Hey there, sometimes I see people say that AI art is stealing real artists’ work, but I also saw someone say that AI doesn’t steal anything, does anyone know for sure? Also here’s a twitter thread by Marxist twitter user ‘Professional hog groomer’ talking about AI art: https://x.com/bidetmarxman/status/1905354832774324356
There are other ways of doing that, like commissioning an artist or doing some basic editing using photos or collages to represent their point. AI is not the only way of doing this, and if that person resorted to the second example I gave, it would also make them learn a new skill that can be useful in a myriad of other situations for them in the future.
Except I’m not complaining about people having fun, I said it shows that people like Ghibli and that’s it. You were arguing that it lets people express themselves and I argued that there are more ways to express themselves better than that. Also, there is a problem if it is coming at the expense of the normalization of willfully giving way your data to these big tech companies to do that while also spitting at the face of artists.
What? Krita and oil canvas are two different mediums of art that do not necessarily compete and/or are in contrast with one another, each one have it’s own quirks and differences and require the person to be able to draw/paint. This is not comparable at all to gen AI.
They already were. The vast majority of artists can barely make a living out of their art. Those that can are a small minority, usually working at big companies, like in literally every other industry. And in some places like Japan, animators are treated like literal garbage, earning pennies for their hard work.
They are completely justified in being upset that they are further being thrown in the gutter by capitalism.
Gen AI as it is right now is fucking over artists hard and needs to be regulated asap.
I can’t argue about the programming part because I don’t have knowledge in that, and I already talked about different mediums. But this is not making the process easy, it is replacing the whole process, the skill is not learned, you cannot do it yourself, it’s a completely different situation.
Also, you completely ignored my question about how properly teaching the skill from childhood would completely change how we interact with art and would change how we view the necessity of gen AI.
I have this article opened in another tab, but I still have to read it, thanks for the link anyway, I appreciate it. I also opened the other one you linked and will read it.
I never argued that artists jobs are special, and I don’t think anyone is arguing that. At least I haven’t seen that. But that doesn’t mean we should simply accept that. We communists are on the side of the workers, and right now artists are the workers getting the short end of the stick, simple as. In our capitalistic world, these workers aren’t granted even the minimal dignity of being moved to another job, they are simply thrown out like garbage, and that is unacceptable.
That is an actual good argument, but I think there is a problem that is not being talked about in this case. There is already issues with developers having to spend time fixing AI spewed code. There are also issues with the alienation of artists having to fix AI spewed images instead of creating it themselves. And of course there is the issue of both of these workers being completely replaced in some cases.
I’m not arguing that this tech should go away, that’s not possible and it would just be Luddite behavior from me. I’m questioning it’s need and how it is intrinsically linked with how our current capitalist world and education works that can’t even teach us how to be creative and express that creativity by ourselves, generating the need for gen AI, which instead of automating the menial work, is automating creativity while we work ourselves to death.
I completely agree, but where in the world is it owned publicly right now? And it being open source is a step in the right direction, but it can still be abused by companies, in fact companies do that all the time. Right now I think the push for heavy regulation is a necessity.
Nobody is going to commission an artist to make a meme, and I really don’t see an issue of using AI in this context given that you’re not using it for profit. However, the fact that AI makes it very easy for anyone to do these things is precisely the point. It’s an automation tool that lowers the barrier for people wanting to express themselves. The fact that there are other ways to do this in no way detracts from the fact that this tech makes it easy for people to take an idea they have in their head and make it real.
I think people should be free to decide how they want to express themselves. Saying that people have to spend a lot of time learning how to draw so they can make a picture and they shouldn’t use a tool that can do the drawing for them is just gatekeeping.
You can run models locally, and you don’t have to give anything to big tech companies. There are plenty of open stable diffusion models available nowadays.
I’m not really following why it’s not comparable to gen AI. You can make oil painting style effects using Krita, and it’s much easier to master that than actual oil painting. AI is just another medium that further automates the effort involved in producing the desired effects in the image.
AI is not going to be regulated because capitalists see it as a source of profit, that’s really the short of it. The only thing that can happen is that artists start unionizing and doing collective bargaining. In my opinion, that’s where the discussion needs to be focused. It’s not about begging the oligarchs to restrain themselves, it’s about workers talking to each other and organizing.
Simply typing a text prompt has incredibly limited utility and gives you pretty much no control over what’s generated. Meanwhile, tools like comfyui are quite sophisticated and there is a learning curve to using them effectively. Using such a tool still requires skill, it’s just a different skill from a traditional tool like Krita.
The reality is that you can only learn so many skills in your lifetime, and different people have aptitudes for different kinds of skills. Some people enjoy drawing, other people enjoy writing, yet others enjoy solving math problems, and so on. If gen AI allows people to produce an image they wanted to create without having aptitude or training, then I don’t see a problem with that. The tech is simply lowering the barrier so that more people are able to take ideas in their heads and share them with others.
As communists we shouldn’t engage in wistful thinking. We have to engage with reality as it is, and create effective strategies for improving our conditions. When new technology, such as gen AI, is developed then we have to be realistic about how it will be applied. The discussion has to focus on what effective strategies workers can use to mitigate negative impacts of this tech.
Two things I can think of are ensuring that this tech is developed in the open and accessible to everyone, and for workers to organize and to do collective bargaining. This has been the case with every technological advancement, and gen AI is not any different in that regard.
I agree, this is a disruptive technology and it is changing the nature of work in many domains. There are always negative aspects associated with any new technology such as this.
I disagree taht AI automates creativity. Generic images people produce with simple text prompts are boring in nature, and the novelty is already wearing off. I’d argue that the fact that it’s very easy to create a generic looking image simply means that people will be finding new ways to express themselves. Incidentally, a lot of very similar debate happened when photography was invented. People made almost identical arguments that art was dead because you could just take a picture with a camera. Yet, today photography has become its own art form, and traditional art is far from dead.
Models that have open source licenses and can be run locally are what I’d consider to be publicly owned. Corporations will use these models as well, but not much can be done about that. This is exactly what’s been happening with open source code for many years now. Corps freeload on it and save billions while contributing practically nothing back. That’s just a general problem of living under capitalism.
Personally, I’m very skeptical that any sort of heavy regulation would happen here. The reality is that the capitalists are the ruling class, and they will have disproportionate influence over what laws and regulations are passed. I think the real push should be for unionization within the art community. These tools will require human workers to operate them, and the one power workers have under capitalism is in collective bargaining.
Yes, because in a heavily individualized society people don’t care about other people’s labor.
Sure, but the current iteration of gen AI is only possible with the stolen labor of thousands of artists that never consented to their work being used by big techs to train these AI models, which not only copies their unique artstyles, but contribute to them being laid off the working force.
I’m not gatekeeping. I’m not saying they should do it one way or the other, I don’t have the power to do that, lol. I can still point out that I believe doing it yourself is much more expressive than using a image generating machine to do it, and I truly believe that.
Keyword CAN. The reality is that the vast majority of people are not computer literate enough and don’t know how/have the time to do that, so they will just use the online tools available, ChatGPT for example, to generate whatever they want, giving way their real information, likeness and whatever else the machine needs, to these big data centers controlled by a bunch of tech capitalist pigs.
A drawing in Krita cannot be sold and/or presented in an oil canvas because it was never made in that, it is a digital artpiece, of course you can print it, but it’s not the same thing. I’m not an artist so I cannot say that doing X or Y is easier than Z, and as far as I know, these oil effects will not behave like real life oil painting, creating different challenges, but traditional art has not been replaced by digital art, they both coexist, and even if it was, the traditional artist could easily transition to digital art and vice-versa since their skill sets transfer from one another, the same cannot be said for a gen AI user that does not know how to draw/paint, unless that person already had that skill set before.
Yes, that’s precisely what I’m advocating for when I say about regulation, I should have been more precise in what I mean. And in fact, here in Brasil that is already happening, like the collective UNIDAD.
I did not know about such tool and will take a look into it to inform myself when I have time.
Even if people have aptitudes for different kinds of skills, drawing is not a 7-headed monster of a skill, nor does it require you to keep practicing to perfection, that is only done by people that want to do that. There is a myriad of skill levels and if taught from little, people would be able to express themselves in yet another way that would change how we see and interact with the world around us. The same goes for the other artistic skills you also mentioned.
I’m not engaging in wishful thinking, I’m stating a simple fact. Right now artists are being heavily fucked over by having their unpaid labor being used to train the same tools that are replacing them and throwing them in the gutter. I already linked to UNIDAD, so I believe the rest of this is already answered.
That being said, I think it’s important to listen to what these workers have to say, their struggles, concerns and what the general public perception of their struggle is, and I believe this post on Instagram by Groselha_Atômica, a Brazilian communist artist is a good place to look at. A lot of comments are either offensive or just shitty towards artists in general, and that matches the public perception I have been seeing on other places too, it’s a big fuck you to artists with no or very little empathy for them, a clear reflex of our capitalistic society.
The moment we stop learning how to do these things and simply start generating it, we are automating creativity. There is already a bunch of AI generated books flooding stores like Amazon, is that not automating creativity? Also, I’m not seeing the novelty wearing off, in fact I see the opposite, AI art is here to stay and is already plaguing the internet. Some time ago people started to notice that some searches would return a wall of generated art in Google that’s good enough to fool most people and whatever it generates that is incorrect won’t be noticed by most people, but will impact others, it is dystopic as fuck. We should be automating work to free the labor force so that we can pursue our own hobbies and interests, instead we are stuck in a capitalistic hellscape that is doing the exact opposite.
I hope that is the case with gen AI, but I don’t see how it is like when photography was invented. I can see the parallel, but not the end result like that. A photo is a moment of reality frozen in time, and while it’s invention heavily diminished the need for photo-realistic drawings/paintings, it didn’t and couldn’t replace art because of it’s myriad of forms and expressions, nor did it make these photo-realistic drawings/paintings less impressive. The same cannot be said about AI art, since it can completely replace the artist, designer, writer, etc.
You realize that you’re arguing for doing labor for the sake of labor here. You’re saying that a task that can be automated should not be automated in order to preserve the need for human labor. This is not a Marxist position.
Yes, models are trained on existing art just the same way human artists train on work of others. However, I don’t see any more problem with this happening in non profit context than somebody making a fanfic or emulating a style of the artist they like. The only issue is in the context of companies using models trained on work of artists to create profit for themselves. That issue is entirely separate from individual people using these models to create things for their enjoyment. And companies will continue do this regardless of whether people use models for non commercial purposes or not.
Sure, that’s your opinion but it’s grounded in your biases that art has to be difficult to produce to be real art.
Seems like that’s an argument to embrace using this tech outside big tech companies, and to make it more accessible. Rejecting use of this tech leads precisely to the problem you’re outlining here.
Same applies to AI generated art. It’s a different and distinct medium.
I entirely disagree. AI does not replace traditional art, and there will always be demand for art created by humans. And artists absolutely can transition their skills to use tools like comfyui if they want to. The skill being that of developing an intuition for visually interesting scenes, lighting, composition, storytelling, and so on. Again, it’s exactly the same set of skills that photographers use.
That’s good to see and I think that’s exactly the right direction to move in.
I don’t think that’s at odds with generative AI though. People still can and should learn about art. The fact that AI makes certain aspects of producing art easier, doesn’t remove the skill involved in understanding art.
I think that underscores the need for artists to communicate the value of their skills better and frame it in the context of this new technology existing. We both agree that this tech isn’t going away, and artists complaining about it ends up coming across as whinging. It’s far better for artists to focus on what they would be able to do using this tech and why they’re not obsolete in face of it.
Again, I think you’re conflating the skill of understanding what makes a scene interesting and visually appealing with the technical skill of producing it. I will continue to bring up photography here.
It’s not, and having used language models extensively, it becomes very easy to spot AI generated text. It’s not creative in the slightest. However, neither is much of manually produced media. There are mountains of content produced by humans under capitalism that are as much slop as anything AI produces. The only difference is that production of slop is now automated, but the essence of it has not changed.
If a person can’t tell the difference and the image is meaningful to them, why does it matter how the image is produced?
Right, nobody is arguing that technology is not used for social benefit under capitalism. That’s the root problem here, and we all agree that capitalism needs to go.
I don’t think it can because ultimately it’s the human who ends up coming up with the idea for what they want the AI to generate and the vision. Therefore, you still need people with a good intuition for what makes an interesting image. This intuition is developed by studying things like composition, lighting, color theory, and so on.
Not what I’m saying. I never said that it should not be automated, rather I gave other options that I believe should take precedent, specially because these workers still exist today and still struggle today, and it is undeniable that such an individualistic society atomizes us and creates the contempt people have for artists and their labor. Not only that, but this take completely ignores that the current genAI models all use unpaid labor of artists that didn’t consent to their work being used to train these models. It is completely unethical to continue to use them as it is right now, I do not fault artists for being against them, and I stand at their side in this issue.
I would still prefer to consume human made art on a personal level, but that’s just me.
You need to prove these are analogous to each other. The human brain and the machine model used are not the same, does not work the same, does not “learn” the same way, does not derive information and form connections the same way. To compare both is not fair. A human have agency, a machine don’t. One can choose to deliberately do something, the other is just a prompt that spews out whatever was requested.
Besides, I don’t think this argument holds water when you also take into account the multitude of other knowledge and lived experience that can and will inevitably influence someone’s artwork, something that cannot be true of a machine.
In my eyes human made art, again, irrespective of skill level, is in general much more unique and expressive because of this.
I agree that the issue is the companies using it. But as I said before, I believe there is an ethical problem right now that directly affect artists worldwide with these models that everyone can use that needs to be brought into attention. With other workers ignoring the issues raised by artists and even going the path of hostility like I already demonstrated does not help and further alienate and fracture the working class.
It has nothing to do with difficult level and I never claimed AI art is not real art, don’t put words into my mouth. My opinion is that human made art is much more unique and expressive than genAI, again, IRRESPECTIVE of skill level.
Why are only artists in the wrong here? When other workers are literally hostile to their concerns, discussions and pleas, it is not framed as an issue. I get what you’re saying, but this just comes across as throwing them under the bus. Artists are not happy that their unpaid labor is being used without consent, and therefore refuse to use the tools that currently exist that way. Of course, this is not to say that there aren’t Luddite artists, I have seen some, but this is completely ignoring the issue at hand. It’s ill-informed at best. We should be pushing against these tools in their current super exploitative form until they are regulated to take all these issues into account, like UNIDAD is doing.
It is easy to you that have used them extensively, what about the general populace? I completely agree that it is not creative, but right now you’re the one agreeing with I have been saying here.
I agree, but it does pose a new issue. Humans can subvert the message while producing the corporate mandated slop, the machine can’t for it has no thinking nor will.
That’s not what I’m referring to on that, to quote commenter Arachno_Stalinist:
“Another issue I find with AI art/images is just how spammy they are. Sometimes I search for references to use for drawing (oftentimes various historical armors because I’m a massive nerd) as a hobby, only to be flooded with AI slop, which doesn’t even get the details right pretty much all the time.”
I think you can see how this is a problem for anyone that needs to do research online.
You are literally saying that work should be done manually for the sake of preserving jobs here. Meanwhile, automation has very little to do with society being individualistic.
I don’t think I’ve argued against people’s personal preferences one way or the other here.
I don’t think any of that changes the fundamentals of what’s happening. People do learn through repetition, and we understand enough regarding how the brain works to know that reinforcement training strengthens certain neural pathways that allow us to become better at doing tasks we practice doing.
I’ve repeated this many times in this thread, and I will repeat it once again here. The AI is a tool that humans use, it’s not an independent volitional agent.
You’re once again conflating a tool and the medium with what an artist actually does. I’ve repeated this many times, and you’ve always ignored this point.
The value of what an artist does lies beyond mere technical ability. What really matters is their vision and the idea they’re trying to convey, not the medium being used. The AI is just a tool that a human uses to convey the idea they have to others.
Except, nobody is saying that problems created by artists by new technology should be ignored. What’s being said is that there needs to be realistic and constructive discussion regarding these problems instead of reactionary takes on this technology.
All art is human made art. The AI is a tool a human uses. You continue to refuse to engage with this key point. The AI has no volition of its own. A human uses this tool to create the imagery they want to create and share with other people. The art is not created by AI, it is created by the human using this tool.
As far as I can tell, the reason you claim this isn’t real art is because the tool takes care of all the technical aspects of producing the image.
I never made this argument. In fact, I’ve pointed out how other fields, such as my own, have very much similar concerns and similar discussions are happening within them.
I don’t see how acknowledging the reality of the situation and saying that artists need better messaging is throwing artists under the bus.
Pushing against these tools is a quixotic endeavour. As you’ve admitted yourself, this tech won’t go away no matter how much people complain about it. Pushing for regulation of these tools is great, but it’s highly doubtful that any sort of regulation that cuts into business profits would be tolerated.
You’ve also completely ignored my point that ignoring this technology only ensures that it ends up being developed in a proprietary fashion which will make the situation worse.
My point remains entirely consistent here. AI itself is a tool, creativity does not come from the tool itself, it comes from the human trying to convey something to other humans. The tool merely makes this easier for more people to express themselves.
AI generated slop is not creative precisely because there is no thinking behind it, and no depths. That’s what makes it slop. However, somebody using these same tools with a clear idea they want to convey is not slop.
Humans using a tool can produce whatever they want. The real question is who controls this tool. Your concern directly supports my argument here. If these tools are controlled by corporations then it will be corporations who decide what sort of content is produced. If people reject using these tools and open development stops, then all we will see will be corporate mandated slop. I think we can both agree this is not a desirable situation.
This is a whole separate issue, and there should be a discussion on how to curate things such as historical content. This is a whole separate topic of discussion however.
I thought I was clear that this take is conditional on the fact that the current iteration of AI is built on unpaid labor of non-consenting artists, otherwise I would be contradicting myself when I say that I’m not against the automation itself. I also didn’t argue that automation has anything to do with the individualistic nature of capitalistic society, but it does affect how much we see other workers and the reactions to it.
So, to be clear, I am against its use while these concerns are not tackled. Artists are right in fighting it, and need to organize and push harder into regulation.
Didn’t mean to imply that, I just thought it was better for me to clarify that opinion.
I don’t see how that answers what I’m pointing out in there. Learning through repetition is just one aspect in common.
Yes, when I say “spew what is requested” it implies someone requested it. Still it doesn’t mean that person made it, see my other answer below where I address this.
Nobody here is saying that, sure, and I’m not saying anyone here is doing that, I’m saying other workers at large are doing that, and that is a huge problem.
No it is not. If you ask for a bucket of chicken wings did you make it or did you order it? It’s the literal exact same thing with AI, you didn’t do it, you asked it do to it for you. You can argue that you have a much finer degree of say in how the AI will spit out it’s output then how the chicken wings will be prepared, but it is still the same relationship.
Really? I’ll have to say AGAIN that I never claimed it isn’t real art? I directly addressed that before, this is beyond ridiculous that you keep trying to attribute that to me. JUST STOP PUTTING WORDS INTO MY MOUTH. If you’re just gonna keep doing this I have no reason nor interest to continue this discussion.
Not intentionally, but it’s how the way you are framing it is coming across. You talk about how artists need to adapt and change their discourse, which is true to a certain extend, but the hostility other workers show them is beyond that and shows a general lack of empathy that needs to be acknowledged and fought against.
This is a joke right? I’m yet again reiterating that it’s about fighting it in its current form that is controlled by big techs, not being a bunch of Luddites against the tech. This is about a strategic position to push for regulation. Honestly you just stating it’s highly doubtful just looks like defeatism to me. Yeah, pushing for regulation under capitalism sucks, but if it can make the working class better by even 1% that’s good enough to get behind and fight, and it also helps with the organization of the working class.
I also never made the argument we should ignore it or that we shouldn’t ensure it is developed in the open.
Yes, I agree, I was merely using it as an example of the problems with the enshittification of the web with the spam of gen AI on search engines that affect people using the internet for research.
I’m against corporations using it for profit, but I see no issue with personal use for the same reason I do not think copyrights should exist.
It’s not just repetition, the process is fundamentally the same. Artificial neural networks are inspired by the way natural ones work, and while there are many differences they do operate on fundamentally the same principles. Human artists learn by example from other artists, art is very much derivative in nature, just like technology and science are. We gradually build upon work other people did. Things don’t just appear out of the blue.
So, using this logic a photographer is just ordering a bucket of chicken wings when they use the camera right?
I mean you wrote this literally after you wrote that using gen AI is like ordering a bucket of chicken wings. If you’re saying I’m putting words in your mouth then you need to explain what you’re trying to say here a lot more clearly.
My interpretation of your argument is that you claim that using a tool that automates the labor involved in creating an image means the artists did not produce it. I’ve given you prior examples of using tools like Krita compared to oil painting, and asked you where you draw the line. You never really addressed that.
So, please do clearly explain what you mean. If you’re not saying that it’s about the manual labor involved in producing the image, then what is the argument precisely. If I have an idea and I use a tool to turn that idea into an image then why is using one tool means I produced the image and using another tool means the tool did it. If it’s not about the ease of use then what is it precisely?
I’m saying that rallying against this technology is demonstrably not effective and it’s not achieving the desired result.
And I’ve noted in several replies now that there is no meaningful path to regulation because that would cut into profits for the companies. If you are a Marxist, then you surely understand the concept of class dictatorship and that we live under dictatorship of capital in the west?
Now you’re putting words in my mouth, because I was very clear explaining my position and nowhere did I talk about any sort of defeatism. What I actually said was that artists need to learn or organize the same way people have been organizing in other professions where their trades feel victim to automation. This is not a unique situation.
Then I don’t know what you mean when you say “I am against its use while these concerns are not tackled”. Should people be using and developing open source models or not?