I agree with you, but this is not an AI problem, you don’t need AI to do it, specially with digital art…
Yes, but his fakes required lots of skill and effort to be made…
But AI art is doing it, that’s what the vast majority of it is doing. No one is saying doing it is okay except you.
Yet its still a fake, and him claiming it to be real was part of the issue.
My only fundamental problem with AI art is consent. I dont really care as long as the model creators own all the artwork they’re using.
Yeah, just stealing whatever is popular on artstation or etsy without a care in the world is scummy.
1 Like
Wait, are they using AI to copy a piece of art or a style? Beacuse you can easily copy a digital art without AI.
Both.
I’ve seen people using AI art to copy exact works or filter works through AI that they find online, and I’ve seen people using multiple works from a person to generate images to replicate their style or just slightly alter their reworks.
See Sam Does Art.
Even if people can copy digital art without AI, nobody is arguing that its okay to do that unless you’re studying it to improve your own technique or making fanart. We even have trends on social media about artists drawing the same image in their own different styles.
AI however is
A) Taking those images without permission and mass producing them which undercut the artists who could possibly be doing commission work to live.
And B) Not crediting the sources its taking from, as seen by how not even the people here using it could tell you where the generators are getting the images they need for their database.
1 Like
Again, just chatting here, as a long time artist…
I’m honestly not seeing the “image theft” side of things.
The images I’m seeing, or producing, aren’t copies of anyone’s work. It has elements, color, line quality, theme, etc, that I see in other works, but it’s a mashup of elements that no one artist can lay claim too.
IMHO, what the Ai is doing in my observation is little different from what the sea of artists (past, present and future) who collect images of what their favorite artists are doing…picking the bits they like or are inspired by, be it linework, color, shape, motion, and combining all those things together, to create something inspired by all those “stolen” bits (lord that was a mess of a sentence. Apologies.) =)
Every artist I’ve ever known is a thief of some sort, who has some wall, or Pinterest page plastered with “inspiration” that they draw from. I don’t think they view what they are doing as theft, even though they never ask any of the artist’s permission to use their work as reference material. It’s just the common path to creation.
I think what throws people off with Ai, is that there is no real “hand” in it. I get that. But as an art director/artist/creator, I can’t deny the beauty of some of the images I see coming out of Ai, which are beautiful regardless of how it was created.
As a last thought, historically speaking whenever technology hits the art world it throws people off, but then things settle down, and what was offensive or considered “not real art” becomes accepted and even held up as examples of great art.
Film photography followed that path, then digital photography followed again, each shaking up the status quo at the time.
Digital art itself was looked down on when it first hit the scene, and the same thing with touch tablets and the like, with there multiple undos, canned textures, paint styles, etc., that are commonplace today.
Andy Warhol’s art was looked down upon when he first created it, because he was using industrial methods (silk screen/etc.) to produce it. Now his work can sell for millions.
In modern times graffiti artists like Banksy sell their works at Sotheby’s.
Ai art will follow the same path IMHO.
Anyhoot, sorry for the long note. Yatta yatta yatta.
1 Like
gotta be honest i’m very tired of this debate, so here’s my thesis statement
Even if using images to train AI was stealing, it would not be a bad thing. Sampling in music is way closer to stealing than AI will ever be, yet sampling is responsible for some of the greatest albums I’ve ever listened to. Piracy is way closer to stealing than AI will ever be, yet piracy is responsible for liberating experiences and offering it to the masses, educating people by making information free. Even if AI was stealing, it still grants people who would never have gotten into art otherwise the ability to move other people’s hearts, make them feel powerful emotions—make art! To be against this freedom is to be against freedom of expression, and by extension, art itself.
This is illegal.
This is not illegal, it is a gray area at worse.
It sounds like a case by case situation.
It is the same situation as the bakers and bread factories analogy that I used earlier.
2 Likes
The images YOU are seeing. Ive had to block so many AI art accounts because they kept showing up on my social medias due to people still labeling it under “Art” when its just ripped off from other people’s work. And we know this is true because thats exactly how MidJourney does it.
You can anthropomorphize this algorithm all you want, it doesnt change the fact that its taking that data to be mass produced and sold to people.
Pinterest is not a comparable site because artists post their work on their or the vast majority of people link the sources of that work when they post it, so artists still get recognition and credit for people seeing and referencing their art.
Conflating theivery with referecing is only helping muddy the waters so AI people can get away with it.
This is ridiculous, ends dont justify the means. Just because a product can look beautiful to you doesnt justify how it was made or make it any more good. It just makes it more acceptable to the public who doesnt know any better or care enough about actual artists.
I am an artists, a long-time one, so my weight in this is just as big as yours.
The difference between whats happening with digital photography vs AI is that people still need to TAKE the photos. People still need to line the shots, to have some semblance of knowledge on what it means to take a good photo if they’re going into it professionally.
People can take photos all the time on their phone, that doesnt make them a professional photographer, so photographers can still find work.
The difference here is AI is a solely machine based algorithm. Who’s to say it cant get to a point where it can just make the images automatically without needing a prompt? What then?
1 Like
And people would still agree with the bread analogy that what the company is doing is still scummy and shouldnt be encouraged.
Yet it is still scummy, and shouldnt be encouraged.
1 Like
I agree, but be scummy, unfortunely, is not illegal, otherwise things like most AAA games and politicians would not exist. 
.
Reading through it, this is not what a thesis statement means.
If you’re so tired, leave. I’m tired of explaining basic human deceny to you as well.
It is, you just don’t want to admit it because you cant be bothered to learn how to make art yourself without a program doing 99% of the work for you.
People know where samples come from. In Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s recent song, they sampled Aqua’s incredibly popular song “Barbie Girl”, but they paid her and her label royalties to use her voice and music in their song. Sampling can get scummy because the music industry is an absolute mess, but two or more things can be bad at the same time.
By stealing from other artists and giving money to the companies who stole them.
You and every other AI supporter cannot do cost analysis and lack basic empathy for the very people who’s community you want to join. You support programs that rip off of other’s hard work and then claim it as your own to indulge in your own hobby, when that art could be someone’s livelyhood.
What you’re doing is essentially putting your dreams and desires over someone else’s, and funding companies to do it.
Do not patronize me with this feel good, freedom of expression speech. You do not get to say that and nobody from your community gets to say then when you actively give money to the people who are limiting artists to this day.
Freedom of speech is not freedom of criticism
Yet we have people day in and day out criticizing those practices, and trying to go against these bad systems and corporations.
People advocate to stop giving AAA games money when they dont deliver on good products, people dont vote for, or vote against, politicians who dont have the people’s best interest at heart.
So when it comes to AI, boycotting or at the very least suspending it until it can come out as a better product that doesnt involve stealing from artists to create what it does.
“The future is WW3 and no one can stop it.”
This is such a goofy topic. AI is not a problem. Assets are always used and re-used in artistry. Ask someone to commission artwork of a soldier wearing a helmet, and you’re not very likely to get something unique. They’re going to draw from inspiration of other artists and imagery that they didn’t originally create themselves.
AI Art is no different. Bing Images or Dall-E, Midjourney, they’re all the same. They’re creating unique images using information from other imagery that exists. The same as all artists do.
2 Likes
Damn, both a bad artist and a prompt writer.
1 Like
It is scummy to the artist in the same way that the bread factory is scummy to the baker, but yet, I can’t frame those who chose to buy their bread from a bread factory as bad people, or buy bread from a bread factory as a bad thing to do… .
No, its not the same. Especially with MidJourney, because it charges people for those images that it does not have ownership of because they didnt make it.
This is such a dumb argument, of course you can get something unique depending on what artist you commission for that piece. And if your problem is the lack of diversity, AI literally is full of biases tailored to specific outcomes over others(white/pale skin, straight hair, traditional beauty standards, etc.)
An artist referencing a piece to make something their own versus an AI taking established artwork from artists without their permission to copy off of are extremely different, you’re just ignorant.
1 Like
A bread factory stealing recipes from local bakeries? Yes actually I can label people who know that the factory is stealing from local businesses and still buy from them as people making a bad choice. Just because they dont want to recognize their actions as bad or make excuses for their actions, doesnt stop them from being bad actions.
Meh as i said, not worth more than 5 mins of my time