To me, in this case, it doesn’t even take the consideration of what ‘art’ actually is and why it’s valued.
Art is valued because it is human-made, and not just in drawing and painting, but in writing, music, and plenty of more things. It is an artist/writer/musician/cook/etc’s flair that gives it life, and that’s what people are after. That’s what art is. Someone took their time to hone their skills and made that, for you to enjoy.
Me personally? I am not as worried about AI art. As it has been mentioned multiple times in this thread and many others, it’s being domesticated at the time being with multiple lawsuits and god knows what’ll come out of that once lawmakers understand just how much they’re Fortnite default dancing on top of every law concerning intellectual property; but not just because of that.
Why AI truly doesn’t concern me as much is that most people who don’t understand art as a medium of creativity and expression wouldn’t commission someone or engage in making art to begin with. They see art solely as a medium to gain capital.
They see AI as ‘look, it sort of looks like artist’s style, which means it’s the same value’, without realising that they are doing the equivalent of someone selling knock-off versions of brand shoes and still getting outsold by the originals.
What truly makes me scratch my head is how people are so willing to go above and beyond to the point of sometimes even praying for the pipedream that is a creative medium’s downfall while paying fifteen quid a month to engage in a hobby about enjoying the creative process of a very similar activity to creating visual art.
You might as well attend a baking club and start showing off pre-bought frozen bread you microwaved a few hours before and act all smug and self-assured as if you found out about some kind of loophole, followed by a smirk and a comment about how ‘bakery is bound to fall, ovens and artisanal bakery shops will disappear by next year’.
Genuinely didn’t intend to, but I can see why it looks like I did. I’ll edit the post. It is just something I’ve seen people use as a defence before, but when you look at their gallery it becomes obvious they want quantity over quality and anything special about the character in the art is completely lost in the process.
Admittedly there is this weird vibe at times where people seem to think “If I get tons of art of my OC it’ll make them seem more legitimate/be taken seriously!”, it isn’t always a sure thing but I have noticed a correlation with how far on the “crazy” axis a character is and simialrly the “volume of art” axis seems to increase at a similar rate. Weird. (Obviously not everybody with lots of art has whacky eyerolling concepts but it is a frequent occurance I’ve observed since like 2008? And not just in WoW RP)
I just find it extremely ironic to see people losing it over AI generated art and arguing pseudo-labour and worker’s rhetoric, (but as others have pointed out, just as I have in past iterations of these same-y threads) did not make a fuss about automation in other sectors. Not until said automation threatened their cozy cultural monopoly.
And to reiterate past exchanges since I know this will come up: I work within the “art” sector (Writer for a living). I do not mind AI generation or AI “theft” since, in the end, art is subjective as much as art is adapting, reworking and transforming other’s works in due time.
If we want to put an inherent value on art (rather than it being subjective) then a lot of people lose even more so the hill they stand on regarding their monopoly falling apart, as their art has no greater value to society, culture, peoples etc.
I don’t think people here celebrate folk in other fields getting unemployed. You probably don’t see a lot of people here making a fuss about other instances unless they somehow tie to roleplaying or WoW. That said, I agree on the notion that people don’t usually act on things unless it impacts them directly. For example:
To me, the way you worded your messages gave the impression that you’re not particularly interested in a good-faith discussion about the diverse issues of the current image generator models. I’m curious though what type of writing do you do for a living, and what’s this monopoly you’re talking about?
No one has said that they were happy with people losing jobs to automation.
I still don’t get what you mean by this. As already mentioned, most artists are not mega-rich elitists that live in giant castles. And it is not them who is hurt by ai artbots either. It’s people already struggling and on the lower scale who try to make a living of a hobby and passion.
As am I, because most writers I’ve seen are very much against ai programs doing copy of art of any form.
And while I don’t wish to make claims that your life & career isn’t true, I do find it funny alot of people who come in to defend practices like this use the “I am X, so therefore I have an ultimate final say in that it’s okay”. It tends to be, a little suspicious. It’s a bit in the same vein of nurses being anti-medicine.
This constant use of “monoply” makes it sound like you got this from some other source and is just spreading that along without any knowledge or meaning behind it other than to be contrarian.
No one said anything. That is the core principle. I lost my job, my friends and family lost their jobs. In my case, manual labor being automated was a “blessing” due to circumstances. But when the monpoly…
The elitism is this very thread, and each predecessor. The elitism of the Bohemian-escue mentality of modern “artists” is an insult to actual working class people, and those that dedicate to labor-value.
Hobbies don’t pay bills. Whether free market economics or Marxist materialism, art to this degree has no value, especially if you cannot compete with AI.
Cultural monopoly. Economic monopoly. A clique of people that think charging 50€ for 10 minutes of scuff is somehow owed and deserved, and then lose their minds when AI generation comes around. Laziness. Entitlement. This thread and past threads have been littered with pseudo-workerist talking points, which is once again an insult to actual working class people. A lot of this “art” serves no inherent proletarian purpose.
I appreciate the transparency/honesty. I currently work as a writer for a video game company. NDA’s don’t permit me to say much else as of currently.
That doesn’t really mean anything in the end, nor is it really a point for anything. What I describe stems from my economical, political and world view that I subscribe to. There’s nothing more to it. No contrarianism. Just someone fed up with the entitlement of modern “artists”.
Which is not even to touch upon the absolute filth and toxicity of the “art community”, their behavior, their cutthroat sabotaging and backstabbing, the entire mess that is that sickly place.
People losing their jobs is not a good thing at all and wrong. People have spoken out against it. This thread was however specifically how ai programs are designed to steal art and how they are being used.
What monopoly??
So you’re saying that it’s elitist to want to protect your job, yet you lament and bash that people didn’t care for other jobs being taken(when people did)?
They should be able to, that’s kinda the point and problem.
It’s a scam and grift. It holds no integral meaning, value or importance to technology, society or humanity. (AI art that is).
You’re aware most of those 50 euro artworks people have of their characters usually take weeks or even months to do? And the price just covers the cost of those hours, well below any normal minimum wage. Drawing takes time.
Exactly what AI art and its promoters are.
Most artists are in this category if you want to talk social class. The techbros are often upper-class rich guys who never worked a day in their lives.
Funnily enough, that’s a pretty post-modern interpretation. If you go back a few centuries, art was considered art only if it did not have a purpose, beyond being vaguely pleasing to look at.
Of course, that entire philosophy is a bit moot in this discussion, but I found it interesting enough to bring up.
Oh, also, the idea of thousands of unrelated artists somehow having a ‘monopoly’ is a bit silly. Having ‘monopoly’ means that a few powerful individuals hold an extreme amount of the market, and can choke out anyone else trying to make it big. That’s not the case in the art scene. You have the means of production! (it’s called a pencil)
For my own part, I’m not concerned about the current image generators taking away my own art-related job in the present moment. But I’m still eager to inform people who may not know better about the many issues of the current image generator models, and how they already cause harm to creators in many different fields. From flooding art sites, to visual artists getting their own works mixed with or flushed down by AI mimicry in search engines, to human models having their brand, aka their likeness, used without permission. Deepfakes and griefing becoming more common the more the effort barrier lessens. Plus a whole lot more issues brought up in the previous thread.
What comes to 3D, there’s already sites for text-to-3D asset generators that might’ve scraped 3D asset sites, though from what I’ve heard the results aren’t that great. Generally though, I agree with your advice to branch out, and that it’s exceptionally good time to focus on the ideas / narrative / art direction part of the craft!
Damn, imagine people wanting to protect their means of income from a computer program that rips and hashes art together into a mess that often messes up basic anatomy.
Completely missed my point here. Moving the goal posts.
Literally read what I in the post 3 paragraphs down. You literally quote it on your reply.
Excellent strawman/no u answer.
Not what I am talking about either. Literally not the point.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. If art is subjective, then AI generated art has value as much as the artists themselves. If art is not subjective (and AI generation is not a transformative type of art) then a lot of these artists produce nothing of value (See: 10 minute scuff point) and once again we’re back to where we began.
My comment never had, nor was, about tech-bro’s. Simply because I argue against the monopoly–
(Quoting again so this isn’t ignored for a third time)
–Does not mean I stand with “tech bro’s”. I dislike both sides equally.
This is not the definition of monopoly. In no way is a monopoly limited to a few select groups or entities. It can be singular, it can be plural, it can be thousandfold. A monopoly is a monopoly. Once again, read what I’ve described above.
Generally very bad faith approaches so far. Whether you agree, disagree, that’s all fine. But hypocrisy is an ugly thing.
But I’m not though I feel? You claim that you and relatives and friends lost their jobs to automation and that its bad and was bad, but at the same time you applaud it happening to artists because they are all some secret elite cabal and it’s their turn to feel the sting of losing a job.
It’s the truth though, the current ai art models rely on making quick money and scamming and built on theft.
Art is subjective, but literally copying something 1 to 1 is not art. Art is something you create, you personally. You can use tools for it, but it still needs to be something you make yourself.
Tracing is not art, direct photocopying is not art. Yet it is exactly both of these AI art does together. It can’t create anything new on its own at all.
It had no point because outside of funny doodles, artwork does not take 10 minutes to make. And people don’t charge for 10 minute doodles.
Litterally the same can be said about you. I find your comments to both me utterly confusing and incredibly bad faith. You seem to hold a deep personal distaste for “artists” and art as a general concept.
Politics of spite, a very common thing. “I’ve had it bad so I need others, who were innocent in that, to have it bad too.”
Ironically, that’s exactly what the ruling class tries to foster among the proles to maintain division within the working class. Redirect the disgruntled worker’s anger toward their fellow worker, rather than the people actually perpetuating the disparity between social classes.
I don’t think it’s exactly the same, but the topic of student debt is a good one as a frame of reference. A talking point among some older people (loose term and it’s not an attempt to generalise) is that since they had to pay off huge amounts of money, others should too. Rather than focus on making things better for those who come after them, they’re conditioned to want them to struggle too.
It’s a lack of class solidarity encouraged largely by the right. Anecdotal, but the vast majority of artists I know come from working class backgrounds, are politically left-leaning, and socially progressive. But then we loop back to the ‘metropolitan liberal’ strawman (I’m from a pretty deprived town in post-industrial South Wales).
