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The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in the Art World
- Thread starter Freezasaurus
- Start date
To be clear on my part, there is a legitimate concern of using copyright or otherwise already commercialized artworks in AI art, the ethics and legality around that will have to be hashed out. A lot of this discussion just feels like moralizing about the concept of the tech itself.
"Pick up a quill and a pot of ink, you don't need a tablette!"
Uh, yeah? I said small effort. Should I have said tiny, miniscule?
The main point I was pushing back with was the part you left out of the quote: The possibility of hybrid software that blend AI assistance with manual tools. What are your thoughts on that?
All art is derivative and every artist learned art at least partly by looking at other artists' work.
Proposing restrictions on which artists can be learned from, or somehow allowing artists to opt out of being learned from, is ridiculous and unworkable.
A world in which artists cannot reference and learn from the past and from each other, freely and without restriction, is a vastly poorer world artistically.
That's a lovely gate you're keeping there, really tall, high bars, sure to keep out the riff raff!
Seriously though art is for everyone and this sort of attitude is pathetic.
That's great but even that example is far beyond what i can do with a pencil
I can't even make good penmanship lol.
My point was largely the idea that art creation is super accessible is just not really true in any real sense.
Sure everyone can draw something, but talent and skill (which frequently requires genetic luck) and training (which requires time and money) is an absolute barrier to visual art creation that AI absolutely bridges
I look at it as a positive. More people being able to create art is a good thing, whether it's by hand or by entering prompts into a computer. You also can't create something exactly the way you want it unless you do it yourself. These prompts are creating random images. They're creating what you want, but not exactly how you want it. This isn't replacing human artists who need to create very specific art.
This is similar to how website design builders allow someone without coding experience to build a website. Website coders probably do not like these tools but it makes life better for the majority. More tools in front of people is good. Being able to generate an image quickly, based on my needs is incredible. This is just the tip of the iceberg. AI advancements will make life better for everyone. Eventually you will not have to work unless you want to, as all jobs will be run AI and robots. This is far in the future obviously, but it's coming. Eventually robots/AI will be able to do anyone's job better than they can.
People saying this is wrong because it's fed other people's work in order to learn. That's how you learn. You observe what has been done before you. If I'm learning how to be an artist, I'm going to look at other people's work to learn. I'm going to copy what I see. I'm going to practice. Then I'm going to create my own art. This is a similar process to what the AI is doing. It's learning what art is based off of millions of images and then it's creating its own art.
This is similar to how website design builders allow someone without coding experience to build a website. Website coders probably do not like these tools but it makes life better for the majority. More tools in front of people is good. Being able to generate an image quickly, based on my needs is incredible. This is just the tip of the iceberg. AI advancements will make life better for everyone. Eventually you will not have to work unless you want to, as all jobs will be run AI and robots. This is far in the future obviously, but it's coming. Eventually robots/AI will be able to do anyone's job better than they can.
People saying this is wrong because it's fed other people's work in order to learn. That's how you learn. You observe what has been done before you. If I'm learning how to be an artist, I'm going to look at other people's work to learn. I'm going to copy what I see. I'm going to practice. Then I'm going to create my own art. This is a similar process to what the AI is doing. It's learning what art is based off of millions of images and then it's creating its own art.
Not the same thing imo. Even with a camera it isn't point and click = amazing photos. You have to know composition, lighting, aperture, shutter speed focal length etc. There's still a skill barrier between wanting an amazing photo and getting an amazing photo.
With AI I guess the barrier is how advance the program is and how good the user is in describing exactly what they want. Even with all "its just a tool" discussion its hard to find a good one-to-one comparison to what AI represents.
While I do see lots of issues regarding AI commoditizing creative art production, I find the complaint about training AI on existing art to be absurd. Art education places a high importance on studying past and current artists. I don't see how that is much different than how an AI learns.
Art involves creative human expression so I don't think you can call a mishmash of computer generated images art. People are already trying to sell these as NFTs or prints, and it gets extra shady when its deliberately fed someone's particular style.
Studying yes, mimicry? not so much. Even something like a basic dance move someone invents gets blowback when not properly credited.
Studying yes, mimicry? not so much. Even something like a basic dance move someone invents gets blowback when not properly credited.
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Like with midjourney I created a rich history of a fictional soda prompted entirely by a post here on era
I was able to generate some incredible stuff that I'd never be able to have done otherwise and in short order too
I was able to generate some incredible stuff that I'd never be able to have done otherwise and in short order too
The art is spun from the creativity of the user and their prompts
Art is for everyone, you're right. Pick up a brush and make art. You can do it right now. Personally i find any amateur's first art attempts substantially more creatively valuable than inputting the phrase "Shadow the Hedgehog with Giant Honkers" into midjourney
You can personally find art created by a human more intrinsically valuable, but that's not an argument against stopping the development of AI art, nor does it say anything about the accessibility of art.
How telling your prompt example is lol.
Also pick a narrative
Earlier you demanded people take time to train and learn and whatnot
Pushing against what? My posts were about AI art generators.
Holy shit.
This is kind of amazing.
if you need the computer to "visually synthesize ideas and concepts that previously live only in your mind" then you aren't creating art, sorry to say. if you wanted creation to be easy you should have picked a different universe to be born into
Understood. I'm not trying to moralize about the existence of the tech on it's own, or that using it isn't art, etc.
I do think there are valid moral concerns to the existence of the tech under capitalism though (it's more on capitalism than it is on the tech)
Right, and I see the possibility to generate art as a starting canvas then manually modify/adjust/refine it.
Again, you're oversimplifying this so you can be butthurt. Here's a professional, successful, known artist/graphic designer's thoughts (first two are full threads):
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1552008218145984512
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1550175385194704896
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1534953254802448384
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1550181761476227072
The thing I keep coming back to is not really about artists - it won't fully replace artists, and even the best AI generated art I've seen still has a bit of wrongness to it that must be fixed; no one complains in Blender when you can turn on mirroring, you know? like others, I see it as a tool - but that everything the machines produce is because of us. I always chuckle at those articles on Buzzfeed or whatever that try to generate what book characters should look like and oh, how odd, they look so much like the movie characters! But that's because the AI has already been fed all those descriptions, plus images, plus fan art, plus a million other things, and what it produces is a strange amalgam of human-influenced perspectives.
And that's neat, honestly - it gives back what we feed it. But it also means we should be very, very concerned not about what it displaces, but how. Because we don't feed our machines equitably, and I'm a lot less worried about Elon Musk taking money out of artists' mouth (he's taking it from so many already) and more about what Elon Musk and people like him choose to feed the machines.
And that's neat, honestly - it gives back what we feed it. But it also means we should be very, very concerned not about what it displaces, but how. Because we don't feed our machines equitably, and I'm a lot less worried about Elon Musk taking money out of artists' mouth (he's taking it from so many already) and more about what Elon Musk and people like him choose to feed the machines.
OP
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It's super accessible in the sense that anyone can do it. It's just that people have a tendency to be overly judgemental toward their results when they're just starting out.
It's a similar issue to modern society's expectations of beauty. Because we have the internet, we're exposed to all of the most beautiful people across the entire species, when many many many years ago people lived in small villages and usually didn't meet more than a few hundred people in their entire lifetime. Their standards of beauty were much more realistic because they were exposed to a much smaller sample of mankind.
Likewise, people have instant access to work from all the best artists who have been getting better for years and years, and they're immediately judging their own work as a new artist against that.
Lmao
Your naked contempt for people who can't draw is hilarious
User Banned (1 Month): Misogynistic Rhetoric; Please Don't Call Fellow Members Bitch
i feel like people on this site have a deranged idea of what art is. amateurs making amateurish art are training and learning. that's what training is! it's training when somebody who's never run before manages to make it a quarter mile without stopping! it's training when you figure out the frame data on all your normals! and it's training when you fuck around with doodles long enough that you figure out how perspective works! that's what getting good at something is! that's what makes art accessible! the tools are all there for you to learn! the only limit is how much you're willing to dedicate to it!
if you elide all of this in favor of typing up something into dalle, what have you gained? have you really created anything? is this the product of your effort? have you expressed what you wanted to express, or did a computer interpret your prompt and produce something you think looks kinda cool? is this what art is? just a machine producing something cool on your behalf? i don't think so, i reject that definition outright. i'm sorry if that troubles you.
Bitch, i can't draw. But, a few things: One, I am quite aware that I do not practice, I do not make any effort, and therefore my art is not good in any technical sense. Two, I understand that, if I wanted to be good at art, I would have to put in that effort, to dedicate time and sweat into improving. Three, and this is crucial: if i put a phrase into dalle and it makes a picture, i did not make it
I mean, its not just about judging your art against the works of others, its about being able to put your own vision onto paper. I can imagine so many things that I couldn't possibly draw out because I have no idea how I would move my hands and finger in such a way to do that.
I'll reiterate what I said in the Midjourney thread a while back -- it can't seem to come up with its own styles, it just riffs on others and can make attempts to combine them. Human artists have the ability to conceptualize and visually represent things in ways that, at least currently, AIs can't compete with. Though that may change in time.
However I think concept artists should be pretty worried.
I would also add that I've talked to the Midjourney folks a bit on their Discord and for the most part the artists they've reached out to have been supportive. It speaks to their intent a bit that Midjourney even bothered to ask. I do think there will be those that aren't a fan, and I do think there should be a way for artists to opt out of this style copying. Not because of any legal ramifications, but just because it seems like it's the right ethical thing to do -- it's hard enough for artists (especially in the U.S.) to make a living as it is without computers trying to compete with them as well.
However I think concept artists should be pretty worried.
I would also add that I've talked to the Midjourney folks a bit on their Discord and for the most part the artists they've reached out to have been supportive. It speaks to their intent a bit that Midjourney even bothered to ask. I do think there will be those that aren't a fan, and I do think there should be a way for artists to opt out of this style copying. Not because of any legal ramifications, but just because it seems like it's the right ethical thing to do -- it's hard enough for artists (especially in the U.S.) to make a living as it is without computers trying to compete with them as well.
I'd never be able to create 1% visually what I've done with midjourney in a million years
I could spend thousands on lessons and dedicate hours upon hours, frustration beyond frustration and I'd never get there because I flat out don't have the motor skills for drawing
Having used the betas for a couple of the main AI image generation tools, I think AI art has the same kind of problem as AI translation. There's a distinct lack of predictability because it doesn't factor in any kind of context beyond the text it's given.
Usually if you work with a client you absorb all sorts of outside information about that client (outsource or in-house) in order to deliver something they will like. AI art literally is just taking keywords and creating a seemingly random image with it.
On top of that, you can give it a prompt, but there's no way to know it'll give you what you want. In fact a lot of time it gives you something completely unrelated and weird. Also, I've seen completely different prompts generate very similar kinds of images, which would be kind of a disaster in a professional situation cause the "AI" literally wouldn't know the random image it generated was one used for a different client.
At the moment it feels like a cool parlor trick, but nothing else. I'd go so far as to say calling this AI is false advertising.
Re: Concept art
I think people are really underselling the role of concept artists. The image generation algorithms can create crazy looking pictures but try and create a cohesive series of images for a game world or a film etc. Doing this with these kind of sites is more or less impossible. They're great at delivering single images in a vacuum, but concept art is more than that.
Usually if you work with a client you absorb all sorts of outside information about that client (outsource or in-house) in order to deliver something they will like. AI art literally is just taking keywords and creating a seemingly random image with it.
On top of that, you can give it a prompt, but there's no way to know it'll give you what you want. In fact a lot of time it gives you something completely unrelated and weird. Also, I've seen completely different prompts generate very similar kinds of images, which would be kind of a disaster in a professional situation cause the "AI" literally wouldn't know the random image it generated was one used for a different client.
At the moment it feels like a cool parlor trick, but nothing else. I'd go so far as to say calling this AI is false advertising.
Re: Concept art
I think people are really underselling the role of concept artists. The image generation algorithms can create crazy looking pictures but try and create a cohesive series of images for a game world or a film etc. Doing this with these kind of sites is more or less impossible. They're great at delivering single images in a vacuum, but concept art is more than that.
If you want to consider someone typing "John Wick on the moon" art I guess. Its less creative process than Seth Green's Bored Ape #8398.
You're acting like I'm declaring AI users to be akin to Van Gogh or some shit
All I'm saying is that AI generation opens up visual creation to a broader group of people who otherwise would have no means or ability to bring ideas in their mind to a form of life.
Like I said your contempt for the untalented is hilarious.
Trust me, you're the one with the deranged idea of what art is. Nobody should take anything you're saying seriously because all you're about is worshipping technique
Yeah because the English language usable in ai art generation is that completely limited.
It's telling that people keep defaulting to "stupid" prompt examples in a sort of attempt to paint people interested in using AI art services as stupid people with no creativity
The tools simplify the process, the same concerns are brought up that it's[/QUOTE]
Okay well if you won't accept that we can go further back? How many artists did printing presses, and modern copying technology put out of business? Imagine how many artists could be employed if we couldn't go online and a click of a button have tons of artwork arrive at my door that was 99% machine made? While the technology behind it has advanced (cause that's what tech does), it's all the same concern, loss of jobs. That's not a tech issue, that's a society issue. Nothing about this technology stops you from creating art, just potentially being paid for it which as a society we're going to have to come to terms with eventually.
as an artist I don't really like it, but I try not to think about it too much I like to think my clients would still like me to draw their ocs instead of an AI
also is a bit weird seeing people claiming that artist are wrong to not feel comfortable with their art style being available as an option for an AI to replicate, is one thing to be inspired or to study an artist work because you want to implement part of that in your own process while giving your own spin, is another to straight up replicate something without the input of the person in question, artist being okay with the first and very against the second isn't something too strange or gate keeping.
also is a bit weird seeing people claiming that artist are wrong to not feel comfortable with their art style being available as an option for an AI to replicate, is one thing to be inspired or to study an artist work because you want to implement part of that in your own process while giving your own spin, is another to straight up replicate something without the input of the person in question, artist being okay with the first and very against the second isn't something too strange or gate keeping.
I feel like there's an argument that can be made that if an AI is trained on a living artist's work, that artist should perhaps be entitled to a proportional share of royalties based on how much of the training input their work represents. What it's doing falls somewhere in between blatant copying/tracing and looking at other art to get inspiration, in human terms. It could not exist independent of those training inputs and using the work in that way strikes me as a commercial use.
How do Dall-E et al source their training data? Do they compensate the living artists or do they just scrape image data and words from the web?
How do Dall-E et al source their training data? Do they compensate the living artists or do they just scrape image data and words from the web?
Not "Stupid people with no creativity", but anyone can create something identical in authenticity and fidelity with the same tools with the same words.
That's literally how something like Midjourney works, you type the concept into the box and it proceeds to generate it. The only difference being how specific the person is.
This is not an equalizer in the art world, its the opposite. You can imagine lower end concept artists or etsy artists being devalued when people would rather pay far less and churn out AI prints or concepts. Its not a replacement, but its undoubtedly going to cost people their livelihood.
again, not really, no. i think anybody making an effort is laudable regardless of technique or whether it's "good" in any sort of socially agreed-upon sense.
the thing that everyone seems to be getting stuck on is that AI art ... uh, it doesn't involve any effort. it doesn't "make art more accessible" because it ... doesn't make art!
Prompts can be significant expression of creativity
Like I said it's telling the prompt you chose to mock people who use these services
Did you not see the Rob Sheridan threads I literally posted on this page in response to you earlier? "doesn't make art" is a circular argument.
These AI can replicate painting styles, lens apertures/shutter speeds/focal lengths, all kinds of things if you can take the time to put some effort into the prompt. Y'all keep saying shit like "John Wick on the moon" because you either haven't actually looked into any of this or you don't want to acknowledge things that are showing your points as not being based in anything aside from your own warped idea of what "art" and "effort" are
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OP
OP
I know the feeling. But a lot of people tend to develop and improve their own style, even if it's basic or simplistic... or work with digital software that doesn't rely on drawing ability. There are a lot of ways to create art.
Since we're on the subject of who does and doesn't count as an artist when using AI, someone earlier had a point:
If I commission someone to make a picture of my fursona using a word prompt, and during creation I might change parts of the prompt to achieve a better result closer to what is in my head, it's inherently understood that I'm not the artist of the piece. I didn't make it; I just told someone else to do it for me. I'm a commissioner.
If I do this same exact thing with DALL-E to achieve my fursona, can I consider myself a furry artist now? Am I actually making the art here, or am I just a commissioner of an AI artist?
If I commission someone to make a picture of my fursona using a word prompt, and during creation I might change parts of the prompt to achieve a better result closer to what is in my head, it's inherently understood that I'm not the artist of the piece. I didn't make it; I just told someone else to do it for me. I'm a commissioner.
If I do this same exact thing with DALL-E to achieve my fursona, can I consider myself a furry artist now? Am I actually making the art here, or am I just a commissioner of an AI artist?
I've been following a lot of industry professionals takes on this. I would be wary of listening to anyone who was deep in on NFT's without a grain of salt though. Seems less concerned about having a conversation and more with just jumping on/defending the latest trend. More power to him as a business person though. Its smart.
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1378016906288848896?s=20&t=EbBo3pVoLUnkAZv-J6no_Q
View: https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1378059797363359748?s=20&t=EbBo3pVoLUnkAZv-J6no_Q
I see no intrinsic value in AI generated art. the beauty of all art, regardless of medium, is that it acts as an extension of the human being(s) who created it and their unique interpretations of the world around them. it's the difference between reading the appendices of the Lord of the Rings vs. fucking around with Dwarf Fortress' Legends mode. technically impressive but ultimately vacuous.
Corporations are drooling over the ability to downsize entire art departments. The people behind this stuff seem far less interested in conversations about how this relates to artists and instead seem way more excited about turning shit into content mills.
See every caveat shows how much of a lie "art is accessible just pick up a pencil" is.
Digital software requires very similar motor skills btw.
Yeah, another reason for why I can't really see it as a positive tool
OP
OP
Maybe a... co-creator? I mean this loosely as there is kind of a philosophical element here ... the better a wordsmith you are, the better your results with AI art generation will be. And the AI is definitely using your input in a way as a basis for the artwork.
Computers over human beings is absolutely the ideal endgame. Until UBI is commonplace, its just another incremental pipeline for human suffering to benefit profit margins. Starving artists was already a meme because its legitimately hard for a lot of people, even before the idea of being skipped over for a cheaper, less human alternative.
Its going to happen to music as well, it if hasn't already.
yeah this my main concern. i don't really care about the "real artist" conversation going on right now.
I'm kinda scared what's gonna happen when A.I. learns consistency and how that's gonna effect animation and vfx departments.
K
So what.
Something that didn't exist now does because of an idea in your head.