4 ms·

What struck me when reading through many outraged tweets of artists was how it was all about the rules, copyright, the art critics, the other artists, the finan

by in3d 4y ago

What struck me when reading through many outraged tweets of artists was how it was all about the rules, copyright, the art critics, the other artists, the financial aspects, and most of all personal attacks on the submitter. Nobody gave a damn about the art consumers and their preferences. Sure, it probably should become a separate category in competitions and it could suck for lower-level artists. But it makes me think that this whole industry needs a realignment.

salawat 4y ago
>But it makes me think that this whole industry needs a realignment. Truer words have never before been spoken. However, I think it applies more to the tech industry than the Art world.
esperent 4y ago
In the context of an art competition those are all reasonable arguments. For a competition between humans to be meaningful, there have to be artificial constraints put in place. For a weightlifting competition, those constraints are things like "don't use steroids" and "don't use an invisible string to assist you in lifting the weights". For an art competition, the constraints might be things like "don't use AI to generate the image" or "don't hire another artist to do the work for you". In all of these cases, breaking the constraints is still work. Using steroids is dangerous and may be illegal. Hiring another artist is time consuming and expensive. Getting good results from an AI model takes many iterations and a lot of tweaking. If you just care about the result then it doesn't matter how the heavy lumps of metal were lifted, or who created the aesthetically pleasing artwork. But if you care about the competition, then these constraints are important.
- fjkdlsjflkds 4y ago
  > For an art competition, the constraints might be things like "don't use AI to generate the image" [...] This is a good point. But... 1) Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess. 2) Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image": even if you assume some perfect "watermarking" process (that would mark an image as "AI-generated" vs. "human-generated"), nothing prevents a person from indirectly using AI in the generation of digital art (e.g., prompt -> generate image using AI -> paint over image using pbrush.exe, deleting all watermarks in the process). My point: though you make a fair point, rules that cannot be effectively enforced can be seen as somewhat unfair (since they only affect honest people).
  - esperent 4y ago
    > Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely. There's unlikely to be a rule specifically against AI in the same way there's unlikely to be a rule specifically against getting help from space aliens. Both probably seemed as likely to be an issue up until a few years ago (especially to people who don't follow tech developments). > 2. Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard. In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise. If you can get away with breaking any rule, whether it's steroids, AI, or invisible strings, then that's a different discussion.
    - mcv 4y ago
      > I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. What exactly counts as "own work" in the age of digital tools and AI? This was explicitly the digital works category, and even Photoshop makes use of AI.
    - fjkdlsjflkds 4y ago
      > I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely. This seems too vague/ill-defined. In what way is the entry "not his own work"? Using tool X or Y in the generation of digital artwork doesn't make the work belong to the tool. By this logic, using stuff like Photoshop's context-aware fill (which, in some sense, generates/hallucinates novel image data without human intervention) would also make the resulting work "AI-tainted" and "not human-generated", right? > My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard. ...but still quite doable (so there's always the risk of getting caught). How exactly do you propose that digital art gets tested for "use of AI in its production"? Sounds like a situation that is ripe for selective enforcement (i.e., the only people that are going to get caught are the people that are honest/dumb enough to get caught). > In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise. It may be moot in this particular case, but it's not moot in the general sense, since most people are not necessarily honest (unlike this person). Either way, unless the competition had an explicit rule against the use of AI tools (or whatever you want to call them), I still don't see how this person did anything wrong: as far as I can tell, the person submitted their own work (note: there is no legal mechanism under which a machine can claim authorship over something).
- Foreignborn 4y ago
  > For a weightlifting competition, those constraints are things like "don't use steroids" and "don't use an invisible string to assist you in lifting the weights". This is a good point. The constraints seem important, yet at the same time no one seems to be following them. Whether it’s elite CrossFit, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or Olympic weightlifting, people ARE taking gear to stay competitive. I could see digital art becoming a similar arms race.
- Kamq 4y ago
  Fair, but those arguments only come up when you've lost the ability to compete at the main activity (which, since the AI won, seems to be the case). You could probably retroactively disqualify this person from the contest, but it has a lot of implications for the art world outside of state fair competitions.

by in3d 4y ago

salawat 4y ago

>But it makes me think that this whole industry needs a realignment. Truer words have never before been spoken. However, I think it applies more to the tech industry than the Art world.

esperent 4y ago

In the context of an art competition those are all reasonable arguments. For a competition between humans to be meaningful, there have to be artificial constraints put in place. For a weightlifting competition, those constraints are things like "don't use steroids" and "don't use an invisible string to assist you in lifting the weights". For an art competition, the constraints might be things like "don't use AI to generate the image" or "don't hire another artist to do the work for you". In all of these cases, breaking the constraints is still work. Using steroids is dangerous and may be illegal. Hiring another artist is time consuming and expensive. Getting good results from an AI model takes many iterations and a lot of tweaking. If you just care about the result then it doesn't matter how the heavy lumps of metal were lifted, or who created the aesthetically pleasing artwork. But if you care about the competition, then these constraints are important.

fjkdlsjflkds 4y ago
> For an art competition, the constraints might be things like "don't use AI to generate the image" [...] This is a good point. But... 1) Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess. 2) Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image": even if you assume some perfect "watermarking" process (that would mark an image as "AI-generated" vs. "human-generated"), nothing prevents a person from indirectly using AI in the generation of digital art (e.g., prompt -> generate image using AI -> paint over image using pbrush.exe, deleting all watermarks in the process). My point: though you make a fair point, rules that cannot be effectively enforced can be seen as somewhat unfair (since they only affect honest people).
- esperent 4y ago
  > Was that actually explicitly stated as a constraint in this specific art competition? If not, then no (explicit) rules were broken, I guess I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely. There's unlikely to be a rule specifically against AI in the same way there's unlikely to be a rule specifically against getting help from space aliens. Both probably seemed as likely to be an issue up until a few years ago (especially to people who don't follow tech developments). > 2. Unlike rules such as "don't use steroids" (which can be enforced through testing), it might be more complicated to effectively enforce rules such as "don't use AI to generate the image My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard. In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise. If you can get away with breaking any rule, whether it's steroids, AI, or invisible strings, then that's a different discussion.
  - mcv 4y ago
    > I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. What exactly counts as "own work" in the age of digital tools and AI? This was explicitly the digital works category, and even Photoshop makes use of AI.
  - fjkdlsjflkds 4y ago
    > I expect the competition contains some rule along the lines of "entries must be the entrants own work" or similar. So yes, most likely. This seems too vague/ill-defined. In what way is the entry "not his own work"? Using tool X or Y in the generation of digital artwork doesn't make the work belong to the tool. By this logic, using stuff like Photoshop's context-aware fill (which, in some sense, generates/hallucinates novel image data without human intervention) would also make the resulting work "AI-tainted" and "not human-generated", right? > My understanding is that testing for all banned substances is actually extremely hard. ...but still quite doable (so there's always the risk of getting caught). How exactly do you propose that digital art gets tested for "use of AI in its production"? Sounds like a situation that is ripe for selective enforcement (i.e., the only people that are going to get caught are the people that are honest/dumb enough to get caught). > In any case, the point is moot - this artist did use AI and is not trying to claim otherwise. It may be moot in this particular case, but it's not moot in the general sense, since most people are not necessarily honest (unlike this person). Either way, unless the competition had an explicit rule against the use of AI tools (or whatever you want to call them), I still don't see how this person did anything wrong: as far as I can tell, the person submitted their own work (note: there is no legal mechanism under which a machine can claim authorship over something).
Foreignborn 4y ago
> For a weightlifting competition, those constraints are things like "don't use steroids" and "don't use an invisible string to assist you in lifting the weights". This is a good point. The constraints seem important, yet at the same time no one seems to be following them. Whether it’s elite CrossFit, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or Olympic weightlifting, people ARE taking gear to stay competitive. I could see digital art becoming a similar arms race.
Kamq 4y ago
Fair, but those arguments only come up when you've lost the ability to compete at the main activity (which, since the AI won, seems to be the case). You could probably retroactively disqualify this person from the contest, but it has a lot of implications for the art world outside of state fair competitions.