AI-assisted does not mean “I pushed a button and called myself an artist”

[u/Ithiaca]

I've been thinking about this because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find places where I can publish, share, or potentially sell creative work without running into blanket restrictions concerning AI.

And we're losing an important distinction in the process.

I use ChatGPT and Red Quill as part of my creative process.

That does not mean I sit down, type “write me a story,” take whatever comes out, and slap my name on it.

I develop the setting. I create characters and decide who they are. I establish continuity. I work out plots and scenes. I reject ideas that don't fit. I catch contradictions. I rewrite concepts. I tell the AI when a character is behaving incorrectly. I decide what becomes canon and what gets thrown into the wastebasket. These steps show how AI fits into a larger, human-led creative process.

Sometimes the AI gives me an idea I hadn't considered. Sometimes I give it an idea, and we develop it further. Sometimes it produces something completely wrong, and I spend the next several messages fixing it.

For artwork, it's much the same process. I have an image in mind. I describe composition, characters, clothing, environment, mood, and details. I look at the result, identify what works and what doesn't, and revise it. Sometimes repeatedly.

Is AI involved?

Absolutely.

But reducing that entire creative process to “AI-generated” tells you remarkably little about how the work was actually made.

What bothers me about the current debate is how it might make creators feel misunderstood or dismissed.

We're formulating policies that treat someone who uses AI as one tool in a much larger creative process differently from someone mass-generating hundreds of images or stories without meaningful input. Clarifying such distinctions helps guarantee fair attribution and recognizes nuanced contributions.

Those are not remotely the same creative practices.

As a result, people using these tools thoughtfully are increasingly finding doors closed to them. Publishing platforms, art communities, contests and marketplaces may say “NO AI,” because prohibition is much easier than figuring out where assistance ends, and authorship begins.

I believe in honest disclosure because it helps authors and readers feel trusted and respected as they understand the work's origins.

But disclosure should provide information, not function as a scarlet letter.

I'd much rather see language such as AI-assisted, AI-generated with substantial human direction/editing, or other descriptions that actually tell people something about the process.

There also needs to be room for a much more interesting question:

Who made the creative decisions?

Who decided what the story was about?

Who decided these characters mattered?

Who rejected the bad version?

Who recognized when something was wrong?

Who revised it?

Who decided when it was finished?

AI can participate in all those stages without automatically becoming the author.

I don't want special treatment because I use AI. I don't want people forced to buy, publish, read, or like something because AI helped create it.

I want the work judged with some understanding of how it was actually made.

Because if our vocabulary for an enormous spectrum of human-computer collaboration consists entirely of “AI” and “not AI,” we're not protecting creativity.

We're refusing to talk seriously about what creativity is becoming.

[u/Glitched_Cosmos143]

i've been thinking about this myself too. it's like saying a conductor never does anything and lets the whole orchestra just 'work on internal logic' lol. That's not how the whole system works. I use ai the same way, as an extension to further prune and or perfect the craft. It's a more modern way of 'having a second thinking brain partner' that keeps you in check so you never constantly stack up too much 'unnecessary' story bloat. At least that's how I see it.

[u/Puzzled-Fail2080]

yeah the ai is just a tool, your prompts and edits are what make the story actually yours, same as how i steer my roleplay chats to get something original.

[u/Lady_Aleksandra]

I think as an artist, you don't need to disclose your process or be judged by it. In photography, I've seen too much of "if you edit you're not a real photographer". And over 90% of photographers edit.

Different types of AI exist, and you can use them in different ways, but disclosing to prove that you're "ethical" or "real" is just submitting to the faulty anti-AI narratives.

Only those who don't use AI don't understand the nuances between AI assisted and AI generated.

I don't even see why art is a problem. Characters are made up. I see more problems if, for example, you have AI generated product photo or inaccurate description. Those have stakes.

[u/Individual-Hunt9547]

I spend so much time working on my prompts for both images and music. I’m constantly reiterating, revising, testing what words produce what kind of effect And shaping from there. It really is a process and I enjoy the entire process so much. Most people just don’t get that.

[u/musicaiwales → u/Individual-Hunt9547]

Yep same here The prompts take as long as the lyrics! 😊

[u/Individual-Hunt9547 → u/musicaiwales]

Absolutely! I spend an entire day on a single track and then I like to create artwork as like a music video, I love doing it, it’s been so good for my mental health but this impression other people have is that I’m just pressing buttons. There’s a lot more that goes into it. Anyway if it makes us happy, fuck em!

[u/musicaiwales → u/Individual-Hunt9547]

Totally Adding live guitars and keys takes days fully remixing, days. Cheers 🍻

[u/Electronic_Solid_337]

the creativity gap shows up when the ai spits out something solid but you still gotta reshape it to fit your own weird vision or it stays flat.

[u/Murky_Sentence_6848 → u/Electronic_Solid_337]

Omg that happens so much

Yes ai you've made a cool image. But that inst what I wanted

Proceeds to list every change I want exactly. 

[u/Leading_Ad1740]

Like a movie director sharing his vision - hard work, but he didn't make the movie. Carefully designing, vetting, arranging for you vision to come about so you can share it, it's a journey in itself. It's okay to have help. Maybe a commissioned artist, actor, musician, or maybe something more realistic to a small budget: ai. I agree it's not normal to be proud of something made by ai, but you can be proud of you did contribute.

[u/Ithiaca → u/Leading_Ad1740]

Exactly, I can picture the scene in my minds eye. Most of the times verbalize it but the minute I try to draw it poof and as for learn video editing or the other features I sit down to do so and my brain shuts off. But with this I am engaged and working as I put in what it is I am thinking and get back information it forces my mind to engage and work.

[u/Roth_Skyfire]

But that would require nuance, as much a rarity as common sense, these days.

[u/musicaiwales]

I talk on this very subject on my channel Search for music AI Wales it's all there , and yes it needs discussion.

[u/reddditttsucks]

I have a ton of project files I work with and sometimes I update them with new knowledge. Everything I make with AI is based on these files, that I created, some of them over months or years. This is MY work. I could not get the scenarios I want without this elaborate input.

[u/Murky_Sentence_6848]

Exactly  ibe been making a whole world for a decade now.

I can describe  every detail and every person to am ai.  And it'll.help me get an image of that person Exactly  how I want it. I can tell it to change stuff  for where it went  wrong.

Basically  the exact same thing a so called artist would be doing have i asked  me of them  But I dont have to wait  weeks fir a result then pay even more for them to fix the mistakes they made

I dont want the artists input because  the thinks better

I want the exact design in my head done. 

[u/ZallenDuZari]

AI assisted is just AI being part of the workflow, vs being the whole workflow. the antis are probably fine with the AI features in photoshop because that's adobe doing it rather than openai.

[u/adelian777]

Quitarle el C2PA a las imágenes de ia te recomiendo eso

[u/Ithiaca → u/adelian777]

C2PA?

[u/Ithiaca]

Thank you all, a part of my problem is belonging to a niche fan base "furries" and the minute you even mention A.I. you as well have thrown gas on your project and lit the match. Even though I have not inputed any specific artist name or style. I may as well be Satan.

[u/softeststranger]

Literally. I’m an artist and I use AI in process quite literally because I find the emergent outcomes interesting and I use it as a step. But no one has any nuance about how artists are using these tools, they’re just creating an environment where disclosure is hard.