D&D General Plagiarised D&D art

[Nikosandros]

You might want to make it clearer who plagarised from whom in the OP! Because the DK one is a 70s-looking line drawing, I assumed that was the original and the D&D book had traced it for some reason (while also adding a bunch of details and shading that made me wonder why they bothered...).

The OP is stating that the DK book (which appears to be more recent than 3e) has plagiarized the dragon image.

 

[Deset Gled]

Would it be possible to politely request all the rhetoric about AI be contained to any of the dozen open threads that are actually about AI, rather than a discussion about tracing in 2009?

 

[ECMO3]

AI can't do art better than artists, that's why it's copying from artists. Without the artists, AI doesn't work for art. It's not creating truly original anything - it's purely using actual art made by actual artists and altering it based on prompts. Y

It can't do better right now, and I said as much above. I think it will be able to do better in the future though and IMO society should embrace that. Maybe I am wrong, but that is what I believe.

You don't see a societal benefit to actual artists making art? That stagnates art to whatever it is right now. It never really evolves from this point. Because all "new" art ill be purely old art changed based on other old art.

I do not see a societal benefit to slowing down, boycotting or otherwise hampering the proliferation of AI art. I think that hurts society.

As long as actual artists can compete with machines and make better art then machines at a comparable cost basis they have nothing to worry about. As for society though, the benefit is in having the best art available to the art consumers at the best price, whoever or whatever is making it, and I don't believe that will be living artists for much longer.

Also I don't consider art to be "original art" if you are using a computer to make it at all (as most "artists" do today). I think those modern "artists" are doing the same thing you state - using prompts and computer tools built by others to manipulate the image they are making. IMO true, original art ended when "artists" stopped using canvas and paint or pencils and paper .... and I don't think that is a reason to boycott images made on a computer either.

 

[Mistwell]

Would it be possible to politely request all the rhetoric about AI be contained to any of the dozen open threads that are actually about AI, rather than a discussion about tracing in 2009?

I appreciate that but 1) I don't think there are a dozen open threads or anything close to that on that topic and 2) tracing IS part of the AI topic. It's kind of a nice summary of the AI process in art, right?

 

[Mistwell]

As long as actual artists can compete with machines and make better art then machines at a comparable cost basis they have nothing to worry about.

That sentence reads like the art equivalent of, "as long as they've done nothing wrong, citizens have nothing to worry about with a police state." Artists are competing AGAINST THEMSELVES with AI art. The AI has the benefit of stealing their art to start. That's not fair competition. Plus, they're human and need to be paid for their hours of work, while AI doesn't because it's not an entity, which is a very meaningful aspect of competition.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't really see the societal benefit in employing artists or accountants for things that computers can do better.

Because eventually without humans to use as training materials, the computers start using each other's productions, which results in system collapse as every transcription error gets included in the new pool. Thing of it as digital inbreeding, or by the idiom coined by the fames 1990's documentary on cloning Multiplicity: 'when you make a copy of a copy, it's not quite as sharp as the original'.

Also we're trying to have a society here and maybe handing off the basic building blocks of culture (art, music, writing) to an outside context system isn't the way to do it. Not even in commodified form.

 

[mamba]

You compare it to automation eliminating labor jobs in the 70s. I think that is a fair comparison, but if you look at the outcome there, it ushered in an era of prosperity for the countries where that manual labor was phased out. Unemployment is lower and the standard of living is higher today in those 1st world industrialized nations than it was before this happened.

First of all, I am not sure your premise that quality of living has substantially increased since the 70s is true

“The middle class, once the economic stratum of a clear majority of American adults, has steadily contracted in the past five decades. The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

The shrinking of the middle class has been accompanied by an increase in the share of adults in the upper-income tier – from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021 – as well as an increase in the share who are in the lower-income tier, from 25% to 29%.“

How the American middle class has changed in the past five decades

The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new analysis.

www.pewresearch.org

“To make matters worse, Americans’ wages have stagnated since the 1970s, with worker productivity growing three times more than pay. The economy of the 1970s also underwent a bout of high inflation, with prices rising more than 12% in 1974, due in part to the Arab oil embargo.”

“The median price of a home in the second quarter of 1972 was just $26,800, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, amounting to roughly $189,500 in current dollars. Since then, home prices have climbed 132%. ”

Money and millennials: The cost of living in 2022 vs. 1972 - Marketplace

More young adults are living with their parents because of housing costs. But shelter isn't the only thing that's gone way up.

www.marketplace.org

Even if I accepted the premise, this only shows correlation, not causation. Why is it not because of e.g. moving a lot of production overseas, where production is cheaper.

 

[mamba]

As long as actual artists can compete with machines and make better art then machines at a comparable cost basis they have nothing to worry about.

the cost basis means they are out in a few years…

That is just the tip if the iceberg however, self-service checkouts make cashiers obsolete, self-driving cars will make taxis and Uber drivers obsolete, along with truckers, and AI will move up the food chain from there

 

[Umbran]

AI can't do art better than artists, that's why it's copying from artists.

Subjective terms like "better" are going to get in the way here.

But, no, AI doesn't copy from artists because it "cannot do better." That's implying that there is a choice - do badly or copy art. It does so because the fundamental operation of what we are calling "AI" in this matter requires a large stock of extant examples to work.

Current AI requires examples like your brain cells require oxygen. It is part of the fundamental design, and can't be done without.

The real issue isn't that it needs the examples - it is that pretty much all commercially available AI to do art is using art that wasn't licensed for the purpose. One could imagine a company like Disney, that has a huge stock of art they actually own, training an AI on that art. There'd be no ethical issue with their doing so.

 

[Mistwell]

The real issue isn't that it needs the examples - it is that pretty much all commercially available AI to do art is using art that wasn't licensed for the purpose. One could imagine a company like Disney, that has a huge stock of art they actually own, training an AI on that art. There'd be no ethical issue with their doing so.

Of course there is an ethical issue with Disney doing so. Actors and writers just had a massive strike partially over that very issue. The contracts of those artists did not at all contemplate this usage. If it had, they would have paid a royalty on it. Because it means their own art is going to be used to put them out of their jobs. That is a huge ethical issue for Disney artists.