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

[VHawkwinter]

The process you're describing is doable right already if you are running some model on your own videocard with sufficient RAM. From your comments about this workflow, I assumed that was what you were doing.

......

I assume companies with their own customised models running on art they own (Say, Hasbro having fine-tuned some model or other on MtG and D&D art {I don't know if there are any contractual terms that would prevent them from doing so, for the sake of this argument I am assuming not}) are doing something like that, and having their employees connect to a server with a GPU adding jobs to a queue, not connecting to an external cloud service.

Ultimately, by the time it's approaching the level of control you have as an artist doing everything manually, the workflow will include a digital artist doing many things manually. Paintovers, moving parts around, fixing errors, etc. But with less personality than if they did it all manually.

I am inclined to agree with Maxperson that when you hand an artist local Diffusion Image Generating tools and mandate they incorporate them into their workflows and have them iteratively edit the image until it matches the vision they have for a piece, it's not the same as just some guy just prompting. By that point though, I would argue that it's getting closer and closer to the older shortcut workflow of painting over a collage of photos or rough 3d renders. I assume that's how Hasbro is making their artists use it.

I have seen people a few years ago post something they were working with in Stable Diffusion where they provided not just a prompt, but a prompt + a sketch with the composition and character shapes outlined, and had it render the sketch in depth, and then they did paintovers and edits in an editor (Krita maybe? doesn't matter) and kept going. Again though, they weren't using Bing or whatever, they were doing it on their own videocard with one of the offline apps.

I am skeptical you could get there without any art skills so someone like Maxperson who apparently has no art skills could get a high quality outcome with only image to image prompts - but it would certainly lower the required skill level, and give Maxperson better results than they could achieve on their own.

This thread has me somewhat interested in showing just how you could use this stuff to build something to spec without doing a manual paint job and document what it looks like when you use it to execute your specific vision iteratively rather than calling upon a random noise procedural generator like a slot machine and hoping for the best, or to try to show what some company like Hasbro might be making their artists do - As mentioned, I did try it out it when it was new, so I have some familiarity with the process - but I'm not invested enough to go to the trouble to reinstall the diffusion model tools and whatnot, and I also wouldn't be surprised if the 2026 versions of those tools demand better hardware than my almost ten year old GTX1070.
Like a challenge where I'm limited to only using free editors and the AI tools and my mouse, no wacom stylus, no nice brushes, etc. Maybe record the whole thing to a video via OBS, and then do a commentary track of my thoughts, and frustrations, and limitations I note while going through the experiment. Maybe some day. But I certainly wouldn't be using cloud services for it.

 

[trappedslider]

If you use Comfy UI, then you can mess with the whole workflow, the other UIs that are out there don't offer that or if they do i didn't use it. I did use the inprinting to either redo or remove parts. The most i got into it was selecting a filter to apply to the prompt. Otherwise all i did was the prompt and size of the image.

 

[VHawkwinter]

If you use Comfy UI, then you can mess with the whole workflow, the other UIs that are out there don't offer that or if they do i didn't use it. I did use the inprinting to either redo or remove parts. The most i got into it was selecting a filter to apply to the prompt. Otherwise all i did was the prompt and size of the image.

I haven't tried ComfyUI, it didn't exist yet when I tested the tools; I tried (looking it up) "Forge", which had an "img2img" section with masks, inpainting, outpainting, and would accept an image you fed it (like something you made in an image editor; or something you modified in an image editor). I have seen a video on Comfy UI though. It looked like it had much more control for the user. It would probably be the one to use if you want to have control approaching that an artist has.

And I'm sure it also allows you to do some kind of image to image workflow.

 

[trappedslider]

I haven't tried ComfyUI, it didn't exist yet when I tested the tools; I tried (looking it up) "Forge", which had an "img2img" section with masks, inpainting, outpainting, and would accept an image you fed it (like something you made in an image editor; or something you modified in an image editor). I have seen a video on Comfy UI though. It looked like it had much more control for the user. It would probably be the one to use if you want to have control approaching that an artist has.

And I'm sure it also allows you to do some kind of image to image workflow.

I never got into comfy UI due to how complicated it looked to set up,while i had a single click button to install webforge,which i believe forked off of one of the other UIs. But currently, I've moved on from generating images on my local despite still having everything installed. I have a decent GPU that can run Flex/Pony/and SD. 12gig RTX 3060

 

[neceros]

Good!
If people can't be bothered to create things themselves why should that cost me money?

terrible opinion. gatekeep fun and knowledge because some people are crying that AI makes good art. boo hoo

 

[bedir than]

terrible opinion. gatekeep fun and knowledge because some people are crying that AI makes good art. boo hoo

It's not gatekeeping to suggest that people who steal things not charge me for their product.
I'm happy to share my knowledge and fun around RPGs all the damn time.

My gate is wide open for any and all that treat people with respect -- and part of that respect means valuing those who actually create.

 

[FrogReaver]

I provided a concrete example supporting my claim, which you left out when quoting me.

If you disagree with my example, I'd be genuinely curious to hear your argument. I didn't think it was controversial to say a programmer who creates a web browser isn't the creator of all websites their browser displays on the end user's screen.

I think it's already been addressed more cleanly than I will.

But if you want a direct answer from me, it's because the process you described applies not just to the particular use case you envision but also a heck of a lot of others that clearly are the programmer creating something, some of which have as of now been explicitly mentioned.

I agree that a programmer who creates a web browser isn't creating all the websites their browser displays. Some other person created those websites. But AI isn't a person. It does nothing without human input and it also doesn't just select an already created picture to display.

It's why the fundamental question here is, who is the creator - because AI most surely isn't the creator of anything until the time it's sentient. Note, the who is the creator question doesn't always converge to a single or primary person, it oftentimes is a collaboration.

 

[neceros]

It's not gatekeeping to suggest that people who steal things not charge me for their product.
I'm happy to share my knowledge and fun around RPGs all the damn time.

My gate is wide open for any and all that treat people with respect -- and part of that respect means valuing those who actually create.

it's been proven over and over that it's not stealing. Training is not stealing.

Generative AI learn EXACTLY like people do. They see images and it changes their neural network. They aren't saving images anywhere. They don't copy the pixels. They see it and it changes their brain. exactly like humans do.

Do you get upset when a person draws something which is pulling from the history of them looking at artwork over their lifetime? Humans are looking at copywritten art as well. shouldn't you be upset when they draw something from scratch using those copywritten images as inspiration and technique?

No. You don't. Because it's absurd.

 

[FrogReaver]

it's been proven over and over that it's not stealing. Training is not stealing.

Generative AI learn EXACTLY like people do. They see images and it changes their neural network. They aren't saving images anywhere. They don't copy the pixels. They see it and it changes their brain. exactly like humans do.

Do you get upset when a person draws something which is pulling from the history of them looking at artwork over their lifetime? Humans are looking at copywritten art as well. shouldn't you be upset when they draw something from scratch using those copywritten images as inspiration and technique?

No. You don't. Because it's absurd.

I wouldn't say exactly the same, but I think there's some similarities there. I don't know about image AI as much as text generating AI, but when testing chat gpt with text, it would generate large swaths of the 2014 5e PHB text in a way that a person generally would not be able to do from memory.

 

[bedir than]

it's been proven over and over that it's not stealing. Training is not stealing.

A claim without evidence that not even the Foundation model companies claim in court. Of note, they literally torrented movies without regard for ownership, as they admitted in court.

Generative AI learn EXACTLY like people do.

Another claim the model companies do not make.

They see images and it changes their neural network. They aren't saving images anywhere. They don't copy the pixels. They see it and it changes their brain. exactly like humans do.

Completely and utterly untrue

Which is why signatures show up in gen AI 'art'

Do you get upset when a person draws something which is pulling from the history of them looking at artwork over their lifetime? Humans are looking at copywritten art as well. shouldn't you be upset when they draw something from scratch using those copywritten images as inspiration and technique?

This is again not the claim that the companies you support make.
They do not claim that LLMs are human because it is an absurd fantasy