AI art won’t replace artists. Here's why.

Self portraits have gone robot, did you hear? AI image apps like Lensa, Luminar and artsio that create “magic avatars” have been all over social media recently, but are they stealing from artists or doing what the inspired human brain does, just faster?
Read more about Creative Commons licenses: creativecommon...
Commission a Gung Ho Family Crest (my friend Sophie's work I showed in the video)*: www.gungholond...
NY times article I quote from:
'What makes the new breed of A.I. tools different, some critics believe, is not just that they’re capable of producing beautiful works of art with minimal effort. It’s how they work. Apps like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are built by scraping millions of images from the open web, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns and relationships in those images and generate new ones in the same style. That means that artists who upload their works to the internet may be unwittingly helping to train their algorithmic competitors.’
www.nytimes.co...
*the gifted disclaimer here is that Sophie is my friend, and did the design for us as a gift, BUT I paid for the printing of the scarf :)
JOIN THE GUMPTION CLUB: / thegumptionclub
Being in the club means you get: a free weekly podcast, access to a secret facebook group, a free poetry collection and play written by me, access to livestreams AND you get to access to all my videos before anyone else sees them!
BUY my poetry collection, BARGAIN BIN ROM-COM! linktr.ee/barg...
// COME AND HANG WITH ME IN BETWEEN UPLOADS //
IF NEWSLETTERS ARE YOUR THING, sign up to get a little letter in your inbox from me once in a while! As a thank you for signing up, you’ll get a FREE downloadable list of my best books of all time: leenanorms.sub...
INSTAGRAM: / leenanorms
TWITTER: / leenanorms
I use Octopus Energy which are a clean green sustainable energy company - if you're in the UK and are curious, here are the two videos I talk about them in:
• My London flat failed ... and • 1 year to go zero-wast...
And here's my referral link if you'd like to get £50 off (I get £50 off too, woo!) share.octopus....
All music used is licensed through Epidemic Sound - I've been using them for years and hand-on-heart it's really fab. You get unlimited use of their music per month for a pretty bargain fee. Here's my referral link (if you sign up through it I get a free month): www.epidemicso...
If you're a company that makes plastic-free products, pays their tax and doesn't exploit people, I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to sponsor the channel: [e-mail]

[@ZaydaFleming]

As an artist, I would love being able to give my work away. If we had UBI I would create and give away my art in a heartbeat. I would embroider people’s clothes and do decorative clothing repair for free too. I love the idea of AI art being a tool that artists could train on their own work to help inspire new pieces and break artist block. However, the reality right now is that no one consented to the use of their images in this way and people are stealing individual artist’s work to train their own AI generators to make work that looks like that specific artist. If these companies had paid artists to create a stock images portfolio for their AI to learn from and sample, and in the metadata of each image included credit to the original pieces sampled and the prompts used by the person using the AI - I would be all for it. But at this point we don’t know how protected artists will be. And the thought that someone might steal images of my work that I posted to Instagram to share my work and market my skills, feed them into an algorithm to spit out something approximating my work, and I won’t get credit or payment for any of it… it’s like they are stealing part of my soul and I feel sick to my stomach every time I see one of these images. I understand the appeal, but in terms of accessibility- the amount people are paying for these apps to generate these images could be spent on a digital art app and the person could take one of their own selfies, watch a couple free tutorials on YT and make one themselves. It would take time and effort, and the end result might not be what they were aiming for - but at least they would be making decisions and it wouldn’t be stealing someone else’s labor. At the end of the day, in a perfect world I could share my work and have my needs met. But in our capitalist society, we don’t question why we pay the lawyer as much as they charge for their education and skill - so why do we feel like we are owed art when it takes years to develop those skills when we arguably need and consume art on a far more regular basis than we need the skills of a lawyer or dentist or auto mechanic or plumber. My work has value, my time has value, and AI art cannot make the decisions I make to create work that is meaningful. I already hated soulless big box store mass produced art, but AI art takes it to a whole new level of soulless-ness.

[@gamewrit0058]

Well said! ❤️👍 If you're interested, the Jazza and Shadiversity channels (they're brothers and artists) recently posted videos on how they and their teams can use AI alongside their more traditional art processes (Dec. 2022) - and Jazza invites feedback and discussion about AI generated art on his platforms. Wishing you luck, love, and a prosperous 2023! 🍀💜

[@vallentinac9513]

THIS.

[@leenanorms]

totally! And love the idea of an artist using it on their own work to inspire more ideas, that would be so cool.

[@sarahnelson8836]

I think targeting it to one person’s work would be illegal under current copyright depending on the way the courts bounce but I agree there’s nothing in the technology that’s morally bad on its own. In fact I think the AI and/or the programmer is also an artist

[@PasscodeAdvance]

So true, if anyone wants to use AI Art it should be trained ethically and used for personal reasons

[@frida3025]

“Am I hot?” Yes Leena. Yes you are for sure!

[@hierismail]

At first I thought 'wow, what a fun gimmicky thing to do. I do not desire to have a portrait, but fun that people I know/follow get to share theirs.' I realized afterwards that the AI uses "old" work from artists. work that is available online, in some shape or form, but maybe had a watermark on it? I'm not saying an AI isn't allowed to get inspiration like a human gets inspiration. What I am worried about is that this AI doesn't really need to spend any more time to create thousands of 'new' pieces of art, doesn't need to pay rent nor eat food. In that way it scares me: it's so cheap, no human artist can compare, and yet it is not sending anything new back into the eather

[@is-yn6jf]

I think for this exact reason it's not a real threat to art as a whole. In the same way AI writing is used for some corporate stuff and some social commentary but hasn't at all replaced authors and journalists, AI art has its place but can never be truly creative or original or personal. It won't replace artists.

[@testosteronic]

These AIs learn what art is by being fed lots of images by the people programming them. A lot of that art is taken without permission. The AI isn't just taking inspiration the way a person would, someone is _knowingly_ taking another person's art without asking and using it to train a computer programme to recreate it

[@sarahnelson8836]

Exactly in a way the AI and the programmer together are an artist but once the programmer releases it and simply provides updates etc then it’s not a complete artist if that makes any sense.

[@sarahnelson8836]

@@testosteronicyou’ve never taken inspiration from someone else’s work or tried to recreate it? Followed a tutorial? Digital art has a fast learning curve/low barrier to entry and an AI is capable of it and technically if a person did the exact same thing (painted someone in someone else’s style) it would not be illegal- some would claim it’s unethical but I don’t think that’s a majority. Here is the real test though if I went to the artist and gave them the same picture would they paint it differently than the AI did having never seen the AIs work? If it’s the same statistically then that’s a good point to make in court- if it’s not then legally there’s not a leg to stand on

[@raapyna8544]

@@sarahnelson8836 You can copy your masters' work in order to learn, but you can't sell those works as your own. However, I think style as intellectual property is not the issue here. You can have a similar style to someone you admire and make name for yourself. That's not wrong. The problem with AI is that it removes workers to be paid from the equation. It takes hundreds of hours of work and doesn't pay for it. Most artists already struggle to make a living wage. How are we going to change that? The AI is learning from social media. It uses social-media-popular features and artstyles. This will be used for social media marketing. That's one art profession that has been on the rise to create more jobs for artists. A company can buy some AI pictures instead for pennies.

[@hannahlock2597]

AI actively steals art from artists to make these images without their consent. Commission work from artists instead and don't buy from ai apps using stolen art.

[@th85489]

Yessss! Was super surprised to see this video ngl

[@EmBean96]

Plz watch the video, she addresses this

[@mydoggotshavedtoday]

Everything is reference on reference. These amalgamations are similar to your favorite writer taking from Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky… what in copywriter law would you like to see?

[@hannahlock2597]

@@mydoggotshavedtoday if someone outright copied the plot from an author they'd be taken to court; you can inspired by someone writing style, what ai is taking is often a style that an artist has taken years to cultivate, rather that taking inspiration from it than a human would do.

[@YV09876]

It's so weird that people say it steals from artists but then I haven't seen one artist showing the work that was copied.

[@neraeid]

my now husband painted a digital portrait of me about a year into our relationship, and it is genuinely one of the most loving and thoughtful gifts I've ever been given. I think artists are rightfully concerned about AI invading their space, but it does make me wonder what that technology will actually be suited best for and how it might impact human art. will people view human art as more valuable because they understand the craft it takes to create? or will that value be washed away the way fast fashion has eroded garment-making? will small artists stop having their work stolen by fashion brands for cheap clothing because they have an alternate way to generate it themselves and avoid lawsuits? there are so many questions at this point, but I think leena hit the nail on the head when she said that art is a form of communication and an act of love. AI might figure out the formula for painting portraits or writing love songs, but those things don't carry as much value when they don't come from someone who really sees us for who we are

[@leenanorms]

That is so lovely about your husband, I wonder from what you've said that maybe there will be a slight erosion of appreciation, but also a move towards commissioning local artists/people you know - because what is special is WHO painted the portrait as well as who is in it. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!

[@sabermeltdown]

I want to be optimistic about AI art, but as someone trying to start up as a full-time freelance illustrator, it's kind of terrifying. Why would someone pay me a living wage if they can get a bot to do it for under a tenner? In an ideal world (not under capitalism lol) I'd share all my art for free, but in reality I have rent and bills, whilst an AI doesn't... It just feel icky to me that companies are out there taking the decades of hard work and training from millions of artists, just to essentially re-sell without permission. Just from the one-off purchases alone I can imagine they've made a huge amount of money. Don't get me wrong; coding and programming are great skills that people deserve to be compensated for doing. But something about the whole model just doesn't sit right with me... At the very very least, I think they should show a database of all the image sources used to generate each piece. I know it wouldn't be perfect with re-posters and such, but it would be a fraction of a start.

[@leenanorms]

Yeah a public database would be a really good start - plus I loved some of the styles this AI generated, if I could find out who they were derivative of, I might well approach them for a real portrait (that has more heart and looks more like me). I wonder if it could improve discoverability and even generate income for artists?!

[@sarahnelson8836]

AI may not have bills but the coders that make them do… and every AI is different and takes time to make and train (they will not all “grow up” well certainly not on the first try) code is a lot more complicated and yet simpler than people make it seem It’s one reason people need to be VERY aware about who is doing the coding and why many engineers like myself feel that “code literacy” is an important skill that should really be taught to more than just us.

[@vallentinac9513]

@@leenanorms ohhh that would be very interesting!

[@harriet.z]

Yep, I haven’t engaged in any AI discussion in a while since the discussion of AI itself is giving me ~trauma~ from my school days, and working in tech, It makes me want to puke my brains out after a full week of work - one simple simple simple thing I’d like to say is that, if the creators ARE making a profit using this technology, it definitely becomes tricky and subjects the creators to legal actions, and I KNOW digital art replies on a medium that actively steals it at the same time due to our ancient copy right laws - the LEAST these technology creators could do, is to cite sources on a list of all the images they scrapped.

[@happytofu5]

I'd recomment focussing on things the AI can not do, e.g. very specific commissions that also include iterations to adjust the artwork to exactly what the customer needs and wants. I don't think that AI art is much different from stock art. If you need something cheap and quick, you already can get that even without the AI. Also, stealing of people's work is also already happening with not much power for the artists. I think the only thing that could make things better would to be to enforce a fund that is filled from the useage or the host of the AI and that goes to the artists somehow.

[@asterismos5451]

I don't really think the "accessibility" argument holds in this case. Art IS accessible. Not every country has free art galleries so those aren't necessarily accessible, but digital art, like this AI, is incredibly accessible. The only part that's not accessible to everyone is having customized, commissioned pieces done, since not everyone can afford that. AI makes that available to everyone, but to the detriment of the artists. It's not OK to give what is essentially unpaid and uncredited labour from artists to people, even if they can't afford to pay for it, because art is work just like any other work, and it has value. This sort of thing is saying that what artists make has no value.

[@raapyna8544]

Right. It takes what artists need (work) and gives to those who don't need it (people who can't afford art). Consuming art is not a need, eating for an artist is a need.

[@heathergretton6827]

Hesitant about watching what I'm sure is interesting commentary about the topic - because I don't want to support the idea of people paying for these images. Artists are rightly very worried about AI training right now, it's pretty serious and I don't think there's a debate about whether they are stealing from artists or not.. they are!

[@vallentinac9513]

Same!

[@xiola]

bumping this.

[@heathergretton6827]

After watching - I agree with a lot of what Leena's saying in the video - and I know Leena stands behind artists and human endeavours (probably more than the average person!). It's just been a lot for us artists the past few weeks - seeing people online jump into AI without a thought, just to see their own face a million ways. Also watching the life's work of our peers be stolen by some particularly awful people, who are feeding the AI those specific references to generate their own "art" to sell. It's obviously a fascinating technological thing.. but it's exploding in a way that's going to harm a lot of careers. I don't think people should be able to use an AI that is trained on copywrighted work, to generate artwork with intent to sell, or to use in any commerical project. And I think people taking generated work and presenting it as their own hand-made work to secure a job, would be both weird (why would you pretend to be something you're not?) and wrong. Appreciate you getting conversation going with the video, just sad about the ways some knobs are using AI - it's hard not to get defensive! :)

[@xiola]

@@heathergretton6827 Good to know :) I do sort of wish she would change the title of the video, so that it was more clear, because these days I actively try to avoid "hate-watching" clickbait, and the angle isn't clear from the intro of the video or the thumbnail either... if the title or thumbnail had some clue about the tone/discussion aspect it might help to avoid so many people commenting before watching.

[@sisifyme]

@@heathergretton6827 automation *will* cause massive widespread loss of jobs, I think we just didn't realize how close that was and art is something we thought would probably be one of those last holdouts. :/ I honestly don't know how I feel about it because separately AI is very exciting, but our society is set up in a way where it now becomes a danger to livelihood under capitalism.

[@paperboundprotagonist]

When I got the email that your new video was available I went "ooooooooooo" loud enough for my husband to hear me over his headphones and look over at me. Your commentary was as thoughtful as ever. It seemed to me that a fair amount of those portraits gave you purple hair. I wonder why.

[@peggychecksitout]

I’m certainly not the first to say this by any means, but I think a real concern with AI art is that, on top of stealing art to make the algorithm work, is that why would a big company (say, a big publisher) pay an artist to create a book cover (who arguably are probably not being paid enough as it is), when they can have someone already employed at their office generate one using this technology. If giant corporations can cut someone else out of the equation to boost their profits, they will, and it does feel like we’ve suddenly veered down this path where a lot of artists might lose out on work because of this AI.

[@shineonsunfish]

This was actually the big one for me. I don’t believe it’s taking that much work from actual artists because I don’t think most random people would pay money for a portrait but instead use the AI. HOWEVER companies would FOR SURE do this instead of hiring artists and graphic designers, and the more we feed into the AI the better it gets and the more likely this becomes.

[@artxlife7236]

Your argument is, as always, exceedingly sound (and I say this as an artist, an art historian, and a graphic designer). Artists for tens of thousands of years have borrowed from others’ styles in order to make something unique, both consciously and far more often unconsciously, which is essentially what the AI is doing AND artists for tens of thousands of years have always said “this new technology is destroying art and destroying my livelihood!” Yet every single time, artists adapt and overcome because humans will always, at the end of the day when the shiny new trend has gone back to the caves, value what other human hands have made. Examples: photography vs painting, bronze vs marble, plastic vs wood.

[@magspies]

So many comments saying AI is terrible, worrying, but it's not really an AI issue…there are actual HUMANS and COMPANIES behind these app/services - coding, payment structures, feeding imagines etc - telling AI what to do. AI is a tool and (legal) guidelines can (with political will) easily be put in place for companies to follow around all this if they don't act ethically themselves. Great video and good to get people thinking.

[@maddy78912]

A lot of what I view as the work of an artist (and indeed what funding bodies like the Arts Council do too) is engaging with communities to create art that is collaborative and accessible. As a community artist AI is pretty inspiring, its ultimately a product of a collaborative human process. It doesn't threaten me because fortunately they have yet to create an AI that can exist in tangible reality beyond the net, and interact with often vulnerable people on a human scale to activate art.

[@MsTinaBinaBallerina]

I also think one of the main draws to having your portrait done is seeing the artist’s perception of you and how they choose to represent it. The AI portraits are cool but they feel really flat and uninteresting to me.

[@saffodils]

Most of the controversy I've heard around AI art is about artists' works being used to train the AI without permission, and the general fear that, like so many other jobs, artists will be automated out of future employment. But I like how this video also looks at art's meaning to people. It reminds me of the Tim Kreider quote, "If we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known." AI isn't at the point of really knowing the subjects of its art.

[@leenanorms]

God, that quote is POWERFUL! I hadn't heard it before, thanks for sharing.

[@sarahnelson8836]

Precisely, AI can learn to listen and respond as well as create but it will not be integrated with a body. At least not for a long time- so it’s ability to feel will be limited. People will always pay for the expression of a feeling- but it’s knowing it was created by a person that people will want. Realistically there is no difference in the digital art (again AI doesn’t have a body) that a person creates vs an AI. None. But much like fine wine people will perceive a difference even if it is not there.

[@hiddenrainbow12]

These last few days I've been seeing a lot of despair among the illustrators I follow on twitter. People are publishing whole books with AI illustrations, making art based on one person's style. The reality is that even if the end product is unique, the basepoint is art being used without the creator's consent. Without their work AI's wouldnt be able to produce it on their own. I've read how the music AIs are much more careful bc copyright laws are more strict in the music business. Automation is inevitable, but one thing is starting with art you own/paid to the creator then fed to the AI and another thing is taking copyrighted art and processing it and making it your own. I think this should be regulated & for example, each artist should consent to their works being used and compensated each time the AI uses their stuff.

[@hannahlock2597]

Pay artists not ai 😤

[@ManonRhale]

Great video, thanks for addressing this issue! I’m a working artist and the whole ai thing has been a total headache, and has totally laid bare peoples attitudes towards artists work. Interested to see how this pans out.

[@claire2088]

I think they should only use images that are consenting to it/in the public domain, I think having a van gogh style picture of your dog is something very different to having a picture that is a rip off of a contemporary artist trying to work and make a living- it's very telling that so many pics have a signature in the bottom right or a watermark over them- they're clearly scouring from artists who are signing their work or trying to protect their work. Hank Green put in a description of one of his characters and got out something with a getty images watermark- which is kinda amusing, but also means they've ripped off enough getty images pictures to get that (and yes getty images is a big company, but everyone who took an image for them is an individual photographer who deserves to be paid for their work). It also matters if it's a commercial product- the instagram ones are relatively high quality and they're charging for it. And that product is exactly the sort of thing people might have previously commisioned an artist to do. and then there's a John Oliver-cabbages story that is a glorious representation of what AI could be- it was hilarious and joyful and not something anyone would ever have commisioned an artist to do (I mean, maybe if someone was really really high). But then not everyone can afford an artist made picture

[@blahsophieblah]

This makes me sad. I feel it just adds to many ways we de-value art/creative professions these days. Creative subjects are often scoffed at in school “ you can’t make a career out of that!” and I’ve never understood it, because it takes so much skill. I have a degree in Graphic Design and the amount of times I’ve heard “it won’t take you long will it?” “It’s a simple change yes?” in various jobs just shows that some people think it’s easy work. With the growth online of things like cheap reusable logos that cost sometimes as little as £5-£20 it become increasingly more hard to charge people for your actual time to create something, because some will question why you can’t do it for less when they can get it so cheaply online. The art in this video wouldn’t exist without drawing from images that real artists created, so it all seems so very morally wrong to me, and may do harm in further de-valuing peoples craft.

[@katherineelee96]

As someone who studies AI ethics, I find it very hopeful that people are really starting to talk about what goes into these models and how little not just the public, but we as engineers, computer scientists, technologists know about what goes into them. Good AI models are trained on thousands if not millions of data points and not only do we almost never check every single one of those points (and I'm guilty of this myself) for accuracy, often there's a level of secrecy around how data is collected, what type of data is collected, whether or not people consent to have their data collected and this is before we talk about things like Amazon Mechanical Turk where data labeling is outsourced to people for far less than minimum wage. I think ethical AI is possible, but I don't think it's possible without also considering the ethics of data collection and aggregation practices.

[@leenanorms]

Yeah that's a great point, and what an interesting thing to study! I've seen a lot of people just say 'nah, it's wrong, stay away', as if ignoring it will stop it from happening? It's here to stay so I think you're right, digging in to the ethics of data collection sounds like a much more logical (all be it, messier) way to go. Thanks for your thoughtful comment! :)

[@seabreeze4559]

@@leenanorms there is also adult AI generated material that is terrifyingly realistic and they can do that to anyone, such things need to be illegal as defamation because they can make you do ANYTHING in videos nowadays with a template video to put your face in, no matter how lewd or abhorrent. It's a type of revenge p-rn and needs to be stopped but nobody is stopping it. They claim it 'doesn't count' because it tweaks features but they use the real person's name and everything. We own the right to our own likeness and CANNOT let it be taken away or for example your face could be used by UKIP for adverts.

[@asterismos5451]

So it turns out you *can* actually make AI programs to use one specific person's art. Which, if you are the artist and want to make a computer draw in your style for you, is pretty cool. But if other people take your art without permission then that's just horrible. Even using someone's art without permission when it's one of hundreds of pieces the AI uses to complete an image is horrible.

[@prettysureitsmaddie2671]

Okay, let's say I pay someone to draw a picture of me in the style of Picasso. They probably take the pic I sent them, looked up a few Picassos then reinterpretted the image I sent them informed by that research. That is all the AI is doing, nothing was stolen or taken.

[@asterismos5451]

@@prettysureitsmaddie2671 It's a bit different there, since Picasso is public domain. I've no issue with that. The problem is someone can decide they like my art style and instead of hiring me to draw their character they can make AI use my style and then they can go and sell prints far and wide as they like without ever crediting me or paying me. And it is stealing, it takes the code of the images and reformats them to make the AI image.

[@prettysureitsmaddie2671]

@@asterismos5451 I agree there are ethical issues with artists being undercut by AIs, but stealing isn't it. If the company paid a human artist and were like "we want it to look like this" and linked your website, is that stealing? The work done is derivative but original. No code is taken from your image, it's not copied or traced it's just referenced.

[@molly-uh1qm]

So you say it’s not copied or traced, just referenced. But the fact is that artists’ copyrighted images have been downloaded and fed into a program. You can compare it to giving a specific brief to a human artist all you want but it’s just inherently not the same thing. The copyright to an artists’ work (at least in the uk) is automatically owned by the artist. To use their images commercially without attaining this copyright from them is, in all other cases, illegal. Just because the file that the AI spat out of the other side of its program doesn’t look exactly like any of the work it used to create it, that doesn’t make it ok for the work to have been taken

[@prettysureitsmaddie2671]

@@molly-uh1qm You download images and feed them into a program (your browser) every time you use google images. Those images are only being used to same extent that they would be if given as an artist's brief. It's not a metaphor, AI art is not reconstituted from existing images. The difference is the scale of what the AI can do vs what a human.

[@anjalibhat14]

Thoughtful video, Leena. I agree - at first glance it seems like AI “steals” in a way all artists do and filters what it finds through a "code," but of course AI code lacks empathy, curiosity, the capacity to love, and a storytelling instinct which most human artists possess in abundance. Human artists (with integrity) are inspired but they develop their own style simply by virtue of their brain, heart, and perspective being different from those of another. These qualities made your friend Sophie’s art so much more meaningful than the AI generated images. The works stolen by the AI contain this meaning because they were originally made by human artists but this meaning cannot be understood by a computer, even if the person who wrote the code was human. The computer is just looking for similarities in order to spit an approximation of a style back. Subsequently, the meaning is lost and the AI image doesn’t celebrate, admire, memorialize, or reflect in the way human created art does. So if that's what we're searching for in a portrait of ourselves - to be remembered, to be celebrated - it doesn't make sense to pay AI when we could be paying a human (who CAN do this, and who also has human expenses to take care of 😅)

[@leenanorms]

absolutely, it's almost comforting that the portraits painted by artists have something extra that can't be replicated.

[@sarahnelson8836]

I respectfully disagree- while these images are of course by a rather limited AI and do have a somewhat flat feeling that’s not necessarily true of future AI. You are right that pattern recognition is how AI learns - but it’s also how people learn. An AI doesn’t have a body and is truly only a “mind” so it’s experience is fundamentally different. But that doesn’t make it so it cannot be trained to understand emotion and more importantly understand how we communicate emotion. Also I believe that the person who created the code also could be considered an artist in that they selected the AI that they liked and felt was doing the best as well as choosing search terms etc. it’s a creation process so I think it can be considered art. It also means that it can learn to listen and respond similarly to a human- if it is a skill of the mind AI can do it. This is why it is *so important* that people understand code and that we have diverse people making code- because it’s naive to think that people won’t create advanced AI but how we do so is very important.

[@beyzanuryldz6848]

@@sarahnelson8836 Pick up a pencil Sarah

[@sarahnelson8836]

@@beyzanuryldz6848 ??? I mean I suppose I could but I’m actually moving from ink to acrylic at the moment and doing some combination work… oh did you assume I’m not also an artist?

[@beyzanuryldz6848]

@@sarahnelson8836 oh why would you do that? Just type in some prompts to fullfil your artistic potential, why are you putting in some effort yourself when you can exploit other people's work for free?

[@minniefawcett331]

Feel like AI starting to be in the realm of art is an overstep - as it took only 17 minutes. This is insulting to artists who work years to perfect their craft and their style. AI can't replicate the level of knowledge and time spent by an artist and is just encroaching on another aspect of human interaction that is only relatable to humans, it will never understand the depth behind a picture to then create ART

[@bflyy]

You are my favourite KZbinr. Always so eloquent and on point! ❤

[@danielaarsena7371]

I have seen a guy online use AI to generate poetry just to experiment and see how it’d turn out. Quite interesting. He would tell it what themes he wanted, the meter and rhyme scheme and even suggest a few rhetoric figures. It created a pretty passable piece.

[@danielaarsena7371]

I found it pretty creepy honestly

[@hannahlock2597]

You say that artists steal but there is a large difference between human made art and ai. The difference is that most artists begin by copying when they are young, but then eventually find their own style, or being inspired by another artist's ideas. Ai cannot do that and actively copies, just like if another artist copied another and passed it off as their own. Some ai 'artists' have been actively stealing artist's work and feeding it into the ai to see if they can "better it". A lot of these ai works can be correlated to a specific artist. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up as a copyright lawsuit at some point.

[@leenanorms]

Yeah I think you're right, definitely lawsuits on the horizon - but I hope it results in a more ethical way we can integrate AI in to culture and our lives, rather than outlawing it all together.

[@hannahlock2597]

@@leenanorms yes definitley I agree, I think artists should be able to opt in or opt of this. If ethically used, you could use it to figure out your own composition etc. But a lot of the ai apps scrape the internet for art and a lot of it is without the artist's consent. I do think theres probably a copyright case on the horizon. A lot of these ai "artists" are also trying to claim copyright on ai art that's clearly been copied from other artists.

[@sarahnelson8836]

AI absolutely can have ideas though… it can combine and create things into something new. And no two AI would develop in exactly the same way- their ability to adapt is what makes them fundamentally different from an algorithm That doesn’t mean that’s how people are using them, but it is possible

[@cherry97girl]

Consent!!! An group of artists who decide that they want people to have access to their work. Use an AI with just their work, including unfinished pieces, sketches and new things that they want to try out and for have a couple of different payment models, a one off selection of work from the AI (say 5), maybe a subscription fee so you can support them (similar to patreon) but then also pages on their work, physical places their work is, digital downloads that you can purchase and links to commissions if they are accepting them. The thing that I think would be good about this is it is a way to connect other artists together with completely different styles, and it would be an true all in one platform. And even though the money from it may be small, it would be regular monthly payments to everyone.

[@maiak3188]

As an artist, AI is very terrifying. There's a very real prospect of the few clients we already have switching to AI for commissions, packaging design, photo editing, etc. so they can pay even less money. Not to mention that we spend YEARS honing our skills and styles only for a computer program to scrape that data from us in a heartbeat and make a non-artist money off of the work WE did. I want the general public to get over their fascination with how "cool" AI art is and how fun it is to play around with it, and realize why we need to value human-made art. You can't automate culture, that's some dystopian shit.

[@sarahnelson8836]

As to your comment about how most of them made you thinner, that’s going to be because the art that gets pulled up in the searches isn’t of a wide range of body types…. Kinda makes you wonder what it does with skin tones. But either of these could be fixed in the AI by adding things to search to get more diversity- it’s a poor decision on the part of the coder who in this case is at least half of the artist. The ones that don’t look like you at all are because your look doesn’t fit the style itself (or at least not the top search results) - which is interesting because a human artist probably would be able to get you ness and the style at one time.

[@isabbygabbyorcrabby]

I have seen AI generated images with those Getty Images watermarks on. I think this could lead to some interesting copyright disputes in the coming years. Yay capitalism ey?

[@dovestone_]

Also is art art if it’s created by AI and not a sentient being?

[@isabbygabbyorcrabby]

@@dovestone_ And if it is art who is the artist? The programmer? The AI itself?

[@desertels5119]

@@dovestone_ According to copyright law, no, this was another issue with NFTs

[@DillyBlue]

On the copyright side of things, I don't understand why these programmes aren't considered in the same category as video games. Video games are coding, but most video games also use an element of illustrative design which the coders had to pay and credit artists and designers for. And if I take a screenshot while playing a video game, I don't think I should be entirely credited with creating that image, I simply captured it. I find it particularly shocking when people claim to have been the artist of a piece of work simply by typing a few words into an image generator. Video games are art, but playing that video games doesn't make me an artist, it makes me the interactive audience. As for people being able to afford to have their portrait done, if people are willing to spend three pounds to get these (mostly inaccurate and rather boring, in my opinion) AI-generated images, I think a lot of people would be surprised at how affordable it can be to get a custom portrait commissioned by an actual human being if they did a little browsing on social media. I found an illustrator whose worked I loved the other day and you could get a simple but very charming and unique custom colour portrait from them for twelve pounds! That's definitely on the cheaper side of things, most prices I see online from digital illustrators is more like twenty or thirty pounds, but isn't that worth saving up for!? The end result, as well as the whole experience, is so much nicer than what you get from using an AI! The human connection is the point! Ultimately, art is something that is done with intention, not a product. Art making may result in an end product, but this is not always the case. Art can be performance, for example. You cannot simply point to something and say, "Well, it looks a bit like that other person's art, therefore it is art." There has to be an intention there. I don't believe code has intention. The coders do. The coders might be the artists in this situation, and the app is the artwork. But they should pay and credit their collaborators aka the illustrators that they are 100% copying from. Let's just say, I'm glad I graduated from studying art theory five years ago before this mess hit because I just know one of the assignments would have been debating my opinion on this via a Powerpoint presentation.

[@leenanorms]

That's so interesting, I didn't know the video game industry already had a model for it. I agree, so much out there that is worth saving up for! Also as an ex-art uni student, SHUDDERING at the thought of essay assignments on this.

[@lenazwarg4437]

Commenting before watching... I was so surprised to see this video from you. Excited to hear what you have to say xx

[@MeldaRavaniel]

I'm really enjoying writers who feed their poetry into an ML algorithm and write poetry by picking the things they like best/sort of editing or curating it. ZoeBee did some poems that way. You might try that with yours, Leena. ☺️

[@leenanorms]

Omg I don't know if I'd love it or be terrified 🙈

[@RosalindPeters]

What’s particularly funny to me is that when you said ‘we need revolution’ at around 4 mins, KZbin let you get as far as ‘revolu-‘ … and then played an ad. It was like a perfectly cut scream of capitalism.

[@leenanorms]

* screams internally*

[@tbrookerart]

Very true that AI 'art' lacks the personal touch and love that an actual human's art does, but to the average person who's just after a nice new profile picture and potentially doesn't really value art anyway, that doesn't matter. All it does is make people value art even less, makes them scoff at the prices we charge for a livable wage, and further insist that our 'talent' is what got us this far and not the years of hard work and training. I believe that if paid AI imagery is accessible to you, then so is paid art. While I don't agree with it, many artists charge not much more than the AI companies anyway, and it doesn't take much to find an artist who works in a style you like at a price you can afford.

[@freyapetersen6087]

This was a lovely video, it had me thinking the last two days! This is what I came up with: I feel like there is this trend: On one one hand, artists are forced to survive in a capitalist system to treat their art like a product. Because in this system, it is. But then, when other people take advantage of artists, steal their "products", and artists complain, they are met with "But it's art, it's culture, it should be for everyone, the rules of capitalism don't apply here". We (artists) are forced to comply to the capitalist viewpoint on our art, without the social understanding that we deserve the "protection" that those system can provide to protect our product (in this case, copyright). And don't get me wrong: I LOVE the potential of AI art - in theory! I would LOVE to give away my art for free! Honestly! But I don't (yet) live in a world where I could do that ... and pay rent at the same time, and matter of fact is: Right now, these AI apps are machines of art theft. Other people make money with our copyrighted work, period. And it makes me incredible sad, honestly. But then I had a second thought: I'm an illustrator, but I am also a writer. And we as writers actually have a system to give away our books for low money/for free, or, in other words, to make them more accessible: Libraries. And I thought, maybe we could invent some similar system for these apps? Some rule that they "borrow" our art in exchange for some kind of government regulated compensation/protection? I have no idea how that could work in practice, but I just thought that it is interesting how I feel a lot better about THIS idea (applying the library-model on other kinds of art); it would be the difference between somebody downloading a book online on some website that stole our work ... and somebody borrowing it from a library. :D Edit: Also all I can think when I see these AI generated paintings is "Instagram filters" lol xD

[@CraigSimmonds]

AI think you look better IRL

[@neon.neutral]

I wonder if there is a public domain sourced portrait making AI...

[@cheryllovestoread]

I’m interested in any thoughts about John Scalzi’s recent words regarding AI generated book cover images.

[@rainygreymornings]

I enjoyed your thoughts on this a lot! I felt the same way about the portraits-they’re gorgeous (except what was happening with your fingernails in one of them??😱😅), but there’s also a sense of the slightly uncanny, an unspecific unease about the fact that these images ape that “being seen” while you know they’re actually… soulless? Anyway, @itsdivya has a cool video on AI generated art too that I think you might enjoy? Lots of love!

[@RosalindPeters]

Such a fab lil video essay Leena ❤

[@gloriaash7511]

I’m not sure why so many people are mad at this video. She says many times that people who do the art should get compensation. She also points out all the things she doesn’t like. People being too snarky in this comment section. She is obviously doing the best she can and no one can please everyone all the time. Interesting video all round.

Plenty of them have admitted outright that they haven't watched the video.

[@ane3sha]

this subject is super touchy rn

[@leenanorms]

haha aw thanks Gloria! Don't worry, I'm used to people not watching the video and instead clapping back at what they * think * I might say. I don't reply to them because they're not really responding, so it's not productive for me to respond back. It doesn't bother me anymore, just the nature of being on the internet. Always more upsides than down ;)

[@zZizify]

Seeing as the Scottish land selling firm is a scam, I'm glad you denied them.

[@leenanorms]

it's so wild!

[@whimsyandwoe]

Hi! I think it's super possible this video would have gone over a lot better with a lot of the folks who are upset if maybe you hadn't posted the portraits you had generated! I know for myself, I knew you were going to be doing a critical video about AI art but seeing those images on the cover photo definitely made me stop and have a lot of question marks in my head! It's a tricky situation, because the point can be made that you're using the portraits to further emphasize many of your points - and that's valid! It's also valid that this could have been made without the images, because using the AI art in this video can still be viewed as perpetuating the idea that you did it and you now know better but at the same time you already did it so 'the damage has been done' - it's tough! I adore you, I adore your content, and I'm glad that you've cultivated a community where thoughtful conversations between you and your viewers can happen in a productive way!

[@heathergretton6827]

Yeah that's what I was thinking too, knew it would be a thoughtful video. Just the title/portraits made me feel the need to comment before I watched. It's a contentious subject I guess. Some people are okay with it and some people are against using it.

[@unninspiriert]

AI is powerful but it is only as powerful as the data it is made of. If the data is biased, so is the AI. And it is impossible for the data not to be biased because it is created by us humans. I think we shouldn't be afraid of using AI and accept it as part of human progress. But as with any technology, we need to keep in mind and learn the implications that go along with it.

[@leenanorms]

I agree, it's definitely not going away - improving the data Ai learns from and how it's sourced seems to be the best way forward.

[@BCY88]

an idea would be to hire a bunch of artists and make a video about that process and the process of art making. The difficulties and learning one takes to make it

[@leenanorms]

That would be cool! Although I do think there's already a whole genre of documentaries and social media videos about the process of making art - the problem perhaps is that people aren't watching them, or aren't being exposed to the labour that goes in to what they use at an early age. Maybe something for the curriculum?!

[@BCY88]

@@leenanorms there are a lot of those but not from the perspective of someone who doesn't draw often? Maybe an interview to get the thought process and perspective of them? I dunno

[@leenanorms]

@@BCY88 haha that might not be me then, I draw pretty often and did 1/2 an art degree, plus I illustrated my own book this year so I'm definitely in the realm of 'artist' myself, in some capacity at least

[@cariiinen]

Fun experiment and interesting thoughts!

[@lolsous]

I can see in some cases where AI portraits can make people more interested in commisioning art for an artist along the line, when they want something more unique. But yeah, I also see how covers for books and many more marketing things will be done or aided by cheap AI. That is not going to be fun for current artist, just like the industrial revolution was not fun for a lot of people who got their jobs taken away, and not unlike the automation of the production industry currently happening. The upside is that we are increasing the possibility for a society where we work less, because so much is automated, but that obviously requires some political reforms for most/all countries.

[@SleuthySocks]

What are people going to do if anything creative is automated?

[@xXNekou]

I paid this app before I learnt it's stealing art off artists without their consent. Now I feel BAD

[@hammerandthewrench7924]

As an artist I like AI for only run reason. Creative Art Prompts. It's more than just "Draw an apple or your room." I can tell GPT to "Give me 100 drawing prompts in a fantasy setting that convey a story about dragon and a clan of faries trying to save a magic forest." Albeit, the prompts can get quite generic, but every once in a few, it gives an idea that sparks something. It think it can help art block; and people who have a hard time visualizing material objects in their mind. Once regulation kicks in and the copyright stuff is sorted out; I think there will be a better balance where AI is actually a tool for creatives and not a replacement. the barbaric claim that it "democratizes art" when art is already a very liberating a free form of expression lol.

[@corriehughes1338]

Thanks for making this video, I had no idea this was going on!

[@marinavilela6303]

Here's my two cents as a translator: when machine translation first came out, translators had the same reaction as artists are having right now, but since translation is a very invisible profession, the general public mostly saw MT as a good thing, even though the process is very much the same, it learns through analyzing previous human-made translations. To this day there are translators that still hate machine translation, but it's very clear that it's not going anywhere, and most translators that I know are adapting to it and actually using it to help our work instead of trying to fight it. There are also some translations that cannot be done with MT, so human translators are still necessary. I think that trying to fight it, although understandable, is pointless, and it is better to try to see it as a new way of making art, a different "technique". I don't believe human-made art is going anywhere because of AI art, and I know people who are using it to illustrate their small business board games, for example, as they would not be able to afford to pay for an artist to do it, and artists using it to try out concepts and composition for their own art, so there is a good side of it as well. Anyway, just my opinion. Totally agree with you on the beauty standards aspect of the portraits!

[@leenanorms]

that is SUCH an interesting comparison - I think to an extent most professions have had or will soon have an 'automation' revolution - it's just HOW they adapt that matters, and most importantly, accepting that they must. Thanks so much for sharing, that's given me lots to think about!

[@sofske2553]

just had a lecture about ai, dall-e and such this monday; very interesting concept but since there's currently no rules/laws around it, it's just really harmful to artists all over great video!

[@loopywithoutlucozade]

surely just pay the artists AI generators steal from? you can make a video about AI art without contributing to this?

[@erinnorris]

It does concern me that there's no way to opt out of your art becoming robot inspiration - but maybe that's also a larger conversation about art/capitalism and how inescapable social media and the internet have become for artists - it's almost a requirement for artists to promote themselves online to find success. I'm not worried about AI taking the place of traditional hand artists though. I'm a graphic designer so I maybe have a bit of a different perspective than someone who is primarily a painter or illustrator but I think ultimately we're going to see stuff like this become more of a tool for creating art and less of a creator of art in and of itself. I've heard of a lot of designers starting to use AI art models to create cool and unique images that can then be further manipulated or used as a component part of other designs, which feels pretty inspiring to me. It seems often when new creative technologies emerge (looking back at digital photography, for example) there's often a panic that it's going to create obsolescence, but I think the beauty of creativity is that different forms of art can coexist

[@elsik2332]

I got a bus home from central London earlier today and noticed this wonderful sign above the entrance of a building tucked slightly off the main road. The place was called BenevolentAI. Sure Jan......

[@80apocryphal13]

This was a really illuminating video. I don't know what answers to this might look like, but I think we're approaching the point where we're seeing a lot more clearly defined disadvantages than we do advantages as technology integrates with more industries. I know we need more regulation, but it seems the tech outpaces the knowledge in such a way that the few people who understand it have a vested interest in it because they're often creators; the real fix would probably be restructuring systems in such a way that tech companies have ethics as a major consideration at each step of the process, but there's almost no way to actually standardize that and it's not really viable with the mindset of endless growth. Realistically, I think it's just going to create another shift in how working artist operate and the viability of it as an option, since we can't unspill the milk; even if people stopped posting artwork online, there's so much readily available that it could keep in line with what's popular for a while. From a business standpoint, I think the frustrating thing is that how you operate (personal branding, media presence) is going to matter more and more and your skill less; if AI can fake it, there are only so many people that will be inclined to or discerning enough to seek out the real thing. It'll be more accessible, but I imagine it'll go the way of clothing, where the amount of people who know how to do certain things will see a steady decline from here on out as the cheap version of things becomes more widely available.

[@rixatrix]

I’ve been off Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for several months now, just for my mental health. I got a notification on IG the other day and went to check it and saw these AI portraits and it felt really…uncanny. Kind of disturbing, actually, and I can’t put my finger exactly on why that was my gut reaction. I just know that once I stepped out of those communities, my sense of what is normal or interesting shifted back to a very different place and now dropping in on social media just highlights everything artificial or kind of creepy about it.

[@Yahoodoraze]

The way I see it, everything aesthetically pleasing about each of these paintings, the style and technique and colour choices, has come from an artist living in the world that may or may not know their art is being used. The glitches, wonky eyes, inaccuracies etc. comes from the computer because it cannot see you like another person can. They are not interpretations or style choices, they are errors. The AI only works because it can gather mostly stolen data, art that already exists made by artists who have trained and put time and love and money into their work and who mostly have not consented. Without the database, it couldn’t generate these images - but a person could. I don’t think it’s inherently bad that the robots can draw now, but as an illustrator, our skills are already undervalued. A lot of us already struggle to get payed a living wage and we all know if big companies can cut corners, they will.

[@Yahoodoraze]

That’s not to mention some of the artists who have spoken out because they found their art was being used to train AI against their will, and subsequently been bombarded with hateful comments

[@paigedurmis8026]

The fact that the ai (trained using real art)changed some of your features really goes to show how many actual artist only draw the beauty standards

[@kahkah1986]

what's actually worrying me is that I look like the painting on the left, and now I'm concerned we were separated at birth or something...

[@beckyharris2621]

Leena stated it's time for revolution right before the ad told me "Go on! Reach high!"

[@mouseluva]

You really hit the nail on the head with this video. I couldn't work out why AI art feels so blah to me, but now I realise it's because it's emotionally flat. The AI creates a very pretty image of your face, but it doesn't create an artwork about you. Behind the dubious morality of how the AIs function, the world would be poorer purely for losing the emotional depth that can only happen in human-made art.

[@Charlotte-hv6ll]

Leaving a comment for the algorithm

[@lhylliannacrotford]

Here, consent is key. Is the artist okay with their art being filtered through an AI? To what extent? Are they happy for the AI to store what it learns from their art for future projects? For how long? How much of their work? In terms of payment, perhaps a percentage of the the AI owner’s fee or relative to their usual charge, like a royalty. The idea behind these AIs is really cool, but the non-consensual side of it is not. Public domain images only until all untangled would be the best call.

[@brittanymcmcmc9730]

If a human isn't allowed to directly copy someone else work and claim as their own (whether that be an amalgamation of many pieces or a direct stealing of someone elses art - these are things that we can report other humans for doing online) I don't believe an AI should be able to either. You are right in assuming that what the AI is doing is similar to what our brains do...but you're also right that it is actually different. The amazing thing about art is that depending on skill level, training, background, and even your mood, when studying someone else's work you cannot directly copy it. There is always something even after studying a piece that makes what you created your own. If you're trying to hard to look like someone else's work it always feels like something is missing from the piece of art in question. That is how the AI artwork feels to me, it's trying too hard to be someone else's work without doing the work themselves to actually make something original. As someone who has been a fan for a few years now I'd love to do an actual portrait of you, Leena!

[@josefineee8794]

This really reminded me of the movie "Portrait of a lady on fire". Those two women first need to build a relationship before Marianne can really portrait Hèloïse. The turning point of the movie is when they noticed that not only has Hèloïse been seen, she also really saw Marianne. I think the movie portraits the relationship between artist and muse really well :)

[@leenanorms]

Oh I hadn't heard of that but just looked up the trailer and it sounds spot on! Straight on my netflix watch list, thank you so much.

[@rosea570]

A portrait is not just about being 'seen' in a visual sense. A portrait should also convey something deeper about their subject. I don't think AI can achieve this deeper meaning; it is something that can only be found in the relationship between the artist and the subject.

[@nyxarama]

I wish you hadn't paid for the images, even if it was just for this video. We all know an AI would fall short, was it really necessary to do it for this video? why humor this idea of computers making "art"? I would have rather seen more examples of what commissioning real people can do. Commissioning an artist goes beyond just what one can get from an artist. it means the artist can keep making their work. can feed their family. can pay bills.

[@liv97497]

I'm not an artist, but I think an ethical platform would at the very least be something like music streaming - you need an agreement/permission from the artist to have their work on your platform/your app and they earn every time their art gets used as a reference. Now, of course there's a bigger discussion on whether music streaming even is fair to the artists but I'd imagine it just can't be anything less than that.

[@harriet.z]

People are greedy - they demean creative people but in the end they are visual, and enjoy visually interesting things, and have the urge to possess visually beautiful things. A trained neural network have an easier time processing texts than pixels, and probably can spit out novels and books just as easily as these AI Portraits. But no, we don’t see people taking an intrinsic interest in reading an AI written novel, but that never got ppls knickers in a twist. No one really was threatened because we realize no one was interested in reading something dead. somehow arguing they love the AI work in the visual art form, specifically, while STILL trivializing the artists at the same freaking time! The cognitive dissonance! And most of all, that disrespect toward arts are the main reason why the art community felt like it’s at its last straw. The only difference is because we like to look at and feel OWNERSHIP to those beautiful things ( and hey, especially beautified portraits of OURSELVES ).

[@TheAshleybruno]

Oh no Leena we hate this. AI steals from artists.

[@janeshore1838]

I pretty much accepted the fact that AI and tech have already taken over the world. What we could do is what we always did - adapt and turn it into advantage. Creativity is something that no AI can ever take away. AI can mimic but it won't be able to create anything actually new. And we could use its soullessness to delegate those parts of work that are routine, boring, repetitive and bring us no joy.

[@leenanorms]

YES

[@taniaojr]

Damn, you're wise!

[@meremeth]

Hmm, do people realise a human made the AI? They're selling the use of a program they made, thats how apps work. AI takes from everywhere, it's the same with language learning, why is it so different with images? I don't think AI art will ever replace art made by a human. Its already an interesting tool, but I think it's something different than art bought from a person.

[@CosyPosy]

Then it redirects the funds that would have gone to 100 artists to the one human who made the AI trained on their uncompensated work.

[@SleuthySocks]

Anyone reading please do more research. AI art is so much more complicated. Do we not think companies are trying to eliminate artist as a profession? Apps like discord are now becoming AI training devices. They’re forcing us to feed the machine and feel like we enjoy it. I’m worried about getting to the point when we can’t tell the difference between a real photo and a generated photo. Deep fakes and AI voices are getting scarily real. This is honestly a terrifying nightmare. You ask what we ideally want. I want us to appreciate and value art and real artists work more than wealthy people’s new cash grab toy

[@katiesmith4843]

Pay artist not computers

[@rebeccagoode3433]

Have you tried the AI writing tool? It's so bizarre. Sometimes goes a bit hectic after the first verse but the first bits are often actually very good. But obviously because it's been "copied" from lots of actual human writers..

[@rowanredwood9316]

great video do you hear that algorithm

[@leenanorms]

haha thank you x

[@EmilyElementsASMR]

AI is just pure capitalism.

[@PeopleCallMeBiscuit]

I feel like you've massively underplayed the value of humanly essence here. Would poems written by GPT or other AI resonate with readers in the same way? Do they matter as much? I think the most interesting art coming out of AI is artists treating AI tech as a collaborator and co-creating together. Personally, AI generated images will never be art just as AI generated writing will never be essays, poems, or stories in the way that I want and expect to relate to those literary forms.

[@luke28]

Am I...HOT?! I can relate to this bafflement hahaha

[@evelynjozsa4860]

Absolutely hate the idea of AI generated art and writing. In this age of online media, for many artists and writers, it was easier to make a living, but now AI is taking that away. People are just a tool to help train AI to create cheaper and faster content. There’s going to be so much junk on the internet (not that there isn’t already).

[@leenanorms]

Yeah you're right about the volume of junk. I wonder if there could be a way to label something as verified 'made by a human' and give people the option to filter out the AI generated stuff? Transparency and options would definitely decrease the noise.

[@_kaleido]

@@leenanorms I think that’s already a thing on art sites like Pixiv

[@rorrt]

To use AI generated music as a comparison to AI paintings. All AI music generators, as far as I know, or have bothered to do research on have deliberately used work from the public domain and royalty free. Which I think is fair. And most definitely removes the risk of a lowly music maker being stung by a juggernaut using AI which sounds, kind of similar or the same to the original artist who deserves to be compensated. But in an AI world, probably won't. That said, music copyright is black magic which no body quite understands. I think if the AI art generators trawl the internet for art done by dead artists.. Or something. That miiiiight be better? Certainly for this type of thing.

[@sallys.2707]

I completely missed this AI portrait thing. But also I'm totally non interested in AI, so maybe that's why 🤣

[@indiasinkwell4492]

Ignoring the massively problematic theft side of thing - aren't people now talking about the fact that they now own the images you uploaded and are having issue with ai creating overly sexualised images including making child pornography

[@RapidObsessor]

or you could pay an artist

[@davelewis8270]

Socialism does not just mean sharing. Given that you read so much so you not think you could read some theory?

[@tmc4642]

The gurgling goo transitions, Leena. 🤢