AI art bans are going to ruin small 3rd party creators

[Maxperson]

There are two ways AI can be used with regard to artwork.

1) You can ask the AI to give you a picture of a female elf with a sword and bow, etc. and let it just give you a picture. That's the AI creating the artwork, and it takes from other artists. That sort of art should be banned as it's theft and there's no human artist.

2) You can ask the AI for some sort of framework, say a female elf with a sword and bow. Then, since that's not exactly what you want, you proceed to make changes to that base to achieve your vision. You ask the AI to make the eyes larger and it does. They you tell it that it didn't make them big enough, and it makes them bigger, but too big. So you have it make it slightly smaller. Then you adjust the eye color to the shade you want, maybe tweaking the shape. You move on to the hair color, until it's the shade you want. Adjust the shape and length of the hair, perhaps dropping a bit of a curl across the forehead. And on and on until your vision of the artwork has been achieved. That's not AI art. It's human art.

Using AI in method 2 reduces the AI to being a tool used to achieve your vision, no different than other human artists use the tools of paint, charcoal, paper, canvas, paint brushes, etc. to achieve their vision. The result of method 2 is not going to be AI art. It's human art using an AI tool.

At this point, though, a lot of people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater and just lumping both methods together and treating it like method 1, when method 2 is nothing like method 1. I also don't know if at this point there's a way to tell the two methods apart. If there's not, then you need to disallow all AI use in art until a method is created. If there is a way, then I am very much against AI created artwork, but very much okay with AI as a tool to achieve the artwork vision of the human using the tool.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I wonder if you view the clothing you wear the same... A T-shirt woven, spun, and sewn entirely by hand would cost more then $4000... At US minimum wages...

The $3500 Shirt - A History Lesson in Economics

A criminally compelling web site featuring professional crime writers and crime fighters.

www.sleuthsayers.org

People have been historically replaced by machines, for good reason, and every time it happens, people that it's happening to or are conservative in their views rebel against that.

Silly comparison on its face. People still have to be present to actually operate the machines that make T-shirts.

AI, OTOH, is specifically programmed to remove human input altogether. Once you understand that simple concept, you might finally understand the reasons for all the objections against it, and particularly generative AI.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Using AI in method 2 reduces the AI to being a tool used to achieve your vision, no different than other human artists use the tools of paint, charcoal, paper, canvas, paint brushes, etc. to achieve their vision. The result of method 2 is not going to be AI art. It's human art using an AI tool.

This is not true. AI is still using it's database of stolen artwork to do what you want. All option 2 is doing is "instead of basing my image on Frank Frazetta's database, you want larger eyes so I'll make that image using Hayao Miyazaki's database for the eye part."

That's a bit of a simplification, but it gets the point across. Nothing AI does is a creation of something new. It's all based on a database of existing material taken from artists, no matter how many prompts you give it.

 

[Maxperson]

This is not true. AI is still using it's database of stolen artwork to do what you want.

How is this ANY different than if I look at a piece of art and use that for my inspiration to paint something similar, but different?

All option 2 is doing is "instead of basing my image on Frank Frazetta's database, you want larger eyes so I'll make that image using Hayao Miyazaki's database for the eye part."

It's not just copying artwork at that point, because I'm directing the fine tuning myself until it gets it right according to MY vision. If my vision is similar to Hayao Miyazaki's eyes on something, it would be the same as if I drew it to my vision and it was similar to Hayao Miyazaki's eyes on something. There are only so many ways to do eyes.

Fine tuning doesn't use the same process as just asking the AI to go get art and make the art itself. AI fine tuning doesn't require it to go copy other artworks. The end result will be art of my vision, not copied art.

 

[bedir than]

Using AI in method 2 reduces the AI to being a tool used to achieve your vision, no different than other human artists use the tools of paint, charcoal, paper, canvas, paint brushes, etc. to achieve their vision. The result of method 2 is not going to be AI art. It's human art using an AI tool.

You're still merely a commissioner, not an artist. All you are doing is replicating the conversations someone who commissions work has with a real artist.
Claiming that's art is a demand that a city government is the artist when it commissions a statue or that I'm an artist because I paid someone to make me a dragon.

It's an absurd claim that somehow the founders of the big LLMs have managed to convince you is truth.

 

[Sacrosanct]

How is this ANY different than if I look at a piece of art and use that for my inspiration to paint something similar, but different?

It's not just copying artwork at that point, because I'm directing the fine tuning myself until it gets it right according to MY vision. If my vision is similar to Hayao Miyazaki's eyes on something, it would be the same as if I drew it to my vision and it was similar to Hayao Miyazaki's eyes on something. There are only so many ways to do eyes.

Fine tuning doesn't use the same process as just asking the AI to go get art and make the art itself. AI fine tuning doesn't require it to go copy other artworks. The end result will be art of my vision, not copied art.

Everything AI is returning is based off a database of stolen art. It’s not the same. When I draw an eyeball, it’s going to have tweaks, quirks, and bits exactly how I want to draw it. AI will never be able to get an eyeball (or face or body) exactly how I envision it. It will try to get as close as it can based on prompting and what storage of art exists already in its database.

Don’t matter how many tweaking prompts you use, it’s still pulling from a stolen art database. You are no more creating the art than you are a chef if you keep sending your meal back to have changes made

 

[mamba]

Using AI in method 2 reduces the AI to being a tool used to achieve your vision, no different than other human artists use the tools of paint, charcoal, paper, canvas, paint brushes, etc. to achieve their vision. The result of method 2 is not going to be AI art. It's human art using an AI tool.

At this point, though, a lot of people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater and just lumping both methods together and treating it like method 1, when method 2 is nothing like method 1.

I see the distinction, I still consider both AI art and the gap between them is much smaller than the one from AI to human art

 

[Maxperson]

You're still merely a commissioner, not an artist. All you are doing is replicating the conversations someone who commissions work has with a real artist.
Claiming that's art is a demand that a city government is the artist when it commissions a statue or that I'm an artist because I paid someone to make me a dragon.

It's not the same at all. If I commission you to make a dragon, YOU are making the dragon to YOUR vision. I might influence that vision a bit, but it's still going to be YOUR vision of what I am asking for. AI does not have a vision, so what the final result is, is 100% MY vision, rending AI a tool and not an artist.

It's an absurd claim that somehow the founders of the big LLMs have managed to convince you is truth.

I haven't listened to them at all. I come up with my own arguments and reasoning. If you reduce AI to being 100% a tool, the vision is 100% the human artist's and not the tool's. Claiming that AI at that point is the artist is like claiming the Leonardo da Vinci's paintbrush was the artist. He couldn't have painted the Mona Lisa without tools to help him achieve his vision, either.

You guys are letting your hatred of AI "created" art cloud your thinking about AI used only as a tool. There's a huge difference between the first and second methods in my first post in the thread.

 

[LordEntrails]

And there it is. It’s that exact same thread again.

I think we’re gong to need a space to shunt these threads off to. It’s “damage on a miss” all over again.

Why? Is it hard to accept that everyone of us knew exactly how this thread would develop as soon as we saw the title? The only reason to engage with it (other than as a moderator) is because we want to express ourselves. As an owner/moderator, the more engagement threads get, the more advertising displays and resulting click throughs you get.

I get how divisive AI threads are, but it's only because members of ENWorld chose to engage with them.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

If a dragon is sculpted from stolen bronze:

The process of sculpting is valid.
The method of work/tools used are valid.

The bronze is still stolen property, regardless of its current shape.