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I will step in and say that the 'art theft' position is not exactly an invalid one as one might think. Yes, the AI generated art is meant to be 'unrecognizable' from the original, and essentially frankensteined's monster into a sort of amalgamation of genres, styles, and whatnot. Unfortunately, the reality is that AI cannot, and will not generate anything unique, as it doesn't have the capacity to create so much as it will simply replicate and alter.
One might think otherwise, but plenty of times I've seen AI art that was generated with an obvious great deal of 'care' put into the process, only to actually stumble upon the actual art it mostly drew from later on, or having already known said art. (I look at a lot of art for my various RP purposes, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to recognize.) The crux of the matter is that, yes, even if it's only cobbled together from various bits and bobs, it still very much uses material from the original sources fed into it.
As for the moral implication and what they mean, that's a bit more unclear. Is it worse to generate AI art to create something from an artist (or several)'s own works and use that for your own, private purposes. Or is it worse to use already drawn and uniquely done art created by said actual artist, often without crediting them? Personally, I use a lot of actual art in my RPs, I love eye candy, and in this day and age, it's easy to look up an artist and find the source of art. Not to mention, I've often had conversations about artists I particularly liked with RP partners, and it's always a fun topic.
At the end of the day, that's how artists make a living. I'm not the one to comission them and give them money, and odds are, even the person I speak to won't either. But that person might mention the artist to another, who then mentions it to another, and then, along the chain, somewhere, someone actually does end up sending money their way. After all, word of mouth can and will lead to actual profit for artists sometimes. Not that my position and usage of their art is morally without flaw, there are still plenty of issues with what I'm doing, but I like to think it's the lesser of two 'evils' so to speak.
With AI generated art, there's zero chance that anyone who's works are being fed into the machine will see any money from it, and at the end of the day, that does amount to 'theft' in a relative, somewhat distant capacity. To fool oneself into thinking that AI generated art is somehow morally superior, or even without moral issues even when not taken to a large 'companies abusing it' scale, is embracing a level of delusion that I can't quite wrap my head around. What I'm doing isn't great and has plenty of problems, but so does this particular thing, and the subject of this topic.
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Not to mention, personally speaking, I always find that AI art ends up looking too similar and has some easily recognizable 'features' that it shares from one piece to another. In the case of anime style art, all too often the skin has that immediate tone and sheen that I'll recognize nearly 100% of the time, and be able to recognize it as AI art immediately, to the point where even from a thumbnail, I've begun to be able to identify AI art pretty damn easily. That's just one example, but if one looks to various aspects of the pieces, they'll find plenty that'll repeat itself from one generated piece to another, and quite frankly speaking... I find it atrocious. It's a soulless style that has no real draw to me, and knowing that it's really just patched together from other artist's works really only makes the situation worse if analyzed with a critical eye.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of looking at it, and for that reason, and the ones stated above, I categorically refuse to use AI art in RPs or to have a partner who does. I don't consider myself 'morally superior' in any way, my shit definitely stinks too, I have no illusions about it. But if I have to choose art for personal RPs and the like, I always enjoy looking around, spending hours looking at artists, finding some true gems along the way, and sharing them wherever possible, and that's something I feel is, and will always be missing from the world of AI 'art', as it simply replicates and cobbles together, and never creates. How could it? And 'AI artists' are merely people who feed a bunch of images into an algorithm and fine tune to the results until it looks acceptable - and not like some six fingered and three legged body horror monstrosity.
So yes. I am fully against the use of AI art in RPs. If people want to do it, more power to them, I suppose, but they should understand that what they're doing is in no way 'good' or 'better' than the alternatives. It's just as bad, if not worse. At the end of the day though, AI art is probably around to stay, and in my personal opinion, that's something I'd consider 'unfortunate'.
But hey, it's real easy for me not to interact with it, and honestly the more time passes, the less of it I see, as the original 'boom' of it has definitely died down. I still shudder when I think about 'artists' on Pixiv who have Fanboxes and paid content and yet produce nothing but generated art - once again, an example of how money can end up in the wrong hands instead of actual artists, even if it's not a large company doing it.
tl;dr: AI art poopoo, lots of words.
PS: You know what would have been hilarious? If instead of writing all that junk and putting effort into arranging my own mess of thoughts together into a 'somewhat coherent' post, I just asked ChatGPT to write me a piece against the use of AI art and posted it without altering it in the slightest.
One might think otherwise, but plenty of times I've seen AI art that was generated with an obvious great deal of 'care' put into the process, only to actually stumble upon the actual art it mostly drew from later on, or having already known said art. (I look at a lot of art for my various RP purposes, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to recognize.) The crux of the matter is that, yes, even if it's only cobbled together from various bits and bobs, it still very much uses material from the original sources fed into it.
As for the moral implication and what they mean, that's a bit more unclear. Is it worse to generate AI art to create something from an artist (or several)'s own works and use that for your own, private purposes. Or is it worse to use already drawn and uniquely done art created by said actual artist, often without crediting them? Personally, I use a lot of actual art in my RPs, I love eye candy, and in this day and age, it's easy to look up an artist and find the source of art. Not to mention, I've often had conversations about artists I particularly liked with RP partners, and it's always a fun topic.
At the end of the day, that's how artists make a living. I'm not the one to comission them and give them money, and odds are, even the person I speak to won't either. But that person might mention the artist to another, who then mentions it to another, and then, along the chain, somewhere, someone actually does end up sending money their way. After all, word of mouth can and will lead to actual profit for artists sometimes. Not that my position and usage of their art is morally without flaw, there are still plenty of issues with what I'm doing, but I like to think it's the lesser of two 'evils' so to speak.
With AI generated art, there's zero chance that anyone who's works are being fed into the machine will see any money from it, and at the end of the day, that does amount to 'theft' in a relative, somewhat distant capacity. To fool oneself into thinking that AI generated art is somehow morally superior, or even without moral issues even when not taken to a large 'companies abusing it' scale, is embracing a level of delusion that I can't quite wrap my head around. What I'm doing isn't great and has plenty of problems, but so does this particular thing, and the subject of this topic.
-
Not to mention, personally speaking, I always find that AI art ends up looking too similar and has some easily recognizable 'features' that it shares from one piece to another. In the case of anime style art, all too often the skin has that immediate tone and sheen that I'll recognize nearly 100% of the time, and be able to recognize it as AI art immediately, to the point where even from a thumbnail, I've begun to be able to identify AI art pretty damn easily. That's just one example, but if one looks to various aspects of the pieces, they'll find plenty that'll repeat itself from one generated piece to another, and quite frankly speaking... I find it atrocious. It's a soulless style that has no real draw to me, and knowing that it's really just patched together from other artist's works really only makes the situation worse if analyzed with a critical eye.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of looking at it, and for that reason, and the ones stated above, I categorically refuse to use AI art in RPs or to have a partner who does. I don't consider myself 'morally superior' in any way, my shit definitely stinks too, I have no illusions about it. But if I have to choose art for personal RPs and the like, I always enjoy looking around, spending hours looking at artists, finding some true gems along the way, and sharing them wherever possible, and that's something I feel is, and will always be missing from the world of AI 'art', as it simply replicates and cobbles together, and never creates. How could it? And 'AI artists' are merely people who feed a bunch of images into an algorithm and fine tune to the results until it looks acceptable - and not like some six fingered and three legged body horror monstrosity.
So yes. I am fully against the use of AI art in RPs. If people want to do it, more power to them, I suppose, but they should understand that what they're doing is in no way 'good' or 'better' than the alternatives. It's just as bad, if not worse. At the end of the day though, AI art is probably around to stay, and in my personal opinion, that's something I'd consider 'unfortunate'.
But hey, it's real easy for me not to interact with it, and honestly the more time passes, the less of it I see, as the original 'boom' of it has definitely died down. I still shudder when I think about 'artists' on Pixiv who have Fanboxes and paid content and yet produce nothing but generated art - once again, an example of how money can end up in the wrong hands instead of actual artists, even if it's not a large company doing it.
tl;dr: AI art poopoo, lots of words.
PS: You know what would have been hilarious? If instead of writing all that junk and putting effort into arranging my own mess of thoughts together into a 'somewhat coherent' post, I just asked ChatGPT to write me a piece against the use of AI art and posted it without altering it in the slightest.
