I understand neither.
What now?
Ataraxia 0 points 3 years ago
I'm no tech bro, and so far us artists are the ones actually defending AI because, holy moly, it's just crazy to think people truly believe in Skynet and all this conspiracy theory stuff.
My dad is an artist as well and he loves AI generated images. I will be training one in my own styles myself. It will make my work so much easier.
EldritchFeminity 5 points 3 years ago
AI has the possibility to be an amazing tool for artists, but people are already training it on other people's work to copy specific artists so that they and others don't have to pay for commissions. There was even one case of somebody sending a copy of a piece of concept art one of the artists for Genshin Impact was working on on a livestream through an AI tool and then attempting to threaten the artist on stream with copyright violations, claiming that they had created the concept art.
Kedly 6 points 3 years ago
Artists burnt out my empathy towards them with their elitism and fear mongering. They arent special in capitalism's march to take our livelihoods away from us, but they decided to lash out at their own class instead of lashing out at the corporations taking their jobs
kumatomic 16 points 3 years ago
Funny, I don't remember lashing out. I just wanted to use my art to make sense of the life changes my disability has brought about. Fuck corporations every day, but you're no better lumping every artist together as this monster in your head. Your empathy isn't as important as you think it is.
Kedly 2 points 3 years ago
Never said my empathy was, just that you arent entitled to it. And cool, keep making art for yourself, and I'll keep making art for myself. If you stop making your own art because of how I make mine however, I dont really have any sympathy at ALL
Dreadfighter23 6 points 3 years ago
Maybe that's because their own class is stealing and emulating their art without permission, sometimes even on purpose as a "fuck you" to them. In this case it's not just the corporations screwing them over.
Kedly 5 points 3 years ago
They've decided to brand what the AI does as stealing in order to twist the narrative. It isnt stealing when the images are generated from scratch. And because they are using full manipulative tactics to enhance their fear mongering, they deserve ever bit of fuck you's they can get
LemmysMum 4 points 3 years ago
Their own class is making FOSS tools like Stable Diffusion and training models on copyright free sources and AI generated imagery, the corporations are the only ones stealing.
VinesNFluff 5 points 3 years ago
"Their own class" like the kind of techbro that uses AI "art" counts as an artist in any way, shape, or form. 💀
Kedly 2 points 3 years ago
Ah yes, elitism and othering. I mean, I'm making this art for myself, so the fact that luddites who paradoxically use the internet are angry with me arnet going to stop me using it (See? I can other too!)
257m 4 points 3 years ago
Well by definition most of us aren't artists. Artists are a small minority. It would be pretty easy to guess who isn't an artist by just claiming everyone isn't except for the people explicitly say they are and it would be like 98 percent true.
SkippingRelax 3 points 3 years ago
Most of my friends that are creative make art for themselves first. Some of them make a few bucks here and there and a small fraction of them makes a living with their art. None of them seem worried, their main concern is making art.
Egat i see in this thread is a problem with having a shitty business model if today's AI is really putting you out of business. Any other technology improvement would have wiped you away regardless. Like I'm picturing people designing logos and all of a sudden becoming useless and complaining that that can't make art any more
SkippingRelax 4 points 3 years ago
Hardly so, and not a new problem: art has been made for millennia despite lack of financial security. A couple of exceptions here and there with patronage a la Medici but neither prehistoric people making graffiti nor van gogh were financially secure, and they produced art nonetheless
LemmysMum 3 points 3 years ago
With FOSS AIgen tools like Stable Diffusion and copyright free community resources like https://www.civitai.com? Express yourself. Referral link if you want to make something: https://civitai.com/login?ref_code=LOR-IYG
unreasonabro 18 points 3 years ago
like i've pointed out elsewhere in the thread, this is a place where people who hate another thing go. you're kidding yourself looking for utopia here. Lemmy is a clone, not something actually different.
Mr_Mofu 18 points 3 years ago
Non of that excuses the toxicity. We as a community have to collectively fight against this type of thing. Toxicity should have no place here, or anywhere for that matter. Ofcourse thats a pretty utopian mindset of its own im aware, but we have to atleast try. Because the second we allow it to be normalized, everything will go even further to shit
0xD 9 points 3 years ago
It's not an excuse, it's an explanation. There is no community here, there are many. Your words, unfortunately, ring hollow.
There are a few communities here that are great, but so many from the front page are just toxic junk, be it regarding economics or politics. I find myself closing comment sections and not interacting here way more often than in the past on reddit - so much childishness, it's quite sad.
But I also have to say that I find it too annoying and empty here to properly build my front page with my interests, so I'm just cruising on the Everything page. Since there are no limits here for Everything like on reddit, of course I (we) have to dig through all the intellectual trash too. I want to block that toxic shithole hexbear so bad.
RiikkaTheIcePrincess 4 points 3 years ago
I've got your back :3 bashing those downvote buttons
SkippingRelax 1 point 3 years ago
It's almost like people call out bullshit regardless of the platform that's being used
SkippingRelax 7 points 3 years ago
I don't really see much toxicity. Some people are just afraid of change, and ai is just another technology jump, most of what Ive read in rhis thread so far is about this being similar tothe introduction of photoshop. A bit less fearmongering would go a long way, and this might be an opportunity for those artists that are being impacted to review and improve their business model if it's really that delicate ai is not their only concern
kumatomic 5 points 3 years ago
Yeah, I especially expected more out of 196 especially. I saw people attacking someone in droves today for being entitled for posting something mildly infuriating in mildly infuriating. It's like everyone here is just looking to lash out.
VinesNFluff 6 points 3 years ago
The future should stamp down millions of humans, this is an entirely normal and healthy thing to want, artists are useless and always have been, isn't it great how we can now automatically steal their work? In fact human expression should be outlawed! Surrender before the great and powerful machine and never ever question the ethics of unethical things! Go get a real job like staring at an excel sheet for 8 hours a day, and never question capitalism either!
RiikkaTheIcePrincess 7 points 3 years ago
Exactly! What fools thought it was the menial, tedious drudgery that should be obviated in favour of art and intellectual pursuits and other frivolity? Humanity's true worth and purpose is in serving the machines and the masters thereof. We must commit to the spreadsheet for it is the soul of humanity.
Ataraxia 3 points 3 years ago
How awful that corporations no longer have monopolies on creating things such as shows, games, comics etc? I shoukd be a multibillion dollar corporation to afford to create something. I should have to hire hundreds of people.
Or maybe, little ol me should be able to use AI to make my ideas into real concepts and create textures and graphics and even voices for my indy games. Why should I not be allowed to compete with big corporations? And this is coming from an artist. I sculpt and draw and AI makes those moments where I can't visualize what I want not a problem. What if I want a logo for my little business? I can't afford to pay a company to make it. Describe it and boom, done. AI evens the playing field.
VinesNFluff 3 points 3 years ago
People have always been able to make "Shows, games, comics, etc." by putting in the work. By making contact with other human beings who can cover for the skills you don't have. Corporations stealing valour when they are glorified middlemen is neither here nor there. But bringing them up does help my point:
AI tools don't help "art", they help people pretend they are the CEOs of the samesuch corporations you claim to be fighting against. Just saying "MAKE ME SOME SHIT" and sipping coffee while (in their case people, in this case a machine, though the machine is taking from the actual artists) does all the real work. Without learning. Without engaging with it in any meaningful way. Just put in a command. Get an output.
Rosco 27 points 3 years ago
I think there's a place for both AI images and artists, there's no need to be tribalistic for this. I used AI to generate some albums covers for my personal playlists, but I won't print out AI art and put it on my wall or anything. But this whole story got me interested in making commissions, since I've never done it before, and I think a piece of art can be a wonderful gift for someone.
BigBananaDealer 12 points 3 years ago
id totally pay for someone to draw my playlist art. but my income isnt that indisposable
Rosco 4 points 3 years ago
Yeah I wouldn't mind it, but it's only for a very niche use, just to appease my OCD. I can't actually see the cover art clearly, the screen is goddamn small on my mp3 player. So paying would be overkill for this.
Colour_me_triggered 24 points 3 years ago path: 0 5607906, hotness: undefined, score: 24, children: 0
MxM111 -4 points 3 years ago
It absolutely is devastating. But it will be so on many fields, not just art. However, I still have hope that human AI hybrid is better than just AI, and AI will be just a tool that greatly expands human capability. Where before it would take a month to illustrate a book, it would take a day to do the same job for an artist with AI tools. It does mean that we would have less artist positions available. But this is not dissimilar to any other productivity increases of the past.
PeleSpirit 7 points 3 years ago path: 0 5600652 5602846 5604818, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
Clbull 19 points 3 years ago
You think that's bad?
Just wait until AI gets good enough to replace your typical white collar job. It's already starting to happen with call centers, and I'd say we're about a decade away from self driving vehicles.
We may hit unprecedented global unemployment rates as a result of AI. And before you tell me it's UBI's time to shine, universal basic income is a leftist pipe dream that will either bankrupt us or pay an absolute pittance.
Our governments can't even get capitalists to pay their fair share of tax right now. What makes you think they'll fork up to give everyone a guaranteed income?
HerbalGamer 12 points 3 years ago
because communism is a dirty word apparently
HerbalGamer 4 points 3 years ago
In a matter of fact, they are incompatible.
Well that could use an explaination
LemmysMum 10 points 3 years ago
Exactly! Which is why FOSS solutions like Stable Diffusion exist, and copyright free community resources like https://www.civitai.com let everyone have access to the socialised benefit of sharing knowledge and data. Here's a referral link in case you want to make something to express yourself.
Referral link: https://civitai.com/login?ref_code=LOR-IYG
VinesNFluff 5 points 3 years ago
Open-sourcing fully automated plagiarism does not make it less of a soulless abomination.
Powerpoint 12 points 3 years ago
UBI was going to happen under a right wing government in the 70's. It's not just the left that understands the benefits to society. The current crop of Conservatives are lead paint licking snowflakes however so I'm not too hopeful either but it's an eventuality. As more boomers die off more of these Conservatives do too.
LemmysMum 12 points 3 years ago
There'll be a lot of people with plenty of time on their hands to go have a chat. You think rights are given? Rights are taken and secured with blood. No king gives up their kingdom without a fight.
Kage520 3 points 3 years ago
But there is actual progress now. For all its faults the Tesla auto drive is probably 95% of the way there. I get that we want it 99.9999999% perfect, and each 9 will take effort, but 5 years ago I think we were only like 40% of the way there. Progress is happening.
ZombiFrancis 18 points 3 years ago
"Now" is the time? For fuck's sake it has always been the time. Smaller artists have always lived and died by the donation.
If you're approaching this from thinking AI is the problem: it has the potential to put the menial grunt labor of production art out of work. A lot of low level employees grinding backgrounds to earn resume points will have a hard time.
But moreso: it can put a wage earning artist in a position of art director for their own productions. Albeit currently said artist would need a specialized skillset of working with AI image generation. And not everyone wants to be a mini art editor or art director. It does have real threatening consequences for an industry.
Nonetheless the definition of what it means to be an artist is a fluid and dynamic concept. Maybe portfolios for art school won't be a selection of painted works on canvas and instead an individually developed and trained checkpoint model for AI generation.
gmtom 18 points 3 years ago
Lmao, art is becoming more accessible than ever an now money hungry people are scared that anyone can make nice looking art now and so don't have leverage to charge people for it.
AI art is objectively a good thing for society and art as a whole. People complaining about it are just bitter and too stubborn to adapt to the new technology and will become as obscure and forgotten as every other craft made redundant by technology.
unreasonabro 33 points 3 years ago
must be nice to live in such a simple and small universe that has no relationship at all to reality
gmtom 8 points 3 years ago
Whatever you need to day to help you cope.
But the genie is out of the bottle and no matter how much you guys whine or complain AI art isn't going anywhere.
So you can either continue to put your fingers in your ears and shout "you're wrong" over and over, or you can accept its here and adapt.
Adori 18 points 3 years ago
The rich demographic in artists is as much as any demographic of people, they are not the majority, ever heard of the "struggling artis" stereotype.
Art is a form of communication, and automating it so heavily takes the beauty out of it, it's as if you didn't have to text your friends and loved ones cause an AI knows exactly how you would reply, so you and your friends don't really interact through text. It takes away the fun of interacting with the other.
Also think of it without the emotional part, why aren't we automating all the hard labor and leaving humans to do the art? How things are going, the common person is gonna just be left to be able to earn a living by doing infinitely repetitive and emotionless tasks. Fundamentally, that sounds like a horrible way to live, and you should also be disgusted by the potential if AI is removing what fulfillment we are able to have as people.
gmtom 11 points 3 years ago
why aren't we automating all the hard labor and leaving humans to do the art?
Now this argument is one that tally boils my piss.
We fucking are???? Have you ever been to modern factory in your life? The majority of production is automated, farming is highly automated, customer service jobs are being automated, delivery jobs. So much time effort and money is going into automating every job. But its just easy to get a computer to do something entirely digital than it is to get it you build you a house. Robotics is 1000× more complicated than AI.
disgusted by the potential if AI is removing what fulfillment we are able to have as people.
Human made art is still legal. Its not going anywhere and if you're good you will still be able to make money off it. So nothing is stopping people from making art still. It's like knitting after the invention of the automatic loom. You can still hand knit things, and have fun doing it and maybe even make money from selling then, but it just means we don't kneed thousands of people working in textile Mills.
teichflamme 6 points 3 years ago
That doesn't take anything away from the art.
Art doesn't need a gatekeeper
fallingcats 3 points 3 years ago
Well here's a pretty lukewarm take for you: Souls aren't a thing
teichflamme 9 points 3 years ago
AI is a tool. A pencil also doesn't know what it made.
Even_Adder 2 points 3 years ago
Here you go.
flyingjake 7 points 3 years ago
It may be a different technical skill than any of the hundreds of other ways to make art, but it still takes a human to conceive of a concept and skill to write a prompt that will generate the intended nuances and ideas.
Just because I can take a photo with one click on my phone doesn't make it art any more than if I try withs a professional camera in manual mode. The art is in using the tools to create something new and beautiful in any medium.
nossaquesapao 4 points 3 years ago
But should art necessarily require physical skills? If I can conceptualize an image, but lack motor skills to transfer it to some media, and, instead, make a detailed description of what I pictured, can't I be considered an artist?
In music, there are the composer and the performer, both considered artists without any doubt, but only one has the physical skills.
In my humble opinion we all fail to take this ai debate to the best and more productive path: people using images to train models without permission from the artists. The legal loophole used for this requires some kind of personification of ais, considering the practice as some sort of "inspiration", instead of considering the generated models as derivative works.
bleistift2 18 points 3 years ago
If a computer can create art better than you, maybe you’re a bad artist?
I don’t get this discussion at all. The internal combustion engine did away with horses. Do we mourn horses? Excavators replaced people with shovels, electric computers replaced their human predecessors, even alarm clocks replaced humans. Why do people who splatter paint on canvas think they deserve special treatment?
KnowledgeableNip 32 points 3 years ago
We don't have to feed horses to cars so we can make cars. We need artists to create original works to feed AI.
Sabre363 20 points 3 years ago
Unfortunately, as evidenced by half of this comments section, a lot of people are starting think of artists as irrelevant. Unless this changes soon, art is going to really suck for a while. Especially for those of us making art but aren't popular enough to weather the storm.
bleistift2 4 points 3 years ago
a lot of people are starting think of artists as irrelevant
I’ve thought that since childhood. I’m interested in the art. The pretty pictures, the nice music. Why should I care if a human or AI made it?
The only thing we need humans for (for now) is innovation. But then, listen to the billboard top 100 and tell me where you find innovation throughout these human artists. Take me to an art gallery and tell me how “I threw my brush at the canvas” has a right to exist next to “I threw my palette at the canvas” and “I throw a bucket of paint against the canvas”. Inform me how <DC movie number 28> differs meaningfully from number 27.
gmtom 8 points 3 years ago
And we based digital brush patterns ans effects in computer art programs on real ones made by skilled artisans. Are you going to complain that digital artists are bad because they're putting brush makers out of business?
Sabre363 24 points 3 years ago
If a computer can create better at than you, maybe it's because the computer stole all your art and combined it with everyone else's.
The replacement of art by AI has very little in common with the replacement of horses by cars. Art is an inherently subjective thing that does not fill a singular, tangible role in society. AI, by it's very nature, can never properly replace human made art. Especially since AI art can only exist because of human creations.
Us artists don't think we deserve special treatment, we just don't want to see something we love get ruined because of a computer that stole all of our work.
Sabre363 13 points 3 years ago
A big part of learning how AI works is recognizing some of the problems it creates. Also, I wasn't trying to describe how AI works, just pointing out that a lot of AI is trained on misappropriated artwork.
MxM111 5 points 3 years ago
As an artist, you look at and maybe study other artists work, you also possibly had multiple classes and teachers on the subject. You also looked at photos of things, and simply looked at things. Do you call all of that “stealing”? If not, then why AI training is any different?
Sabre363 4 points 3 years ago
Artists do study other artists and look at references all the time, but then they use their own creativity to create an original artwork. At worst the piece is derivative, looking very similar to the original, but even then it still requires creative input by the artist.
AI, on the other hand, is not much more than a hacked together photobash of thousands of catalogued images. AI companies build these catalogs and train the AI using images online taken from artists that couldn't or didn't give consent for their art to be used for AI. Last I checked, that's a pretty literal example of theft in the form of copyright infringement.
MxM111 -1 points 3 years ago
Copyright infringement is not stealing, it is copyright infringement - reproduction of a work without permission. I am also not sure if whatever databases were used for AI training are done with violation of copyright law. I do not hear cease and desist orders applied to any generative AI. So it is a moot point. Moreover, I do not think that legality of the databases is what you wanted to argue here, so I suggest making better argumentation.
It seems to me that your main argument is that while both artist and ANNs (artificial neural networks) are trained on similar material, what artist is doing is creative, and what ANN is doing is “photobush”. I think you are using different words without explaining the difference. From my point of view, both artist brain and AI brain are neural networks. They both trained on similar material. They both produce images that were not produced in the past. Please note that ANN uses randomness in its process, so there is something that is added that is not causally related to any training material. I see no reason to say that one is creative and another is not.
EndlessApollo 3 points 3 years ago
Prompting an AI doesn't make you an artist, stop acting like you know jack shit about what you're talking about please :3
PeleSpirit 12 points 3 years ago path: 0 5600809 5601242, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
CarbonIceDragon 3 points 3 years ago
To be fair, every good artist is going to start out as a bad artist, but if people give up at that early stage, they'll never get better. Personally though, I don't think AI is going to replace artists, as a group. It will replace some artists, those who's work is most readily replaceable and which don't get some of their perceived value from the identity of the artist themselves, and this is going to cause real problems for these people that should not be ignored; but art as a whole will still exist, and even still exist as a profession. There are any number of niches where the identity of the artist themselves is part of the appeal of the art they make (for example, a painting of a soup can, by itself, is probably nothing particularly special or appealing as paintings go. A painting of a soup can by Andy Warhol is the sort of thing that might be displayed in art galleries and be considered very valuable. Or for a less "gallery art" example, if a small time artist who does, say, an independent animated cartoon series, or does character art commissions, or such, has acquired a fanbase around their work, they will probably still be able to get donations or commission requests from those people, because even if an AI could create something that looks similar, it would not have the appeal of being from that person for those fans.) That isn't even getting into physical art mediums, I don't expect that stable diffusion or whatever is going to replacing an artist who makes metal sculptures, for instance.
On some level, it might ultimately help some artists be more productive too. AIs that can create pictures from a prompt are cool and all, but just text isn't always enough to clearly communicate an image one has in one's head. I see no reason they also couldn't be subtly incorporated into digital art tools to make it easier for an artist to create exactly what they are imagining, say, you could have an AI that figures out where the borders between objects are in a drawing and so lets one fill in lineart quickly even of it has gaps, or generate reference images from a specific angle at a chosen part of a drawing to help plan out how everything works in a scene, or fill in what is behind something when part of a drawing is erased (I've already seen tools that do that one).
Ultimately, I suspect that this will be somewhat analogous to how there are still tailors and blacksmiths in the world, even though we automated the production of clothing and metal tools long ago. There aren't as many of them, sure, but their crafts still exist, there are still people that make a living doing those things, and those that exist today have tools their predecessors wouldn't have dreamed of, like sewing machines and power hammers.
VinesNFluff 18 points 3 years ago
Man a lot of people white-knighting for fully-automated plagiarism here.
I thought the fediverse would be better than your average birdsite thread, but no, it's full of shills.
TotallynotJessica 2 points 3 years ago
Fuck people who simp advancements uncritically. However, technologies like this aren't necessarily bad, just bad in our context. If there was no intellectual property, artists didn't need to make a direct profit to live good lives, and we had a egalitarian understanding of artistic ownership, there's little problem with the technology. However, the technology is very political in our current and near future context.
whoisearth 17 points 3 years ago
I've thought this for a while and mark my words this is where we are heading.
Online has it's place but for all intents and purposes it is dying. The future is going to be local and physical.
I'm not worried for anyone let alone the artists. All AI art is showing is the importance of what is "real". Sure I can ask Bing to create an image of Spider-Man in Toronto in the style of Todd McFarlane but it's not a real image. People will start leaning back into actual ink on paper.
I see a future where The Internet continues to evolve but people move back into a world of the local and real interactions. A twitch stream is no replacement for a night at the pub. The pendulum is going to swing. I'd argue it has already started to swing.
LemmysMum 21 points 3 years ago
Please, traditional artists have been saying the same about photoshop for 25 years. I know, because I've been a digital artist for 25 years. AI is just another tool for expression. If you're expression is valuable people will be willing to pay for it, online or in the "real world".
Omniraptor 6 points 3 years ago
Those are the things that artists use as income to pay their bills and draw what they actually care about. If they get taken over by AI it really does mean less meaningful art for the rest of us.
The solution of course isn't fighting ai any more that the solution for textile workers was fighting automated looms. Our fight isn't really with AI, it's with AI being run by centralized private corporations that suck up all the surplus value created by AI and reinvesting it into pointless shit that we don't have a say in.. while we get table scraps. (again this applies for any tech innovation not just ai). Our collective labor helped create it so we should have a say in how it is run.
wish more "AI bros" would acknowledge this but lots of them seem to either not care at all or want to get rich off it themselves
VinesNFluff 2 points 3 years ago
They know, but like all technocrats they think they can will the utopian version of their invention into existance by just saying the words "THE FUTURE" a lot.
99% of science-fiction is increasingly flowery takes on the sentence "inventing cool new shit while maintaining the same incentives that make society suck will make neo-society suck in neo ways" but these guys read sci-fi and just go "ooh, cool new shit to invent" and forget to read the rest of it.
Ataraxia 2 points 3 years ago
It baffles me all of these people who never created anything even once are whining. And yet every single one of us artists understand the true effect and usefulness of AI. It evens the playing field. These people never once bought anything we made. They probably had no scruples downloading our art and games off pirating websites!
VinesNFluff 0 points 3 years ago
every single one of us artists understand the true effect and usefulness of AI.
Every artist I have interacted with outside this shill-filled thread (the ones I buy from! And like 1/3 of my friend circle as well) sees AI as either "neat novelty, wish tech journalists would stop overrating it" and "actually pointless", but go off.
VinesNFluff 2 points 3 years ago
AI Art is not expression, it's plagiarism.
Neil 12 points 3 years ago
I'd disagree, but it's an interesting potential.
I personally see a world full of people that get mad for 10 minutes every time a giant corporation makes things worse and then relentlessly consumes just like they did before. I don't see that stopping any time soon. Netflix was wildly successful when they banned account sharing and then raised prices a few weeks later. Sure, a bunch of people removeded and moaned, but nothing really happened except positive profit margins.
GardeningSadhu 16 points 3 years ago
now is the time to support small artists if you feel like throwing your hard earn money away.... i love art, i am an artist. I learned a long time ago that art isn't going to make me money.... it's not on us as individuals to support artists. This is a societal problem and we can't solve it with our low wages. We need that money to eat and have shelter.
DragonTypeWyvern 12 points 3 years ago
Have you considered doing crime?
GardeningSadhu 5 points 3 years ago
i've been a criminal for as long as i can remember and i'll never stop, lol
SasquatchBanana 1 point 3 years ago
Have you also considered being gay?
VinesNFluff 7 points 3 years ago
"I am an artist, here is why art should die and be replaced with soulless automated reproductions"
GardeningSadhu 7 points 3 years ago
that may have been what you heard but it's not what i said
VinesNFluff 4 points 3 years ago
So you claim, yet in defending AI art, this is what you defend.
The death of human expression. The surrendering of all things to industrialists that never cared about art ever.
GardeningSadhu 0 points 3 years ago
I'm not defending anything, i'm talking about how the world works. I didn't decide for it to work this way, i don't want it to work this way, i'm simply stating that it does work this way... you have chosen to add all this other nonsense on to my words because you don't know the difference between what you're reading and what your emotions are telling you.
Sabre363 15 points 3 years ago
It was a simple post about how AI is fucking artists over. Which somehow devolved into a bunch of people shilling AI and calling all the artists irrelevant and obsolete because they can't compete with AI.
It's honestly one of the most depressingly shitty threads I've seen in a while, reminiscent of the old days on Reddit. I regret being a part of it.
cupcakezealot 9 points 3 years ago
why does that look like charlie kirk when he's forced to shell reverse mortgages and gold at 3am on cable?
EldritchFeminity 6 points 3 years ago
I'm just gonna drop this here for any artists concerned about companies scraping their art for their learning algorithms without permission:
https://www.technologyreview.com/...
https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/
AI can be a powerful tool when in the hands of artists. Hell, even for those commissioning artists. Use a generative model to create a concept piece you can send to them to better describe what you want. But when companies begin deciding that they can scrape your art off the internet and use it to replace both you and the rest of their graphic design or UI/UX departments, like some companies have done with their journalists already? Well, they're in for a surprise when they lose customers due to the decline in quality, but the loss of entire sectors of jobs in the meantime ain't cool.
GardeningSadhu 3 points 3 years ago
memes are art.... i don't like that that is true but literally anything can be labeled art these days and if i say "maybe that's just some garbage that someone put in a box/frame and it's not art." then i'm the asshole.
PipedLinkBot 1 point 3 years ago
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When did this board get so many neo liberals 😬 Everyone deserves a living wage, I dont care if their art is the worst art of all time. We are here on earth to solve human problems. To solve for human joy.
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