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

[VHawkwinter]

This may come in part - maybe large part - from different methods of working.

Me, I want whatever I'm creating to be as nailed down in my head as I can get it before even starting the serious production work, because that production work is something I only want to have to do, at most, once. If what I produce is bad enough that it needs a rewrite (beyond simple typos and obvious errors), that means I haven't got it right in the first place and am most likely not going to, so scrap it.

I've been booting an idea around in my head for a few years now for a novel. I won't start writing any of it down, though, until I can see the finished plot and nearly all the key moments in my head; and if I can't get it to that point, it ain't getting written.

Almost no one works that way. It is worlds more practical to make something rough and then refine it iteratively. (Even AI image generators run on many cycles of iterative refinement, from plain procedural noise, albeit not in a human way).

Regarding the power consumptions: I understand MS, Google, and Amazon are supposedly now well on their way to being net zero by the hour or even carbon negative, are they not? That seems a very different direction than burning down rainforests.

 

[VHawkwinter]

I could make something. Something not worth looking at ever again.

I have a whole year of daily 3d sculpting practice on a harddrive somewhere I would never show anyone. There is no such thing as natural talent. Talent is just what people call practiced skill they don't understand. It is attained through repeated failure and analysis and refinement and trying again.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The work of turning those ideas into reality, however, is mostly just work; which is what causes most ideas - good and bad - to never get far if anywhere beyond the thought process.

There’s always going to be variances between ideas in your mind and what your mind can direct your body to create.

Even if it’s something relatively linear, like writing a poem or novel, you’re not simply transcribing the concept in your head, you’re evaluating your output and possibly editing and re-editing and re-editing until you’re satisfied…or frustrated enough to let it be as-is.

I used to draw until I realized I just wasn't any good at it, and packed it in. I'm also useless at painting, as some of my poor embarrassed minis can attest!

Kurt Vonnegut (and others) have asserted that anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Not just because you might learn to become better, but that the mere attempt improves YOU.

Chefs are just automatons who mindlessly process your genius cooking.

Tangent: there’s definitely some restaurants where I’ve ordered something off-menu enough that they know I’m present when the order comes in.

And my Mom used to order a particular combination of dishes so often at this one columbian restaurant that they eventually put it on the menu as a combo plate. (She orders it 75% of our visits there.)

This only makes sense though if you get a fully-formed idea in your head of a poem, a piece of music, or a picture, and then the implementation part is simply the act of transcribing that defined thing into an external medium.

It’s not often, but I HAVE had the occasional creative idea pop into my head fully formed, and had it accurately manifested into reality.

My favorite one was a rig design that flashed into my head within 30 seconds of seeing a particular cabochon of Sleeping Beauty turquoise. I bought it, sketched out the idea, and took it to the jeweler within a few days. The resulting piece was one of my most worn and complimented pieces. Unfortunately, the stone eventually cracked. I’ve since had other rings based on it made- some in turquoise- and replaced the broken turquoise with a custom cut piece of pietersite.

 

[bsss]

Almost no one works that way. It is worlds more practical to make something rough and then refine it iteratively. (Even AI image generators run on many cycles of iterative refinement, from plain procedural noise, albeit not in a human way).

Regarding the power consumptions: I understand MS, Google, and Amazon are supposedly now well on their way to being net zero by the hour or even carbon negative, are they not? That seems a very different direction than burning down rainforests.

Gosh no. Microsoft last year:

As we remain focused on sustained progress towards our 2030 goals, it has become clear that our journey towards being carbon negative is a marathon, not a sprint. While our total emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) have increased by 23.4% compared to our 2020 baseline due to growth-related factors such as AI and cloud expansion, we are encouraged by the fact that this increase has been modest compared to the 168% increase in energy use and 71% revenue growth that has taken place over the same period.

Our 2025 Environmental Sustainability Report

 

[zakael19]

I've been booting an idea around in my head for a few years now for a novel. I won't start writing any of it down, though, until I can see the finished plot and nearly all the key moments in my head; and if I can't get it to that point, it ain't getting written.

There's a lot of advice out there from actual authors about writing, most of it tends to start with "just start writing."

 

[zakael19]

I guess I can imagine someone whose brain works differently to mine writing a complete poem entirely in their head and then transcribing it afterwards as a separate act, albeit in that case the writing (creating) process happened already.

But thinking up an idea of a picture isn't the same thing. I am aphantasic, so I see no images in my head at all, but even if one were hyperphantasic, and could see a completely realised fully detailed mental picture, the act of translating that to an external medium surely involves infinite questions of translation and interpretation, shade and proportion.

One of my biggest struggles with GMing games is trying to get the incredibly well formed image of what's happening in teh fiction right this instant I have playing out verbally conveyed. Yet somehow, when I work with a real artist I can give them a general gist of what I'm looking for and in a couple back and forths we get something that isn't just exactly what I was hoping for, it's often better (because they like, understand composition and posing and maximizing the effects of said).

 

[VHawkwinter]

Gosh no. Microsoft last year:

Our 2025 Environmental Sustainability Report

Oh. Unfortunate. Good that the growth in emissions was much less than the growth in energy use. Noted.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

This is a nice site you have here, Morrus. I might have to have created it myself...

Spoken like someone belonging to the “Sign of One”.
Bravo!

 

[Marc Radle]

There is no such thing as natural talent. Talent is just what people call practiced skill they don't understand. It is attained through repeated failure and analysis and refinement and trying again.

Strongly disagree.

There ABSOLUTELY is such a thing as natural talent. There is also the reality that one must focus and practice in order to improve.

Someone can be born with natural talent in something but never practice at it. That person will still be good at it but never truly great.

Conversely, someone might not have natural talent in something but still dedicates time and effort any way and may be able to get pretty good regardless of lacking natural talent.

However, when someone has the natural talent … is born with a gift AND dedicates the time and effort to improving and refining that talent - that’s where genius comes from.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's a lot of advice out there from actual authors about writing, most of it tends to start with "just start writing."

I had a severe case of writer’s block when trying to do an upper-level philosophy course’s final paper. Sat in front of my computer for a while, and produced…absolutely nothing. Using the “just start writing” approach got me going. I typed “Millions of Years Ago”, then typed out an opening paragraph (paraphrasing myself because it was the late 1980s):

Millions of years ago, when philososaurs ruled the earth, packs of vicious Nietzchesaurs hunted hapless herds of Hegelosauruses.
(edit)

But most terrifying of all was the Kantosaurus Rex, whose razor sharp intellect…oh wait- THIS IS A FINAL PAPER!

…and transitioned directly into a proper launch paragraph for this kind of paper. I knocked the whole thing out in just a few hours.

But I did something risky: I kept the jokey title & opening paragraph intact.

Dr. Luper-Foy didn’t understand what hit him, but I still aced the paper.