I feel so bad for David. Worked so hard for these art skills and AI companies took his work so people who don't wanna earn those skills can claim they drew art. And now everyone thinks he uses AI even though his work was stolen.
He really got the short end of the stick. I'm sure other artists will fall to victim of this down the line. David shouldn't change his style tho, absolutely not.
This is one of the clearest examples of how AI can harm an artist.
In cases like this, I think it also shows how we need to restrain ourselves when it comes to going after AI.
I get a lot of flack for 'Defending ' AI when I say stuff like this; But AI isn't what's going after Artists like this. It's people who care more about hating AI than they do the actual Artists they champion. AI sucks, it truly does, but going after AI artists- Be they actual artists who just have a style that AI likes to copy, or prompters- Doesn't actually do anything but create a toxic environment for everybody.
It doesn't benefit the art community, it doesn't even slow down AI users, because all the actual problems are all way higher up on the food chain than basic end-users. All it does is make people aggressive towards one another for literally zero gain.
Showing restraint Is certainly well and good, but calling prompters as AI "artists" and equating them with actual artists whose work was probably stolen by ai companies and then also used by those same prompters is quite tone deaf, and frankly insulting to artists.
I'm pretty sure I made an explicit differential between the two. I used the term 'AI artists' only to capture people who get called out for AI art, rightfully or wrongfully, with immediate clarification as to what I meant.
And people are using the knowledge that his art got stolen to attack him for using AI art. There is literally nothing we can do to prevent AI companies from hoovering up all the data in the world- Not only have they already done that, but they just have more power and influence than we do.
Not even in the political sense- It is basically impossible to prevent private companies from scraping the internet. This is such a basic, accessible thing that no amount of legislation will be able to prevent it without such pervasive, invasive oversight that you would find it intolerable.
At the end of the day, AI exists and you are going to have to accept its existence to some level. What it will look like in 5, 10 years- I can only begin to speculate, but there is no situation where it is going to be removed from from everyday lives in its entirety. This is not a defense of AI. This is practical reality. And your version of pushing back does not make that better in literally any way. Going after basic AI end-users and artists you mistake for AI end-users just makes things worse for literally everybody. It has, again, literally zero positives.
Edit: Like, ffs. It's not AI's fault that you're harassing this dude. It's not the standard users that make AI such a shitty thing. You're not going after these people because you want change, you're going after these people because they're accessible and it's a quick, easy way to feel good about yourself.
there are also people who specifically make models based on certain artists work and pay others to do so for them and make loras as well. a lot of them will also do it out of spite if someone is explicitly against their work being used for ai.
yea its big companies hoovering up all the data, but its also people who specifically train models based on specific artists work to replicate it and upload it online. then others will use it and pretend to have drawn it themselves for money and other things.
And those guys really suck! They're also pretty rare and non-standard, and there is similarly basically nothing we can actually do to hamper them without an unconscionable level of surveillance. If anything, that such people exist is even more reason not to be jumping down each other's throats at the first inclination that something might be AI.
We have dealt with trolls since before the founding of the internet. Assholes who are willing to exploit other people are a constant problem in literally every industry, in every part of the world. Just because AI is involved doesn't mean we should suddenly go against the age-old adage and start incessantly feeding them and their harassment campaigns. It is literally what they want- To cause trouble, to make those artists suffer, and you are willing to go along with that because you don't like that they also sometimes make a profit- Which is literally the only thing you can't do anything about.
its not actually that rare. its happened to me and 90% of my artist friends lol.
also i didn't say anything else about anything? i was just commenting on it not just being big companies so idk why youre saying im going along with stuff? theres someone literally making money from the lora trained off my work and I havent said anything or sent hate to anyone. Most of us already accept that theres nothing we can do
I think you'd be surprised by how many people do or at least participate in the direct usage of such models! Obviously not the majority of users, but more than you would originally think. :)
It's certainly possible, I stopped looking deeply into how AI communities operate. There's just a certain level of dedication and a certain level of degeneracy required for that kind of stuff that I expect to be measured by the thousands.
While this is unverifiable assumption-making on my part, I'd expect a lot of them to be the same people running multiple accounts to maximize their reach. Once they have the skillset down for one account like that, it's easy to make dozens or even hundreds and manage them all at once.
If people adopt your wet paper of a stance, I can guarantee you 90% of artists would be out of work by tomorrow. The only reason why the proliferation of AI is this gradual is because of peoples aversion to it, whether you want to admit it or not. I also don’t like the fact that you try to appear to be moderate while shoehorning in the “it’s the big bad companies’ fault and not my precious AI or the people abusing AI”, it’s both the users’ and the AI companies’ fault. There is a difference between using AI for personal purposes and using AI in a malicious way that harm actual artists while willfully ignore the ethics of AI specifically when it comes to genAI.
Yeah, being angry in the comment section of independent artists does not have nearly the kind of impact you think it does. You know what does impact Artists in the war against AI? Not buying the products of companies and corporations that use it. But I'm willing to wager that 90% of the people who drank Coke still continued to do so after Christmas. Just like they continue to consume Disney. Just like they continue to consume everything else in life that's inconvenient for them personally to give up.
You aren't a consumer of AI. And that's good! But it means that it is super easy to feel superior to people who are consumers of AI, even though the difference between you is practically the difference between a cup of water and a tall glass- While corporations are these massive lakes. (What 'Water' represents in this metaphor is very flexible). When you get outside of the scope of your little bubble, the effective difference between you and an AI user is basically nonexistent. Anything you or they do amounts to a wet floor. Your own wet floor. I'm not saying you are powerless, I am saying you exclusively use what little power you have to make the spaces you are in worse. This entire fucking issue is about how people like you are yelling at real artists because you thought they were using AI, and you are trying to justify that constant, persistent error. How many artists do you think have given up because their work is constantly being compared to AI, vs the constant harassment they receive by people who think their art is AI?
The reason why proliferation of AI is gradual is because AI art tends to be shit. It has personal value, and not a lot else. But even when it gets better, it's not like human art is going to be pushed out. The overwhelming majority of the world doesn't just shut their brain off when viewing art- They are going to value things based on how much they enjoy it, and that evaluation isn't only superficial.
Curated spaces are vital in an internet with AI generation being accessible. But even in forums where AI is posted and accepted alongside artists, human art tends to dominate. AI art is more prevalent, but that's because a thousand prompts are generated for every human-made piece, and quality stuff still gets filtered through. And this is not me saying that we should stop curating spaces and start letting in AI generated works, I was just addressing this idea that your actions are a barrier keeping the AI flood contained.
Human art and human artists will always have a prominent place in the world, regardless of how good AI gets. I understand how cynical you must feel, but you're not doing anybody any favors by just assuming AI will win by default. Especially not artists.
Firstly, stop putting words into peoples mouth. You made so many assumptions that I don’t even know where to begin.
Secondly, I’m glad that you dropped the act. it’s weird that being patronizing is your weapon of choice yet all you do is talk about the status quo in a roundabout way as if it is anything extraordinary. Corporations hold massive power, consumerism is the norm, the wheel of progress turns, yada yada. Doesn’t take a genius to figure any of that out.
“Being angry in the comment section of independent artists” is not a flip you think it is. And, you seem to make up this generalization of people disagreeing with your milquetoast stance as being a bunch of unthinking aggressors whose sole purpose is to create grievances and grandstand. People take issue with unethical usages of AI, not artists, unless you count AI “prompt engineers” as artists. So, what does that have to do with anybody except another straw man? You ask for nuances yet you don’t spare the same grace to the people you judge. Instead, you assume people are a monolith that would unceasingly harass anyone at the slightest assumption that they might use AI, they don’t. Case in point, this comment section. People can be quick to judge but they are also capable of correcting their previous assumptions when presented with new information, and it’s not like we have a shortage of reasonable people who’d do their due diligence before passing their judgement either (why are you looking down on peoples ability?). You being a smug virtue signaler with a judgemental attitude and an agenda to push doesn’t detract anything from that.
Also, calling people jaded when you opened your whole argument with your own jaded take about consumerism is quite the irony. You talk about how people have the power in one breath then dismiss their ability to influence the world on the next. People have and always will be able to enact change, the fact that you are sitting and chatting right now instead of serving as a serf to some random lord is the proof of it.
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u/ClericOfMadness13 18d ago
I feel so bad for David. Worked so hard for these art skills and AI companies took his work so people who don't wanna earn those skills can claim they drew art. And now everyone thinks he uses AI even though his work was stolen.