WotC So it seems D&D has picked a side on the AI art debate.

[doctorbadwolf]

This is all fascinating stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with my argument.

I’m well aware that we don’t really know how machine “learning” algorithms make the decisions they make (which is another reason we shouldn’t be using them, but again, tangent). Regardless, they are still ultimately assembling pieces from the human-created art seed art. You cannot have AI-generated content without a large database of human-generated content to “train” it on. So, again, it is ultimately a tool designed to generate value from the existing products of human labor, without having to compensate the humans who did that labor. If you want to quibble over whether the word “theft” is an accurate way to describe that, whatever. It’s unethical, regardless of what you call it.

Ok?

No. It’s an automated collage machine, nothing more. I don’t ask permission from time magazine before cutting out pieces of an issue to use in a collage.

I don’t ask Pepsi before I take their logo taken from a thousand soda cans and use it in a piece to mock corporate America.

I still think it's less about ethics in art and more about the justified fear of losing one's livelihood, which, while tragic for those affected, has happened many times throughout history (like photography making portraits more widely available). Many jobs done by programmers today might also become automated in the future.
Similar to Poser art, it gives less artistically talented people a way of expressing themselves, even if the results can be somewhat lacking.

It’s a really interesting tool, and could seriously lower the bar to entry for a lot of people who get too frustrated at that initial hill when learning to make art. It also will eventually be able to apply art technique to take my crappy drawing and some verbal descriptive inputs and redraw the image “correctly”. That application is really just a combination of a bunch of existing tech that haven’t been combined yet.

I feel like people are getting taken in by terms like “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning.” These algorithms are not actually intelligent and do not actually learn. They function in a fundamentally different way from human brains. You don’t need arguments about souls or even consciousness, algorithms work differently on a process level than human brains (or, for that matter, any other animals’ brains) do.

I don’t think anyone is getting taken in by any of that, actually. Folks just disagree with your conclusion.

 

[Clint_L]

I’m not saying humans don’t build on existing knowledge (or existing art). I’m saying they can create art without drawing on existing art, which algorithms cannot. The fact that art exists at all is proof that humans can create art without drawing on existing art.

I am not making any claims about who owns art generated by algorithms. I said several pages back, that’s a complex legal question that I have no answer to. I am talking about the ethics of how those algorithms function, not about legal ownership.

Yes, it’s art, and it isn’t unethical.

Your hypothetical neighbor may be imitating Frank Frazetta’s style, but they are still using their own brain, their own experiences, and their own learned skills to accomplish that task. While it may or may not resemble a Frank Frazetta piece, it is still fundamentally your neighbor’s creation. That’s not how algorithms work. They do not have brains, they do not have experiences, they do not have learned skills. They are (admittedly very complex) mathematical formulas that sample art without the knowledge or permission of the artists, and recombine that art. An artist may think about other art that inspires them or that they wish to imitate, but they are ultimately always interpreting that art through their own lens. An algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art. It can only reproduce other art.

Your argument keeps leaving the human out of the process of creating AI art. When I make a request, I add intentionality and creativity. In the example I gave, the situation was the same - I was effectively using the artist as an instrument to achieve my design. The outcome was the same - another artist's work was studied and more or less mimicked, with variations according to my instructions. Your issue seems to not be with the studying and mimicking, but with the fact that it was done by a human rather than a machine. In this way, your argument seems similar to that advanced by Luddites against mechanical looms - that it is simply unethical to have a machine do a job formerly done by humans.

Your final two points, "an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art. It can only reproduce other art," are problematic. The first, that an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art, is only partially correct. It cannot think, but I can, and I am the one giving it instructions - the "lens through which to interpret art." And it demonstrably can do more than reproduce art. Here's another example:

write out the William Carlos Williams poem "the red wheelbarrow"

Sure, here's the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Awesome - now change it to use Pokemon imagery

Certainly, here's a version of "The Red Wheelbarrow" using Pokemon imagery:

so much depends
upon

a Pikachu
yellow and round

cheeks rosy
with electricity

beside the white
Pidgeys.

Okay. That is A) awesome, and B) NOT a reproduction. That is new art that has never existed in the world before.

 

[FrogReaver]

Your argument keeps leaving the human out of the process of creating AI art. When I make a request, I add intentionality and creativity. In the example I gave, the situation was the same - I was effectively using the artist as an instrument to achieve my design. The outcome was the same - another artist's work was studied and more or less mimicked, with variations according to my instructions. Your issue seems to not be with the studying and mimicking, but with the fact that it was done by a human rather than a machine. In this way, your argument seems similar to that advanced by Luddites against mechanical looms - that it is simply unethical to have a machine do a job formerly done by humans.

Your final two points, "an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art. It can only reproduce other art," are problematic. The first, that an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art, is only partially correct. It cannot think, but I can, and I am the one giving it instructions - the "lens through which to interpret art." And it demonstrably can do more than reproduce art. Here's another example:

write out the William Carlos Williams poem "the red wheelbarrow"

Sure, here's the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Awesome - now change it to use Pokemon imagery

Certainly, here's a version of "The Red Wheelbarrow" using Pokemon imagery:

so much depends
upon

a Pikachu
yellow and round

cheeks rosy
with electricity

beside the white
Pidgeys.

Okay. That is A) awesome, and B) NOT a reproduction. That is new art that has never existed in the world before.

Curious, what is the result if you ask it to create a different Pokémon poem than the one it just created?

 

[FrogReaver]

No, it couldn’t, because algorithms work by copying existing things. There is nothing in how it works that could allow for the creation of individual style.

Humans do the same kind of copying.

But in step 1, your “database” is filtered by your unique perceptions and memory, which is not the case with an algorithm.

If the algorithm was allowed to form a memory and preferences via feedback it very well could.

What you perceive and how you recall it is an inexact approximation of what is, and it is unique to you.

So the algorithm has a more clear ‘memory’ of previous images means it’s stealing previous art, whereas if only its memory was fuzzier, then it wouldn’t be. I think that’s a terrible argument…

Also, an algorithm doesn’t do step 2. The creation of the images has already been done by artists, the algorithm only recombines what has already been created.

The examples I’ve seen are more than mere recombinations. Or rather if that’s what’s being classified as a recombination then it’s the same thing every human artist does.

Then you have been bamboozled by language like “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning.” It’s not actually intelligent, even artificially so. An algorithm is nothing but a mathematical formula, it is not capable of having experiences or tastes. It functions in a fundamentally different way than living animals’ brains.

Experiences yes! - in robotics that might be sensory intro from sensors that get recorded. The algorithm then can use those prior experiences in the process of determine current behavior. It’s all about feedback loops.

Preferences yes! - in the ai art bot feedback about its outputs could be stored and could form 1 basis for the algorithm choosing different outputs (aka preference). Also, the ‘memory of an ai bit can be different by feeding them different seed images and/or providing a method for seed images to be added or removed.

In the end such programs would exhibit what is called Emergent behavior and different ai’s of this variety would produce different results. You can already see this a bit from the numerous ai art programs there are out there that produce very different results to the same prompts, even though they tend not to have feedback loops (to my knowledge). Just different seed images and slightly different algorithms.

No, humans’ (and other animals’) brains are not magical black boxes. But nor are they mathematical formulae. They are complex networks of cells, which work by forming webs of connections and communicating with each other and other parts of our bodies through electrical and chemical signals. This is a fundamentally different process than how algorithms function.

You’ve demonstrated we are more complex, but not that we are doing anything fundamentally differently than some algorithm.

 

[Emberashh]

but not that we are doing anything fundamentally differently than some algorithm.

I had ChatGPT disagree with you:

Image-generating AIs operate by processing large amounts of data, identifying patterns and relationships, and using that information to generate new images.

Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to engage in conscious, intentional creative processes that involve making choices, experimenting with different techniques and materials, and expressing unique perspectives and ideas.

When humans are inspired by another artist's work, they may use that work as a starting point or reference, but they still bring their own creativity, skill, and perspective to the process of creating something new.

This is fundamentally different from the process of an image-generating AI, which operates solely on the basis of data processing and does not have consciousness or intentionality.

Additionally, humans are capable of creating art that is highly conceptual, political, or emotional in nature, which goes beyond the scope of what an AI can do.

Therefore, the idea that humans are merely doing the same thing as image-generating AIs when they are inspired by another artist's work is not accurate, as it ignores the unique abilities and capacities of human creativity

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Therefore, the idea that humans are merely doing the same thing as image-generating AIs when they are inspired by another artist's work is not accurate, as it ignores the unique abilities and capacities of human creativity

That's just what Skynet WANTS you to believe.

 

[Deset Gled]

That's just what Skynet WANTS you to believe.

That's what Skynet want's you to believe that Skynet believes. I'm not sure if I believe that Skynet believes that.

 

[FrogReaver]

I had ChatGPT disagree with you:

Image-generating AIs operate by processing large amounts of data, identifying patterns and relationships, and using that information to generate new images.

That’s what humans do as well.

Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to engage in conscious, intentional creative processes that involve making choices, experimenting with different techniques and materials, and expressing unique perspectives and ideas.

There’s nothing about an ai art algorithm that precludes it from doing any of those things. That said I don’t think the ones we have today are fully there yet, but it doesn’t seem to be a large step to implement such functionality as most already exists in other applications.

When humans are inspired by another artist's work, they may use that work as a starting point or reference, but they still bring their own creativity, skill, and perspective to the process of creating something new.

An ai art bot with feedback loops could do exactly that.

This is fundamentally different from the process of an image-generating AI, which operates solely on the basis of data processing and does not have consciousness or intentionality.

The user filling in the ai art promo does have consciousness and intentionality though. The ai art generator can have preferences, learned or preprogrammed, they can have different image repositories and possibly even different algorithms.

There seems to be a misconception here, an algorithm need not be unchanging - see evolutionary algorithms.

Additionally, humans are capable of creating art that is highly conceptual, political, or emotional in nature, which goes beyond the scope of what an AI can do.

AI art can do all of that as meaning is determined by the viewer.

 

[Charlaquin]

Your argument keeps leaving the human out of the process of creating AI art.

On the contrary, my position that AI art is theft comes from acknowledging the uncompensated human labor that goes into the creation of that art.

When I make a request, I add intentionality and creativity. In the example I gave, the situation was the same - I was effectively using the artist as an instrument to achieve my design. The outcome was the same - another artist's work was studied and more or less mimicked, with variations according to my instructions. Your issue seems to not be with the studying and mimicking, but with the fact that it was done by a human rather than a machine. In this way, your argument seems similar to that advanced by Luddites against mechanical looms - that it is simply unethical to have a machine do a job formerly done by humans.

No, my issue is in how the algorithm functions. It does not imitate, it directly reproduces. It takes the products of artists labor, remixes them, and tries to pass it off as original work. If a human did the same, we would call it plagiarism.

Your final two points, "an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art. It can only reproduce other art," are problematic. The first, that an algorithm cannot think and has no lens through which to interpret art, is only partially correct. It cannot think, but I can, and I am the one giving it instructions - the "lens through which to interpret art."

Your thinking provides nothing but a prompt for the algorithm. You’re not meaningfully participating in a creative process, you’re just providing it with something to compare elements of the works in its database to and predict how likely those elements are to satisfy your criteria. You’re not making choices about what goes into the art, and you’re not doing work to bring the idea from concept to product; you’re offloading all of that to the algorithm. And the algorithm is offloading that work to the artists who created the works in its database, which it merely dices up and reassembles in whatever way the math predicts is most likely to satisfy your prompt.

And it demonstrably can do more than reproduce art. Here's another example:


write out the William Carlos Williams poem "the red wheelbarrow"

Sure, here's the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Awesome - now change it to use Pokemon imagery

Certainly, here's a version of "The Red Wheelbarrow" using Pokemon imagery:

so much depends
upon

a Pikachu
yellow and round

cheeks rosy
with electricity

beside the white
Pidgeys.

Okay. That is A) awesome, and B) NOT a reproduction. That is new art that has never existed in the world before.

It never existed in the world before, which means labor had to be done to make it exist in the world. Who did that labor? Not you, you just provided instructions. Not the algorithm, all it does is search its database for elements that satisfy your instructions and deliver them to you. The labor was done by artists, and the algorithm took that labor and handed it to you in a remixed form. Those words in that poem all came from human artists that the algorithm copied and pasted in a different order.

 

[Charlaquin]

I had ChatGPT disagree with you:

Image-generating AIs operate by processing large amounts of data, identifying patterns and relationships, and using that information to generate new images.

Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to engage in conscious, intentional creative processes that involve making choices, experimenting with different techniques and materials, and expressing unique perspectives and ideas.

When humans are inspired by another artist's work, they may use that work as a starting point or reference, but they still bring their own creativity, skill, and perspective to the process of creating something new.

This is fundamentally different from the process of an image-generating AI, which operates solely on the basis of data processing and does not have consciousness or intentionality.

Additionally, humans are capable of creating art that is highly conceptual, political, or emotional in nature, which goes beyond the scope of what an AI can do.

Therefore, the idea that humans are merely doing the same thing as image-generating AIs when they are inspired by another artist's work is not accurate, as it ignores the unique abilities and capacities of human creativity

And you can tell that these words were all written by humans at some point. The algorithm looked through its database for arguments humans have written and did some math to see what arguments had were most likely to satisfy your request, and it took parts of those arguments it evaluated as most satisfactory to your request and reassembled them in this order.