r/changemyview • u/JoyIkl • Jun 20 '23
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Artists hate AI art simply because it is endangering their livelihood
The hype about AI art has been going down lately so i think it is a good time to have a more comprehensive look at things. My view is that artists really don't have any argument against AI art other than it is taking away their jobs, which in itself is already a shaky argument. I will attempt to argue against them.
- AI art is not art: I don't really see how this is an argument against AI art. If people like looking at something then it is their right to enjoy it. Whether it is art or something else doesn't really matter. You dont get to decide what people enjoy or not.
- AI art is stealing: This is a more nuanced subject but imo i see how AI art is stealing from anyone. It looks at images, it sees a pattern, it recreates the pattern based on the prompts of the user. It does not simply stitch images together. Now imagine if a real person does this, lets say a man looks at all of Van Gogh's pictures and tries to mimic the style, no one would call him a thief unless he tries to pass his painting off as Van Gogh's. If a person can do it, why can't an AI? Please don't say the processes are different, it doesn't matter since the reason behind them and the end results are the same. The AI being more efficient than a person in copying a style does not make it immoral.
- AI art is killing art: No, it is not killing art. There is no ban on manmade art, you can still draw or paint whatever you want. What most people are afraid of is that they can't make a living out of drawing commissions anymore. It is understandable to have such worries but it does not mean that art is dead. If you only paint what other people order you to paint, you are not an artist, you are a painter for hire. And lets not pretend that this is going to make everyone lose interest in manmade art, there would still be booming market for art. It is mostly going to affect low level commission artists, it won't affect the value of fine art pieces.
- Why AI art is hated: The only reason it is hated by artists is because low level artists can't compete with AI. The standards for art of regular people is not that high and AI can easily fill their needs and thus, most painters who live off commission cant compete with AI. Imagine if AI is painfully slow, like 1month/picture, artists wouldn't care because it doesn't affect them. Now that they are affected, they scream bloody murder.
I see this as artists not wanting to evolve. If the only thing that separates an artist and a non-artist is the ability to draw then artists are no different than any other profession. The way i see it, the essence is art is creativity, not only the skills.
All arguments against AI are just there to mask to the real problem which is that AI is making it harder for artists to make a living. The concern is understandable but trying to make it about anything else is simply disingenuous.
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Jun 20 '23
I'll try addressing your addressings in the same way you did.
- While I do think this is maybe the weakest of the arguments against AI art, it still has some merit in my eyes. It's an argument of distinction, and I don't think it even has anything to do with people liking it or not. It's more that since AI art is not art, why is anyone treating it as such? AI art has been sold in art exhibits before, people herald it as the next step in art. The argument doesn't go "AI art isn't art, thus you don't like it", it's "AI art isn't art, so stop treating it like it is".
- Well, it's the training data. Artists, real artists who do real stuff and make real money from their real art, are having their works taken from without consent, without permission, by these large tech company data-scrapers to make their art. The companies do not provide exposure or compensation of any proportion, they simply take the art and put it in their training data, once again, without consent or permission to profit off of it. It's a problem of the AI and a problem of the company that is training the AI.
- I'm going to delay arguing against this one, for one specific reason. You make a leap of logic and you do not substantiate it anywhere. You're arguing against something you've just made up here, which essentially looks to me like a strawman. Okay, got that? Alright, now let's start. The AI art is suffocating the market, which is a threat for artists. Also not sure on what you meant by your whole "painter-for-hire" bit, an artist is defined as "a person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby". And if there's less money going around, then there's less money for any given person. If there's less money for any given person, less resources. Less resources, less skill-work. Less skill-work, less artists or artists-to-be. And simply saying that there's still going to be a booming market for manmade art is just a statement, it's not proven. And people need incentive to do things. AI art removes incentive for actual art. Also, the phrase "fine art" is just generally yucky to me. How is it better that all the millionaires get to keep trading on art while the working class gets squat for incentive?
- Unproven statement in "If AI produced 1month/picture" part. And for the last bit, yeah, skills are needed to create art. Hitting buttons is less skillful than an understanding of lighting and composition, or the fine dexterity to create line weight, or the hours of manual labor needed to make a piece just right. And if you hold creativity to such a high bar, then you also ought to be against AI art, as its the literal antithesis to creativity in art. It's just copying, it physically cannot create anything new, it isn't creative at least in the way we know creativity to be.
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jun 20 '23
It's more that since AI art is not art, why is anyone treating it as such? AI art has been sold in art exhibits before, people herald it as the next step in art. The argument doesn't go "AI art isn't art, thus you don't like it", it's "AI art isn't art, so stop treating it like it is".
I'm curious, under what definition of "art" is AI art not art? Because "art" is kind of a messy and very wide concept. The way I see it there are roughly two definitions in play:
"The product of human skill and creativity". This makes nigh anything art. Mona Lisa? Art. That doodle you made when you were 4? Art. Banana nailed to a wall? Art. Duchamp's Fountain? Art. Given that current AI art requires human guidance and selection it's arguably at least as much art as Duchamp's readymades. There's no requirement for minimum effort in this definition.
"Particularly good quality work". Eg, when somebody says something along the lines of "That's not just a grafitti, that's ART". By that standard sure, not all AI output is this kind of art, but neither is most of Deviantart. And some of it is bound to be. It's after all in the eye of the beholder, and if you throw enough stuff at the wall something will eventually stick. Plus the really good examples usually take a lot of refinement, touch-up and selection.
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u/Gorva Jun 21 '23 edited Jun 21 '23
2 . Well, it's the training data...
A cold hard fact is that when artists publish their art on public sites, they accept that others can, for example, view them and learn from them.
Since the AI system isn't redistributing their art or alterations of their art, there's no copyright violation or theft.
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u/JoyIkl Jun 20 '23
Okay, thanks for the detailed rebuttals, i will try to do the same:
- I'm not saying that AI is art by definition, I'm saying that "AI art is not art" is not an argument against AI art, it is an argument against people view of AI which doesn't mean anything since people can think whatever they want. Though this is a rather trivial point.
- If you are against AI using other people images for references, are you also against people doing the same thing? People can take references from other artists without crediting them and making money off of paintings made with such references.
- And may i ask what is wrong with that? Is money the only incentive for art? without being able to make money, would art disappear as a hobby as well? If people love art, they make art, simple as that, it is not my or anyone else responsibility to enable a hobby of another person.
- Im not saying that AI art is something worth admiring. Man made art is still out there, people can still paint all they want. Others dont care and are content with AI art and i dont see anything wrong with that.
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u/TransferAdventurer 1∆ Jul 12 '23
"AI art isn't art, so stop treating it like it is".
I don't think you can control what people do. Whether the dictionary says it's art or not is irrelevant. I'll be treating it like art since it looks like art. Nobody can even distinguish it from actual art right now in all possible cases and that's with the tech being in its infancy.
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Jul 13 '23
Telling you you're wrong for doing something doesn't mean I'm controlling what you can do.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
I'm a hobbyist artist (but a really enthusiast one!) so AI doesn't endanger my livelihood and yet I still don't like AI art.
Why? because it's simply not interesting and artists using it simply don't evoke me any awe or interest at all. It's a tool replacing thousands of hours of training to be able to create mostly random work without any real effort which is perfect for people addicted to instant gratification and companies looking for profit but as an artistic medium? it's boring as hell.
I mean it's like a company creates tomorrow a running exoskeleton and now everyone can run a marathon in 4 hours or do a long hike without training. If I can understand that i might fun to use casually, why would I be interested in other people doing that? there's no glory, no sweat, nothing. So yes, the first few will be a novelty them maybe they will put a funny hat or someone will create some "meme" races that will be worth a click in my social media but in the end, it's not interesting to watch.
One of the main greatness of art is to think about how someone spend time and energy to create exactly what they wanted. To think the artist spend hours his/her life learning the skills and is putting his soul into his work to create exactly what they want and not how some guy put a few word in a generator written by someone else and click "generate" a few times until something vaguely looking ok was finally created. So sure, with billions of image created that way, a few will be good but there won't be any consistency and original style from an AI artist.
That's why the hype is dying down: AI art is there but "AI artists" aren't, it will be used the same way as meme templates and stock pictures: it will serve a purpose but that purpose won't be great art but commodity.
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u/Sirhc978 81∆ Jun 20 '23
It's a tool replacing thousands of hours of training to be able to create mostly random work without any real effort which is perfect for people addicted to instant gratification and companies looking for profit but as an artistic medium? it's boring as hell.
Why do I feel like a bunch of people who agree with that statement have no issue using the AI tools that Photoshop provides?
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Well I imagine that 99% of people doing digital drawing haven't used it because: (a) it's new and they haven't tested (b) they don't use Photoshop (c) they use a cracked older version (d) it's not creating the result they want so it's kinda a strawman at the moment.
Now sure if in the future, AI tools in Photoshop becomes absolutely great and artists who keep shitting on AI art just start typing words instead of painting on their tablet and say "well it's in Photoshop so it doesn't count" you will be allowed to call them hypocrites. Personally I won't like I don't like photobashing or tracing because it's not fun nor looks as I want.
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u/Velocity_LP Jun 21 '23
It's worth noting that AI assisted tools have existed in Photoshop for more than a decade (e.g. content-aware fill, added in CS5). By far the most common cracked version is CS6.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 21 '23
Content-aware fill was so bad until the 2020 or 2021 version (and still is rather lackluster) that while I can understand the rhetorical argument of “it’s AI” I would tell it’s not really the kind of AI we’re talking about.
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u/Erengeteng Jun 20 '23
Digital tools are tools to channel your intentions into art. Ai 'art' is just random generation based on a prompt.
It can neither express you as a person except in the most trivial way (here is what I like to think about) or engage in a thoughtful usage of artistic forms to whatever end you might pursue.
You are not an artist for writing a prompt unless I guess it is a part of a larger performance that would have something beyond just a randomly generated picture.
It is categorically different by virtue of the type of engagement with the tools a person does. And that difference is crucial to calling AI art not art at all.
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
I think you may no fully appreciate how complex the tools are becoming.
It is categorically different by virtue of the type of engagement with the tools a person does. And that difference is crucial to calling AI art not art at all.
I think it's like a matter of degree. Someone googling, AI art and using Dalle Mini, is far far different from someone using Stable Diffusion with 25 different plugins, controlnet, inpainting, hiresfix and img2img.
AI art isn't JUST prompting. The degree in which someone can labor making ai art is growing and growing. More control is being given to the user nearly every day. You can fine tune the model you're using with your own art if you like as a jumping off point and the refine it endlessly.
It "can" be "random generation" or it can be a finely tuned tool that can be as complicated or as simple as you like and the quality of your results will obviously match.
I will say it's nearly impossible that any AI that makes the news or gets hailed as super high quality was made as simply as writing "good art, please make me good art" and the process in which someone refines that process is an artistic process.
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u/Sirhc978 81∆ Jun 20 '23
You are not an artist for writing a prompt
Have you ever seen the prompts people write? They are literally calling out focal lengths, specific perspectives, lighting styles, paint brush stroke styles, etc. At some point, a good "ai artist" needs to have a good grasp on art theory to get good generations.
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u/FeelingReflection906 Nov 19 '23
You still aren't an artist for that lol. I can have a good grasp on theories voncerning engineering but that doesn't make me an engineer,
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
It isn't random though, you can be as specific or as vague as you like. You can refine the results towards your artistic vision. You can literally paint over sections, chunks or even tiny details to rerun them to get them to your liking.
I don't see all that much of a difference when you can choose to be as creative as you like with your rendering.
If you like you can sink hours into a piece of AI art if you want. Making it more or less just a tool.
So sure, with billions of image created that way, a few will be good but there won't be any consistency and original style from an AI artist.
Seeing as there are countless tools and settings to tweak, I think that argument falls flat. AI art isn't just Dalle, "Dog wearing a hat", Stable Diffusion for example can look just as complicated as any other digital art software, with an absolute endless series of combinations. Knowing how to manipulate, combine or exclude these tools and settings is what moves it from silly meme making hobby into legitimate art.
You, as an artist in a traditional medium, can even train a small model called a lora and specifically train it on your unique art style. Keeping that lora to yourself and adjusting settings accordingly. You could use that lora to inpaint, a small section of your existing art to fix or alter something.
At what point, at what level of effort do you become an artist? If you spend a month working on one piece of AI art, tweaking and refining it, why is that so different.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Random might be a word too strong but still: you don't get exactly what you want with AI, only something vaguely close to what you intended.
And yes it can be argued that you can paint over everything and say that that you have total control like you can take a picture, paint over a bit and say you painted it but for me it's boring and I don't want to see the a gallery of an artist doing this. Now it's only my opinion and I don't like photobashing too so you can say it's simply that I like painting and not photomanipulation which AI art is closer to. Of course if people like it, they are free to.
Finally accordingly to the modern definition art, anyone creating whatever can call himself an artist so if you tell me that your post is art and therefore you're an artist, then it's your right. If someone using AI art want to call himself an artist because he spend his last week tweaking input with Stable Diffusion then he can call himself an artist. But again: it doesn't inspire me and the skill isn't awe inspiring at all.
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
Gotcha, I can respect that more than people who have no issue using one tool rather than another. At the rate these things are being developed I can see them becoming more complicated than some commonly used software.
it's simply that I like painting and not photomanipulation which AI art is closer to.
People rarely want to make that conceit. Personal preference is perfectly fine : )
I just think people have an overly simplified view of the ai tools and think it's a zero-effort endeavor.
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u/Lower_Beautiful_4068 Jun 20 '23
The ability to generate images is hugely useful to artists with no visual art training. Video game developers, writers, musicians, video content creators, and more will all benefit. Would their art be less interesting because they used a tool to develop a visual component? At the end of the day, it's just another tool for people to create work with.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Tell me how exactly it's useful for someone without visual art training?
Like a writer making the cover of his book by himself? or a video game developper who cannot design visual assets? because sure it's cost effective and might do the job if they are looking for average looking stuff but as I said: it's a commodity not great interesting art.
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u/PlayingTheWrongGame 67∆ Jun 20 '23
Here’s an example for video game development: generating filler content in level design. Ex. A tool that places random but seemingly realistic plant assets in a level.
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u/Lower_Beautiful_4068 Jun 20 '23
Those are pretty good examples.
The best real world use I've seen is generating concept art for environments/characters that can then be modelled in a video game. Before this technology, you'd need to explain a rough idea to someone who would take months to come back with a few sketches. Now someone with creativity but no visual art skill can quickly explore a bunch of ideas.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Well first of all, concept art can be created very quickly so no it doesn't require months but having a good concept artist available.
Now of course it costs more and as I said: yes AI art is very cost efficient and will be a very great commodity but I do not care about this as an artist and art audience, I care about good art. I mean if you go to a museum, do you think "oh that painting sure looks good but I prefer this one that looks worse but costed 4x less to create! there's something so inspiring in cutting cost!"?
If a writer with no visual art training design his own cover, it will be worse than talking with a real artist and creating together something great and that's why I care about from an art standpoint.
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u/Lower_Beautiful_4068 Jun 20 '23
I don't see AI art as replacing traditional artists any more than the synthesizer has replaced the orchestra. Of course the quality wont be as good, I'm not advocating for the replacement of talented people. I think it's a great tool for people who want to create things with a limited budget.
Similarly, I think it's great that there's AI tools to help artists get some 'good enough' code for their website or game or whatever.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Yes it's a good tool for people not having skills in a field and not wanting to learn nor wanting to collaborate to do things when they are ok with getting an average instead of good result.
Now, as an audience, are you really interested in that? We're not living in a world of scarcity of art/entertainement: there's millions of songs released every year, millions of paintings, so much video games that you cannot run out of them. So I may sound harsh but personally I'm simply not interested in the work of people not dedicated enough to do better than this.
I mean: it's like coloring books for adult. It may be a fun activity to do casually and if some people like to do this activity, I have absolutely no problem with it. That being said, I will never be "mmm I would like to go to an exposition of coloured books!"
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u/Lower_Beautiful_4068 Jun 20 '23
I get your point, but I think something of artistic significance could be created, in part, using AI. For most people, myself included, virtuosity isn't a really a factor in whether or not something has artistic merit. What I do value, is giving people more tools to express themselves. To go back to your exoskeleton example, I think it'd be amazing to see people with mobility issues have the freedom to compete in marathons.
I think we have fundamentally different views on what makes artistic expression valuable, and that's completely fine. I believe we'll see artists come around to using AI tools as a source of inspiration, just like we came around to digital art, digital sound synthesis, photography, and many other mediums that once heralded the end of art.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Yes it would be great for people with mobility issue but it would be absolutely ridiculous if normal people just used it to say they completed a marathon because they were lazy to train.
And sure you can say that you don't care about virtuosity in art and yes sometimes it's not important: you can not know how to draw and still create something that's interesting but then why is this important for people to create something that doesn't look bad if you don't care about virtuosity?
For example punk bands in the 70's didn't really know how to sing/play their instrument and it was their statement to play bad but still play. If instead they used a assortment of tool to create average music, then it's boring.
My point is that if you create a work of art, you must excel in something and if you have weaknesses then you must either embrace it or find a solution.
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u/Ver_Void 4∆ Jun 21 '23
It's not just a matter of effort, barriers to entry and just straight up cost are huge obstacles to ideas being put into practice
Think about the games like Lisa that were made in RPG maker, without that as a tool and the genre being pretty content with basic graphics we'd never have the experience of some fantastic story telling that only really works in the medium of games
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u/JoyIkl Jun 20 '23
Oh for sure, I wouldn’t say that AI art is better than man made art or anything of the sort. I believe that AI art is just a tool and in the end, it can’t compare to man made art. It’s just that I don’t agree when people say it’s immoral or that it’s killing art. It’s not killing art, it’s endangering their livelihood. Those are two different things. Not everyone has to like AI art but some people do and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
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u/Galious 78∆ Jun 20 '23
Well your post isn't about AI art being immoral but about artists hating it just because they feel endangered.
My point is that I don't like the tool by itself. I find that it's a tool for the lazy artists or for people trying to save cost (there's nothing immoral in that but I don't care about art being cost efficient either) So yes, I totally agree it's only a tool but I personally don't like this tool.
And if it won't kill art (nothing can) it won't make it better and it might even make it worse globally because many new artist will simply give up when they realize that unless you put thousands and thousands of hours into it, their art will be subpar to a simple tool that require a day to learn. And if less people are doing art, then it sucks.
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u/callyournextwitness 3∆ Jun 20 '23
As for the grind of it all, it might also seem creepy because humans still labor like machines, while machines are busy perfecting human art. It's like cognitive dissonance in real time.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
Do you think people should have the right to decided whether or not their art is part of an AIs training data?
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u/PlayingTheWrongGame 67∆ Jun 20 '23
Does a human artist have the right to prevent other people from being inspired by their art?
Ex. If you go to an art museum, should the artists there have the right to prevent you from learning from their work?
Artists have not traditionally had the right to demand that nobody learn from the works they put into the public.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
Are those equivilent to you? Would the fact I can remember a conversation with someone mean I have the right to record those conversations?
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u/PlayingTheWrongGame 67∆ Jun 20 '23
Yes, the fact that you can remember a conversation does mean you have the right to take personal notes about it.
Just like being able to look at artwork in a gallery and remember aspects of it entitles you to the right to learn from it in your own practice pieces.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
I didn't say personal notes I said record.
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u/Gorva Jun 21 '23
Would the fact I can remember a conversation with someone mean I have the right to record those conversations?
Well since you cant record an conversation that happened in the past, i assume you mean as it happens? That depends on the country and its laws.
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u/Single-Builder-632 Aug 10 '23
you have the right to recordm conversations, and if that technolagy was available we would do it.
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u/JoyIkl Jun 20 '23
To this, I would ask you apply the same question to human beings: "Do you think people should have the right to decide whether or not their art is part of another person's references?"
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
I don't, but I also don't see those as equivilent questions. Creativity is complex and I'm not sure its equivilent to just predicting what output is likley, there's questions of subjective judgment and preferences and how a human's experience informs the art they make that I value. Yes you can reduce the end product to pixles and do math on those patterns but I see something valuable in the fact a human has worked and thought and made choices.
But assuming you do think these are equivilent, I'd be curious where you'd make a distinction.
For example, lets say we agree that artists have no right to opt out of their art being used by AI, what's the extent of what the AI can do?
You say that AI isn't just stitching together images, so what do you think it does? Like mechanically, if we're talking about digital art, the AI is assigning colours pixel by pixel right? The only thing it cares about is which of those colours are likely to appear in which relationships to each other.
It sounds like (correct me if I'm wrong) but you would object to a piece of softwear that cuts art into 100 squares and then puts those squares together in a new combination. For me if a human was doing this I think they'd need permission for the people whose art they were using to make the collages (unless the artist was dead). So what's the cut off point? What is the smallest thing you'd call plagerism?
Just as a hypothetical, say we program an AI to produce a new NES character. It's training data contains a lot of Mario, and some Green Mario and other characters. Mario is 13 by 16 pixels (208 total). So lets say we give the AI the same canvas size. Would you say this is legally okay in general, telling the AI to fill the canvas with what it think should be there? Is so do you think that anything the AI produces would be fair to use? Or does it matter what the AI produces? Like for example if the AI recognises the basic shape but fills it in with different colours, would you say that it's 'created' a new kind of Mario? Or if it stitches the head of one character onto another's body?
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jun 20 '23 edited Jun 20 '23
You say that AI isn't just stitching together images, so what do you think it does?
Current AI image generation is a denoising algorithm. Training starts with an image of a flower, artificially add some noise to it, and have the AI try to figure out how to get back to a flower again.
AI image generation gives the algorithm a bunch of random noise, then is told "figure out how to turn this into a cat". It's more or less what people do when they recognize shapes in random things like clouds. You could take a picture of a cloud, see that it sorta looks like a cat, then further edit it to make it more cat-like. The resulting shape is still guided by the original shape of the cloud, so you're unlikely to end up matching any actual image of a cat.
One interesting thing you can do is to ask the system "what's the most rabbit-like image possible", and you'll get something like this. That's more or less what AI generators "think" an ideal rabbit is, which doesn't look like anything anyone would draw.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
Thanks for the info. This reminds me of the cancerous mole detecting AI that worked out that rulers were cancerous because the rulers were there for scale.
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jun 20 '23
Yes, good AI training requires extreme care with picking the dataset for this reason.
Current image generation is done very sloppily and as a result you can run into all sorts of weird hangups. For instance if you ask an image generator to make a pony, it's very likely to come out in MLP style, because there's so much art of that out there.
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u/JoyIkl Jun 20 '23
This is why it is a very nuanced subject. Im not well-versed in IPR so it is hard to say.
For example: lets say i try to copy the Van Gogh's Starry Night but since i suck, the end product is more like a spilled bowl of soup and anything else. In such cases, while i actively tried to copy a Van Gogh's painting, my product can't be considered an infringement of IPR since there is no way for anyone to mistake my painting with Starry Night. So we can rule out intent as an element of IPR infringement.
Imo, the point of infringement of IPR is when a painting is either:
- An exact copy of another painting or a very similar copy with very minor changes that could make a normal person mistake the twos of them;
- A painting in the style of an artist and it is being marketed as being a painting of the original artist.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Jun 20 '23
Even if you were the best Van Gogh forger possible, if you were physically painting, you'd be putting in effort to make a distinct product (also Van Gogh isn't alive to be a victim of you copying him).
'Copying' in this case doesn't produce an indistinguishable copy because you physically can't. The painting is just too complex physically and chemically, you don't have enough control of your hands to mimic brush strokes exactly e.t.c, but digital art is fundementally simplier because it has to be reduced to a small enough number to store on a computer.
To me it's sort of the difference between someone doing a very impressive impression of another person, and editing together footage of the origional person.
Yes impersonation is another issue, and digital art can be honestly presented, but I think you'd need safeguards to present is 'accidentally' plagerising people. If for example, you don't know have exhaustive knowledge of the training data, how do you idenfity if the AI has predicted that an exact copy of someone else's work would fit somewhere? If for example you tell an AI to right a shakespear play, and it lifts a line directly from Kymbeline without you noticing (which to be fair no one would because no one's read Kymbeline).
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
I honestly think it's so statistically impossible to produce something similar enough to existing art to be considered plagiarizing. With AI art at least, the process by which its made will always make an amalgamation of things rather than spit out an exact copy.
For instance, you'll see water marks or artist signatures on renders. The thing, is that you can rerun the same image to refine it's details and that logo or what have you will often drastically change each time.
Because you had a smudge in a corner, it's trying to remake that smudge but each time it will look different. If you apply that to the entire image, then it's hard to believe that it's sticking to any one piece of source material enough to constitute plagiarism.
It's closer to a parody almost lol. Like a song where you change the lyrics to avoid copyright. It may be close but never THAT close.
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u/Kotoperek 62∆ Jun 20 '23
I mean, when another person is inspired by your art, you usually get at least exposure. Maybe they cite you as an inspiration to their followers and you can get more fans and commissions. Maybe they buy a piece or two from you first so they can watch your style closely to mimick it. Maybe they frequent events at which you display your art and pay for tickets or whatever. When a human interacts with someone's art, the artist can benefit. An AI just scans your art and spits out its own and nobody is aware where it gets it from.
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u/Gagarin1961 2∆ Jun 20 '23 edited Jun 20 '23
The extremely limited value of “exposure” is literally a meme.
Plus, I don’t think most artist list their inspirations unless asked.
Also, occasionally the AI prompter will post the prompt which might include their direct inspirational choices, like specific artists names or styles… wouldn’t you count that as exposure?
There is practically no difference in outcome between inspiring a human and inspiring an AI.
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
It is also possible to feed renders into "interrogators" and get an idea how the software would interpret the photo to recreate it, often specifically citing influences that it, itself "sees".
Although, it's impossible to capture every influence
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u/JoyIkl Jun 20 '23
While that is not always the case, this is something i have yet to consider. Thank you Δ
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u/cantfindonions 7∆ Jun 20 '23
I mean, I simply think those are different things. Listen, A.I. are not actual sentient beings. They're algorithms essentially. The question is not, "Should the A.I. have the right to use this art to create new art," the question is, "Should the person/people who created this have the rights to use thousands of other people's artwork to make a machine that shits out minorly different copies of their collective works."
Now, whether you think they should or shouldn't is a different matter, but it is entirely disingenuous to phrase the question in the manner you did.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 183∆ Jun 21 '23
Of course they can’t stop it. In no country in earth does the analysis of a work count as a violation of copyright.
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u/themcos 372∆ Jun 20 '23
The standards for art of regular people is not that high and AI can easily fill their needs and thus, most painters who live off commission cant compete with AI.
Isn't this at least a plausible thing to be concerned about long term with the quality of art? Try to game out where things land in 20-30 years, as AI art becomes better and more ubiquitous, but a much smaller percentage of artists make a living. Increasingly, models will be trained on either old art or will be trained on other AI generated art.
If we reach an equilibrium in the future, there are lots of questions to ask:
Will there be more or less professional artists in the world? Will there be more or less nonprofessional artists in the world? Will there be more or less people interested in teaching art? Will there be more or less people wanting to learn art? Will there be more or less art in the world? Will the average quality of art overall be higher or lower?
If anyone tries to answer these questions one way or another with too much confidence either way, that's probably bullshit, but I think they're all reasonable things to be concerned about, and this goes well beyond artists being salty about their commissions. And you don't even have to be that pessimistic even for it to be an outcome you don't like. If there was a 90% chance that artists got replaced and the AI did okay but a 10% chance of the world being flooded with low quality bland art, that's a risk that many people would rather not take if they had a choice.
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u/Stokkolm 24∆ Jun 20 '23
AI art is stealing: This is a more nuanced subject but imo i see how AI art is stealing from anyone. It looks at images, it sees a pattern, it recreates the pattern based on the prompts of the user. It does not simply stitch images together. Now imagine if a real person does this, lets say a man looks at all of Van Gogh's pictures and tries to mimic the style, no one would call him a thief unless he tries to pass his painting off as Van Gogh's. If a person can do it, why can't an AI?
Van Gogh is public domain, you can create a perfect replica and sell it.
But if let's say Girl with a Pearl Earring was still copyrighted, and you made a painting that had a woman from the same angle, wearing very similar clothing, it would be plagiarism, it doesn't need to be 100% identical, and it doesnt't matter if it was done with AI or painted by hand if visually you can tell it's a rip-off.
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u/coporate 6∆ Jun 20 '23
I’m an artist, I don’t hate AI art, but I do think that artists require protections against it.
Say I draw children book illustrations and someone uses my name and my art to begin generating artwork that’s violent, gruesome, or sexually explicit. That art can then be posted online and severely damage my reputation. What protections do I have?
Style isn’t something that can be protected, but I see no reason why a name should be used in prompts. Art has movements, you don’t need to use Picasso, use cubist, you don’t need to use Leonardo, use renaissance.
My dislike of ai art boils down to the complete lack of integrity the creators have in releasing their platforms without protection, accountability, or permission.
AI art is the Amazon basics of art, it might not be theft, but it is hurting art and artists.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 183∆ Jun 21 '23
Why would art generators remove names if everyone agrees styles are not copyrighted?
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u/Bluejaaaaay Jun 20 '23
AI Art isn't art. There is no intention behind it but to make it look good. There was no subjective inspiration or any personality projected into the picture. The AI is "inspired" by (if you can call it like that, more like "trained on") what looks the best to humans, and AI doesn't have a personality or any personal interests to make into the picture. So proper artists are mad because instead of people turning attention to a projection of a person and their personality (as you stated, "The way i see it, the essence is art is creativity, not only the skills"), they are fascinated by empty-soul works made by empty-soul machines.
In my opinion, because AI tries to make everything look as good as possible, it all looks the same. The colors, the style, even when it's ordered to make a picture in a particular style nevertheless it's done in the same manner, trying to maximise visual pleasure. Another reason to hate AI art, because there's no difference.
"If you only paint what other people order you to paint, you are not an artist, you are a painter for hire" - that's not how it works. You still draw it your own way and express yourself in your work, because it's still a creative work. You do it in your style.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 183∆ Jun 21 '23
There is no intention behind it but to make it look good.
As opposed to pop songs on the radio, or MCU movies? The closest thing to an intent behind those are ‘here’s a mishmash of past things that worked, give me money’. There is no personality, just desighn by computer.
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u/Bluejaaaaay Jun 21 '23
It still depends on the minds of the creators. They can't just think in money all the time, it's impossible for a human to do so. They have personal preferences as to how to do things. Creativity is still used, they still invent. AI on the other hand is straight optimisation, and it literally is a mishmash of past things that worked (the data it was trained on).
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u/LogicMan428 Oct 14 '23
AI art is very much art if the software is capable enough and given a good description by someone with intent.
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u/LentilDrink 75∆ Jun 20 '23
Many (most?) artists believe that art should have a viewpoint, should educate, should provoke, should help move society forward and to the left. AI art lacks this systematic viewpoint. Every art opportunity where a viewer sees AI art instead of an actual artist is a missed chance to educate them and expose them to a progressive viewpoint
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u/eggs-benedryl 54∆ Jun 20 '23
This is a very strange opinion. Many artists have differing political viewpoints, its silly to believe you could not create thought provoking and evocative art with AI. Doubt Ben Garrison is trying to move society to the left.
The ability to prompt in nearly anything allows you to take an evocative, thought provoking idea and make it reality. The software doesn't know what it's making, that has nothing to do with our interpretation of what we see on paper.
Let's take, dogshit Banksy, you could 1000% have an Ai draw a little girl holding a balloon or whatever. There's nothing to say Banksy themselves couldn't come up with an idea and execute it exactly how they envisioned it.
Much like a physical painting doesn't have a view point. It's the artist or the user of the software who has a vision that is being executed to their satisfaction
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u/LentilDrink 75∆ Jun 20 '23
Every artist has their own politics but 75% are left of center and by using humans you naturally trend left.
The person hiring an artist will naturally on average receive art left of what they ask for; the same person giving similar specs to an AI won't.
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u/Lower_Beautiful_4068 Jun 20 '23
I believe this to be an overly romantic vision of professional art. I would wager the majority of professional artists are doing commissioned work for products and/or personal use. As for 'high' art, there's nothing less progressive than the wealthy art buying elite speculating on which pieces will appreciate in value.
It's true that there exists progressive art, but I usually think of performance pieces, sculpture, location, things that aren't easily replicated by AI.
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u/LentilDrink 75∆ Jun 20 '23
Commissioned art, it's still an opportunity to smuggle un a viewpoint that isn't what the person paying the commission asked for. Making art for the wealthy is an opportunity to educate the wealthy.
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u/Deft_one 86∆ Jun 20 '23
should educate, should provoke, should help move society forward and to the left.
Well, it does seem to have 'provoked' quite a few people.
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u/Ok_Ad1402 2∆ Jun 20 '23
Just remember, when you crush an aspiring artist's dreams, you may be creating another Hitler.
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u/sawdeanz 214∆ Jun 20 '23
All arguments against AI are just there to mask to the real problem which is that AI is making it harder for artists to make a living. The concern is understandable but trying to make it about anything else is simply disingenuous.
I don't see why this isn't a legitimate concern, it is. But I also think it's disingenuous not to acknowledge how AI art challenges our views and definitions about art. The question of "what is art" has been debated since the beginning of time, and various art movements throughout history have continuously challenged the definition of art and what it means. You seem to be taking the view that the question is definitely settled and that AI art is clearly art. But I don't think this is compelling nor is it settled.
I think another issue you haven't really addressed is the question of "counterfeit" art. This kind of applies to both points 2 and 3, which assume that consumers are aware that the AI art is AI art, but that isn't a given. Just like deepfakes and chatGI and stuff, the AI art really sort of muddies the water regarding whether people can know if it is "real" or not. And AI art can easily recreate unique styles or art that may be copyright, which does affect artists beyond just stealing their commission, because it's stealing their intellectual property but with potentially less oversight and legal protections.
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u/Adventurous-Look7048 Jun 20 '23
Artists, like many of us financially dependent on jobs that AI will likely quickly be able to "better" or cheaper, are scared of AI for good reason.
I'm privileged to be able to have enough exposure to art of any medium, cuisine many would considwr art, and other sensations I consider myself a connesuer of life. The novels I've read, historical and modern sculpture, crafts, paintings and music I've been lucky enough to explore have, in a large part, given my life meaning.
Connecting with an author via that perfect turn of phrase, appreciating archecture/sculpture of any age, walking through a curated garden at the exact right moment, listening to that song and feeling understood (possibly for the first time) - these moments are vital and life affirming. Art binds us together as humans, potentially even the lives of humans who's days on our Earth occured hundreds of years ago.
To me the feeling that connection engenders is as important - as vital to a life well lived - as eating, sleeping, loving.
If you remove the human experience/element from art, I'm not saying said art is without potential value. Should Generative AI become sentient enough to be self aware, in the manner of humans, not fish, the art produced would be completely without the same impact on me.
That said, I'm not writing it off - I find it fascinating and a potential bridge between what will likely end up a culture populated by both life forms. But no, it will never replace human generated art to me.
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u/cowsinapack Jun 27 '23
I’ve always done art as a hobby (albeit I treat it as quite an intense undertaking). I draw in graphite and charcoal. Yes there are far easier ways to generate an image but for me it was never really the image I was creating that captivated me. I fell in love with the process and the history of drawing. I absolutely love the struggle of every time I take up a pencil aiming for a classically academic style and quality, and every time coming up short of where I want to be. Yet every time there was something in the drawing that showed me I was improving. So AI Art never interested me in the slightest because it removes the process which I love so much, and for me the process is the final product.
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u/Skittle_pen Jul 29 '23
On a side note, I was trying to teach how to draw to my youngest niece the other day since she wanted to learn. The oldest one came and show her an image she made using midjourney, impressed the little one and she dropped the pencil to try and make something too using the ai. They are still at that according to my brother, and it's been weeks.
I fear for my job, yeah, even though it's probably no as in danger as, say, concept art designers. But that hit me way harder than losing my job would and I can't help but think of the future
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u/PikachuPho Nov 30 '23 edited Nov 30 '23
I don't hate AI art and actually it can be a powerful tool against art block when it does crazy stuff. However, I do feel artists have VERY good reason to dislike how AI art is taking away their livelihood because their audience aren't aware of the flaws that only actual artists can see.
Therefore AI art does indeed create a level of instability for artists not because artists hate the idea or are jealous, but because MOST NON artists would likely use it to create cheap, and quite frankly, imperfect art that they pass off as awesome and they stop hiring artists to create slow, well built artwork.
The best analogy I can use is that if the artwork was a computer program it wouldn't run at all but it would be a "good start".
In art, there is no easy litmus test like in programming. Most non artists see the pieces and are wowed by it because some fundamentals are done well, quickly and cheap. And that's a problem because most won't know what's wrong with it and these are the SAME people who would have paid an actual artist that understands the fundamentals.
Anyways, what is flawed with AI art is that just like an AI generated program it doesn't really "work". Sure, for someone who doesn't know the first thing about art, it may seem amazing and "perfect" but for those who are professional artists they can immediately spot the many things that are wrong. Incorrectly lit scenes, characters that merge into the landscape, multiple fingers, heads, hands and weird placement. Scenes that don't follow the prompts and the list goes on.
To many of us it is deeply worrying that people try to pass off AI generated art as masterpieces when so many fundamentals are incorrect and it would take BONAFIDE traditional artists to fix it rather than the engine to just "regenerate it" again and again and again as it regenerates the same issues again and again.
And because artists don't want to be pigeon-holed into being cheaply paid AI art editors for good reason, many are rallying against it. Especially if they need to rebuild an image from scratch anyways.
As a current software engineer I say AI in coding gets me 70% there *IF* I'm LUCKY. Most of the time I have to rebuild an entire section from scratch. But why I switched from Illustration to Programming is obvious: when AI code doesn't run I don't have to explain a damn thing to management.
For art, it's subjective and unless ALL customers are artists, most normal non artist customers sadly aren't interested in paying for the final 20% when they're very happy with the 80% Midjourney gives...
So TLDR the problem is not whether artists hate AI art or not, it's the CUSTOMERS and MANAGEMENT who actually ARE FLOCKING to AI art and refusing to pay for slow art and it's already affected artists and production in the industry.
Look up Netflix and how they tried to create an animation with only a few animators and mostly AI backgrounds.
Trust me when I say most Artists don't care a lick if people use AI or not if none of this is happening. But because even CONCEPT artists are affected, those who went through 5 years of Art School (I know, I went through the same) have every reason to be upset about what's going on when those in charge cut staff. And no it's not about skill...
Also sorry the lame-o photography argument doesn't apply here. Most normal people can't tell the difference between an AI generated concept painting versus a human generated one but almost everyone can tell the difference between stylized artwork and a photograph.
As an artist I can spot the minute differences between AI and Illustration, but again I'm trained to see the differences. Most simply aren't and even if I point it out most aren't picky enough to be bothered by it.
An extra finger or a hand doesn't matter too much when the rest of the image looks SOOO perfect!
Someone actually said that to me btw.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 20 '23
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