Figured I'd Finally Post Something Of Mine On Here

figured i'd finally post something of mine on here

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“AI ‘art’ is unethical” “AI ‘art’ is morally wrong” AI programs are stealing people’s work and using it without their consent that’s…illegal? like if i tried to mass distribute other people’s art as my own I’d be dragged to court. this isn’t just a moral issue. it should be fucking criminalized. appealing to morals won’t fix this. corporations will not care. artists need to start making this a legal issue. take this shit to court.

AIs are not at all like human brains. Stop comparing them to real humans and the way our minds work. It's not the same. AI art is theft. The bot didn't become "inspired" by anything. It just stole shit. It can't be inspired. It's not a human brain!

I don't want AI generated art, I want AI generated memes.

Give me more Inspirobot types, mass-producing fucked up surreal memes, fine-tune them until they ascend to Gen Z sense of humor.

TL;DR Thoughts on AI "Art"

I feel like AI art went from being a neat little fun thing people could use to make trippy graphics and silly little images to full-fledged massive art theft and it really sucks... Or maybe it's always been art theft and I just didn't understand how it worked until now? That's entirely possible. I just never thought it would end up like this. Call me short-sighted.

I thought it was kinda cool at first, honestly. Obviously, it's not actual art since it's just an AI smushing together a bunch of farmed images, but it could still be cool looking, and it was interesting to see how a computer attempted to make "art". I felt like it was just for fun, you know? Similar to the "AI Writes a Stephen King Novel" or whatever. I thought that shit was hilarious. I find AI tech fascinating. I suppose I didn't think much of it because it wasn't threatening at all. But now my feelings and understanding of it have changed dramatically, and I feel like I gotta be frank about that.

First, I just wanna say I don't think using ethically created and consensual AI image generators would be bad? At least not unless I'm presented with more info that changes that. I certainly don't think you're the worst, most terrible, most horrible person for using an AI Program or for finding it cool or fun, but with everything that's come out about them and all the theft, I no longer find it ethical, and I really do feel like everyone should stop using it, feeding it, and training it. The problematic things happening need to be addressed for it to be safe for everyone and for it to not seriously harm an already highly exploited and exhausted career field.

I think it's very important to classify AI Programs like this as "Image Generators", not "Art" Programs. They're not creating art. They're smushing together a bunch of farmed images into an image that looks original, but is not. Sometimes, even the butchered remains of the original artist's signature are still left on the image. This is extremely important to putting the ethics of this into context.

What these AI Image Generators have become is a direct and calculated attempt by corporations and businesses to rob actual humans of their copywritten work and personal skills and sidestep paying us for new material. It is bold faced exploitation and theft for corporate profit. It doesn't matter how much of it could be about fun or creativity or the development of AI as a learning experience, there is massive amounts of theft and wild legal shit happening here. Until theft is removed from the equation, it cannot be anything else.

In my opinion, all AI programs that have been informed or trained using stolen art should be made illegal for use by the public and for all commercial or monetary gain. Additionally, all images created by AI programs with stolen art should be considered copyright infringement and theft and punishable by a court of law if used without permission like all other cases of infringement or theft. An AI program should be considered as having "used stolen art" if they have, at any point in time or for any period of time, violated any artist's rights or consent by "scraping" art from the internet or auto opting-in artists against their consent, which includes DeviantArt's AI, regardless of how that criminally irresponsible feature was eventually changed. It's too late. Once your art is in the AI, it's over. You can't get it back. So, it's the AI itself that should take the fall for that, NOT the artists.

An AI "Art" Program is not a human that has been inspired by many art forms and styles and worked their ass of for years to learn and hone their craft, especially while every single art-related industry takes advantage of us, exploits us, underpays/overworks us, and robs us while insisting that our highly specialized skills that take far more effort than a full-time job are just "hobbies", even while they rake in huge profits off us.

Images created using any AI that utilizes stolen art should also absolutely be forbidden on websites that claim to support ACTUAL, REAL LIFE, STRUGGLING ARTISTS like DeviantArt.

These AI programs are shared with the public so that you'll train the AI for them so that it can better rob artists and replicate our works to push us out of our own industries and markets. I can't condone using them, supporting them, or training them. I even feel iffy about the idea of people "opting in" to their art being used by them because nothing could prevent them from putting someone else's art in and claiming it's theirs. Like I said, once the art is in the AI, it can't be taken out. So, I can't feel comfortable with this until there are proper laws or regulations in place that can protect actual artists from these crimes. And I'll hear nothing of this "well it's not that bad yet" crap. I didn't think anything of this shit a few years ago and now it's an actively growing problem that needs to be addressed directly before it gets worse. If there's anything I've learned, it's that things can and will get worse if they're not actively addressed ahead of time.

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain this but, art is an extremely difficult medium to get good at, requiring years and years of hard work, training, and schooling. So NO, you CANNOT just type a prompt into an AI, have it crush together an amalgamation of other people's art, and think yourself as equal to actual artists. You're absolutely delusional if you think you can just skip all the hard work like that. Absolutely not. You're not an artist, you're a person having fun with a program, which isn't a crime or immoral to enjoy or share until art theft is involved. Honestly, I wish you could have fun with it. I wish there could be a safe way for it to exist because I feel like it could maybe inspire people to become artists and have a good time, but this is not the way. And to be honest, even if I could consider what an AI made as "art", it wouldn't be yours. It would be the AI's. It could still be fun to share, just like sharing a commission, but it's made of other people's art, not yours.

Ugh. Big giant post. I just had to get that off my chest. It's really hard to keep reading about this crap... It's so depressing.