Just going to leave this here in reminder:
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Some people do tho 
These forums are a perfect example of such!
In fact. I would like to ask a question to the thread:
What if one was to utilise an AI software to make their art; say a character’s portrait. A piece that is not directly resembling anyone else’s - any resemblance that is rather coincidental.
What if this was done solely for their own use but this hypothetical individual also bought commissions from human artists.
Where is the “ethical” line?
Then that is a question to be answered when AI image processing tools aren’t solely powered by artpieces data scraped from sites like Deviantart and Twitter, and pictures from Facebook.
One thing doesn’t take away the other. Artists aren’t this hivemind RPG faction with a reputation bar that you can grind by commissioning art pieces, and viceversa.
Besides that, if you have commissioned several pictures of your character and still do so, why the hell are you even paying to get wonky-looking amalgamations of art you already have?
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I’d ask why do people keep trying to toe the ethical line? Why must there be a line drawn anyway. It starts ringing a little close to how people tried to argue about That Wizarding Game as if it was some sort of bargaining deal to get to do it.
When you use the existing programs, just know that the result is composed from thousands of existing art, not entirely different from getting inspiration from an extensive Google search. If you use it for your own use, there’s almost no harm done (outside of the AI itself, I guess), but what is ‘your own use’? Putting it on AA? Printing it? Posting it somewhere and saying ‘this is Woebloom’?
The unfortunate truth is that ‘any resemblance being coincidental’ is not really coincidental at all. Especially right now in the AI’s current state.
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Firstly
Paying for AI art? What you smokin’?
Secondly
It’s fun to experiment with.
AI image processing tools are paid for nowadays because people have used them to make political propaganda with them, usually related to fake images of catastrophes and warfare. Some like Artbreeder aren’t, but most others that people normally use to process AI images are absolutely paid for, for one reason or another.
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So buying something from one source while stealing from another cancels out the stealing?
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A) It’s still money away from someone who has put in the time and effort to learn the craft. As mentioned before in this thread, artists often aren’t a rich elite and put up with the hardships because of their passion for the arts and culture, one can’t apply the Robin Hood ethics of stealing from the rich for the common people here
B) Using it still helps normalize the use of software that exploits artists through data laundering, and the more people are okay with using it, the harder the push to make the AI companies use data more responsibly. Unlike in the music industry, individual visual artists don’t usually have companies or legal teams to help them with lawsuits. On that note… https://twitter.com/maijintheartist/status/1651429833057128450?s=46&t=6NYsU5TkkLHovQRtFosorA
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The people who would use free AI art are the people who would not pay for a commission at all.
Furthermore where is the point of stealing? Is it utilising reference points? Style?
Perhaps a looser and more impactful word is ‘plagiarism.’ While you can argue its the same thing, the definition is much broader.
As for “Robin Hood” nobody is redistributing commissioned art from wealthy artists and handing it to the poor. A commission is unique. This is a silly idea.
However most artists have more money than me; I promise you.
Didn’t even know AI was touching music now too, it’s pretty insane how few years ago you wouldn’t even imagine this to be a topic you’d be having. I find it almost disturbing when I genuinely meet people dabbling in AI art and present it as their own creation they put time into, knowing your own art and imagining how long it took to reach your skill.
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The thing is though, most AI programs out there atm do charge a hefty subscription or purchase to either use it more than twice or to get anything that doesn’t look horrendous. Often to the price that hiring someone to just draw it is cheaper.
In the case of AI, it is everything from literally taking an image and editing a few stuff around from another image to using reference points. But regardless any currently existing ai art uses art from artists without consent to make their art. That’s the whole thing with current ai, it can’t create out of thin air. It’s doing the equivalent of those unity asset steam games, grabbing a bunch of stuff and pasting it together.
Still doesn’t mean they are filthy rich though. If you have for example 2 dollars and I have 3, I do have more money than you but still not rich.
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AI voice stuff stuff aswell is quite a problem. I think it was brought up earlier too that yeah, nerevar meme videos might be a bit funny at times but there is an underlying issue with this being a thing.
A fresh example of it being used wrong was how the voice actor for Wesker from RE had to put his foot down with Behavior/Dead by Daylight & its community because some guy made a bunch of “meme” videos using an ai voice of Wesker shouting a bunch of homophobic slurs at Chris in a DBD video.
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General thought I have with this aswell, if you have to ask how to skew/walk the line of what is ethical or not, perhaps it is best to just not do it at all.
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A bit confused now why you asked for people’s opinion on the case scenario that you provided?
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Why is that, honeybun?
I guess you need that degree of a lack of reading comprehension to think that anything generated by ChatGPT is going to surpass anything human-made.
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Because you asked people where they’d ethically stand concerning the conditions of your example scenario, then refuted an answer to it through ignoring the conditions of the example scenario? (Someone paying for art + using the software VS people who don’t purchase art at all)
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All existing software has been ‘trained’ on scraped/stolen art.
There is no ‘ethical’ software, at present.
Ergo.
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I’m just exploring the concept. Looking for limitations and boundaries.
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I have never downloaded a film online, mostly because I have been able to stream and/or buy it for cheap later down the line.
But I do not consider people who do that the literal antichrist- For obvious reasons.
I think determining an ethical line is very much a debate and a discussion that should be and will be had. It’s also worth noting that all of these lawsuits that have been referenced are ongoing. They are not definitive or concluded.
There hasn’t been a major decision, one way or another, about which way the global jurisdictional organs are going to take re: the AI issue. Could be that they allow it to exist more or less as it does now. Could be that there will be restrictions on what data they can use or what purpose AI generated things can be used for, if they were drawn from the general populace.
Personally I think that it’d probably be a fine compromise if AI use was allowed for non-commercial use- That is, you could use these large banks of data to generate things for yourself and your own interests, but you could not gain financial gain from them.
The issue then becomes of course how do you police that. So a total ban seems more feasible if you want to prevent things like that- But that’s not going to happen either, because the possibilities that an AI generator like this, let alone far more advanced one can do far outweigh the cost it causes to individuals or entire groups of people.
I mean nobody asked the craftsmen’s/farmhands opinion when large scale industrial manufacturing became a thing. Suddenly, the the work that these said workers were passionate about and was personal to them suddenly gave way to the faceless, mass produce of the industrial complex. Despite the massive social consequences it had.
The ideal scenario would be that you could have platforms on the web, others free and others paid for, which have different conditions and/or descriptions on what the data stored on those sites can be used for, and what they can not be used for. Some art sites could even market this as such, e.g. One site would allow an AI to use all pictures saved in it for AI purposes (but took no registration fee), while the other doesn’t allow it but has a fee.
Or any mixture of rules and sets.
I think it’s because they are different posts and she’s replying to one point risen by you and others with another.
I don’t disagree- Question is, what will be done about it?
Maybe it will be another Car Seatbelt, in which case we will have effective legislation to ban all theft of data, artists and commoners alike- And it will take 50 years to do so (we’re in about 15 years now).
Or maybe it will be allowed in one way shape or another because the benefits outweigh (?) the costs. Who knows.
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