raybotonline

[raybotonline]

hell was full so im come back

for reasons i don't really feel like explaining to the public, i've unfortunately decided to return to this website to post my art. i'm not going to be *super* active on here (much like i'm not terribly active on social media period) but i figured i may as well announce my return for the people who were still following this blog. i made a new blog, and this one will be left up as an archive.

follow my new blog @radiopng ok?

[raybotonline]

"How am I supposed to forgive myself?"

watched through all of kamen rider gaim recently & im really normal about mitsuzane kureshima (lying)

[raybotonline]

its a new year so its time for some updated sona designs! yippee!

[raybotonline]

people who care about (or claim to care about) palestinian liberation should ally with left-wing israelis instead of shunning them for being israeli, unless of course they hate israelis more than they care for palestinians.

[raybotonline]

So, a tiny cool project that didn't have dick to do with generative AI (In that it was a lot simpler, but still useful) got bullied off the internet because the books it used to gather its data were pirated and people got pissy.

And like, while I previously didn't have much to say about this wrt AI except "Maybe we should just chill," I kinda realize that the backlash against this can lead into a valuable object lesson.

Because like, I've heard a lot of people suggest in response to well-informed folks like @chromegnomes saying "Anything we could do against AI would have a negative effect on fair use" that "Oh, well we should just make those laws apply to AI then."

And I can understand the mindset, cutting the gordian knot and all that. But the thing is, we tried that technique of "It doesn't count if it's on a computer" before. With online filesharing. And it fucked over everyone except the megacorps.

The right to "first sale," the right that lets you share movies/music/ect you bought was basically destroyed in the digital realm due to fears of stuff like Napster torpedoing the music industry.

The catastrophic consequences of this on preservation have been numerous as you are no doubt aware, but the most relevant one is that that destruction of "first sale" is currently being used to destroy the Internet Archive's online library in favor of the publishing industry's predatory ebook pricing/lending model, even with them being very careful to try and avoid it.

Note that a lot of the biggest names in anti-AI-art such as Jon Lam, Karla Oritz and Neil Turkewitz have been directly cheering on the attempts to kill the Archive, but that's neither here nor there.

But, imagine if the anti-AI-art laws, exempting anything using AI from protection by fair use, end up killing projects like this one.

Further, imagine if something like the Wayback Machine ends up using AI as a means of improving its operations in vital and important ways and some assholes like; say; Facebook or Google decide to sue to kill it.

Don't be fooled. There are better ways to defend your livelihood as an artist than putting the copyright noose around another neck.

[raybotonline]

regular day at the grocery store

[raybotonline]

Is it me or are people who use ai for fun and for curiosity getting scapegoated when people should be blaming big corporations who fire people in favor of AIs and people in power who use ai as tools to do terrible things? I don't know, tinkering with AI to make art and write stories (as long as they're not using it to finish someones unfinished or in progress work without their permission) doesnt seem like a moral failing to me, the people who fire/exploit humans in favor of AI are truly to blame.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of artists see every use of AI as a stolen commission that should have gone to them, and would have if not for the existence of AI. While the corporations absolutely do want to use it to replace human labor so they don't have to pay people (which, in practice, just means devaluing the very real labor of the people who are operating the AI so they can justify paying them peanuts), and there absolutely are individuals who have been absolute jerks with it, if we're just talking about people in the hobbyist sphere, who are doing their own thing that harms no one? More likely than not, that person is someone who would not have commissioned you anyway, because they don't have any disposable income to spare. Or, they would not have commissioned you anyway, because they physically can't "just learn how to draw" but are using it to create for the first time by themselves and on their own terms rather than just wanting the finished product. Or, they would not have commissioned you anyway, because they're just fucking around with software for shits 'n giggles and no one in the history of the internet has ever shelled out for a shitpost. Or, they would not have commissioned you anyway, because the actual process of using it is part of the enjoyment. (If you think that, prior to stumbling across NeuralBlender, I would have hired an artist to draw me poetry, then you are barking up the wrong tree.)

...or, maybe they would have commissioned you, but thanks to the number of artists who've outed themselves as ableist bullies, they no longer feel safe working with you. (There was a point where I really did want to commission some fanart for one of my fics. But the overwhelming majority of artists in that fandom have made it rather vehemently clear that it's bad and wrong and "theft" to create anything on the basis of someone else's intellectual property, and I don't know which of you have been sending anon hate messages to disabled people telling them to drive their wheelchair off a cliff.)

[raybotonline]

sick and tired of all the discourse about who deserves human rights. every single human. that's the whole point. yes even them. and them too. cruelty and torture and murder and rape are not things you "earn"

[raybotonline]

leo/need miitopia adventure squad go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

idk if ill finish this anytime soon so have this sketch

[raybotonline]

First Art Post of 2024....! it's a redraw of a redraw. hooray

originals under the cut :-)

the one on the right is from 2021 and the one on the left (original) is from 2018!

[raybotonline]

archive link

[raybotonline]

First Art Post of 2024....! it's a redraw of a redraw. hooray

originals under the cut :-)

the one on the right is from 2021 and the one on the left (original) is from 2018!

[raybotonline]

finally got around to doing one of these for this year! hooray for images. i hope to make more images next year. thank you for your continued support 🙇‍♂️!

[raybotonline]

Also I have to say "but bands are using AI art for their album covers" is not a winning argument.

That band wasn't going to pay you. That band was going to beg somebody's artist brother for a freebie or they were going to have the people in the band who can kind of draw draw something or they were going to use a moody photo someone took with their cellphone. Best possible scenario is "they were going to trade for something from someone in the scene," and this is still the most likely scenario for bands that *give a shit* about that kind of thing.

And I've been the one doing freebie artwork for my musician friends; I've made album covers and done promo shoots, I've drawn logos and I've got a standing offer to make buttons for the cost of materials for every band I've ever played a show with. The people who give a shit in the scene are already doing this because everybody knows that everybody's broke.

I'm certain that there's not *zero* overlap between "bands that can afford to pay artists and photographers to create album artwork" and "bands that are using AI art for their album covers" but if you think "indie musician" is a demographic that has money to spare on commissioned artwork, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken.

Like. Okay, I mean my *big* argument is that AI image generation is fair use, full stop.

But the secondary argument that I've got is that I'm not sure there's a market to have the bottom fall out of.

The person making shitty covers for their amazon romance novel was not going to pay you. They were going to pay someone on fiverr eight dollars *at best* and that's only if they couldn't find a way to DIY.

That band that's trying desperately to sell ten tickets so they can play a show at the cool venue was not going to pay you to do their cover art. Their last fifty bucks just went to covering those tickets because their friends aren't even coming to their free shows. They were going to stage a photoshoot with a cellphone and a timer and someone's sister's selfie stick.

That person who made an AI avatar was not going to pay you for a custom avatar they were going to take a screenshot of your work and use that.

The people who are able to afford to pay artists and who are interested in paying artists are not the people who are replacing artists with AI. The t-shirt dropshippers, the shitty book cover designers, the bland corporate artists, and the art reposting instagram pages were the ones who undercut your market.

If you're concerned that someone is going to use AI to make art that is materially similar to yours and sell it, you're just concerned that someone is going to make art that is materially similar to yours to sell. The concerns about AI doing it are functionally exactly the same as what happens when someone says "wow, I want that on a t-shirt" under your drawing. If someone were to draw a character similar to but distinct from yours with words similar to but distinct from yours and put a link to that on a reblog of your post, that person is not actually infringing on you. They're a shithead, but that's not actually art theft. If they used your character and your words, or if they directly copy the image, that's art theft and you can try to get their post taken down. It's the exact same thing with AI.

The people who care about art and can afford to pay for it are always going to pay for it. Your problem isn't with AI, your problem is with the fact that people don't value art and that's as true now as it was a decade ago.

You are trying to sell a complicated, crocheted sundress made with 100% hand-dyed alpaca wool on Etsy and are complaining that the loose knit acrylic sundress from walmart is undercutting your market. Some people are always going to make the effort to save up and pay for your work because they value the craftsmanship, but those people didn't want to shop at WalMart in the first place. And the ones who value your craftsmanship but just plain can't afford it were going to dig through the bins at a thrift store until they found a crocheted swim cover from the seventies that they could pass off as a dress with a few alterations.

[raybotonline]

i guess i should preface im not anti ai but how is "everyone can make art it comes free with your humanity" ableist? i could see the argument for illustration and drawing and stuff as i agree with that the other statement is ableist ("oh this guy picked up paintbrushes with his mouth oough") but art is a lot more than that especially cause ive seen people make pretty interesting works of art using AI as a tool

in a vacuum it's not an objectionable statement but in context it's being said as a response to disabled people being like "hey, i like making visual art but can't move the pen/mouse too well, this new technology seems like it could help me make some cool art with minimal physical effort on my end". and in that context, "everyone can make art" stops meaning "humans have an inherent creative drive that manifests in a variety of ways" and starts meaning "okay, sure, you can't make visual art any more, but you can still do poetry or writing, right? like you can type the prompt for AIs, so you can type words, right? just do that instead, it still counts as art. what? you wanted to make a specific kind of art instead of just any random form of expression, and you don't particularly like writing, and also you're bad at it? well too bad, shouldve thought of that before you lost the ability to draw, because your only option to continue doing that without me yelling at you for using Ontologically Evil Technology is holding a brush in your mouth, and if you disagree with that then i'm going to call YOU ableist and post inspiration porn".

tl;dr it treats all different forms of art as fundamentally interchangeable and completely disregards the feelings and desires of disabled people

[raybotonline]

You left this world, didn't you? And still... it spins on.

HALF-LIFE 2 VR BUT THE AI IS SELF AWARE: FULL TRAILER

[raybotonline]

The (Personal) Is (Political)

~7 hours, Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, generated under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

Or, Dear Microsoft and OpenAI: Your Filters Can't Stop Me From Saying Things: An interactive exercise in why all art is political and game of Spot The Symbols

A rare piece I consider Fully Finished simply as a jpeg, though I may do something physical with it regardless. "Director commentary" below, but I strongly encourage you to go over this and analyze it yourself before clicking through, then see how much your reading aligns with my intent.

Elements I told the model to add and a brief (...or at least inexhaustive) overview of why:

Anime style and character figures - Frequently associated with commercial "low" art and consumer culture, in East Asia and the English-speaking world alike, albeit in different ways - justly or otherwise. There is frequently an element of racism to the denigration of anime styles in the west; nearly any American artist who has taken formal illustration classes can tell you a story of being told that anime style will only hinder them, that no one will hire them if they see anime, or even being graded more harshly and scrutinized for potential anime-esque elements if they like anime or imply that they may like anime - including just by being Asian and young. On the other hand, it is true that there is a commercial strategy of "slap an anime girl on it and it will sell". The passion fans feel for these characters is genuine - and it is very, very exploitable. In fact, this commercialization puts anime styles in particular in a very contentious position when it comes to AI discussions!

Dark-skinned boy with platinum and pink [and blue] hair - Racism and colorism! They're a thing, no matter how much the worst people in the world want you to think they're long over and "critical race theory" is the work of evil anti-American terrorists! I chose his appearance because I knew that unless I was incredibly lucky, I would have to fight with this model for multiple hours to get satisfactory results on this point in particular - and indeed I did. It was an interesting experience - what didn't surprise me was how much work it took me to get a skin color darker than medium-dark tan; what did surprise me was that the hair color was very difficult to get right. In anime art, for dark skin to be matched with light hair and eyes is common enough to be...pretty problematic. Bing Image Creator/Dall-E, on the other hand, swings completely in the opposite direction and struggles with the concept of giving dark-skinned characters any hair color OTHER than black, demanding pretty specific phrasing to get it right even 70% of the time. (I might cynically call this yet another illustration against the pervasive copy-paste myth...) There is also much to say about the hair texture and facial features - while I was pleased to see that more results than I expected gave me textured hair and/or box braids without me asking for it, those were still very much in the minority, and I never saw any deviation from the typical anime facial structures meant to illustrate Asian and white characters. Not even once!

Pink and blue color palette - Our subject is transgender. Bias self-check time: did you make that association as quickly as you would with a light-skinned character, or even Sylveon?

Long hair, cute clothes, lots of accessories - Styling while transmasc is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, doubly so if you're not white. In many locations, the medical establishment and mainstream attitude demands total conformity to the dominant culture's standard conventional masculinity, or else "revoking your man card" isn't just a joke meant to uphold the idea that men are "better" than women, but a very real threat. In many queer communities, especially online, transmascs are expected to always be cute femboys who love pink (while transfems are frequently degraded and seen as threats for being butch), and being Just Some Guy is viewed as inherently a sign of assimilationism at best and abusiveness at worst. It is an eternal tug-of-war where "cuteness" and ornamentation are both demanded and banned at the same time. Black and brown people are often hypermasculinized and denied the opportunity to even be "cute" in the first place, regardless of gender. Long hair and how gender is read into it is extremely culture-dependent; no matter what it means to you, if anything, the dominant culture wherever you are will read it as it likes.

Trophies and medals - For one, the trans sports Disk Horse has set feminism back by nearly 50 years; I'm barely a Real History-Remembering Adult and yet I clearly remember a time when the feminist claim about gender in sports was predominantly "hey, it's pretty fucked up that sports are segregated by sex rather than weight class or similar measures, especially when women's sports are usually paid much less and given weirdly oversexualized uniforms," but then a few loud living embodiments of turds in the punch bowl realized that might mean treating trans people fairly and now it's super common for self-proclaimed feminists - mostly white ones - to claim that the strongest woman will still never measure up to the weakest man and this is totally a feminist statement because they totally want to PROTECT women (with invasive medical screenings on girls as young as 12 to prove they're Really Women if they perform too well, of course). For two, Black and brown people are stereotyped as being innately more sporty, physically strong, and, again, Masculine(TM) than others, which frequently intersects with item 1...and if you think it only affects trans women, I am sorry my friend but it is so much worse and more extensive than you think.

Hearts - They mean many things. Love. Happiness. Cuteness. Social media engagement?

TikTok - A platform widely known and hated around these parts for its arcane and deeply regressive algorithm; I felt it deserved to be name/layout/logodropped for reasons that, if they're not clear already, should become so in the final paragraph.

Computers, cameras and cell phones - My initial specification was that one of the phones should be on Instagram and another on TikTok, which the model instead chose to interpret as putting a TikTok sticker on the laptop, but sure, okay. They're ubiquitous in the modern day, for better and for worse. For all the debate over whether phones and social media are Good For Us or Bad For Us, the fact of the matter is, they seem to be a net positive-to-neutral, whose impacts depend on the person - but they do still have major drawbacks. The internet is a platform for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and dangerous hoaxes to spread farther than ever before. Social media culture leaves many people feeling like we're always being watched and every waking moment of our lives must be Perfect - and in some senses, we are always being watched these days. Digital privacy is eroding by the day, already being used to enforce all the most unjust laws on the books, which leads to-

Pigs - I wrote the prompt with the intention that it would just be a sticker on the laptop, but instead it chose to put them everywhere, and given that I wanted to make a somewhat stealthy statement about surveillance, especially of the marginalized...thanks for that, Dall-E! ;)

Alligators - A counter to the pigs; a short-lived antifascist symbol after...this.

Details I did not intend but love anyway:

The blue in the hair - I only prompted for platinum and pink in the hair, but the overall color palette description "bled" over here anyway, completing the trans flag, making it even more blatant, and thus even more effective as a bias self-check.

The Macbook - I only specified a laptop. Hilariously ironic, to me, that a service provided through Bing interpreted "laptop" as "Macbook" nearly every time. In my recent history, 22 out of 24 attempts show, specifically, a Macbook. Microsoft v. OpenAI divorce arc when? ;) But also, let us not forget Apple's role in the ever-worsening sanitization of the internet. A Macbook with a TikTok sticker (or, well, a Tiikok sticker - recognizable enough) - I can think of little more emblematic of one of the main things I was complaining about, and it was a happy accident. Or perhaps an unhappy one, considering what it may imply about Apple's grip on culture and communications.

Which brings me to my process:

Generated over ~7 hours with Dall-E 3 through Bing Image Creator - The most powerful free tool out there for txt2img these days, as well as a nightmare of filters and what may be the most disgustingly, cloyingly impersonal toxic positivity I've ever witnessed from a tool. It wants to be Art(TM), yet it wants to ban Politics(TM); two things which are very much incompatible - and so, I wanted to make A Controversial Statement using only the most unflaggable, innocuous elements imaginable.

All art is political. All life is political. All our "defaults" are cultural, and therefore political. Anything whatsoever can be a symbol.

If you want all art to be a substance-free "look at the pretty picture :)" - it doesn't matter how much you filter, buddy, you've got a big storm coming.