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Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback

128 points by cdrnsf 9mo ago

GorbachevyChase 9mo ago
Comic production is already heavily machine assisted. I don’t really understand the FUD
- basscomm 9mo ago
  Creating art, even via using something like Photoshop, is a skill that takes years of learning and practice to do well. Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation. When someone short-circuits the whole creative process by putting a prompt into a machine and having it spit out an art, there's nothing to appreciate.
  - DocTomoe 9mo ago
    How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art? Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes? As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'. Those are earnest questions, I want to understand the recently-recurring time-and-skill argument. What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?'
    - crashabr 9mo ago
      > one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-talian painters'. Who claims that 'baroque northern italian painters' are not artists? If anything, an unknown painter is much closer to art with capital A than Banksy, in the traditional hierarchy. So this is a weird framing. As for time, this is both time taken to create and time spent practicing to reach a certain level of artistry. A speed painter is still an artist, and they reached their speed not by using an AI shortcut but by spending long hours practicing. The underlying question is how do we tie art and legitimacy: society has always tied both, which is why we have institutions tasked with assigning legitimacy (museums), a hierarchy of art forms where the longest lived are seen as superior (painting over photography), and artists gain prestige not from a single art piece, but from a consistent production of works that are tied together by a shared identity. On the other hand, a lot of the "pro" AI art discourse I've seen often boiled down to attempts to disconnect art from legitimacy. That's a tough hill to climb.
      - pixl97 9mo ago
        >society has always tied both, Pretty strong statement, an as such needs a non-tautological proof. Rich people buying rare things as what society should consider art may not exactly fit that bill. The thing is what is considered art at any particular time is very nebulous and quite often tied to what the rulers of a country would allow. Trying to say that modern institutions get to decide what art is and isn't is also going to cause definition problems. Does folk art not recognized by museums count at art. The said people who like it would say it does. Does a person who spends a small amount of time creating something that others consider art, even though that's not what they do, nor will they do it again, have they actually made a piece of art? Simply put trying to put these rules on the ethereal concept of art quickly devolves into pedantry that makes actual enemies in fields were factions say their ideas are the only true art, and other factions that attempt to destroy the concept altogether.
      - DocTomoe 9mo ago
        I was pointing out that time and skill are not universal markers of 'worthy' art. The fact that a random graffiti guy is celebrated, a "big A" artist is unknown is a direct indication that time and skill needed are of little concern in the long run. > a hierarchy of art forms where the longest lived are seen as superior (painting over photography), I think this is a bold take - comparing an art form that has been around in a meaningful way for 2000 years to one that has been around for 100 years. Also, if that was true, and not just survivorship bias, shouldn't we consider sculptures and cave wall paintings superior to oil paintings? Photography, by the way, was considered 'unworthy' by 'real artists' for decades because 'there is no art involved in pointing a box at a tree and pressing a button'. That sounds awfully like the AI debate of today, doesn't it? > artists gain prestige not from a single art piece, but from a consistent production of works that are tied together by a shared identity. Or is it that an artist does produce more than one piece of art over their lifespan, so they can, in fact, survive, and, once they become popular with one painting, their other stuff is retroactively elevated? Art one-hit wonders (or low-hit wonders) do exist. Van Gogh is known for the night sky and the sunflowers, virtually nothing else (unless you are an afficiado). Da Vinci is known for the Mona Lisa - if you are an enthusiast, you might know the Salvator Mundi - the Vitruvian Man I consider less art and more technical drawing. Dürer is known for the hands, the rabbit, and a self-portrait. Shepard Fairey is only known for the "Hope / Yes, we can"-poster. > On the other hand, a lot of the "pro" AI art discourse I've seen often boiled down to attempts to disconnect art from legitimacy. That may be related to the circumstance that most of the Anti-AI backlash comes from mediocre artists who do mostly derivative works. If your portfolio consists of furry porn and a broody Heath-Ledger-Joker sitting down, with 'HA HA HA' scribbled over it, sorry, that makes you a 'media / creative', but not an artist with a bit A ... You are essentially doing what the AI is doing: Take an idea, rehash it, minimally, then put it down on paper/your Wacom tablet. If all you bring to the table is 'I suffered for this', your market just shrank to people who enjoy your suffering. Art is not artistry, art is the idea. As such I find the concept of a 'Street-art Darth Vader' covered in colorful tags that's basically an AI image directly or post-processed more interesting than the 'real artist with colored pencils' Darth Vader in a classical pose that the artist got from a superman comic book cover.
    - clowncubs 9mo ago
      My personal experience: As an artist throughout my life, whether it be drawing, painting, or sculpting, I have been asked again and again how long it took me to make a piece. It is probably the most common question I get when I interact with people over my art. My experience has shown me people value the effort and time it takes to make something beautiful and unique. I recently began attending events/cons to share my sculpting and it was eye opening. Not only did people frown on A.I. generated art at these events, but I had to broadcast that my sculpting was not 3D printed. Quite a few visitors to my table let me know they appreciated my work was handmade.
    - basscomm 9mo ago
      > How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art? You don't. Unless that's the kind of thing you're into, I guess. > Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes? You can't quantify art that way. People work at different speeds. I can appreciate that something took some number of hours without knowing the precise number of hours. > As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'. Maybe, but I'm not qualified to make that comparison. Both are beyond my level of artistic ability (I've never studied art nor practiced much). I don't know why one thing or artist gets more popular than another while another who's just as talented (or maybe even moreso) languishes in obscurity. Skill is a factor, sure, but there's no formula that I'm aware of. > What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?' Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder"
      - cthalupa 9mo ago
        > Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder" I think this raises an interesting question about form vs. function in art. I was running a AD&D game on Friday. At one point, I was holding up the book to show the artwork of a monster to the group. None of us were looking at it and taking the time to contemplate the effort involved, thinking it must have taken a while, etc. I'm sure some people do - old school D&D art is definitely an area that a subset of the hobby is passionate about - but the majority of people are looking at it to help with formulating things in their mind's eye, getting a feel for things, etc. But I will appreciate a piece of "standalone" art in a very similar manner as to how you describe. Do most readers spend appreciable time looking at the art on the cover of their book? Do people spend a ton of time looking at album art while listening to music on Spotify? How about the art in a video game - how much of it is the point vs. something that facilitates the point - the last few times I loaded up Dwarf Fortress, it was the ASCII tileset, not the graphical version. Do AI creations have a place where the art is supposed to be functional vs. being made for the sake of being art?
  - wpietri 9mo ago
    And on top of those things, I'd add that good artists use that time to deepen the work and their understanding of the work. If you're doing, say, factory work, you can just zone out. You do the same thing over and over, and you do it well enough, but your mind is somewhere else. But somebody who's truly during art is present in the work as they're doing it. They're up to something. I think that's a big part of why the work of serious artists changes over time. It's an exploration. In contrast, look at some kitch producer like Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™. He was clearly successful financially. But I'd argue that there is little more to it than "AI" "art". For me appreciating art always involves reaching for an understanding of the artist and the humanity we share. An Ansel Adams print is lovely, but ultimately I end up thinking not just about the image or the landscape. I think about being in the landscape. About the process of getting that one perfect photo. About what drives a person to seek that and to go to such incredible lengths. About how Adams saw the world. If I'm going to think hard about some GenAI output, I'm going to appreciate the technology that went into it. But there's no more to think about the prompter than there is about somebody picking out clip art.
  - thedevilslawyer 9mo ago
    > Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation. I call BS on this. Most people like something striking or beautiful or thought proviking. For the vast majority, the time or skill barely comes into context. You meant connoisseurs perhaps.
- cdrnsf 9mo ago
  There’s a significant difference between automating minor or menial tasks and trying to automate the creative or artistic process entirely.
ajayarama 9mo ago
Interesting. It seems that in industries where productivity/output isn't the primary goal (so not Software, Analytics, etc), people care more about *where* their content comes from. It's quite indiscriminate in Software, for sure, I feel like people don't care whether you used an AI to write your code as long as it works. But I don't see AI getting real footing really ever in the creative world because people want authenticity there. It's why I think Suno, for example, is never really going to go anywhere.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >It's quite indiscriminate in Software, for sure, I feel like people don't care whether you used an AI to write your code as long as it works. Because it's hard to tell whether the app you're using is vibecoded or not. Is an app buggy because it was vibecoded? Or the developer just sucks?
- maeln 9mo ago
  > But I don't see AI getting real footing really ever in the creative world because people want authenticity there. It's why I think Suno, for example, is never really going to go anywhere. Oh I bet it will go somewhere. There is already plenty of low-budget direct-to-dvd movie, cheap soap opera telenovelas, and elevator music used as background in public places. These don't care about quality, they were always about making the cheapest product possible that can generate revenue / be used as a backdrop. Gen AI is going to be a race to the bottom for this field. But for "labour of love" art/media, they might have a place in the toolbox (to generate a texture, fill some unimportant background, etc), but full gen AI media won't cut it. Intention, direction, realization is what matter. And since most community are about those labour of love, it shouldn't be a surprise that most people who attend conferences are heavily against gen AI.
- Daedren 9mo ago
  It's less about productivity and output (those are still desired in many art fields) but more about creativity and personality, more humane traits. Not to say that coding doesn't have those two, but I'd argue developers have been caring less and less for it over the years. Their relationship with code has changed. You can look at a comic and immediately identify the illustrator if you're well versed in the artists. Now would that still happen in 20 years if Gen AI became standard today? Will we keep getting new artists and new art styles? Or will their relationship with art become more like newer coders have with code? I don't think it's an easy question to answer and no one likely has an answer.
542458 9mo ago
Today there's a (mostly) clear line between "AI" and "not AI" art in terms of process, but I believe as time goes on we'll see more and more blurring of that. I'm thinking the equivalent of the spell-check tool for art, something that takes explicit human input and tidies the details in an interactive, human-in-the-loop sort of way.
- JKCalhoun 9mo ago
  There's been a schism for some time between "Artists" (that's with a capital "A", mind you) and, oh, graphic designers, photographers… The latter are not real artists. While I suspect the AI fracas within the art community will never go away, I suspect within a decade AI-assisted art (or whatever you want to call it) will be a non-issue for everyone else.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
    Photography, computer graphics, Photoshop, synthesizers, samplers, and others have all been considered "not real art." The irony is that the kind of genre art you see at Comic-Con is mostly reproductions of commercial properties or standard tropes and formulas, with very little original vision and creativity. Being able to draw something recognisable as [genre character name goes here], even with some skill, is not that high a bar, and it lives in a tiny niche in the art world as a whole. AI brought something fresh to art for a while, but now I think creative people are more aware of the limitations. It's in a strange mid-way place between being fascinating, and being frustratingly limited compared to what it could be. I suspect we'll start seeing meta-art soon with a much more interesting mix of creation, original thought, and execution.
    - MisterTea 9mo ago
      > AI brought something fresh to art for a while, What fresh new ideas did it bring? Most of what I see is generic AI slop pictures tossed in articles I mostly ignore.
      - 9mo ago
DocTomoe 9mo ago
> According to Ortiz, the convention is a sacred place she didn’t want to see desecrated by AI. Maybe tone down the religious framing of what is essentially a cashgrab show for the industry. Also: Does that AI ban apply to e.g. Disney in its entirety? Because if it does, it'll be a very small and pretty bleak Comic Con this year.
- ronsor 9mo ago
  Anti-AI is a religious thing for many people.
  - gedy 9mo ago
    They are only religious about it because it hurts their bottom line.
jezzamon 9mo ago
Makes sense to me, the whole structure of the artist booth is about connecting with the person that made the art. Why would you want to see a booth showing artworks that weren't even created by the person in front of you but by an AI? If anything, an AI artwork booth should be manned by the engineers that built and trained the image model and well as scraped the training data. Then they can meet all the people they non-consensually took artwork from :P
- DocTomoe 9mo ago
  I'm old enough to remember when such arguments were had about 'real art' coming from pens, pencils and brushes, not programs. Took a good long time for 'digital art' became a category.
  - andyfilms1 9mo ago
    Honestly I'm okay with "AI art" becoming a category. The issue is when it's presented as handmade, causing confusion. Digital artwork being presenting at an oil painting conference would cause similar confusion and outrage for the same reasons.
    - t0bia_s 9mo ago
      I disagree. AI art is oxymoron. You cannot generate art by definition.
  - whateveracct 9mo ago
    I don't think it did take that long actually? And I don't think it's even a good comparison. AI art vs human art isn't the same jump as physical media to digital.
  - Lerc 9mo ago
    I remember this as well, but I also remember those who thought that merely expressed their disapproval. This time around the response as been aggressively adversarial. Not only do they disapprove of the new thing but anyone who express a contrary opinion is considered a target.
shevy-java 9mo ago
I tried to read the article but a pop-up blocked me in the middle, demanding that I subscribe to a newsletter. I am not subscribed to any newsletter in general, but when the default setting of a webpage tries to force people into newsletter via pop-ups, then I'll simply perma-ban such websites rather than click on anything at all.
- xgulfie 9mo ago
  The x button is right there to dismiss it
- tencentshill 9mo ago
  This is the stated reason they are flagged so often. They have very good reporting that's almost always relevant to post here.
brk 9mo ago
"Artists" are currently trying to create false scarcity, not totally unlike the DeBeers/diamonds false scarcity. Historically, Artists have often had (mostly) uncredited assistants that handled a lot of the grunt work. This is particularly common, IME, for physical media artists that do large sculptures and similar pieces. "The Artist" will do the initial design, and then "artists" working under their direction will do a lot of cutting and welding, for example. AI is upending a lot of this because it is letting more people become Artists in the sense of bringing a vision into reality via the use of various external helpers. In the end all visual artists are just manipulating how photons hit our eyes, and there are lots of ways to make that happen pleasantly.
- longtimelistnr 9mo ago
  a false scarcity? sometimes this site makes me feel like i'm talking to aliens
  - brk 9mo ago
    When you say "Art" can only come from a person who drew a line directly with their own hand, vs. a person who told a computer to draw a line, it's false scarcity. Both lines could wind up looking identical, but the Artist is trying to make the world believe only one of those lines is truly valuable. I'd be interested to see you expand your comment beyond what you wrote. I don't have a horse in this race, I'm a terrible Artist and have no interest in using my time to create visual baubles with AI. I just see it as an interesting thing that is playing out.
- FeteCommuniste 9mo ago
  > Historically, Artists have often had (mostly) uncredited assistants that handled a lot of the grunt work. This is particularly common, IME, for physical media artists that do large sculptures and similar pieces. "The Artist" will do the initial design, and then "artists" working under their direction will do a lot of cutting and welding, for example. I'd say the right thing to do in such cases would be to credit the whole team, like movies do when the credits roll, rather than conclude that the term "artist" is meaningless anyway because some people take credit for the work of others.
jedberg 9mo ago
How much AI is too much? Are you allowed to use Photoshop to create your digital art? Almost every tool there is now powered by AI in some way (some a lot more than others). Can you use its auto-fill button? What percent of the image can you use it for? Can you generate something with AI and then manually edit it in Photoshop? How much manual editing is required before it's not considered AI anymore? My point is, AI is another tool in the toolbox, it can be used well or poorly. How much is too much? Just like back in the day, using Photoshop wasn't allowed, until it was. Where does one draw the line?
- micromacrofoot 9mo ago
  It's not that deep, if someone thinks it's AI it loses value to them. If you're able to utilize AI tools in a way that doesn't make the output look like AI to the average person you'll be fine. Eventually no one will be able to really tell the difference and all of this will go away (though likely at the expense of more people's livelihoods).
  - cootsnuck 9mo ago
    Well I think we're just describing taste and craft. AI tools will get better, more granular, and become better integrated into the actual workflows of people over time. A good tool shouldn't take over my sense for taste and craft. It's a good thing people are pushing back against the slop if we want there to be any incentives for AI tools to not be geared towards helping make slop.
  - yndoendo 9mo ago
    I see that as being partially true. There will be people like Walter Keane that take the art of others and state it is their own work. [0] AI will assist those individuals. AI will have a home on people's desktops for those that accept it. Art that has value will not be AI art. Artist like Margaret Keane will continue to be viewed as exceptional along with their works. [1] Personally, I view AI art as lacking passion and an attempt to short circuit the path to profit / greed. I wish to not fund that circuit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Keane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Keane
whateveracct 9mo ago
AI feels like it's bringing the Matrix to the real world. Imagine you are in a space, and all the posters and text are AI-generated slop. They tickle your dopamine sensors and look good out of focus. But upon closer inspection, they are lacking a substance we didn't even know was there before. It's like living in a simulacrum of the real world. Instead of our energy being harvested, it's our attention.
ImJasonH 9mo ago
I thought the use of AI in the Secret Invasion title sequence was actually really appropriate, even "meta", maybe even a bit ahead of its time. The seemingly purposeful AI style made it seem unnatural (on purpose), and like a facsimile of an otherwise trustworthy thing (on purpose), which was exactly in line with the idea of the show. The execution of that show and that idea was pretty bad, but one of the few positives of it was, to me, an example of using AI art overtly, and leaning into its untrustworthy nature.
rdiddly 9mo ago
I wish this wasn't so doomed. Coming soon to Comic Con: 1) AI art sufficiently "human-looking" to pass. 2) Human artists falsely accused of using AI. Would there be grounds for a lawsuit in the latter case?
- zethraeus 9mo ago
  This is already here and embedded inside Adobe products.
petetnt 9mo ago
Luckily the AI artists can set up their own conventions. Considering how unevitable AI art is, I think the cons will be absolutely swarming with visitors!
joshcsimmons 9mo ago
Absolutely idiotic take - ban drawing tablets too? What about paintbrushes?
- elsonrodriguez 9mo ago
  My wife draws comics and exhibits at comic con, and her website is basically being ddossed by AI scrapers to the point of NEEDING cloudflare to keep the site online. Then people get to use the models that stole her work and crashed her site to sell derivative works right next to her booth?
  - joshcsimmons 9mo ago
    That sucks but it’s pretty much always been like this as technology advances. You can either fight the tide or go with it like Warhol did. He pivoted to doing more photographs later in his career because it was easier to make more art. Art != business. They are separate things and only heartbreak will ensue when you operate on the assumption that artistic values is business value.
    - elsonrodriguez 9mo ago
      My point isn’t about the advancement of technology, it is about theft and destruction disguised as technology. If what happened to my wife happened to Warhol the equivalent would be someone tearing his paintings off the gallery wall and selling xeroxed versions with sharpie written over them. However your ultimate points are that art can’t be business, which in turn means artists shouldn’t necessarily be compensated, which defies reality and morality.

128 points by cdrnsf 9mo ago

GorbachevyChase 9mo ago

Comic production is already heavily machine assisted. I don’t really understand the FUD

basscomm 9mo ago
Creating art, even via using something like Photoshop, is a skill that takes years of learning and practice to do well. Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation. When someone short-circuits the whole creative process by putting a prompt into a machine and having it spit out an art, there's nothing to appreciate.
- DocTomoe 9mo ago
  How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art? Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes? As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'. Those are earnest questions, I want to understand the recently-recurring time-and-skill argument. What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?'
  - crashabr 9mo ago
    > one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-talian painters'. Who claims that 'baroque northern italian painters' are not artists? If anything, an unknown painter is much closer to art with capital A than Banksy, in the traditional hierarchy. So this is a weird framing. As for time, this is both time taken to create and time spent practicing to reach a certain level of artistry. A speed painter is still an artist, and they reached their speed not by using an AI shortcut but by spending long hours practicing. The underlying question is how do we tie art and legitimacy: society has always tied both, which is why we have institutions tasked with assigning legitimacy (museums), a hierarchy of art forms where the longest lived are seen as superior (painting over photography), and artists gain prestige not from a single art piece, but from a consistent production of works that are tied together by a shared identity. On the other hand, a lot of the "pro" AI art discourse I've seen often boiled down to attempts to disconnect art from legitimacy. That's a tough hill to climb.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      >society has always tied both, Pretty strong statement, an as such needs a non-tautological proof. Rich people buying rare things as what society should consider art may not exactly fit that bill. The thing is what is considered art at any particular time is very nebulous and quite often tied to what the rulers of a country would allow. Trying to say that modern institutions get to decide what art is and isn't is also going to cause definition problems. Does folk art not recognized by museums count at art. The said people who like it would say it does. Does a person who spends a small amount of time creating something that others consider art, even though that's not what they do, nor will they do it again, have they actually made a piece of art? Simply put trying to put these rules on the ethereal concept of art quickly devolves into pedantry that makes actual enemies in fields were factions say their ideas are the only true art, and other factions that attempt to destroy the concept altogether.
    - DocTomoe 9mo ago
      I was pointing out that time and skill are not universal markers of 'worthy' art. The fact that a random graffiti guy is celebrated, a "big A" artist is unknown is a direct indication that time and skill needed are of little concern in the long run. > a hierarchy of art forms where the longest lived are seen as superior (painting over photography), I think this is a bold take - comparing an art form that has been around in a meaningful way for 2000 years to one that has been around for 100 years. Also, if that was true, and not just survivorship bias, shouldn't we consider sculptures and cave wall paintings superior to oil paintings? Photography, by the way, was considered 'unworthy' by 'real artists' for decades because 'there is no art involved in pointing a box at a tree and pressing a button'. That sounds awfully like the AI debate of today, doesn't it? > artists gain prestige not from a single art piece, but from a consistent production of works that are tied together by a shared identity. Or is it that an artist does produce more than one piece of art over their lifespan, so they can, in fact, survive, and, once they become popular with one painting, their other stuff is retroactively elevated? Art one-hit wonders (or low-hit wonders) do exist. Van Gogh is known for the night sky and the sunflowers, virtually nothing else (unless you are an afficiado). Da Vinci is known for the Mona Lisa - if you are an enthusiast, you might know the Salvator Mundi - the Vitruvian Man I consider less art and more technical drawing. Dürer is known for the hands, the rabbit, and a self-portrait. Shepard Fairey is only known for the "Hope / Yes, we can"-poster. > On the other hand, a lot of the "pro" AI art discourse I've seen often boiled down to attempts to disconnect art from legitimacy. That may be related to the circumstance that most of the Anti-AI backlash comes from mediocre artists who do mostly derivative works. If your portfolio consists of furry porn and a broody Heath-Ledger-Joker sitting down, with 'HA HA HA' scribbled over it, sorry, that makes you a 'media / creative', but not an artist with a bit A ... You are essentially doing what the AI is doing: Take an idea, rehash it, minimally, then put it down on paper/your Wacom tablet. If all you bring to the table is 'I suffered for this', your market just shrank to people who enjoy your suffering. Art is not artistry, art is the idea. As such I find the concept of a 'Street-art Darth Vader' covered in colorful tags that's basically an AI image directly or post-processed more interesting than the 'real artist with colored pencils' Darth Vader in a classical pose that the artist got from a superman comic book cover.
  - clowncubs 9mo ago
    My personal experience: As an artist throughout my life, whether it be drawing, painting, or sculpting, I have been asked again and again how long it took me to make a piece. It is probably the most common question I get when I interact with people over my art. My experience has shown me people value the effort and time it takes to make something beautiful and unique. I recently began attending events/cons to share my sculpting and it was eye opening. Not only did people frown on A.I. generated art at these events, but I had to broadcast that my sculpting was not 3D printed. Quite a few visitors to my table let me know they appreciated my work was handmade.
  - basscomm 9mo ago
    > How to you estimate the 'time and skill' that went into the creation of a random piece of art? You don't. Unless that's the kind of thing you're into, I guess. > Is a portrait that took 50 hours to paint inherently more worthy than a virtually identical one that took 5 hours? Is the slower artist the better artist? Is a Bob Ross 'happy little trees, body of water, mountain in background'-image not artistically valuable because he does it in 20 minutes? You can't quantify art that way. People work at different speeds. I can appreciate that something took some number of hours without knowing the precise number of hours. > As for skill: I would argue that a random Banksy takes a lot less skill than the average Artemisia Gentileschi (admit it: you had to look her up). Yet, one is celebrated art, the other is virtually unknown and at best 'one among many baroque northern-Italian painters'. Maybe, but I'm not qualified to make that comparison. Both are beyond my level of artistic ability (I've never studied art nor practiced much). I don't know why one thing or artist gets more popular than another while another who's just as talented (or maybe even moreso) languishes in obscurity. Skill is a factor, sure, but there's no formula that I'm aware of. > What sort of people honestly look at a picture and ask 'yes, but how long did it take to make? How long had the artist to be trained for this?' Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder"
    - cthalupa 9mo ago
      > Maybe some people think of it that way. I don't know. I've never asked those questions about any art I consume. I just think something like, "wow, this looks nice, it must have taken a while" or "what would it take to make something like this, I wonder" I think this raises an interesting question about form vs. function in art. I was running a AD&D game on Friday. At one point, I was holding up the book to show the artwork of a monster to the group. None of us were looking at it and taking the time to contemplate the effort involved, thinking it must have taken a while, etc. I'm sure some people do - old school D&D art is definitely an area that a subset of the hobby is passionate about - but the majority of people are looking at it to help with formulating things in their mind's eye, getting a feel for things, etc. But I will appreciate a piece of "standalone" art in a very similar manner as to how you describe. Do most readers spend appreciable time looking at the art on the cover of their book? Do people spend a ton of time looking at album art while listening to music on Spotify? How about the art in a video game - how much of it is the point vs. something that facilitates the point - the last few times I loaded up Dwarf Fortress, it was the ASCII tileset, not the graphical version. Do AI creations have a place where the art is supposed to be functional vs. being made for the sake of being art?
- wpietri 9mo ago
  And on top of those things, I'd add that good artists use that time to deepen the work and their understanding of the work. If you're doing, say, factory work, you can just zone out. You do the same thing over and over, and you do it well enough, but your mind is somewhere else. But somebody who's truly during art is present in the work as they're doing it. They're up to something. I think that's a big part of why the work of serious artists changes over time. It's an exploration. In contrast, look at some kitch producer like Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™. He was clearly successful financially. But I'd argue that there is little more to it than "AI" "art". For me appreciating art always involves reaching for an understanding of the artist and the humanity we share. An Ansel Adams print is lovely, but ultimately I end up thinking not just about the image or the landscape. I think about being in the landscape. About the process of getting that one perfect photo. About what drives a person to seek that and to go to such incredible lengths. About how Adams saw the world. If I'm going to think hard about some GenAI output, I'm going to appreciate the technology that went into it. But there's no more to think about the prompter than there is about somebody picking out clip art.
- thedevilslawyer 9mo ago
  > Most people who appreciate art appreciate not only the art itself, but the time and skill that went into its creation. I call BS on this. Most people like something striking or beautiful or thought proviking. For the vast majority, the time or skill barely comes into context. You meant connoisseurs perhaps.
cdrnsf 9mo ago
There’s a significant difference between automating minor or menial tasks and trying to automate the creative or artistic process entirely.

ajayarama 9mo ago

Interesting. It seems that in industries where productivity/output isn't the primary goal (so not Software, Analytics, etc), people care more about *where* their content comes from. It's quite indiscriminate in Software, for sure, I feel like people don't care whether you used an AI to write your code as long as it works. But I don't see AI getting real footing really ever in the creative world because people want authenticity there. It's why I think Suno, for example, is never really going to go anywhere.

gruez 9mo ago
>It's quite indiscriminate in Software, for sure, I feel like people don't care whether you used an AI to write your code as long as it works. Because it's hard to tell whether the app you're using is vibecoded or not. Is an app buggy because it was vibecoded? Or the developer just sucks?
maeln 9mo ago
> But I don't see AI getting real footing really ever in the creative world because people want authenticity there. It's why I think Suno, for example, is never really going to go anywhere. Oh I bet it will go somewhere. There is already plenty of low-budget direct-to-dvd movie, cheap soap opera telenovelas, and elevator music used as background in public places. These don't care about quality, they were always about making the cheapest product possible that can generate revenue / be used as a backdrop. Gen AI is going to be a race to the bottom for this field. But for "labour of love" art/media, they might have a place in the toolbox (to generate a texture, fill some unimportant background, etc), but full gen AI media won't cut it. Intention, direction, realization is what matter. And since most community are about those labour of love, it shouldn't be a surprise that most people who attend conferences are heavily against gen AI.
Daedren 9mo ago
It's less about productivity and output (those are still desired in many art fields) but more about creativity and personality, more humane traits. Not to say that coding doesn't have those two, but I'd argue developers have been caring less and less for it over the years. Their relationship with code has changed. You can look at a comic and immediately identify the illustrator if you're well versed in the artists. Now would that still happen in 20 years if Gen AI became standard today? Will we keep getting new artists and new art styles? Or will their relationship with art become more like newer coders have with code? I don't think it's an easy question to answer and no one likely has an answer.

542458 9mo ago

Today there's a (mostly) clear line between "AI" and "not AI" art in terms of process, but I believe as time goes on we'll see more and more blurring of that. I'm thinking the equivalent of the spell-check tool for art, something that takes explicit human input and tidies the details in an interactive, human-in-the-loop sort of way.

JKCalhoun 9mo ago
There's been a schism for some time between "Artists" (that's with a capital "A", mind you) and, oh, graphic designers, photographers… The latter are not real artists. While I suspect the AI fracas within the art community will never go away, I suspect within a decade AI-assisted art (or whatever you want to call it) will be a non-issue for everyone else.
- TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
  Photography, computer graphics, Photoshop, synthesizers, samplers, and others have all been considered "not real art." The irony is that the kind of genre art you see at Comic-Con is mostly reproductions of commercial properties or standard tropes and formulas, with very little original vision and creativity. Being able to draw something recognisable as [genre character name goes here], even with some skill, is not that high a bar, and it lives in a tiny niche in the art world as a whole. AI brought something fresh to art for a while, but now I think creative people are more aware of the limitations. It's in a strange mid-way place between being fascinating, and being frustratingly limited compared to what it could be. I suspect we'll start seeing meta-art soon with a much more interesting mix of creation, original thought, and execution.
  - MisterTea 9mo ago
    > AI brought something fresh to art for a while, What fresh new ideas did it bring? Most of what I see is generic AI slop pictures tossed in articles I mostly ignore.
    - 9mo ago

DocTomoe 9mo ago

> According to Ortiz, the convention is a sacred place she didn’t want to see desecrated by AI. Maybe tone down the religious framing of what is essentially a cashgrab show for the industry. Also: Does that AI ban apply to e.g. Disney in its entirety? Because if it does, it'll be a very small and pretty bleak Comic Con this year.

ronsor 9mo ago
Anti-AI is a religious thing for many people.
- gedy 9mo ago
  They are only religious about it because it hurts their bottom line.

jezzamon 9mo ago

Makes sense to me, the whole structure of the artist booth is about connecting with the person that made the art. Why would you want to see a booth showing artworks that weren't even created by the person in front of you but by an AI? If anything, an AI artwork booth should be manned by the engineers that built and trained the image model and well as scraped the training data. Then they can meet all the people they non-consensually took artwork from :P

DocTomoe 9mo ago
I'm old enough to remember when such arguments were had about 'real art' coming from pens, pencils and brushes, not programs. Took a good long time for 'digital art' became a category.
- andyfilms1 9mo ago
  Honestly I'm okay with "AI art" becoming a category. The issue is when it's presented as handmade, causing confusion. Digital artwork being presenting at an oil painting conference would cause similar confusion and outrage for the same reasons.
  - t0bia_s 9mo ago
    I disagree. AI art is oxymoron. You cannot generate art by definition.
- whateveracct 9mo ago
  I don't think it did take that long actually? And I don't think it's even a good comparison. AI art vs human art isn't the same jump as physical media to digital.
- Lerc 9mo ago
  I remember this as well, but I also remember those who thought that merely expressed their disapproval. This time around the response as been aggressively adversarial. Not only do they disapprove of the new thing but anyone who express a contrary opinion is considered a target.

shevy-java 9mo ago

I tried to read the article but a pop-up blocked me in the middle, demanding that I subscribe to a newsletter. I am not subscribed to any newsletter in general, but when the default setting of a webpage tries to force people into newsletter via pop-ups, then I'll simply perma-ban such websites rather than click on anything at all.

xgulfie 9mo ago
The x button is right there to dismiss it
tencentshill 9mo ago
This is the stated reason they are flagged so often. They have very good reporting that's almost always relevant to post here.

brk 9mo ago

"Artists" are currently trying to create false scarcity, not totally unlike the DeBeers/diamonds false scarcity. Historically, Artists have often had (mostly) uncredited assistants that handled a lot of the grunt work. This is particularly common, IME, for physical media artists that do large sculptures and similar pieces. "The Artist" will do the initial design, and then "artists" working under their direction will do a lot of cutting and welding, for example. AI is upending a lot of this because it is letting more people become Artists in the sense of bringing a vision into reality via the use of various external helpers. In the end all visual artists are just manipulating how photons hit our eyes, and there are lots of ways to make that happen pleasantly.

longtimelistnr 9mo ago
a false scarcity? sometimes this site makes me feel like i'm talking to aliens
- brk 9mo ago
  When you say "Art" can only come from a person who drew a line directly with their own hand, vs. a person who told a computer to draw a line, it's false scarcity. Both lines could wind up looking identical, but the Artist is trying to make the world believe only one of those lines is truly valuable. I'd be interested to see you expand your comment beyond what you wrote. I don't have a horse in this race, I'm a terrible Artist and have no interest in using my time to create visual baubles with AI. I just see it as an interesting thing that is playing out.
FeteCommuniste 9mo ago
> Historically, Artists have often had (mostly) uncredited assistants that handled a lot of the grunt work. This is particularly common, IME, for physical media artists that do large sculptures and similar pieces. "The Artist" will do the initial design, and then "artists" working under their direction will do a lot of cutting and welding, for example. I'd say the right thing to do in such cases would be to credit the whole team, like movies do when the credits roll, rather than conclude that the term "artist" is meaningless anyway because some people take credit for the work of others.

jedberg 9mo ago

How much AI is too much? Are you allowed to use Photoshop to create your digital art? Almost every tool there is now powered by AI in some way (some a lot more than others). Can you use its auto-fill button? What percent of the image can you use it for? Can you generate something with AI and then manually edit it in Photoshop? How much manual editing is required before it's not considered AI anymore? My point is, AI is another tool in the toolbox, it can be used well or poorly. How much is too much? Just like back in the day, using Photoshop wasn't allowed, until it was. Where does one draw the line?

micromacrofoot 9mo ago
It's not that deep, if someone thinks it's AI it loses value to them. If you're able to utilize AI tools in a way that doesn't make the output look like AI to the average person you'll be fine. Eventually no one will be able to really tell the difference and all of this will go away (though likely at the expense of more people's livelihoods).
- cootsnuck 9mo ago
  Well I think we're just describing taste and craft. AI tools will get better, more granular, and become better integrated into the actual workflows of people over time. A good tool shouldn't take over my sense for taste and craft. It's a good thing people are pushing back against the slop if we want there to be any incentives for AI tools to not be geared towards helping make slop.
- yndoendo 9mo ago
  I see that as being partially true. There will be people like Walter Keane that take the art of others and state it is their own work. [0] AI will assist those individuals. AI will have a home on people's desktops for those that accept it. Art that has value will not be AI art. Artist like Margaret Keane will continue to be viewed as exceptional along with their works. [1] Personally, I view AI art as lacking passion and an attempt to short circuit the path to profit / greed. I wish to not fund that circuit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Keane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Keane

whateveracct 9mo ago

AI feels like it's bringing the Matrix to the real world. Imagine you are in a space, and all the posters and text are AI-generated slop. They tickle your dopamine sensors and look good out of focus. But upon closer inspection, they are lacking a substance we didn't even know was there before. It's like living in a simulacrum of the real world. Instead of our energy being harvested, it's our attention.

ImJasonH 9mo ago

I thought the use of AI in the Secret Invasion title sequence was actually really appropriate, even "meta", maybe even a bit ahead of its time. The seemingly purposeful AI style made it seem unnatural (on purpose), and like a facsimile of an otherwise trustworthy thing (on purpose), which was exactly in line with the idea of the show. The execution of that show and that idea was pretty bad, but one of the few positives of it was, to me, an example of using AI art overtly, and leaning into its untrustworthy nature.

rdiddly 9mo ago

I wish this wasn't so doomed. Coming soon to Comic Con: 1) AI art sufficiently "human-looking" to pass. 2) Human artists falsely accused of using AI. Would there be grounds for a lawsuit in the latter case?

zethraeus 9mo ago
This is already here and embedded inside Adobe products.

petetnt 9mo ago

Luckily the AI artists can set up their own conventions. Considering how unevitable AI art is, I think the cons will be absolutely swarming with visitors!

joshcsimmons 9mo ago

Absolutely idiotic take - ban drawing tablets too? What about paintbrushes?

elsonrodriguez 9mo ago
My wife draws comics and exhibits at comic con, and her website is basically being ddossed by AI scrapers to the point of NEEDING cloudflare to keep the site online. Then people get to use the models that stole her work and crashed her site to sell derivative works right next to her booth?
- joshcsimmons 9mo ago
  That sucks but it’s pretty much always been like this as technology advances. You can either fight the tide or go with it like Warhol did. He pivoted to doing more photographs later in his career because it was easier to make more art. Art != business. They are separate things and only heartbreak will ensue when you operate on the assumption that artistic values is business value.
  - elsonrodriguez 9mo ago
    My point isn’t about the advancement of technology, it is about theft and destruction disguised as technology. If what happened to my wife happened to Warhol the equivalent would be someone tearing his paintings off the gallery wall and selling xeroxed versions with sharpie written over them. However your ultimate points are that art can’t be business, which in turn means artists shouldn’t necessarily be compensated, which defies reality and morality.