Media Artificial Intelligence's place in creating art?

[MiniorHasFallen]

I can't find the thread, but I remember a while ago I posted an idea somewhere on this site (probably somewhere in the late Firebot) about a hypothetical machine that would scan your brain to automatically draw whatever you imagined, removing the barrier for those with big imaginations but without the talent to bring them to life in illustrated form. When I typed that up, it was total science fiction to me, an ethereal concept centuries away.

I could've never imagined that dream device, or even something akin to it, was right around the corner.

This is the first of these AI projects to leave me truly floored and tingling with excitement. The implications of this are unreal and I myself probably haven't even scratched the surface of how this'll change creative work forever. Even the most artistically inept (myself included) will be able to craft picture books, detailed posters and graphic novels. If/when this thing is fine-tuned to recognize pop culture characters, fanfiction and fanart will enter a whole new era. The most riveting advertisements and trailers will be made by typing it up into a word document.

I staunchly hate AI-generated art. The artwork from the first few years was messy and uncanny, but the recent influx of AI art looks very (some might say uncannily) hyperrealistic. In fact, some companies have even laid off a majority of human workers from their design teams in favor of AI art. As a result, human creativity and employment have been sacrificed in favor of a computer program that copies off other images.

As a webcomic artist on DeviantArt, I must contend with the possibility that many digital artists worldwide spend several days pouring their heart and soul into masterpieces that they wish to display, only to be upstaged by something that took an AI a few minutes to generate.

 

[MrHands]

AI art certainly can replace human artists in a lot of situations. Things like basic concept art, loading screens, skyboxes, book covers, memes etc. Not all art needs someone's heart and soul poured into it to be useful. AI also has the potential to unlock the "artist gateway" that was previously hidden behind thousands of hours of practice. I have a friend who is writing a book and AI art allows him to conceptualize certain portions of his story, and bring it to life. And before anyone says "he should pay a real artist"... he's poor lol. Either way a real artist is getting zero of his zero dollars.

The future of AI art is also exciting, in a scary way, because in only a few years we went from the odd nightmares of Dall-E to commercially viable products from dozens of various programs. Where will this be in 10 years? Will I be able to hand an AI script to a TV program with some character sketches and it can produce an entire animated show? Can I just punch in as many details as I want to have a character design completely 100% generated in seconds? Imagine the creativity potential that will be unlocked when the barrier to creating art isn't thousands of hours of practice or hundreds of dollars. Now everyone can create!

AI art does have downsides. It's usually pretty generic (by design, it basically just averages attributes of a concept and spits out an image). Real artists will always have an edge when it comes to creativity. Human artists are still better at creating something "new". Humans can still make commissions better than AI (though this gap is shrinking quickly). Humans can also make complex things like comics or grand paintings with multiple focus points (such as a large battle or really anything without a singular central object).

Imo AI isn't just revolutionizing art, it's effecting everything. The potential usage of AI going forward is absurd. While artists certainly will suffer that isn't unique to them. When a source of labor becomes replaced by technology people lose their jobs, just the flip side is many millions of people can now do the same service for free and many hundreds of times faster.

Of course yes this all comes with the fact that AI art devalues human art. But hey human artists are welcome to adapt and use a tool for their benefit. Just like drawing tablets, photoshop, etc all did previously. A little known feature of AI art is that you can upload a photo, describe what it is, and the AI can complete it for you. Maybe this could end up being a golden age for artists. Who knows.

 

[bdt2002]

I think of AI for artwork somewhat differently than I do for AI for writing. The main issue I see with artwork is that you’re going to have one side with the valid claim that they spent a lot of time practicing and fine-tuning their craft, only for someone with even a little bit of knowledge about modern tech to be able to create something just as appealing to the public eye. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any way around that, but what I also want to recognize is how, with time, there’s eventually going to be so many people with that same sentiment that I could very well see a future where human and AI artwork are both recognized but are either required to be labeled as one or the other, or more likely, the appreciation for human artwork relative to the AI competition will become significant enough that the problem fizzles itself out entirely.

I wouldn’t expect this to be a series of changes that happens overnight, but without trying to get too political or controversial about this, I do think this little phase the artwork community is dealing with won’t last forever. For the time being I think AI provides positives and negatives to the field, and depending on how people perceive these changes in the long term, that will determine how fast people are to start taking action for or against it. kind of like a Smogon suspect test now that I think about it

 

[freezai]

This is a topic I'm acutely interested in because I'm exploring using AI art for my youtube. From my perspective, it's going to let me implement ideas that I could've never created myself, and in seconds too. It opens up a lot of possibilities for me and that's amazing. Using AI as a tool I can tell stories I wouldn't ordinarily have been able to. I dont have the artistic skill and commissioning artists for everything would be prohibitively expensive. I just need the ability to create images of the ideas I imagine in order to tell my story, I dont need it to warm peoples hearts. My questions about the ethics are as follows:

1. AI trains itself on other people's arts, but don't humans do that too? What is the difference between a human getting good at art vs a computer? Is it just that if a computer does it, it feels unfair?

2. If AI art lacks soul, wouldn't it just lose out in the "marketplace of ideas"? Good human art would outclass good AI art and thus never be in any danger. And if your art is not much better than a computer, that's on you. There are usecases where you need something passionate, and there are usecases where you don't

3. "Artists lose jobs". New technology upends all industries, but they adapt and become more efficient. As an example, companies used to have entire teams of drafters that's now done by CAD software, and while that's a loss for an individual who had a drafting job, it was a net benefit for everyone. The world will still need human artists even with AI, just in a different way. Where do you draw the line between "technology good" and "technology bad"?

This is not a topic I'm particularly well read on.
These are genuine questions and I'm trying to learn, not have a debate any one way. Because to me it looks like AI is removing the knowledge barrier to a lot of things and that includes art.

 

[Local Dog]

AI trains itself on other people's arts, but don't humans do that too? What is the difference between a human getting good at art vs a computer? Is it just that if a computer does it, it feels unfair?

AI doesn't exactly train itself on it but it rather takes the information from already existing art. It's more like seeing pieces of art, cutting them apart and glueing them together to make something "new". That by itself would be fine if consent wer to be taken from the artists, but artists aren't asked for their consent

If AI art lacks soul, wouldn't it just lose out in the "marketplace of ideas"? Good human art would outclass good AI art and thus never be in any danger. And if your art is not much better than a computer, that's on you. There are usecases where you need something passionate, and there are usecases where you don't

I would agree with you on that, however, big corporations will think of profit maximazation. They have already and will take steps to divert from good art towards a product that will sell, look at how soulless most Illumination movies are for example. These have no artistic value. And this soullessness isn't exclusive to them, many new Disney and Pixar movies are no different. I can imagine AI replacing actual artists here, making the jobmarket much, much smaller for actual artists and furthering the lose of soul in commercial art projects

"Artists lose jobs". New technology upends all industries, but they adapt and become more efficient. As an example, companies used to have entire teams of drafters that's now done by CAD software, and while that's a loss for an individual who had a drafting job, it was a net benefit for everyone. The world will still need human artists even with AI, just in a different way. Where do you draw the line between "technology good" and "technology bad"?

It just feels nasty that this is where AI is heading. The thing that people want to work in not for money or stability, but because of passion and love. I am a salesman and if my job gets replaced by AI, alright fine, I am not doing this out of passion, but if I were to sacrifice years at art school, being broke and overworked just for genuine passion for art, I would be extremely pissed off about AI replacing me

Also, when I do art, I also enjoy art, so seeing more and more soulless and uncreative pieces will only frustrate me further. Again, it just feels nasty. It feels like the world just wants you caged in some 9 to 5, wants to take your passion away and for you to only live as a gear in a machine that has no purpose but to stuff the wallets of people who are too rich anyways. Working as an artist is a potential escape from this for many, and this opportunity being taken away is awful

 

[Myzozoa]

I really believe someday AI will be as good at picking the playlist as I am. 2 days ago I was driving to work and after I picked Cardi B's Money, my youtube algorhythm (never gonna spell this word correctly when talking about big tech products and neither shud you) came up with Beyonce-Yonce, Azealia Banks-212, followed by Nicki Minaj-Anaconda, and this was the first moment in my whole life where I felt like AI could do something.

AI doesn't exist straight up, Idk who needs to hear this, but it's just like NFTs, people are trying to sell something and they get big tech ceos that don't really know what theyre talking about but who have a big following due to ppl liking to ride billionaires dicks for obv reasons to be their Billy Mays/George Foreman celebrity endorser. Machine learning is never gonna match humans in anything creative or even in 99% of applications, it's not even close rn and the set up of whats currently out there is flawed beyond all repair or application. Currently the only thing AI is capable of doing for a human routinely is picking their powerpoint slide transitions, and that just saves you a few minutes and from having to learn about them, I'm pretty sure humans who do it routinely are still better than the AI at powerpoint even now.

2. If AI art lacks soul, wouldn't it just lose out in the "marketplace of ideas"? Good human art would outclass good AI art and thus never be in any danger.

Indeed. It will never stop losing lol, probably we won't even be talking about AI art next year, as that is about the time when the NFT ppl will have moved onto a new scam and won't need the adjacent AI-NFTs discourses to mutually prop each other up in the weak weak easily-tricked-by-discourse minds of the overly online human.

 

[Daylight]

This is a topic I'm acutely interested in because I'm exploring using AI art for my youtube. From my perspective, it's going to let me implement ideas that I could've never created myself, and in seconds too. It opens up a lot of possibilities for me and that's amazing. Using AI as a tool I can tell stories I wouldn't ordinarily have been able to. I dont have the artistic skill and commissioning artists for everything would be prohibitively expensive. I just need the ability to create images of the ideas I imagine in order to tell my story, I dont need it to warm peoples hearts. My questions about the ethics are as follows:

1. AI trains itself on other people's arts, but don't humans do that too? What is the difference between a human getting good at art vs a computer? Is it just that if a computer does it, it feels unfair?

I think the comparison between an AI being trained on (scraped and stolen) images and a human artist learning to create from other artists is itself unfair. They aren’t really comparable processes. AI can’t really create, it can only derivate. It’s basically an advanced photo mixer that uses information (much of which is copyrighted or personal) to simulate the statistical correlations between text in the dataset and images in the dataset. All that being said, as an artist, I do not think AI could ever replace me or that its existence is the real issue.

2. If AI art lacks soul, wouldn't it just lose out in the "marketplace of ideas"? Good human art would outclass good AI art and thus never be in any danger. And if your art is not much better than a computer, that's on you. There are usecases where you need something passionate, and there are usecases where you don't

3. "Artists lose jobs". New technology upends all industries, but they adapt and become more efficient. As an example, companies used to have entire teams of drafters that's now done by CAD software, and while that's a loss for an individual who had a drafting job, it was a net benefit for everyone. The world will still need human artists even with AI, just in a different way. Where do you draw the line between "technology good" and "technology bad"?

This is not a topic I'm particularly well read on.
These are genuine questions and I'm trying to learn, not have a debate any one way. Because to me it looks like AI is removing the knowledge barrier to a lot of things and that includes art.

I think you’ve actually gotten a sense for the real issue with AI. As I understand it, the real issue is capitalism. We’re concerned about the fact that AI is stealing copyrighted and personal images (including for some really heinous stuff like nonconsensual pornography) and will steal artist’s livelihood. But this is a problem because artists have to make a living and could have their income entirely swept out from under them by corporations who can just pay a small fee to enter that artist’s name into an image generator. If we lived in a more just and less capitalistic world where intellectual property wasn’t necessary then AI art would probably just be a fun harmless thing people could use to visualize ideas. As it is though, it’s really not harmless to creatives or to the lithium miners or to the environment. AI/ML companies are profiting off of work that was used without consent, knowledge, or compensation.

You seem genuine in wanting to learn about why this is an issue for so many people, which I appreciate. Abigail Thorn recently did an excellent video on the ethics of AI in general (including AI art) which I highly recommend you check out.

The Concept Art Association is also has some testimonials from artists and creatives if you’re interested in hearing how it’s impacted them.

 

[MrHands]

It will never stop losing lol, probably we won't even be talking about AI art next year, as that is about the time when the NFT ppl will have moved onto a new scam and won't need the adjacent AI-NFTs discourses to mutually prop each other up in the weak weak easily-tricked-by-discourse minds of the overly online human.

Pretty bad comparison. NFTs produce nothing of value. AI art produces a service for free in seconds that used to take tens or hundreds of dollars and now does it in seconds.

In addition if AI art was "here" and that's it, sure it wouldn't go far. But the technology is in its absolute infancy. It's already advanced enough to put people out of jobs, how can you not see the potential? In 5 or 10 years who knows where we will be. As has been said countless times in this thread, not every single art commission needs a person's heart and soul dumped into it. Sometimes people just need a few nice clouds for their low budget video game background. For things like this well, sorry but the human element is no longer needed.

AI doesn't exactly train itself on it but it rather takes the information from already existing art. It's more like seeing pieces of art, cutting them apart and glueing them together to make something "new".

Seriously like 99% of art is just shit people saw and tried to emulate. All the furries on DeviantART are based off Disney's Robin Hood. Most Mermaids look like one from the Little Mermaid. Very flew artists actually create something original. Most of the time it's stuff they already saw cut apart and glued together.

That by itself would be fine if consent wer to be taken from the artists, but artists aren't asked for their consent

AI art cycles through thousands of images amd combines them based off common similarities. It's like you drawing a superhero then trying to explain that "it totally isn't based off other superheroes" because it has abs and a cape.

 

[bdt2002]

I staunchly hate AI-generated art. The artwork from the first few years was messy and uncanny, but the recent influx of AI art looks very (some might say uncannily) hyperrealistic. In fact, some companies have even laid off a majority of human workers from their design teams in favor of AI art. As a result, human creativity and employment have been sacrificed in favor of a computer program that copies off other images.

As a webcomic artist on DeviantArt, I must contend with the possibility that many digital artists worldwide spend several days pouring their heart and soul into masterpieces that they wish to display, only to be upstaged by something that took an AI a few minutes to generate.

AI doesn't exactly train itself on it but it rather takes the information from already existing art. It's more like seeing pieces of art, cutting them apart and glueing them together to make something "new". That by itself would be fine if consent wer to be taken from the artists, but artists aren't asked for their consent


I would agree with you on that, however, big corporations will think of profit maximazation. They have already and will take steps to divert from good art towards a product that will sell, look at how soulless most Illumination movies are for example. These have no artistic value. And this soullessness isn't exclusive to them, many new Disney and Pixar movies are no different. I can imagine AI replacing actual artists here, making the jobmarket much, much smaller for actual artists and furthering the lose of soul in commercial art projects


It just feels nasty that this is where AI is heading. The thing that people want to work in not for money or stability, but because of passion and love. I am a salesman and if my job gets replaced by AI, alright fine, I am not doing this out of passion, but if I were to sacrifice years at art school, being broke and overworked just for genuine passion for art, I would be extremely pissed off about AI replacing me

Also, when I do art, I also enjoy art, so seeing more and more soulless and uncreative pieces will only frustrate me further. Again, it just feels nasty. It feels like the world just wants you caged in some 9 to 5, wants to take your passion away and for you to only live as a gear in a machine that has no purpose but to stuff the wallets of people who are too rich anyways. Working as an artist is a potential escape from this for many, and this opportunity being taken away is awful

The idea of AI artwork being fueled by and overshadowing human artwork is something I find very interesting. Maybe things are playing out differently both on dedicated art sites and in the economy than I'm aware of, but what I'll often see happen when a controversial topic that devalues human efforts comes along is that, like I said in my first post, you'll potentially have so many people against its development that the problem more or less fixes itself. I don't deny that artists spend a lot of time that seems all for naught, but that's the thing- is it really for nothing? On paper, it seems like AI artwork being so prominent would devalue human artwork, but in practice, the justified stigma against AI means that, in the long run, our appreciation of human artwork will actually increase significantly relative to its AI counterparts. We've seen similar developments in the Indie gaming community where thanks to the "efforts" of major corporate brands to maximize their profits, Indie developers who aren't practicing the same anti-consumerist business strategies are possibly more successful relative to their Triple-A counterparts than they've been in a really, really long time.

We need to recognize as a society that AI isn't some future dream anymore. It's already here, and people have their opinions on it. That being said, we also have to recognize that the majority of the information we have access to these days comes from the Internet, which on average seems to gravitate towards sharing the "popular" negative outlooks with people like you and me. While it's good to be aware of the possibilities, I find it very unhealthy to only acknowledge worst-case scenarios when history has shown time and time again that we can work together and sort problems out. I'm choosing to think of this like some sort of test- let's say some other major revelation in Big Tech comes around in, say, 20-30 years from now and that generation feels the same way we do about AI right now. I think it's our responsibility to leave behind a positive message for the future generations that these Big Tech challenges can be overcome and adapted over time.

 

[Local Dog]

But the technology is in its absolute infancy.

Is it though? I've been using some AI services in 2016-2017. They didn't do much but they were able to create short summaries of texts and the could do some image creation

 

[Myzozoa]

Pretty bad comparison. NFTs produce nothing of value. AI art produces a service for free in seconds that used to take tens or hundreds of dollars and now does it in seconds.

What services is it producing that people are getting such value out of 'for free'? Be concrete, what is it actually being used for? If NFTs have no value and AI is doing things for free whats the difference??

This is pretty paradoxical because you're basically trying to convince us that it is providing something worth money but for free, I'm not gonna get into the weeds on it, but you can't say something is free and worth a lot at the same time, just not how value works. I'm p sure no one was paying 100$s of dollars for identical products that AI programs now provide for no cost at the same quality level. Can you site something.

Finally, I never said anything abt needing a human element, focus! I said that it couldn't match humans, not anything about some irreducible human touch. When you make such a glaring oversight about what is being asserted it almost could make one thing ur using AI to write your posts!

 

[MrHands]

What services is it producing that people are getting such value out of 'for free'?

They are getting art lmao this is not hard. Either for casual use or commercial, it's free when in the past it was not.

 

[Myzozoa]

They are getting art lmao this is not hard. Either for casual use or commercial, it's free when it the past it was not.

wym ppl get 'art' for free all the time lol, same as in the past

 

[MrHands]

wym ppl get 'art' for free all the time lol, same as in the past

I feel like spending 20 seconds with an AI program vs begging your artist friend to spend 3 hours making art for free on their own personal time is obviously not the same thing.

 

[Myzozoa]

I feel like spending 20 seconds with an AI program vs begging your artist friend to spend 3 hours making art for free is obviously not the same thing.

Well friendship is valuable in its own way, I wouldn't call it 'for free', and I would assume the main difference is not in the 'for free' aspect but actually consists in quality differences. If the tech is in its infancy as you promise, your artist friend would produce good and usable art for your branding/website/purpose, and the ai would spit out garbage. It is in its infancy after all...

 

[bdt2002]

Finally, I never said anything abt needing a human element, focus! I said that it couldn't match humans, not anything about some irreducible human touch. When you make such a glaring oversight about what is being asserted it almost could make one thing ur using AI to write your posts!

I'm actually really glad someone brought this up, because one thing I do think needs mentioned here is that idea that something that doesn't match human potential can and has been used for blatant plagiarism. I'm not an artist myself, but if people want to use AI as a helpful tool to create original artwork, yes, that still has the whole "experienced artists feel cheated" debate, but I can make an argument that an everyday person isn't inherently using AI for anything of bad intentions. In my opinion it only really becomes a problem if you start using AI to specifically copy somebody else's work, which by extension turns into a potential legal issue if the person doing the plagiarising (yes, that is a word) tries to gain monetary profits from their efforts. Any aspiring artist worth their words wants to be able to be the owner of what they themselves created, which, yeah, that's to be expected. The potential for plagiarism feels like a bigger issue about image and likeness in the modern age than it does a problem with AI specifically.

If anyone's wondering, yes, I did delete and re-post this; I figured that this post being placed in the middle of MrHands and Myzozoa's conversation looked a bit sloppy from a viewing/reading perspective. You guys can keep talking, I just didn't want to feel like I was interrupting. :)

 

[MrHands]

Well friendship is valuable in its own way, I wouldn't call it 'for free', and I would assume the main difference is not in the 'for free' aspect but actually consists in quality differences. If the tech is in its infancy as you promise, your artist friend would produce good and usable art for your branding/website/purpose, and the ai would spit out garbage. It is in its infancy after all...

At a personal level asking friends for free art is a dick move.

But at a commercial or casual level it just isn't reasonable to expect someone to pay an artist to make a skybox or loading screen for their video game or a book cover for a story they wrote in Starbucks, or some concept images for a webcomic that they will never finish. AI art IS in its infancy but even if it peaks right now it's already viable enough to start putting people out of work.

This isn't even my opinion, it's just objectively true? AI art is here and it isn't going away, if anything it's just going to become more and more dominant. AI art isn't better than a professional but for a lot of needs it is good enough, and if good enough = free than it's going to beat out the paid option most of the time.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Technological advancements replacing human workers shouldn’t be a problem in any kind of human-centric society; after all, automating jobs means less work for us collectively. The problem is, we don’t live in one of those. We live in a capital-centric society, and less jobs means more people who can’t afford to pay rent or buy groceries. Has this happened before in the past? Yes, and we can still see the scars to this day. There are many places in America that used to be hubs of manufacturing, coal mining, etc. that are among the poorest places in America to this date. Visit the Rust Belt sometime and see the derelict ghost towns and rotting factories. Look at the median income statistics, declining populations, the rates of drug addiction and crime. These are the prices of change. Small wonder AI has people nervous, and even if the economy as a whole is better off for it, people on an individual level will suffer.

It doesn’t have to be that way, of course. Maybe we could figure out a way to provide basic necessities for people regardless of their ability to work, so a breakthrough in technology that leaves their job obsolete doesn’t constitute a life-ruining event for them. Maybe we could spend less money bailing out idiot billionaires who lucked (or exploited their way) into their fortunes and starting eternal wars in the Middle East, and use a bit of that money back here at home to fix some of our rapidly ballooning economic issues. Provide a little bit of a safety cushion for people whose jobs are put at risk by emergent technologies like AI, you know.

 

[Myzozoa]

At a personal level asking friends for free art is a dick move.

hello? anybody in there? this was your hypothetical you can't spit back at me that asking for free art is a dick move, that was your idea lol.

as for the rest, the loading screens etc, it was reasonable to pay a human to do it before, and almost nothing changes even w 'real' a.i, they are still just copy and pasting usually.

 

[MrHands]

hello? anybody in there? this was your hypothetical you can't spit back at me that asking for free art is a dick move, that was your idea lol.

as for the rest, the loading screens etc, it was reasonable to pay a human to do it before, and almost nothing changes even w 'real' a.i, they are still just copy and pasting usually.

You're missing the point. You called AI art "AI-NFTs". It's leagues more impactful than that.

AI can now produce art at an advanced level for free and within seconds. For certain things like loading screens, skyboxes etc this is much faster and cheaper (free) than paying a human artist to do it. There are currently plenty of applications for AI art right now and unless the last time you saw AI art was Dall-E's 7 fingered "humans" it should be clear that the technology is advancing at a crazy pace. We're already at a point where you can create art that would have taken an artist thousands of hours of training in only a few seconds by AI.

This was done by Ralph Bakshi, artist behind the 1992 film Cool World. Just kidding, it's actually a string of words entered into an AI art program instructed to generate an image in his style.

"wide angle full body screen shot from a 1970s Ralph bakshi animated film of a beautiful happy young woman with long blonde hair cartoonish proportions sharp eyes at a run down bar --ar 4:3 --c 20 --s 750 --v 5"

I don't know how long it would take for a professional to draw this but I'm willing to believe it takes less time to type in the above sentence than it would to hire an artist, and it's definitely cheaper. When a service or good can be produced by a machine faster and cheaper than a human, well the human is now out of work. Obviously not every single art requirement can be done by AI. There's still a long way to go before NightCafe etc force art schools to close down but it should be obvious that this isn't just a...

It will never stop losing lol, probably we won't even be talking about AI art next year, as that is about the time when the NFT ppl will have moved onto a new scam and won't need the adjacent AI-NFTs discourses to mutually prop each other up in the weak weak easily-tricked-by-discourse minds of the overly online human.

... whatever you just called it. AI art is here and it isn't going away. The question is 1) If we should do anything about it and 2) How far this AI technology is going.

 

[az]

MrHands perhaps you should relinquish your claim to that title and instead withdraw to being simply MrFingers as that woman has no thumbs!!!!

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

ai couldn't have made -- for a relevant example -- the original video from which mrhands gets her username... for better or for worse, there is something truly special about human creativity

 

[az]

it seems while selecting that image for the purposes of that post, it looks like the poster missed 'er hands

 

[Divine Retribution]

ai couldn't have made -- for a relevant example -- the original video from which mrhands gets her username...

Has anyone actually tried, though? For science and all?

 

[Bakugames]

I'm a freelance illustrator which probably means i give some unique perspective on this thread. Im not an authority though i draw furry art and pokemon shit. anyway.

Divine retribution basically said what I believe: I wouldnt give a shit about AI art if this world wasn't a capitalist hellscape career-focused pit. Unfortunately we do and I need art clients to make money.

My fellow peers have reached similar conclusions but decided the solution is to stop ai, but I think thats missing the forest for like, a patch of grass. The truth is the capitalism machine will try to make use of automation to push workers into more desperate and strict spots that deteriorate their rights and standards of living. If you idk ban ai forever, it'll just be something else in another field a few years later. The solution is to take the means of production and all that. #communism

Don't care about the "what is art" discussions or the "omg its so ugly" discussions either, waste of time. My only ethical concerns really are how much water these servers use. stop doing that