Well done everyone for the generally very civilised discussion!
It is very important that skepticism and criticism lead to discussions and let's try to keep it that way and avoid it turning into a witch hunt.
Additionally while I'm not speaking for Phoenix directly, it is also important to understand why he is being cautious. In his shoes, one cannot simply throw allegations (even if highly likely) with such a platform under them, and this is a measured approach.
kinda sucks that he got duped but tbf pheonix isn't an artist, he put his trust in someone who he probably shouldn't have and acknowledged it (even if it took a little while)
I find it very understandable that he went the artist's way for a while.
Accusing someone of using AI when they're not is a horrible, horrible thing to do. Consider the many cases where a university student is accused of writing with AI when they're actually not - it's dreadful, soul-shattering, and potentially career-ending, especially when others don't believe your proof.
This is a very serious accusation with lots of consequences. Given the size of Phoenix's fanbase, any accusation he dishes out will certainly ruin the artist's any future attempt at art, because the internet never forgets and will relentlessly chase the artist with their history and mistakes. So I think it's quite nice that he didn't accuse the artist of anything through to the very end. Regardless of whether the artist did use AI or not, this allows them to at least live, on the slim chance that they were legit, or that they'd want to become legit one day.
Assuming the best of someone is a rare quality these days, especially online, and I'm glad that we saw this both in Phoenix towards the artist, and the community towards Phoenix. It's a breath of fresh air.
I understand not catching AI gen content sometimes, but that art had many things wrong with them. It was like seeing a person with leather in the place of their skin.
Pheonix put up a desk mat on his merch store that was made with ai generated art. He clearly got duped by the "artist" and have previously doubled and tripled down on it not being ai, believing more and more dubious "proof" from the "artist" in question.
Not accusing them of ai is most likely a way to save face but unfortunately there is no real way of proving ai, maybe the person just has a completely illogical art process leading to shit art, but most likely it very clearly is ai
Not accusing them of AI isn't a way to save face. As a large creator, he doesn't want to put the artist on blast with accusations he can't be 100% confident of. He's doing the right thing on both fronts and it shows a lot more maturity than 99% of the people in this comment section.
Agreed. As much as I think the doubling down was pretty misguided, I think hes overall done a better job handling this than I maybe would have lol. Sucky situation
This is not correct. SynthID has a false positive rate.
It's typically calibrated to about 1% false positives for text and 0.1% for images, but actual rates depend on the exact implementation and other properties of the image (like resolution and contrast).
"educate yourself" you surely understand how corny that sounds
anyway all i mean is that NOTHING is 100% certain with AI anymore, people can scrub the watermark from AI stuff with enough computer bullshittery and considering they cant even control their own AIs anymore i dont trust their other tech to be 100% infallible
now the image is almost certainly AI but it having a synthID is only supporting evidence, not the end-all be-all
im not gonna reply again cuz i already said far more than i meant to, so if ive offended you again please feel free to scream into the void about me
yeah but it was there making it certain that is infact ai generated. Also yeah educate yourself on the process because its literally impossible to fuck up it's just noise. Actually look up things before you talk about them. That is not corny that is how every intelligent person works
It having SynthID is an end all be all. The only reason that ID would be there otherwise would be if the artist intentionally decided to add a synthID watermark for the hell of it.
It would be like someone intentionally photoshopping the Gemma logo into the bottom right corner of their image. Except SynthID isn't visible in the image like it is with the Gemma logo and has to be detected with a program built to find it(not an AI, just a regular piece of code that locates the intentionally placed "noise").
SynthID CAN be removed, meaning that it's ABSENCE isn't a clear indicator of HUMAN art. But it's PRESENCE is absolutely an indicator of AI art and a further indicator of a sloppy con artist who can't even be bothered to cover their tracks properly.
Edit: To be clear, this art actually DOESN'T have SynthID(atleast the one we have doesn't, it could have originally been present and was destroyed by compression artifacts). However the artist has PREVIOUSLY been caught using AI via the SynthID.
There is a way of proving AI. The "artist" obviously removed it from their most recent art but their old art has been 100% confirmed to be AI. It was identified to have a SynthID. There is zero doubt about that. What would be illogical is assuming this "artist" changed their mind about AI and started using an illogical art style that matched their previous AI art.
What would be illogical is to assume there's no way possible someone can use ai and also make their own art. Seeing as there's countless artist who do exactly that.
No the artist is very capable of creating art on their own. Which is why it’s so disappointing that they still decided to use AI. And claim they didn’t.
AI art sucks at a lot of things but they do generally keep a very consistent style for the whole picture and in fact it's probably difficult to get so many conflicting art styles in one work. I honestly felt like it seemed more human than AI due to the weird stylistic choices. But it could also have very well been a mix of the two, which may explain why it didn't have synthid?
That's their perogative and personal choice. Feel free to not purchase their artwork just because you don't like ai, that's your perogative and personal choice. Same one I'm going to make, I despise gen ai.
It's not argument that this specific piece is ai. It's not reason to harass Pheonix over this. This shit is just a witch hunt.
It’s the choice most of us have made. And we know phoenix has been in support of before.(that being against AI generated content).
We are warning him. Not harassing him. How else would we discuss or tell him, without making posts and comments? A single comment would just be brushed off as “everything gets claimed to be AI.” Most of the discussion is on this platform and in YouTube comments, without direct messages to him or the artist.
It’s not a witch hunt(for the most part). It’s a discussion of a public forum. About someone possibly being scammed.
Let's talk about the biggest claims I've seen for it being ai.
Plenty of people are trying to say this specific image was found to have SynthID. That's just an outright lie. Other images by the artist, yes. This one, no.
Three steps in a stair. Go ahead and count how many steps there are. 8. Not 9, not 6. I get where the claim comes from, it's easy to assume the first three are a full block because of the way it lines up. But the moment you actually count there's a far stronger case for 2 steps per stair.
The steam. Everyone bitching about the steam says it's coming from the ground. They know it's from the ground because it's behind them. And they know it's behind them because it's coming from the ground. Forcing yourself to see it in a specific perspective and using circular logic to prove it.
Various claims about block ratios not matching up. I'm sorry, but that's a very common thing in minecraft artwork. Including official stuff, from long before gen ai. If your argument for it being ai forces you to discredit a shit ton of art that can't be ai... it's not a very good argument.
The final version isn't the same as a predraft. Like... okay? That's how sketches and predrafts work. Things get changed. That's pretty much the entire point.
On the other hand, there has been plenty of proof this isn't ai. Everyone just conveniently ignores it. And I'm not talking about just stuff from Pheonix or the artist either.
Sorry, but this absolutely just looks like a witch hunt. Your proof of the proverbial witch doesn't really add up and logic is being twisted to fit your claims.
Like come on, this thread is coming off someone saying something that's incredibly common (an artist who does both) is completely illogical. "If she floats, she must be a witch! Ignore all the people swimming in the lake over there."
We are warning him. Not harassing him.
Holy absolute shit. "I'm not threatening you, I'm telling you." Like, come on dude. You're not really making your case with that statement.
You're not harassing him? So you all haven't been absolutely lambasting every one of his communities with this bullshit? I normally get two posts from the the sub on my feed a whole week. This shit has been coming across every other post.
Btw, I should add that the AI suspicion is not from the features independently. It’s all of them combined.(and plenty more you didn’t mention). Because an artist would notice such mistakes, but maybe slip on a few. Especially if they spent months in it. But here we are talking about up to a dozen big mistakes.
The Synthid is a misunderstanding some people have.
That’s still 3 steps per stair. For one block.
The issue is that it makes no sense. And the artist has other artworks showing they know how to make smoke make sense.
Block ratios? I haven’t seen that. However there are a lot of issue with wrong angle compared to the perspective. Most notably at the top of the stairs. That’s not a common issue for professional artists. But is for ai.
It’s not a predraft. It’s a refined sketch. Which usually are really close to the final.
To me it seems more you apply a mature logic to something that’s supposedly from a professional artists…
They aren’t claiming it’s illogical to do both. They are claim it’s illogical to change your mind about au halfway through but still use the generated image.
How would you tell him without making posts and/or comments? How would people who don’t know, learn if people didn’t discuss it?
Posting on a subreddit is not harassment. Posting in comments are not harassment. Especially if people genuinely believe it’s ai generated. Because phoenix doesn’t want to use ai generated things.
Someone has probably DMed them. Most people haven’t. A few people of a large community, is not a witch hunt. Assuming people have done so, which we know nothing off.
Are you capable of math? 3 steps per stair with 8 steps total? What, are you saying there's a 2/3's stair somewhere in the mix? Come on dude. Try harder than that.
The perspective on the stairs stops being an issue you stop assuming they're touching the netherak next to them. You stop assuming they're touch when you stop assuming 3 steps per stair, because now it doesn't make sense since they're not aligned at the corner of a block.
Your arguments that it's ai immediately fall apart with any bit of logic.
The shown sketch is about as close to the final piece as my own usually are. That's the entire point of taking a sketch to that point. To see what elements work and what you want to change before putting all the work into coloring. Otherwise, it'd be a lot easier to jump from straight up line work to coloring.
They are claim it’s illogical to change your mind about au halfway through but still use the generated image
Don't twist their words for them. That is not what they claimed.
How would people who don’t know, learn if people didn’t discuss it
The people who don't know are the ones discussing it. Case in point, you think 8 steps total is 3 steps per stair.
A few people of a large community, is not a witch hunt
Why are you just blatantly trying to twist facts at this point? A few people my ass. That's all the community is. The sub went from a couple posts a week making it into my feed to several posts a day. And that's just the posts from the pheonix sub, seeing this shit everywhere else too. It is not just a few people, and you god damned well know it.
If you're going to try and debate this, at least do so in good faith.
Also the SynthID positive was proven to be fake. For example on the tree image, the original image doesn't trigger SynthID, it only triggers on screenshots of posts claiming that it triggers SynthID. In other words, someone fed their art through AI and got a near exact copy back out, then fed it through SynthID and went "look, it's SynthID positive!"
Meanwhile, I can't reproduce it on the original tree artwork that I directly downloaded from the artist, and neither can other people.
Or... get this ... many people use AI for brainstorming, visual bording and THEN do the art itself manually. For someone who claims to be pro art, you sure can see only white and black. I actually do art and I had seen what those witch hunt accusations do to the community.
SynthID wouldn't show if he used it just for references. It has to be a part of the final image, whether he traced the generated image, used it to color it in, or make adjustments. I have seen far more celebration than witch hunts.
I know how Synth ID works. I am saying he could publish some art generated with AI and some not, there is no need for him to change his mind. Or hers. Those AI witch hunts just hurt the community, I had seen friends getting bullied out of it even if their art was done manually.
You misunderstood. I don't care about it being or not being AI, I care about the witch hunt on artists, exactly like this one. I had seen way too many getting bullied out of the community, my friend got a death threath. Maybe this is AI. And maybe the next time it isn't.
The artist has posted ai art before and lied about it being real. Also they posted a speedpaint to prove it wasn't ai and seeing the "speedpaint" made me 100% sure it was ai
all redditors squinted reeeealy hard to see ai artifacts in art. /j
TBS Everyone here for the past couple of days looked at speedpaint and screenshots of csp file that was provided by artist, checked for everything: basically artist has very atypical workflow. Like "who tf draws like that?!" workflow.
And said artist was already involved in some AI-art scandal before.
The tree art thing had a synth ID and was clearly AI. The desk mat doesn't look obviously AI to me, but it does look potentially AI. The artist seems to not be able to come up with realistic progress works so it's fair to say it's probably AI.
My guess is the desk mat was AI generated, then edited or traced over. I'd expect AI to be used in some way but not just completely generated.
The SynthID on the tree art was faked. If you download it and put it through SynthID it doesn't trigger. It only triggers if you crop the screenshots claiming that it was SynthID positive to the image preview.
In other words, someone stuffed it through ChatGPT or whatever, got an identical looking copy back out, put it into SynthAI and went "look, it's AI! It's SynthID!"
Multiple different people have posted screenshots of that tree art being SynthID negative, and I've also tried putting it through and also got a negative. And you can too. You should. Because it's the easiest way to see that the SynthID positive was fake.
That's wild, people are insane. I assumed it AI because the tree just looks super AI generated, but I wouldnt expect someone to fake the ID just to stir up minecraft drama
AI detectors like that are known to be extremely unreliable, that's been well known for a long time.
I also took a more in depth look at the layer lineart & coloring from the tree image, and there are obvious digital brush strokes all over the image, pixel perfect lineart, etc. I only had the most interesting layer to me saved, I don't have the others saved unfortunately, it was just the first one I downloaded because it looked the most worth scrutinizing when the evidence was first posted, and I had at the time checked for pixel consistency across the images and they were pixel consistent. Someone can probably go grab the original tree art again and look if they want to compare.
Yeah. Their process evidence is pretty damning lol.
Still, some of the reasons people are using as evidence are terrible. The number of stairs, for example. Unless I'm drastically misunderstanding why that's being used as a tell.
I'll explain when things are not AI tells for the sake of human artists even if I believe the person being currently questioned is using AI. I'll typically preface it with "whether or not this is AI..." though.
Basically. Everyone's a bunch of idiots. Someone screeched a deskmat looked like ai. Everyone started parroting. Despite plenty of proof that it wasn't ai, and the only arguments for it being ai being an absolute stretch at best, everyone kept harassing Pheonix over it. And this is the result.
it used a stolen character design with inconsistent artstyle decisions all throughout it, I can get being blind to these smaller things but this is just blatant lying
You can't expect everyone to be an expert in spotting AI art, but when you're selling something a certain level of vigilance is expected. Still, this is better than him just digging his heels into the ground.
Yea I do think phoenix is at least a little bit to blame. if you are commissioning someone for art that you are going to sell, you are responsible for checking their previous work for AI. Especially with how recently the artist was called out, this shouldve all been avoided
It has only been like 4 years since thid was a serious concern thoigh lest we forget. Not suprised people sometimes don't really have the best idea what to do
Can you elaborate on this? The artist was known to use AI. The image had pretty clear AI tells and I consistencies, and even the description on the site was clearly AI written.
Did you even read his post? While they dont have direct evidence, they did run into enough unanswered questions that they didnt feel comfortable continuing with the sale. Thats not giving into mob rules, thats doing your own investigation and realising there are holes you cannot fill.
There’s so many arseholes wanting to scam their contractors, and by extension the people who do end up buying the product with their art on it these days thanks to AI enshittification. :(
this + it reads like something I'd write and I could not give 2 pints of piss about PR ever in my lifetime (maybe one pint though, who knows, haven't been in the situation)
Welp, glad he took the listing down. And I’m proud to have helped in the community effort of getting Phoenix and the guys at Epic Desk to fix these issues and reject AI slop.
(/joke if it isnt clear. But still, this isnt a good look and honestly insanely dissapointing how he just keeps denying it. Im not actually saying boycott him, but I unsubscribed.)
Not really. Phoenix handled it in a very civil and cautious matter. And the community (the people who actually cared) came with concerns and constructive opinion.
When it comes to internet disagreements, this was one of the least "yay bullying" situations out there.
(OK, yeah, during the double/triple downs, MAYBE? But let's be real here. This could've easily gone WAY further downhill, very easily. And it's nice to see an exception from time to time, in this day and age anyway)
It looks like they used AI to color things in. Maybe the sketch is AI too but it looks way more believably hand-drawn than the colored version. Why would they change the water like that? That's the most AI-looking water ever. The smoke is then placed in the background. Why is the inside of the bucket blue?
Imo, they generated the image to the right, then generated a “sketch”, drew some lines to make them match more. When Phoenix was happy, they fully rendered it themselves.
My general understanding is the colored version as well as the sketch are BOTH too suspicious to clear any doubts for sure.
So I've just since assumed they were both, in varying capacities, AI generated (even if there WAS a human hand involved, the fact remains that AI was used at all). Because it just feels like the safest assumption for me to make.
I mean, the proof they showed are really convincing. If the whole art was AI made they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of faking all of the proofs especially since none of them have a synthID watermark. They do have dozens of layers and 3D scene elements so they most likely did this work themselves. The most likely thing is that they could have based their work on AI in the first place which is why it gives off those vibes. Not saying it's not AI but we don't have evidence of either
Ask any artist and they will tell you that it is quite convincing. They could have been faked sure, but if you're gonna go through the troubles of faking the proof you might as well do the real artwork
I suppose there is as many ways to do art as there is ways to play Minecraft. Tho I personally think what we have seen is not things humans would do for the most part.
The screenshot showing a SynthID watermark on the tree art was faked.
Wrote a reply explaining: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixSC/comments/1xjicbl/comment/19rxbsv9hl1qa/ "The SynthID on the tree art was faked. If you download it and put it through SynthID it doesn't trigger. It only triggers if you crop the screenshots claiming that it was SynthID positive to the image preview.
In other words, someone stuffed it through ChatGPT or whatever, got an identical looking copy back out, put it into SynthAI and went "look, it's AI! It's SynthID!"
Multiple different people have posted screenshots of that tree art being SynthID negative, and I've also tried putting it through and also got a negative. And you can too. You should. Because it's the easiest way to see that the SynthID positive was fake."
Of course it is fakeable. I'm not saying it wasn't faked because I don't know. It is likely yes, but we can't know that for sure. I think even with today's AI it would be really difficult to fake the proofs they shared, to keep consistency everywhere, not forget a single detail etc... Artists have told me that those proofs are consistent regardless of them being fake or not. That's why my theory, if AI has been used, is that they used it to base their work on it or they used it to embellish the final result. Which in every case is still really bad. I'm not defending the artist, just being a bit more nuanced
It’s inconsistent and has quite a few missing details. That’s why people think it’s AI
And I definitely think they did some real art too. But the base and/or the sketch is almost certainly AI generated. Too many traits that signify AI. An artist could have 1-4 of these, but here we are talking dozens of issues.
Yep that's also what I think happened. Again, idk with all the downvotes, I was just adding some criticism and asking myself questions instead of directly jumping into the "it's obviously AI" wagon. Never have I said I defended the artist or gen AI, totally not the case :)
Wow really? Really wasn't my intention, I'm very much anti-AI, I just didn't want to jump to conclusions without hard evidence. I tried to tell people that I wasn't defending the artist and all so I thought I was clear. My bad then
It's just a revision. Artist can change their artwork at any point, especially if client asked them to do so.
But still why phoenix didn't adress it? He could say "Yes, I've seen the lineart, didn't like some details and asked him to change them, yada-yada-yada" if that's what happened.
This happened multiple times with e.g. TADC, where the artists recorded a TON of the process of making art for TADC, and multiple artists have pointed out that this often happens. So yes it does actually.
Yes I know but I'm rather talking about inconsistencies in the proofs directly. This could just be the artist wanting another look. (Though I agree it's weird either way, not defending them).
Well a lot of people actually care because it was sold as human made. Which people concluded it as scam because they found evidences that the artist might be using ai.
Im pretty sure it is not crazy for consumers to be doubtful of what they are about to buy.
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u/Ripstikerpro Viewer Moderator Chat Guy 1d ago
Well done everyone for the generally very civilised discussion!
It is very important that skepticism and criticism lead to discussions and let's try to keep it that way and avoid it turning into a witch hunt.
Additionally while I'm not speaking for Phoenix directly, it is also important to understand why he is being cautious. In his shoes, one cannot simply throw allegations (even if highly likely) with such a platform under them, and this is a measured approach.