3 ms·

hi, I'm an artist, I do not give a shit about other humans looking at my work, I am delighted when a younger pro comes to me and thanks me for what they learnt

hi, I'm an artist, I do not give a shit about other humans looking at my work, I am delighted when a younger pro comes to me and thanks me for what they learnt from my work. That tells me they were fascinated enough with it to look at it and analyze it again and again. I made a connection with them via my drawing skills. I am catastrophically unhappy at the prospect of a corporation ingesting a copy of my work and stuffing it into a for-profit machine without my permission. If my work ends up significantly influencing a generated image you love, nobody will ever know. You will never become a fan of my work through this. You will never contribute to my Patreon. You will never run into me at a convention and tell me how influential my work was to something in your life. Instead, the corporation will get another few pennies, and that is all.

teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Is there a license that exists that you could put on your work to prevent its use in model training?
- judge2020 4y ago
  If, as I alluded to, you and the SCOTUS (and other courts) interpret AI art as similar enough to humans where the 'training' process is analogous to a human looking at art and learning how to create good art (or even copy another artist's style), then the license you apply to art does not matter, because it'd just be "learning" about how art works, and not any actual usage of the original work. In this case the AI would be considered a human for the purposes of copyright infringement, where it would infringe on the original work if it recited or recreated any single work from memory without any substantial changes to turn it into either a parody (fair use) or its own work separate from the images it has learned from, even if it mimics the art style of any single artist (since artists can't copyright their styles).
  - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
    I think you’d consider those responsible for the model to be humans, the model to be a machine, and all outputs to be derivative works of the training set with the humans holding culpability.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  Not as far as I know. There needs to be one, and internet-scrapers need to be able to be sued for ludicrous amounts of money if they violate it, IMHO. Training AI models feels way outside the scope of what I think "fair use" should cover.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    They do not currently operate on the basis of fair use. Operating as a human by looking at images and learning how to draw or paint is not 'fair use', it's a right given to you by either God or Mother Nature, so the legal basis for neural nets learning from other art is that it's learning like a human and creating new art from just knowing what art human think is good and optimizing its creation of art to mimic if not borrow the same qualities while still making something new.
    - egypturnash 4y ago
      As far as I know there are no religions or legal systems that posit that there are any rights inherently given to machines.
      - dymk 4y ago
        The rights are exercised by the humans building and operating the machines. You're saying the hammer doesn't have rights. Well, yeah, duh. It's the person holding it.
        egypturnash 4y ago
        "so the legal basis for neural nets learning from other art is that it's learning like a human and creating new art from just knowing what art human think is good and optimizing its creation of art to mimic if not borrow the same qualities while still making something new" sure sounds like it's attributing the rights to the machine, not the person using it, to me.
      - celdon25 4y ago
BornInChicago 4y ago
I'm an artist as well. I think this can happen whenever anyone sees your art anywhere online. They can copy it. They won't tell you about it. They might copy it really well. And they might copy not just your technical style, but what your art says and how it says it.
falsaberN1 4y ago
As a fellow artist, I can kind of see where you are coming from. I've had my art copied in several places, nobody ever asked for permission and probably nobody knows I did it. Nor will. I've seen my work in memes, Doom mods, promotional posters and even ads. It's harsh, but it's naive to expect a reward, the world doesn't work like that in practice. And that's human fault and has happened way before AI imaging was even considered a possibility. Look at how many "classic" artists only became known by chance (and posthumously), despite the quality of their output. Also, if anything, being included in a training set means you are already notorious. The big ones are usually trained on stock art or famous professionals/classics, and the ones trained by random people are going to use quality filters to get the best images of a specific subject. If you aren't already notorious, you simply will not make it into a set. The other possible motivation is spite, but that'll only happen if you participate in internet slapfights. And...Patreon? Fans? Influence? "younger PRO" (so a non-pro doesn't count even if they are trying their best?) I sincerely recommend you choose sentences more carefully. Makes you sound phony and using art as a social strategy. When there's so much talk about art and its "soul" you really don't want to make yourself sound like art is a mere means to an end or you risk making the cold, calculating machine seem "purer". Personally, art should be its own goal. I had plenty of time to stomach one isn't entitled to anything just because effort, so I just want to make my art better. And saves me from the trouble of chasing trends to stay relevant.
krsdcbl 4y ago
Honestly having worked as an artist and illustrator for a long time I'm kinda relaxed when it comes to this. companies stealing your work isn't a thing that just happened to become possible because AI can make it easier to imitate. The real world scenario is much rather: _they just steal your existing work_ ever since I've been publishing my own illustrations I've always ran an image search on the stuff I've got on my homepage once or twice a year, and almost every time i did this I've found multiple individuals or companies who just used my illustrations for something without ever contacting me. On the other hand, if my style was ever to become known and sought after enough for people prompting AIs with my name, I'm pretty confident that this would mean that: A) I've grown big enough to have more inquiries than i could serve anyway and B) The ones doing this are neither people or companies I'd liked to have as clients, nor would they have booked my services for the price I ask if it weren't for AI. Big agencies with interesting clients couldn't allow themselves to risk their reputation with faking original work, and other large corporations that just don't give a fuck because they are ready to litigate if i challenge their usage are likely to have such reach that they'll end up still contributing to the desirability of my original artwork if they appropriate it. And the smaller ones, they fulfill premise B) on the one hand and would also feed the hype. So I truly feel what actually bothers you, forever I've been drawing first and foremost because i want to inspire people to express themselves and make experience the same experiences I've had when loosing myself in a drawing. And i do think the bittersweetness of imaging AI remains that while some people will gain the confidence to DO try to express themselves creatively, others will at the same time never want to seek achieving this by their own physical skill and raw will. But when it comes to myself and my art, I actually see only benefit and progression, regardless of what current dystopic scenarios might manifest :)
- coldtea 4y ago
  The problem is to be impacted negatively doesn't necessary mean "I've grown big enough to have more inquiries than i could serve anyway". It could just mean AI can imitate above a certain "good enough" level the kind of style you and others working in a similar vain do (say "whimsical children illustrations") and all other styles besides, so once-would-have-been-customers now just use some AI stuff with a generic prompt. In other words, AI aet doesn't have to request your specific name to affect you. It's enough that it provides art for many/most gigs that would now go to a human illustrator. It would be hard to see just "good developments" when paying gigs dry out.
coldtea 4y ago
It's not like 90% of the work available to human commercial artists would even be there in the future with these developments... Most customers currently paying an artist will just slap some quick AI stuff and call it a day. Big customers might still make it a matter of prestige or pride or "quality" differentiator to use "real human art" from some famous graphic designers, but that is like 1/1000 of the commercial gigs going on today.
t0bia_s 4y ago
Do you think Rembrandt know his fans? Until Renaissance, artist don't even signed their work. We are making huge steps to promoting ourselves in last decades.

teaearlgraycold 4y ago

Is there a license that exists that you could put on your work to prevent its use in model training?

judge2020 4y ago
If, as I alluded to, you and the SCOTUS (and other courts) interpret AI art as similar enough to humans where the 'training' process is analogous to a human looking at art and learning how to create good art (or even copy another artist's style), then the license you apply to art does not matter, because it'd just be "learning" about how art works, and not any actual usage of the original work. In this case the AI would be considered a human for the purposes of copyright infringement, where it would infringe on the original work if it recited or recreated any single work from memory without any substantial changes to turn it into either a parody (fair use) or its own work separate from the images it has learned from, even if it mimics the art style of any single artist (since artists can't copyright their styles).
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  I think you’d consider those responsible for the model to be humans, the model to be a machine, and all outputs to be derivative works of the training set with the humans holding culpability.
egypturnash 4y ago
Not as far as I know. There needs to be one, and internet-scrapers need to be able to be sued for ludicrous amounts of money if they violate it, IMHO. Training AI models feels way outside the scope of what I think "fair use" should cover.
- judge2020 4y ago
  They do not currently operate on the basis of fair use. Operating as a human by looking at images and learning how to draw or paint is not 'fair use', it's a right given to you by either God or Mother Nature, so the legal basis for neural nets learning from other art is that it's learning like a human and creating new art from just knowing what art human think is good and optimizing its creation of art to mimic if not borrow the same qualities while still making something new.
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    As far as I know there are no religions or legal systems that posit that there are any rights inherently given to machines.
    - dymk 4y ago
      The rights are exercised by the humans building and operating the machines. You're saying the hammer doesn't have rights. Well, yeah, duh. It's the person holding it.
      - egypturnash 4y ago
        "so the legal basis for neural nets learning from other art is that it's learning like a human and creating new art from just knowing what art human think is good and optimizing its creation of art to mimic if not borrow the same qualities while still making something new" sure sounds like it's attributing the rights to the machine, not the person using it, to me.
    - celdon25 4y ago

BornInChicago 4y ago

I'm an artist as well. I think this can happen whenever anyone sees your art anywhere online. They can copy it. They won't tell you about it. They might copy it really well. And they might copy not just your technical style, but what your art says and how it says it.

falsaberN1 4y ago

As a fellow artist, I can kind of see where you are coming from. I've had my art copied in several places, nobody ever asked for permission and probably nobody knows I did it. Nor will. I've seen my work in memes, Doom mods, promotional posters and even ads. It's harsh, but it's naive to expect a reward, the world doesn't work like that in practice. And that's human fault and has happened way before AI imaging was even considered a possibility. Look at how many "classic" artists only became known by chance (and posthumously), despite the quality of their output. Also, if anything, being included in a training set means you are already notorious. The big ones are usually trained on stock art or famous professionals/classics, and the ones trained by random people are going to use quality filters to get the best images of a specific subject. If you aren't already notorious, you simply will not make it into a set. The other possible motivation is spite, but that'll only happen if you participate in internet slapfights. And...Patreon? Fans? Influence? "younger PRO" (so a non-pro doesn't count even if they are trying their best?) I sincerely recommend you choose sentences more carefully. Makes you sound phony and using art as a social strategy. When there's so much talk about art and its "soul" you really don't want to make yourself sound like art is a mere means to an end or you risk making the cold, calculating machine seem "purer". Personally, art should be its own goal. I had plenty of time to stomach one isn't entitled to anything just because effort, so I just want to make my art better. And saves me from the trouble of chasing trends to stay relevant.

krsdcbl 4y ago

Honestly having worked as an artist and illustrator for a long time I'm kinda relaxed when it comes to this. companies stealing your work isn't a thing that just happened to become possible because AI can make it easier to imitate. The real world scenario is much rather: _they just steal your existing work_ ever since I've been publishing my own illustrations I've always ran an image search on the stuff I've got on my homepage once or twice a year, and almost every time i did this I've found multiple individuals or companies who just used my illustrations for something without ever contacting me. On the other hand, if my style was ever to become known and sought after enough for people prompting AIs with my name, I'm pretty confident that this would mean that: A) I've grown big enough to have more inquiries than i could serve anyway and B) The ones doing this are neither people or companies I'd liked to have as clients, nor would they have booked my services for the price I ask if it weren't for AI. Big agencies with interesting clients couldn't allow themselves to risk their reputation with faking original work, and other large corporations that just don't give a fuck because they are ready to litigate if i challenge their usage are likely to have such reach that they'll end up still contributing to the desirability of my original artwork if they appropriate it. And the smaller ones, they fulfill premise B) on the one hand and would also feed the hype. So I truly feel what actually bothers you, forever I've been drawing first and foremost because i want to inspire people to express themselves and make experience the same experiences I've had when loosing myself in a drawing. And i do think the bittersweetness of imaging AI remains that while some people will gain the confidence to DO try to express themselves creatively, others will at the same time never want to seek achieving this by their own physical skill and raw will. But when it comes to myself and my art, I actually see only benefit and progression, regardless of what current dystopic scenarios might manifest :)

coldtea 4y ago
The problem is to be impacted negatively doesn't necessary mean "I've grown big enough to have more inquiries than i could serve anyway". It could just mean AI can imitate above a certain "good enough" level the kind of style you and others working in a similar vain do (say "whimsical children illustrations") and all other styles besides, so once-would-have-been-customers now just use some AI stuff with a generic prompt. In other words, AI aet doesn't have to request your specific name to affect you. It's enough that it provides art for many/most gigs that would now go to a human illustrator. It would be hard to see just "good developments" when paying gigs dry out.

coldtea 4y ago

It's not like 90% of the work available to human commercial artists would even be there in the future with these developments... Most customers currently paying an artist will just slap some quick AI stuff and call it a day. Big customers might still make it a matter of prestige or pride or "quality" differentiator to use "real human art" from some famous graphic designers, but that is like 1/1000 of the commercial gigs going on today.

t0bia_s 4y ago

Do you think Rembrandt know his fans? Until Renaissance, artist don't even signed their work. We are making huge steps to promoting ourselves in last decades.