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

[Deset Gled]

Well, no. NFTs are inherently unethical.

Have we reached the point in society where imaginary races can't be inherently evil, but artificial intelligence and inanimate objects can be?

What a time to be alive.

 

[jasper]

They take the products of artists’ labor to use without their knowledge or permission. I don’t care if a court decides they’re allowed to do it, it’s still theft by any meaningful definition of the word. It is not the same process as human artists taking inspiration from other art because these algorithms are not thinking beings. They aren’t capable of contributing anything original to a creation, they can only recombine elements directly copied from elsewhere.

So far no artists who are "inspired" by decades of Disney, DC, Marvel, etc who make their living sellling knocks of Spiderman have been arrested by cops for Stealing. And I don't think Marvels gives out license to their art library to the casual street artists.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's pretty much what human artists do too. That's why art courses spend years studying the work of great artists.

As I said in my post, what these algorithms do is inherently different than how humans take inspiration. Human artists learn from other artists’ work, but they make original creations influenced by those inspirations. Algorithms are not capable of making original creations. They can only recombine elements of the creations of actual artists.

 

[Charlaquin]

So far no artists who are "inspired" by decades of Disney, DC, Marvel, etc who make their living sellling knocks of Spiderman have been arrested by cops for Stealing. And I don't think Marvels gives out license to their art library to the casual street artists.

Right, because they are creating something new influenced by something that exists, rather than merely recombining things that exist.

 

[Charlaquin]

Have we reached the point in society where imaginary races can't be inherently evil, but artificial intelligence and inanimate objects can be?

What a time to be alive.

Imaginary races are abstract representations of ideas about people. Depicting them as inherently evil expresses ideas about people that as a society we generally don’t want to perpetuate. A creator certainly can use inherently evil races in their fictional works, but it is becoming increasingly unpopular because people are becoming more aware of the ideas their media communicate and the effects those ideas can have on people.

Technology like algorithmic art generators and non-fungible tokens are things created by people for a specific purpose. If they are created by unethical means (such as the incredible cost in non-renewable energy of blockchain tokens), for unethical purposes (such as working around having to pay artists for their labor), and/or operate by unethical processes (such as art theft), then yes, they can be unethical.

 

[tetrasodium]

As I said in my post, what these algorithms do is inherently different than how humans take inspiration. Human artists learn from other artists’ work, but they make original creations influenced by those inspirations. Algorithms are not capable of making original creations. They can only recombine elements of the creations of actual artists.

So what does that make these two?

Spoiler: since apparently it's not art

 

[Charlaquin]

So what does that make these two?

Spoiler: since apparently it's not art

View attachment 277846

A meme. Obviously.

 

[tetrasodium]

A meme. Obviously.

Back when it was a tv show if not "recombine elements of the creations of actual artists."? Were the authors & costume designers involved with magnum & indiana jones not producing original creations of art?

 

[Charlaquin]

Back when it was a tv show if not "recombine elements of the creations of actual artists."? Were the authors & costume designers involved with magnum & indiana jones not producing original creations of art?

Oh, you were asking about the show? That’s unequivocally art. Just because it takes inspiration from other sources doesn’t mean it lacks anything original. I thought you were asking about the specific image you put in the spoiler block.

EDIT: And a case could be made that the image and others like it are also art. It’s less clear-cut in that case, but memes certainly can be art.

What makes algorithmically generated images not art is that they are created by totally a different process than art is. Art is created when a person has an idea in their brain (which, yes, is influenced by the works of other artists, and it can therefore be debated whether or not any idea is wholely original, but that is tangential to the point), and use their learned skills to produce a new thing that expresses that idea. An algorithm doesn’t do any of that. An algorithm has no ideas and no skills with which it can produce expressions of ideas. You just give it a prompt and it looks through its database of art created by real humans, chops up bits of those works, and splices them together in whatever way it calculates will be most likely to satisfy the parameters you gave it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

These programs don’t create art, they steal it. Yes, if one was made that only used seed art that was legally purchased or willingly donated by the artists, it could be ethical, but that’s pie-in-the-sky fantasizing. Might as well be talking about ethical NFTs.

Well, no. NFTs are inherently unethical.

As for the idea that these programs necessarily steal art, I’ll just go ahead and politely disagree and

That's pretty much what human artists do too. That's why art courses spend years studying the work of great artists.

yep. While attribution is a needed feature, I don’t need permission to make fair use of a work. The procedurally generated art program is a tool, any action is ethically taken by a person. People use existing ideas to make new ideas. All new ideas build on and recombine existing ideas. Full stop.