The End of Art: An Argument Against Image AIs

[progressoid]

Follow The Concept Art Association for further news on organizing against AIs, and check out their recent AI town hall video: https://www.youtube.com/c/ConceptArtAssociation

Equity is fighting against AIs replacing many kinds of artists, their efforts are relevant to all creatives and they have good resources here: https://www.equity.org.uk/getting-involved/campaigns/stop-ai-stealing-the-show/

Know more organizations going against the AIs? Send me links at: stevensketches (at) gmail.com

A transcript of this video is available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/128yey0VfYhM9eUdvkvCpk5zvvoIkqXfI4hEPAYeJCHU/edit

A site to investigate just one of the LAION data sets to see if you or your art are in there. A note that this site offers to sign you up for a future opt-out product- I have no idea what the nature of that product will be and would urge caution: https://haveibeentrained.com/

Open AI explaining how they invented their legal structure because nothing else worked for them: https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp/

Stable Diffusion release info with no mention of “artists”: https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-announcement

Imagen release info that explains how the data set it is trained on is “uncurated” and contains “a wide range of inappropriate content including pornographic imagery, racist slurs, and harmful social stereotypes.” This is another page you should do a ctrl-f search for “artist” on: https://imagen.research.google/

Dance Diffusion explanation: https://wandb.ai/wandb_gen/audio/reports/Harmonai-s-Dance-Diffusion-Open-Source-AI-Audio-Generation-Tool-For-Music-Producers--VmlldzoyNjkwOTM1

Example of private medical imagery being used to train the AI: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ad58k/ai-is-probably-using-your-images-and-its-not-easy-to-opt-out

A great article summarizing the data laundering techniques of AI companies: https://waxy.org/2022/09/ai-data-laundering-how-academic-and-nonprofit-researchers-shield-tech-companies-from-accountability/

California Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo writes OSTP urging investigation into unsafe AI release models, namely Stable Diffusion: https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/eshoo-urges-nsa-ostp-address-unsafe-ai-practices

The best non-technical explanation I’ve seen on how diffusion models work: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRHrUyDM/

A good semi-technical explanation of how diffusion models like Stable Diffusion work:

&t=0s

I did the drawing for this video, “Prey For A Spiritual Creature” on 18”x24” Strathmore bristol paper. From imagination for the sheer love of drawing!

Special thanks to my wife for her help editing the script, to my Patrons for their support, to my friends on my Discord for links, expert info, and first reactions, and to those who get the course, of course.

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. AI and programming.

I know next to nothing about AI programming, and I am not an artist, but I strongly encourage anyone who can find a good AI imaging application to experiment, play, and work with one. I use a number of AI imaging apps, all of which are a wonder to behold, IMO. My appreciation is in the creation of these apps. It takes extraordinary creative and technical skill to make an application such as Studio Artist (from Synthetik), or any of the others I've tried from the Topaz Group. I use my own photographs as original baseline imaging, then, especially in Studio Artist, alter the image (a "synthesis&quot to make something not quite like an edit, but more like a creation of a very new image. I've done hundreds of these images and post them on Facebook, send them to friends, and otherwise, compile a database of images that can be displayed as digital artwork. Perhaps in the near future, I'll create a business plan for selling them.

What I discovered by using AI for imaging and artwork is how difficult and amazing it is for handmade artwork to be created by conventional artists. Artists develop skills that I can only dream of. But what is also a significant accomplishment is the creation of software that can make images that have real human appeal by the use of a computer. AI is NOT phony. It's not less than human. Indeed, it's entirely human: made by ingenious programmers who are, in their own right, artists themselves.

[progressoid]

3. I think we're talking about two different things.

Studio Artist seems more like a modification software similar to Photoshop plugins that you can manipulate (I use those). The AI this guy is talking about is a different animal - Images that are created via text input software like Dall E, Midjourney, Jasper Art etc. with minimal to no creative input from the operator.

What makes it worse is that the software companies will make tons of money copying the creativity of artists, while the artists get nothing. Kelly Mckernan recently found out that she was one of 400 artists whose style was copied to create the AI app Stable Diffusion. She wrote about it recently:

What a time to be a career artist, huh? ☄️ *rolls up sleeves* ok darlings, I’ve got a platform and I’m using it: if you haven’t been following my stories, my art has been trained on by AI without my consent or compensation. For some reason, I was one of the first 400 artists stable diffusion’s tech bros chose to train their database with.

At first it was exciting and surreal, now it’s nauseating and devaluing. I’ve since discovered nearly all of my artwork shared online since 2010 through haveibeentrained.com. I’ve been shown my own art regurgitated into “new” artwork (all I see is uncanny valley, tbh). I’m credited along with the legendary @yoshitaka_amano on the Wikipedia page for AI art as a “style prompt.” I’m getting tagged in image prompts and met with indignation when I request my name removed. And now many feel comfortable profiting from these images with others happy to pay! wtf y’all??

To me, much of this is unethical. It *feels* violating. No, I will not argue on it in the comments, but I do wish to make my position clear in my statements. I’m incredibly anxious for the future of my career, more than ever before. Further, I’m concerned for the future of human creativity.

Current art students are discouraged from continuing to study; professors don’t know what to tell them; emerging artists are feeling hopeless and giving up. The gaslighting and disrespect shown toward artists by those who believe they’re entitled to use this exploitative tech has been incredibly disheartening.

Please don’t support the unethical use of AI image generators while thousands of artists are infringed upon. Demand better, and please keep speaking out! If artists can’t defend the use of their names and artwork, what have we got left?

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl7P387ulUh/

An AI-Generated Artwork Won First Place at a State Fair Fine Arts Competition, and Artists Are Pissed

A man came in first at the Colorado State Fair’s fine art competition using an AI generated artwork on Monday. “I won first place,” a user going by Sincarnate said in a Discord post above photos of the AI-generated canvases hanging at the fair. 

But Allen did not paint “Théâtre D'opéra Spatial,” AI software called Midjourney did. It used his prompts, but Allen did not wield a digital brush. This distinction has caused controversy on Twitter where working artists and enthusiasts accused Allen of hastening the death of creative jobs. 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmvqm/an-ai-generated-artwork-won-first-place-at-a-state-fair-fine-arts-competition-and-artists-are-pissed

[brush]

2. IMO AI programs renderomg visual images...

using reference material from opt-in artists[ who get a royalty for each use as paid in the music industry, sure. OK.

As an artist myself though and knowing what it is to create original work, such AI-generated images seem NFT-adjacent and are of considerably lesser value than an original, one-of-a-kind piece created by a human hand and sprung from a human mind.

[LostOne4Ever]

4. I fear this is the beginning of the end for most commercial art

What company is going to pay a concept artist when you can get the same exact thing plugging a prompt into a program for almost nothing?

What is worse is they did it by taking copyrighted art without permission and stuck it into these data sets under the cover of non-profits… intending to use them for profit along.

I just hope copyright laws catch up to these corporations and preserve careers of people just pursuing their dream!

[highplainsdem]

5. Don't know if this reply will kick a thread this old, but here's a new article

from Politico...which is interesting because Jason Allen, whom you mentioned in reply 3, thinks the prompt he used to create that painting is so valuable it can't be revealed and should be protected by copyright, but the copyright process would require his revealing it. No such concern for real artists whose work is ripped off. I have to wonder, too, if his precious prompt named one or more real artists whose style he was ripping off via AI for "his" art.

https://www.politico.eu/article/artificial-intelligence-technology-art-regulation-copyright/

When Allen won the fine art competition, he infuriated illustrators, but he upset prompt writers too. By deciding not to reveal the words he used to create his artwork, he breached what had by then become an unwritten rule of the online AI art community. “I originally said I was going to publish the prompt when I was finished with my project,” Allen said. “I’ve since learned better: It’s like asking a chef to release his secret recipe.”

Even if a prompt is not guaranteed to return the same result every time it’s used, Allen said he had devised a general structure — a “seed” — able to consistently deliver images with a characteristic vibe. Like Vincent van Gogh, Allen’s seed won’t always create identical paintings; but like van Gogh, the image it generates will share a signature je-ne-sais-quoi. “It’s a high-value prompt,” he said. “That’s something people are searching for.”

Allen said he was talking to a lawyer to explore ways to protect his intellectual property, not only of the artwork, but of the prompt too. While he declined to disclose details, Allen said that copyrighting his prompt would “definitely be a possible direction we could take.” But he worried that the process might require sharing the prompt publicly. “It’d be in the public domain,” he said. “It’d be basically telling everyone not to think of an elephant.”

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6. Wow.

Thanks for this article. Sobering.

It's a tad ironic (and hypocritical) that Mr. Allen wants to copyright the prompts he used in software that steals from other artists.

I'm glad artists are fighting back. But part of me thinks that we're trying to shut the barn door after the horse has bolted. And I am concerned about what this will do to us on a more human level. As Karla Ortiz said at the end of the article, art as “a visual conversation between one human and another human.” AI art greatly diminishes the human aspect IMHO.

[highplainsdem]

7. You're welcome. I've been posting a lot about AI because of the harm

Last edited Tue Feb 21, 2023, 10:06 AM - Edit history (1)

it could do.

Here's how it's affecting writers:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217666418