This is why we must not give an inch!
Kickstarter recently suspended Unstable Diffusion. Why?
Well they have a policy of never actually explaining themselves when they do this, but this blog is very telling. Essentially: whining artists who do not understand the tool have been complaining and playing the victim, and we as a community of artists (yes, artists!) haven't been speaking up nearly enough.
I recently saw a post wanting to appease the complainers, maybe calling us "AI DJs".
Absolutely not. Yesterday I might have been open, but forget it now. That ship has sailed.
Not only is it objectionable for anyone to GATEKEEP what makes an artist, but allowing this concession only emboldens them to push further and cause more harm.
Tomorrow it'll be Midjourney, and then it'll be DALL-E. And then politicians who think "the Internet is a series of tubes" will start passing legislation that will kill diffusion models altogether.
So let's get our heads on straight about this stuff. Here's something I've posted a few times, but it belongs here:
How diffusion models ACTUALLY work:
AI learns to create images exactly the same way humans do: by looking at images and developing methods to get there. The AI model itself, when trained, contains no images at all.
It contains "skill" (or methods or processes or whatever you want to call them), gained the same way human artists get it: by looking at what others do and developing techniques. That's what you end up with; a collection of techniques. That's what the AI is.
Nothing is copied, stolen, or otherwise accessed in ways any other artist wouldn't, and insistence to the contrary is profoundly dishonest.
Understandable.
But taking down their art and sulking is quite frankly a childish display that only hurts them and doesn't affect anyone else. This little self-destructive display is more embarrassing than anything.
Their skill has been replaced with tech just like the demand for carpenters was dramatically squashed by the assembly line... but craftsmen still exist.
The difference is that they no longer get a free pass on their lack of nuance and artistic sensibility.
The artists who are most upset are the ones who treat art less as a form of expression than a technical task for which they developed a technical skill. AI art is no threat to the creative, but it's a massive one to the "skilled laborer".
And yes, that's a shame. But I cannot imagine shutting down factories to create more carpenter jobs, banning farming machinery to create more farm hand jobs, etc.
Well first of all, these:
Seriously though, is AI art theft? If you've ever dipped your toe into the art world's academic side you know that's a stupid question at this point. We live in an age where a square on an otherwise blank canvas is art. A toilet is art. "Ce n'est pas une pipe," etc etc etc.
This debate is hundreds of years old and time and time again those who stomp their feet and scream about something not being art always land on the wrong side of history. Don't be one of these humiliated doofuses by whining about how "soulless" the art is or how it isn't art because it's "too easy".
Driftwood art. Photography. COMPUTERS. Etc. Etc.
There's still plenty of room to display creativity and be an artist without needing to put the word "artist" in condescending quotation marks. Some examples:
https://sfba.social/tags/ForbiddenPolaroid
https://sfba.social/tags/UrbanLandscapeSeries
I legitimately do feel for anyone caught up in an abrupt industry shift (I used to work as a transcriptionist!) but at the same time, as a user of the new technology, I find it absolutely unacceptable that people expect me to feel guilty for pursuing my own creativity and my own art.
It should not be permitted. Period. It is simply unacceptable.
We already see a lot of people upset at being attacked as AI artists. The trolls (and that's exactly what they are) feel entitled to attack them. We cannot allow this.
And, in the case of Unstable Diffusion, we see the beginnings of tangible harm caused by this unchecked ignorance.
Ignorance must no longer be suffered.
I think you are making an extremely good point here: those that are threatened are the "skilled laborers".
I went on Artstation recently and saw these lines of anti-AI logos. Visiting the pages of the people who had them up, I saw page after page of anime-ish/mtg-ish/dnd-ish/hearthstone-ish/starwars-ish production. Very well done, beautiful stuff, but in most cases, completely interchangeable. Production that was not art (ie made for its pure artistic value), but basically made to fill an economic need for art and therefore having little to do with the concept of art.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying these people are not artists or, more accurately, capable of being artists, but what they have on their pages in most cases are products, not oeuvres. That reminded me of those craftspeople who carved all the statues in the cathedrals. They were skilled at their job, probably the bests of their times. And they delivered. Exactly like the people on Artstation who produce beautiful scenes, but they all look very similar. Little artistic creativity there, but a lot of artistic skill.
I feel bad for the people who, overnight, go from "essential" to "replaceable". It sucks badly. But that has happened to many in the past and will continue to happen. We adapt. They will adapt.
This the case. today's "Artists" are perfectly fine with not tipping Doordash drivers, coders being paid less than minimum wage, and the people who make their career defining devices living in light security prison facilities with suicide nets. This is a class of people who felt above others now being threatened. I'm in their skill set. I can do that high detail shit. Their work bores me. Sometimes my own work bores me, especially commissioned work. What AI promises is what the influence of dreams, drugs, and what the rare true geniuses promise, something random and new enough to foster genuine aesthetic change.
me: an artist and a doordash driver
but I do agree to a lot of this. My niche however isn’t as threatened because I paint pet portrait commissions as my main source of income (I doordash when business is slow) and the majority of my clients come to me because they value handmade work. A lot of them even ask me for in-progress examples to make sure I’m not doing anything digitally like using filters, etc. (although I do work digitally for different types of portraits)
Playing with AI generators has made me more inspired to make art from my own creativity so I’m not just stuck doing pet portrait commissions all the time which is starting to burn me out. But instead of using AI like ready-made art, I’m going to use it to create a collection of inspiration and made a sort of mood-board to jump off of to make my own stuff traditionally!
What’s interesting is that you don’t feel threatened even though you do portrait commissions, cos that’s a tough field! You are fighting a lot of people doing similar work in that sub-group and I assume that must make it highly stressful at times. I have a theory that a lot of the ones making the noise about ai are those who have never had to fight like you have, the so called “(never-actually-been)-starving-artist” syndrome. Do you think you ever will combine ai with your commissions?
Maybe only in specific circumstances.
I like to work from 1-2 clear reference photos to make the painting as realistic to the photo as possible, but sometimes clients want something more conceptual in which case AI might help me to develop sketches.
For example, I’ve had clients who have handed over a large collection of just okay references of their pet, and asked for them to be sitting or positioned in a certain way that isn’t referenced in any of their photos. Sometimes they ask for props, or interactions between multiple pets, etc. In these cases I’d generally spend hours collecting secondary references from the internet of pets to use for positions/proportions and used photo editing apps to collage bits and pieces together to get a concept sketch. Using AI for this step may be a lot quicker and give me some fresh ideas.
Well said. It’s the double standard procedure that hypocrites love to engage in that is what it’s about!
As an artist I'm feeling a lot of second-hand embarrassment from my colleagues these days.
Wow, this post really hits the nail on the head! I completely agree that the idea of "gatekeeping" what constitutes as art is ridiculous. Art is subjective and constantly evolving, and it's not up to any one group to decide what is or isn't "real art."
As for the AI art debate, I think it's important to remember that AI models are just tools, and it's up to the artist to use them creatively and with nuance. Just like how a hammer is a tool for a carpenter, but it doesn't make every project they create automatically unoriginal or uninspired.
And let's be real, if someone is upset that their "technical skill" has been replaced by AI, they probably weren't much of an artist to begin with. Art is about creativity and expression, not just technical ability.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post! It's always important to have a nuanced and open-minded perspective when it comes to art and technology.
Because it's subjective. If it wasn't subjective it wouldn't be criticism, it'd be a quantifiable points system based on objective measurements.
Then if its merly subjective, everyone is an art critic plus it's impossibile to define if a painting is a good or bad cuz as u said there are no objective measurements. As last question i'd like to know why traditional/digital artist consider important for a good painting things like composition, values, shapes, storytelling, form, color picking, style, perspective ecc...
Yes. Everyone's both an artist and an art critic (though not everything everyone makes is art, you have to deliberately and subjectively express something for that). Everyone interprets art differently, everyone has a different idea of what defines good and bad, and no one's opinion matters more than anyone else's.
It's true that traditional and digital artists often consider certain elements, such as composition, values, shapes, storytelling, form, color picking, style, and perspective, to be important in creating a good painting. They are not the be all end all of good art though, and aren't even technically required. These elements can be evaluated objectively, but the overall aesthetic and emotional impact of the artwork is subjective and varies from person to person. It's also worth noting that some artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol, have challenged traditional techniques and focused more on unconventional elements in their work.
I agree with most of it but I don’t like the name “AI artist.” It’s like paying someone for a commission and claiming you’re the artist. You’re the prompter, not the artist.
It’s fucking crazy how artists who almost undoubtedly look at pieces of artwork not made by them to develop their own skills just suddenly accusing ai art of the same thing.
I used to use mid journey all the time to create starting points for my animation work and music work. Then all this hate started flying around and some friends of mine started calling it all out as theft and just wrong and unfair to artists and all that. It made me feel like I did something horrible even tho I was not selling it and was genuinely just trying to make cool things and make people happy. I still feel guilty like I’ve done something wrong. 😔
You haven't done anything wrong. Keep being creative and don't let others stifle your imagination.
Seriously, I’ve seen their rants with each other. They’re bullies, who think they’re victims of bullying, exploitation, and abuse. But they pretty much group up to not only bullies and abuse people who use ai, they goes as far as stalking the funded projects and go around reporting lies. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, there is no current law in place for using available ai tools.
Not to mention these artists think the ai artist are just a bunch of failed artists who are jealous of them. 🤷🏽♀️
Honestly I don’t think you should worry about this, very soon it will become the standard, it’s too easily accessible, cheap, and produces high-quality results.
A GoFundMe recently raised $150k to lobby against diffusion models, and politicians love a cause that appears to help but causes harm.
Zeipher stopped producing new models and closed their community. Waifu took their latest model down.
Even just a week ago I'd have agreed with you, but the bullies are getting organized and getting victories.
We must push back hard.
If that go fund me goes the same way as the blm money I am going to laugh my ass off
well there's an entire go fund campaign going on in r/ conceptart so I don't think so it's going to become the standard even bosslogic who defended ai joined the bandwagon of the anti ai campaign
AI art is making artists look at art less as a money thing but more as, er, art.
There is another campaign here: Unstable Diffusion - AI Art without Limits (equilibriumai.com)
Something that I've not seen mentioned here or elsewhere is how the anti-AI digital artists seem to be misunderstanding copyright. They seem to believe that copyright gives them complete control over their work and it can only be used for training with permission, or "consent" to use the loaded language they prefer.
That is not something that is afforded by copyright and falls outside the intent of copyright. Copyright is focussed on the display and reproduction of a work, the name gives it away - it's the right to copy. If you look at the protections copyright affords, none are infringed by AI learning or AI production.
Creation of a work does not confer absolute control over how it is used through copyright.
A lot of them still refuse to believe that you can’t copyright style. If you could the comics industry would be very empty indeed.
At the heart of this misunderstanding is the lie that AI copies their art during training.
I have some time for people who think this, until they won't let go of the idea - or the ones who are peddling it knowing that it is untrue.
Coming to it fresh, I can see how people would assume that it was storing their image, it's the closest interpretation they have to their experience and would make intuitive sense when you only have a very high level idea about what's going on. When you tell them that there is no database of art it references and it would be a terrible model if it did learn about images to the degree it could reproduce them, so often they won't let go, or if they're more honest, they say they don't care. They don't care, they're not invested in it, the argument is their means to the end of banning or containing AI art because it threatens their livelihood and/or self-worth.
I've also seen comments on ArtStation like "I don't think I am at risk of having my art stolen, but I am against AI Art to support artists who are." They don't understand what they're campaigning against.
It's not understandable that they feel threatened, many go to school for it, they clearly never learn their own copyright laws.
You don't see authors throwing the fits they do.
Worth noting: diffusion models are trained on more images than there are words in the dictionary by several orders of magnitude.
It would be like claiming copyright on the word "sentiment".
If they’re not careful what will likely happen is that art lovers (but not artists themselves) will grow tired of their continual negativity and take their business elsewhere. And where will they go to? To the ai artists who aren’t complaining all the live long day. They’re quite willing to burn artstation, deviant art and Instagram to the ground with their hate and normal people don’t want to witness that or be involved in it.
Its like saying photographers just press a button on a camera to make a photograph.
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I think a smart AI Art model would generate a meta file in which the arts/images which contributed to the generation of the AI art are listed and the percentage of influence in the creation of the art is determined.
Then, if the art is used for commercial purposes, the source artists can be credited and linked and there can possibly be a revenue stream distributed to the source artists.
The AI art model that implements something like this will get a huge boost in market share as a result of solving this contentious issue to the benefit of all. A smart company would just do it and not wait for laws that mandate it.
I'm afraid that's pretty much impossible for a few reasons.
A) Any given image generation is created using the influence of thousands upon thousands of images, even if you specify a specific artist in the style prompt.
B) If you hold AI to this standard, you also have to hold human artists to this standard. They would need to log every image they are inspired from or learn from, and then offer credit to all of those people every time they did a painting.
If you hold AI to this standard, you also have to hold human artists to this standard. They would need to log every image they are inspired from or learn from, and then offer credit to all of those people every time they did a painting.
Let me be the little kid here. Why?
Because AI tools learn art the same way humans do: by looking at art and inventing their own methods for getting there.
Ultimately once the model is trained all it is are those methods, each of which individually are extremely rough and useless on their own. It uses all of those self-created methods collectively to make images worth seeing.
I think you would set some kind of influence threshold, say 5% or 10%, below which influences would be ignored.
I think humans will decide that AI generated art and human generated art are in two very different categories and treated legally differently. That is, until AI is given legal personhood upon the attainment of true sentience. Then they would be treated equally.
I agree with most of it but I don’t like the name “AI artist.” It’s like paying someone for a commission and claiming you’re the artist. You’re the prompter, not the artist.
Photography. Cubism. Found art. Driftwood art. Etc.
There's an immense history of valid art that takes less effort than this. Effort does not make art.
But even so, you're truncating the process, omitting the work it takes to actually get what you were looking for, and all the processing after the fact.
Well, for example, I wouldn’t count photography as art, it’s photography. Same with “found art.” It wasn’t you making the art, it was someone else.
I wouldn’t count photography as art, it’s photography
Yeeeeesssshhh... okay........ we.... can't continue this conversation. Wow. We are on different planets.
...? Can you explain please? I genuinely want to discuss with you rather than just stopping?
Okay, fair. I apologize if this gets long but since you're receptive I'm gonna dive right in because I love this stuff.
So the discussion of "what is art" vs "what is NOT art" is a really long one that goes back centuries. People have debated it on and on ad nauseum.
Some neat things happened along the way. Cubism was invented, for instance: a single perfect square on a blank canvas. Is that art?
Oh you better believe people got upset debating that! LOL
But eventually everybody settled around one general idea: ANYTHING + intention = art. That's it. That's the math.
(Art professors would jump down my throat at how over-simplified that is but honestly it's a good summary. I just saved you a good year of academic study lol.)
Photography is a good example. A lot of photos, genuinely, aren't really considered art. Your holiday snaps, that one with your thumb over the lens, whatever. We can say that's not art (most of the time).
But if you take the time to think about the experience of the viewer, everything changes. That photo becomes art purely by virtue of the fact that you're considering the human experience of that image once it's created.
Same thing with, say, 3D renders.
Some of them, very much art. You can tell they were keen on how people would react to what they created. Other times they were just re-creating a technical schematic and worked on accuracy. Many of THAT kind of 3D render you might NOT consider art because they were just performing a technical task.
Although, physically, both situations were identical.
So a drawing or painting or whatever is usually considered art because to go through all that bother is to definitely really think about how the viewer will experience the image you're bringing to life. But it's that consideration of the viewer's experience, rather than any measure of skill or effort, that makes it art.
In fact, skill and effort are pretty irrelevant. Go to any art gallery and you'll inevitably see a few pretty dumb looking things that look like a child accidentally spilled a little paint, but the intention behind it is what makes it special.
So, getting back to photography: it is so very very nuanced as an artform. The things that influence viewers are almost "invisible" until you start to understand what to look for - depth of field, contrast and lighting, leading lines, etc. But even if you don't know any of that, as a viewer all that really matters is: does this image create any kind of reaction in you at all? If so, that's "good" art.
Likewise, if you're surfing Art Station and you're looking at these incredibly detailed images that clearly someone poured weeks into, but you feel NOTHING looking at them, then maybe that's "bad" art.
And that's why an AI artist is, in fact, an artist. Because intention of effect is everything.
Some examples of my AI art that I'm quite proud of (although admittedly I do use Photoshop and Lightroom as well):
https://sfba.social/tags/ForbiddenPolaroid
https://sfba.social/tags/UrbanLandscapeSeries
You know, if you're not convinced that's totally okay. Art is very personal.
But the real issue is that we need to allow each other to define art for ourselves. Nobody should ever decide "that is art and that is not and those are the rules". We call that "gatekeeping", and that's always a bad thing.
Anyway, hope that helps and I really do appreciate you giving me the opportunity to babble on about a part of the world I love.
The problem with the "it learns, not copies" argument is that while it doesn't copy, it still repeats the same patterns pretty much perfectly. Marc Brunet said in his latest video it's like cloning people, and also stated that AI art is morally like building a car from stolen parts. (update: I actually kinda disagree with the whole stolen car parts thing)
A human learning from others by references is imperfect and enables a unique style, while just using AI doesn't enable you to develop an original style. It can never create new styles. Even Marc talked about this in his video. As a tool, it can be great, but it shouldn't be a complete replacement.
UPDATE: I was completely wrong and I apologize. That video still has a bit of valid questions in it, but as a whole it misrepresents the true nature of AI art.
The AI doesn't actually repeat the same patterns it learns perfectly (it's limited by the white noise used as the seed for the image). And yes it can create new styles by mixing and matching what it learns. In fact, I am not against AI art (to be honest, I never was). A lot of anti-AI arguments feel like gatekeeping participation in a community based on whether you can physically draw it yourself or not, whether you're willing to draw something with your hand or use a machine to draw it for you. Transparency is the first and foremost thing. Then comes how much of the input was from you and how much of it was coincidence (yes, a piece of AI art accidentally looking amazing without your input IS pure coincidence). There are still some valid points about the AI being trained on art without consent, but a lot of it comes from being anti-machine and anti-automation in general.
Can we please mass produce you? You thought a certain way, heard some contradictory facts and opinion and then made up YOUR OWN MIND! Much love to you!
While I understand your point, I would beg to disagree.
First, there are enough forgery cases in the world of art to demonstrate that humans CAN copy to perfection. It was even a full job in some cases.
Second, AI DOES enable you to create a style. By mixing influences, models, embeddings; by crafting efficient prompts and developing a specific process, including in post-production, you can definitely create an original style. But ( and we agree on this) AI does not create the style, the human (whether you call them artist or not) does create it.
Now, I realize that one point that seems to be fairly overlooked in the debate (but I think it could have weight in courts), is the one of intent.
Nothing can stop you from copying an artist and trying to reproduce their work to perfection. If you keep it to yourself or if you clearly states it is a copy, there is no wrong. The issue arises when one claims the work is an original. Because with originality comes value (and here we could debate the difference between "artist" and "skilled crafter").
If I use AI to create pictures for my DnD campaign, I hurt no one (I would not have paid anyone to do this anyway). If I use AI to claim I have an image made by so or so, or worse, if I try to sell an AI-made piece as an original, then there is an issue.
Forgery is an issue. Copying is not. Copyrighted material CANNOT be protected from copying. But they can be from forgery.
But this issue is not specific to AI: photography, digital art, painting, even literature, all allow forgery. And no one has ever asked to ban cameras or brushes because they could be used for that. It makes no sense.
What we have at the moment, is a group of people, rightly afraid of losing their sustenance and privilege, trying to protect those by using 21st century techniques (social media bullying, lobbying, online harassment, spreading fake news, etc...). It will pass I hope.
Thank you, you've alleviated some of my fears and made me rethink my words. I have updated the comment.
That's dead wrong, both technically and in practice.
You are factually incorrect and repeating lies and propaganda.
Once an image has been trained on, that doesn't actually allow the model to re-create it perfectly. In fact the model only has a chance at approximating the source image, and must incorporate things from other trainings to even produce a result.
Marc Brunet is either ignorant, a liar, or both. Don't let yourself get suckered by trolls.
Thank you, you've alleviated some of my fears and made me rethink my words. I have updated the comment.
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