#ai discourse //

[reachartwork]

okay well the ai picked up a pencil. now what.

[lay-z]

If I catch you generating AI fanart (in any fandom, not only CoD) you're blocked instantly, by the way. 🧍🏼‍♀️

[douche-canoe-regatta]

Everyone talks about how AI is ruining art and media and Swiss cheesing our brains (which is true) but I don't think we've delved deep enough into the actual data it's scraping on you, specifically.

We know the companies that make AI aren't in it to help you do homework and impress your boss. To start, they really want to know how to better sell you their sweatshop slop, which means they need to know as much as possible about You.

Let's begin with chatGPT. It's Google's software, so it already has your name, address, birthday, location, and search history. It knows where you go and what you buy. If you've ever been on the news (even "Theater troupe makes it to Regionals" or "LGBT Alliance Fundraiser a Huge Success!") it's there. Your emails. Your video calls. Your fucking calendar. It's all right there.

Now let's say you go on chatGPT - which already has reams of proof to back up who's asking - and posit some questions. "How do I know if I'm trans" "How to change your name" "How can I apply for disability benefits" "What does my autism diagnoses mean" "Best charity to donate to Palestine" etc etc. You want data? Baby, that's the good shit. But how to utilize it for financial gain?

What happens when the fascist government says: "We need a list of all trans / disabled / autistic / pro-palestine people. We think they'll really like Florida." Guess who received up to $200 million dollars each to contract with the US Department of Defense? Why, Google, Anthropic, and xAI of course!

You can't say you were hacked or that it was a one-time mistake. They know full well you bought that Bad Dragon dong, shipped to your home address and never returned. They know you searched for therapists who specialize in autism. They know you regularly donate to a starving Palestinian family. If you think these corporations are going to sit on that tasty, tasty data when there's a dollar to be made, you aren't seeing the big picture.

And that fucking terrifies me.

[malcolmschmitz]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

[captainjonnitkessler]

Look, I'm not gonna pretend that I don't get it, when it comes to AI. But it's like this:

In most parts of the US, a residential electrician works only on houses and apartments. They use romex wire, that yellow cable stuff. You run it from the panel to wherever it's going, staple it to the studs, then make up both ends. You need to know basic electrical code but mostly it's pretty simple. A fast learner could be a decent residential electrician inside a month.

I, on the other hand, am a union industrial electrician. I work primarily in hospitals, factories, and research labs. Most of our wire is run in steel conduit that has to be hand bent on the job, which is an art form in and of itself. We work with much higher voltages, much heavier wire, much more complicated equipment, and we need to know much more of the code. Our apprenticeship is 4-5 years and that's only enough to scratch the surface of everything an industrial electrician might do.

And yes - I absolutely get a little defensive when unknowing people compare me to a residential electrician. There's absolutely a knee-jerk impulse to declare that they're not *real* electricians, that they're merely a pale imitation of what I do. But I fight that impulse because it's a *bad impulse*. Resi still takes skill and work, it's just different than mine. We're both electricians. And it's better for us to work together to improve working conditions for all workers than to get into pissing contests about whose job is more "real". And both our jobs are in increasing danger due to the proliferation of low voltage systems that the average homeowner can install and repair without hiring a professional.

So yeah, I do get it. But it has been very, VERY insulting over the last year to hear people repeatedly say "AI was supposed to replace blue collar jobs, not *my* job! My job is ~special~ because it has ~humanity~!"

Your job is not special. It's not more important than my job and it's not more fulfilling to you than my job is to me. And I don't get to insist that everyone start building homes with steel conduit just so less skilled people can't be electricians, and I don't get to yell at people for hiring a handyman to replace an outlet for $50 when my time would be worth $200.

I absolutely understand the instinct that AI art can't be real art because people who use it didn't "earn" it, or that automating art is uniquely damaging in a way automating other jobs isn't because it's "supposed" to be about human expression. But please actually think about what you're implying and who you're throwing under the bus when you say shit like that, and whether it actually holds up to your other values or if it's just a knee-jerk reaction you need to examine.

[txttletale]

genuinely curious but I don't know how to phrase this in a way that sounds less accusatory so please know I'm asking in good faith and am just bad at words

what are your thoughts on the environmental impact of generative ai? do you think the cost for all the cooling system is worth the tasks generative ai performs? I've been wrangling this because while I feel like I can justify it as smaller scales, that would mean it isn't a publicly available tool which I also feel uncomfortable with

the environmental impacts of genAI are almost always one of three things, both by their detractors and their boosters:

vastly overstated

stated correctly, but with a deceptive lack of context (ie, giving numbers in watt-hours, or amount of water 'used' for cooling, without necessary context like what comparable services use or what actually happens to that water)

assumed to be on track to grow constantly as genAI sees universal adoption across every industry

like, when water is used to cool a datacenter, that datacenter isn't just "a big building running chatgpt" -- datacenters are the backbone of the modern internet. now, i mean, all that said, the basic question here: no, i don't think it's a good tradeoff to be burning fossil fuels to power the magic 8ball. but asking that question in a vacuum (imo) elides a lot of the realities of power consumption in the global north by exceptionalizing genAI as opposed to, for example, video streaming, or online games. or, for that matter, for any number of other things.

so to me a lot of this stuff seems like very selective outrage in most cases, people working backwards from all the twitter artists on their dashboard hating midjourney to find an ethical reason why it is irredeemably evil.

& in the best, good-faith cases, it's taking at face value the claims of genAI companies and datacenter owners that the power usage will continue spiralling as the technology is integrated into every aspect of our lives. but to be blunt, i think it's a little naive to take these estimates seriously: these companies rely on their stock prices remaining high and attractive to investors, so they have enormous financial incentives not only to lie but to make financial decisions as if the universal adoption boom is just around the corner at all times. but there's no actual business plan! these companies are burning gigantic piles of money every day, because this is a bubble

so tldr: i don't think most things fossil fuels are burned for are 'worth it', but the response to that is a comprehensive climate politics and not an individualistic 'carbon footprint' approach, certainly not one that chooses chatgpt as its battleground. genAI uses a lot of power but at a rate currently comparable to other massively popular digital leisure products like fortnite or netflix -- forecasts of it massively increasing by several orders of magnitude are in my opinion unfounded and can mostly be traced back to people who have a direct financial stake in this being the case because their business model is an obvious boondoggle otherwise.

[thelemmallama]

so many artists on tumblr think that the only reason somebody would commission them is because "they want A Image"

I find it honestly baffling that people would even want to work in commissions with this mindset. Like if this is what most customers come to you for, then commission work is basically just menial labour with even worse pay per hour and a chance to overwork your wrists so you can"t even use your limited physical capacity to draw your *own* stuff :'D Can't relate at all

If I had to guess, maybe it's preferable to non-art jobs bc of the exposure? Still, *doing it for the exposure* used to be a meme; I can't get over how so many artists did a complete 180 on so many stances when AI showed up

god it’s like. every argument tumblr users have against the General Use Of AI is a strawman twitter user who would be doing scummy shit to artists anyway. entertainment executives are always going to look for ways to screw over working creatives - if you “get rid of” AI, they’ll find other ways to outsource, underpay, and steal. using AI for research has saved my ass in pretty significant and unexpected ways. it’s not just an art plagiarism machine for the lazy. it is a tool

right. if anything, all generative AI has done is filter out the people who wouldve done the payment cancellation scam on paypal, or just straight up not paid you, etc etc. it is genuinely quite depressing that so many artists on tumblr think that the only reason somebody would commission them is because "they want A Image" rather than, y'know, wanting a specific piece by a specific artist they already like at a specific point in time. i imagine it's because commission artists think of Somebody Who Is Generating Images is a Potential Customer that THEY personally should've had instead. it's a really entitled & nauseating way to see other people.

the flip side of this is that they then call people who generate images entitled for wanting "free art" -- a side effect of being only able to conceptualise their work as a Product to be Bought. im sorry buddy but i dont have commission money, i wouldnt be spending money on a commission if there was no generative AI, i would still be expericing all of that art for free, by looking at it on my timeline, or sometimes, through media piracy

[jothb]

No I dont think it's racist to hate robots, I just think it's weird that as a white person you keep trying to come up with slurs for them and describe acts of violence usually directed at racial minorities

[spaghettioverdose]

Notoriously Litigious Company who holds like half the IP in the known universe: hello AI company we are suing the fuck out of you because we decided your program is plagiarising our IP. This will expand IP law if it succeeds.

People who made part of their identity and livelihood to "plagiarise" IP from from Notoriously Litigious Company:

[local-dragon-haunt]

hey! i’m an artist and i was wondering what about the httyd crossover art made it obviously AI. i’m trying to get better at recognizing AI versus real art and i totally would have just not clocked that.

Hey! This is TOTALLY okay to not have recognized it, because I DIDN'T AT FIRST, EITHER. Unfortunately there’s no real foolproof way to distinguish real art from the fake stuff. However I have noticed a general rule of thumb while browsing these last few months.

So this is the AI generated image I used as inspiration. I will not be tagging the account that posted it because I do not condone bullying of any type, but it’s important to mention that this was part of a set of images:

This is important because one of the BIGGEST things you can use to your advantage is context clues. This is the thing that clued me in: right off the bat we can see that there is NO consistency between these three images. The art style and outfits change with every generated image. They're vaguely related (I.E. characters that resemble the Big Four are on some sort of adventure?) and that's about it. Going to the account in question proved that all they posted were AI generated images. All of which have many red flags, but for clarity's sake we'll stick with the one that I used.

The first thing that caught my eye was this???? Amorphous Blob in the background. Which is obviously supposed to be knights or a dragon or something.

Again, context clues come into play here. Artists will draw everything With A Purpose. And if what they're drawing is fanart, you are going to recognize most of what you see in the image. Even if there are mistakes.

In the context of this image, it looks like the Four are supposed to be running from these people. The thing that drew my attention to it was the fact that I Didn't Recognize The Villains, and this is because there is nothing to recognize. These shapes aren't Drago, or Grimmel, or Pitch, or any other villain we usually associate with ROTBTD. They're just Amorphous Blobs that are vaguely villain shaped.

Which brings me to my second point:

Do you see the way they're standing? There is no purpose to this. It throws the entire image off. Your eye is drawn to the Amorphous Villain Blobs in the background, and these characters are not reacting to them one bit.

Now I'm not saying that all images have to have a story behind them, but if this were created by a person, it clearly would have had one. Our group here is not telling a story, they are posing.

This is because the AI does not see the image as a whole, but as two separate components: the setting, and the description of the characters that the prompter dictates. I.E. "Merida from Brave, Jack Frost from ROTG, Rapunzel from Tangled, and Hiccup from HTTYD standing next to each other"

Now obviously the most pressing part of this prompt are the characters themselves. So the AI prioritizes that and tries to spit out something that WE recognize as "Merida from Brave, Jack Frost from ROTG, Rapunzel from Tangled, and Hiccup from HTTYD standing next to each other".

This, more times than not, is going to end up with this stagnant posing. Because AI cannot create, it can only emulate. And even then, it still can't do it right. Case in point:

This is not Hiccup. The AI totally thinks this is Eugene Fitzherbert. Look at the pose. The facial structure. The goatee. The smirk. The outfits. He's always next to Raps. Why does he have a quiver? Where's Toothless? His braids? His scar??

HE HAS BOTH OF HIS LEGS.

The AI. Cannot even get the most important part of it's prompt correct.

And that's just the beginning. Here:

More amorphous shapes.

So these are obviously supposed to be utility belts, but I mean. Look at them. The perspective is all off. There are useless straps. I don't even know what that cluster behind Jack's left arm is supposed to be.

This is a prime example of AI emulating without understanding structure.

You can see this particularly in Jack, between his hands, the "tassels" of his tunic, and the odd wrinkles of his boots. There's just not any structure here whatsoever.

Lastly, AI CANNOT CREATE PATTERNS.

Here are the side-by-sides of the shit I had to deal with when redesigning their outfits. Please someone acknowledge this. This killed me inside. THIS is most recognizable to me, and usually what I look for first if I'm wary about an art piece. These clusterfuck bunches of color. I hate them. I hate them so. much.

Anyways here's some other miscellaneous things I've noticed:

Danny Phantom Eyes

???? Thumb? (and random sword sheath)

Collarbone Necklace (corset from hell)

No Staff :( No Bow :(

What is that.

So yeah. Truly the best thing to do is to just. study it. A lot of times you aren't gonna notice anything just looking at the big picture, you need to zoom in and focus on the little details. Obviously I'm not like an expert in AI or anything, but I do have a degree in animation practices and I'm. You know. A human being. So.

In conclusion:

(Y'all should totally reblog my redesign of this btw)

[shipping2survive]

gonna add to this actually, and say that I don't understand how using AI gives you as a writer any joy. sure you get the kudos or the hits but what I enjoy is the writing itself and the self satisfaction of having written something I care about. I literally have finished writing maybe 3 fics in the last 5 years but I couldn't care less because the process of writing all these hundreds of other fics that I never completed was fun, and I'm proud of what I've written. and I could have AI finish them all for me but where's the joy in that. as prev said writing is art and the pain is part of it. to take that all away for a couple of clicks is so pointless and it takes away the worth of all the hard work put in people who actually make an effort.

anyways everyone go read the fics of those who are tagged in this post cause they're amazing!

i am not a fic writer but i enjoy reading lestappen a lott, and just wanted to pop in and say something regarding the use of AI in fics recently.

It is very discouraging to see how "common" AI use has become. Some of my favorite writers spend months crafting plots, writing drafts and editing only to see the space dominated by people churning out thousands of words in the matter of a few days. If you are also like me, a reader who doesn't write, your duty is to avoid engaging with these works. If you don't give them attention, they will not be able to continue abusing this space in this manner.

and to all the wonderful writers on here, please don't let this disturbing pattern discourage you. keep sharing your magic into the world. your versions of lestappen are what keep our fandom together between long breaks and tough droughts.

tagging some of my favorite writers who put in hard work and strongly discourage AI use, please go show them some love: @xxredwineandambiencexx @ladysomething @fueledbyremembering @sixteenhearts @ferrarisma @fabbyf1 @toppamplemousse @loquarocoeur @adutchlover @chock-and-bates @unlapped @formula-fun @usedtobetam @breathofnyx @gingerf1 @drivestraight @amarynas @mvlionheart @reveushe @verstappentime @hitthatapex

you all deserve the world <3

[reachartwork]

[madagasc-art]

Anti-AI Zine

So generative AI is fucking bullshit, and I initially thought it was just going to fade away like its NFT brethren but clearly not, SO I've been busy

I spent about a year working on this zine about all the ways that current AI tech is undermining the arts, contributing to climate collapse, stealing our data, and just being all around shit.

I wrote a lot about my personal opinions on the subject and included quotes from writers, academic studies, and other creatives, as well as artworks from artists I admire, who I contacted for their permission beforehand. Because it TURNS OUT asking people for PERMISSION is the respectful thing to do????????? Who'd have known... 💀

The rest of the images were either made by me or were from the public domain (not fucken "publicly available" like OpenAI like to say 🤪).

If you'd like to read it I have the full PDF available for free on my website here and physical copies are on my etsy here. 💙

It's been really fun connecting with people about this subject and seeing people speak out more and more about how fucked AI is. Because as much as tech bros like to say that AI is an "inevitable" tech advancement that we can't take back, that doesn't change the fact that we still can and should be regulating the HELL out of it.

Stay safe out there folks, especially Sam Altman cause otherwise he's gonna catch these hands 👊👊

[ternwithatmblr]

gonna be real on main for a sec

I fucking HATE AI. Viscerally.

Seriously it used to not be that bad but the last year or two? Infuriating. I GET ACCUSED OF BEING AI ALL THE TIME.

My papers for university get flagged as AI generated and automatically graded as a zero. My online posts on other websites get comments saying stuff like “this is ai generated” or “you forgot an em dash”. Like IM SORRY I CAN WRITE AT MY AGE LEVEL WHEN I CHOOSE TO. SORRY I KNOW HOW TO USE AN EM DASH. MY BAD. LEMME JUST HAVE EVERY SENTENCE BE A RUN ON. LEMME NOT CAPITALIZE ANYTHING.

I had to go to my criminal law professor and show him my printed, highlighted, annotated references for my paper. I had to turn track changes on in Word just to prove I wrote my own papers. Online I get accused of being AI for no other reason than commenting on a post with proper grammar and spelling. I WILL THROW MYSELF OFF A CLIFF ISTG.

My Instagram account that I regularly post and comment on has been flagged as a bot and temp banned. TWICE.

WHY DON’T I PASS THE TURING TEST???!!!!

[therobotmonster]

Saw some of your posts about AI recently, but don't really know very much about you. I have two questions:

1. Are you an actual artist, or do you just do genAI?

2. If you are an actual artist, why do you use/support AI?

We're going to get into this in a minute, but yes, by what you'd likely use as a definition of 'actual artist', I am. I have a BFA in graphic design, a minor in art history, I've been working as a freelance artist either on the side or as my main hustle since 2001, and I've been making art since I was five. Multimedia, 3d modelling and sculpting, photography (in a darkroom type and digital), acrylic painting, illustration, writing, puppetsmithing, I'm a jack of many, many trades.

Because it's a potent force multiplier that lets me do things that I could not previous (as well as helping compensate for my increasingly arthritic joints) and because it's entirely keeping with the copyleft principles I've had since the 1990s. It's just plain interesting and fun. And I had my fill of moral panics in the 1980s.

This is gonna be a long one, enjoy a song while you read.

I've gone over all this many times before, (for full reading, here's the #AI Discourse tag on my AI blog) but the short version is that I agree with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's position on AI art.

To demonstrate, we've got some of my non-AI photobash work, and some of my AI-work of the same type. Both were made using many, many public domain images broken down to B&W lines, scaled, reinked, normalized and colored.

On the left, is a comic made with specific panels from comics that have had their copyrights expire (back when that could happen), on the right, a comic made with about 35 individual dall-E 3 gens. The techniques are the same, the only difference is the source of the pubic domain images.

No one debates whether what I've done on the left is art, yet somehow the one on the right is a problem for some people. Yet I have vastly more control over the latter than the former.

And it's hard to get more transformative than 'broke down into math and blended with literally millions of other math formulas in order to make a completely new image" Replace 'math' with 'memory' and you have how all human creativity works.

Moving to covers, one of my parody deepdream-adjusted comics, and a reinked-recolored AI one on the right. The one on the left no one had a single problem with, but Bruce Wayne and Jessica Fletcher are screencaps, the Specter is a sales photo of a statue with a copy of 1989 Ted Dansen's face, and I'm using direct DC trade dress. Crickets.

On the right, no actual images by humans are used (outside the barcode, comics code authority emblem, and the 30 cent mark.) Same techniques, same situation. Very different reaction.

I also was a young artist in the 90s when Disney and the RIAA bribed and lied their way into extending copyright to its current ridiculous 120 year term, and I recognize what's happening with the anti-AI movement.

The exact same fear-mongering was used to get small artists to rally their congressmen against their own self-interest, and that's what the Copyright alliance is doing now.

Copyright does not help the small artist. It's also a relatively new invention, one that would be baffling to humans through most of history. You can't own art. Not even the people who make it. You can own a canvass or a carved rock or a book, but you don't own the art itself because you can't own feelings or ideas.

Copyright is a limited patent on specific expressions intended (supposedly) to encourage production, a limitation on the business use of art. The arguments levied against AI would kill fanfic, fanart, pastiche, collage, and more.

This isn't a bug, it's a feature, because...

The anti-AI side isn't actually anti-AI, they're pro-regulatory-capture-of-AI-by-Megacorporations. The copyright anti-AI argument conveniently leaves it open for Disney, Warner Bros, Nintendo, Sony, the RIAA, all to make their own AI systems to lower their production costs, because they own more than enough material to make powerful datasets.

They get it, you don't, worst of all possible worlds.

Now, at the start I mentioned that we'd get into the "actual artist" situation. All those people making bog standard waifu-pics with AI? They're also making art. Kids using a spirograph make art. Duchamp's fountain is art. And people who make art are artists.

But more than that "if you're an actual artist why do you use AI?" is an interesting question, because if more people actually used the tech and saw how it works, you'd see a lot less people against it. Most of the anti-AI talking points are just factually incorrect or greatly misrepresent the situation, but nobody is gonna learn that if even using it is treated as a transgress worthy of 'fair game' treatment.

Funny how that works out.

To close out, enjoy one of my music videos, made from dozens of clips made using reference images made with dozens of heavily modified gens that I totally could have made the hard way, except for the lack of 5 million dollars and access to Geena Davis and Ron Ely circa 1982:

[technomancer--emy]

I wanted to show off my process on this D&D character I made with chatGPT, step by step

This took me several hours to make

Ethics notes:

For the fabric swaths I used fabrics off of google. In the future I will use fabric uploaded to sites that are in the public domain.

I also created this with the training data turned off, so any reference images I used were not used to train the AI. Turning off training data locks the chat into the chat alone.

Above is the finished project.

Below the read more, you'll see the majority of the process used to create this image. The full conversation with chat is around 50 pages, so I'll just post the highlights here.

First I started with the basic sketch, simple axolotl person

Next, we made her a mage

Next I gave the AI this fabric to work with for her cloak

And that resulted in this

Next we started working on the color

Next I gave the AI the fabric for the hat

And I gave what I wanted to be in the crystal ball

And I asked the AI to make her a little cuter. I think the word 'cuter' resulted in a complete redo of the art style.

After spending some time getting the art style back, we got the background involved, the story is set in a post apocalypse, I wanted to do a water color background

Next, finishing details, a dagger and a bell and some birds in the crystal ball. The results were a bit awkward.

Finally, I added a bit of glow and made the face cuter, smoothed out the more awkward details and I tattered the robes.

This took me somewhere between 4 and 5 hours to make and something like 50 pages of reading to achieve.

For the D&D nerds, her name is Ayula. She's a triton celestial warlock and her patron is a servant of Celestian the Sky Wanderer. Her game took place east of the sword coast on an island called Alaron. I'm thrilled I could bring her to life.