#Free ai graphics tools

[azuremist]

Google is going to start scraping all of their platforms to use for AI training. So, here are some alternatives for common Google tools!

Google Chrome -> Firefox

If you’re on tumblr, you’ve probably already been told this a thousand times. But FireFox is an open-source browser which is safe, fast and secure. Basically all other browsers are Chrome reskins. Try Firefox Profilemaker, Arkenfox and Librewolf! Alternatively, vanilla Firefox is alright, but get Ublock Origin, turn off pocket, and get Tabliss.

Google Search -> DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo very rarely tracks or stores your browsing data (though they have only been known to sell this info to Microsoft). Don’t use their browser; only their search engine. Domain visits in their browser get shared. Alternatively, you can also use Ecosia, which is a safe search engine that uses its income to plant trees! 🌲

Google Reverse Image Search -> Tineye

Tineye uses image identification tech rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks to find you the source of your image!

Gmail -> ProtonMail

All data stored on ProtonMail is encrypted, and it boasts self-destructing emails, text search, and a commitment to user privacy. Tutanota is also a good alternative!

Google Docs -> LibreOffice

LibreOffice is free and open-source software, which includes functions like writing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, formula editing and more.

Google Translate -> DeepL

DeepL is notable for its accuracy of translation, and is much better that Google Translate in this regard. It does cost money for unlimited usage, but it will let you translate 500,000 characters per month for free. If this is a dealbreaker, consider checking out the iTranslate app.

Google Forms -> ClickUp

ClickUp comes with a built-in form view, and also has a documents feature, which could make it a good option to take out two birds with one stone.

Google Drive -> Mega

Mega offers a better encryption method than Google Drive, which means it’s more secure.

YouTube -> PeerTube

YouTube is the most difficult to account for, because it has a functional monopoly on long-form video-sharing. That being said, PeerTube is open-source and decentralized. The Internet Archive also has a video section!

However, if you still want access to YouTube’s library, check out NewPipe and LibreTube! NewPipe scrapes YouTube’s API so you can watch YouTube videos without Google collecting your info. LibreTube does the same thing, but instead of using YouTube servers, it uses piped servers, so Google doesn’t even get your IP address. Both of these are free, don’t require sign-ins, and are open source!

Please feel free to drop your favorite alternatives to Google-owned products, too! And, if this topic interests you, consider checking out Glaze as well! It alters your artwork and photos so that it’s more difficult to use to train AI with! ⭐️

[newcodesociety]

Artificial Intelligence: Art Generators

Want to create some AI art? For free? Here's some resources:

Nightcafe

OpenArt

DALL-E 2

Bing

Dream

Craiyon

Starryai

HotPot

Fotor

Picsart

Spirals - Vercel - Design spirals!

ChartGen - Create Charts from datasets

As far as I am aware these are free, some do have daily limits though.

[successsprinters]

10 Best Free AI Tools for Graphic Design

Discover the top 10 free AI tools for Graphic Design in this beginner’s guide. Learn how to create stunning visuals with ease using these powerful, user-friendly applications. In the current digital era, graphic design plays a crucial role in numerous industries, including marketing and web development. With the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), designers now have access to a plethora…

[dingmoneyonline]

Generate Saleable Graphics with Ai and Make $1711 in Week

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[the-rainbow-of-doom]

The new photoshop AI picture generator sure is special. I asked for Karl Marx with a molotov cocktail but instead got a Bureaucrat with a Bloody Mary.

[samwiselastname]

rofl. lmao even.

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“By simply existing as women in public life, we have all become targets, stripped of our accomplishments, our intellect, and our activism and reduced to sex objects for the pleasure of millions of anonymous eyes.

Men, of course, are subject to this abuse far less frequently. In reporting this article, I searched the name Donald Trump on one prominent deepfake-porn website and turned up one video of the former president—and three entire pages of videos depicting his wife, Melania, and daughter Ivanka. A 2019 study from Sensity, a company that monitors synthetic media, estimated that more than 96 percent of deepfakes then in existence were nonconsensual pornography of women.”

Recently, a Google Alert informed me that I am the subject of deepfake pornography. I wasn’t shocked. For more than a year, I have been the target of a widespread online harassment campaign, and deepfake porn—whose creators, using artificial intelligence, generate explicit video clips that seem to show real people in sexual situations that never actually occurred—has become a prized weapon in the arsenal misogynists use to try to drive women out of public life. The only emotion I felt as I informed my lawyers about the latest violation of my privacy was a profound disappointment in the technology—and in the lawmakers and regulators who have offered no justice to people who appear in porn clips without their consent. Many commentators have been tying themselves in knots over the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence—deepfake videos that tip elections or start wars, job-destroying deployments of ChatGPT and other generative technologies. Yet policy makers have all but ignored an urgent AI problem that is already affecting many lives, including mine.

Last year, I resigned as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, a policy-coordination body that the Biden administration let founder amid criticism mostly from the right. In subsequent months, at least three artificially generated videos that appear to show me engaging in sex acts were uploaded to websites specializing in deepfake porn. The images don’t look much like me; the generative-AI models that spat them out seem to have been trained on my official U.S. government portrait, taken when I was six months pregnant. Whoever created the videos likely used a free “face swap” tool, essentially pasting my photo onto an existing porn video. In some moments, the original performer’s mouth is visible while the deepfake Frankenstein moves and my face flickers. But these videos aren’t meant to be convincing—all of the websites and the individual videos they host are clearly labeled as fakes. Although they may provide cheap thrills for the viewer, their deeper purpose is to humiliate, shame, and objectify women, especially women who have the temerity to speak out. I am somewhat inured to this abuse, after researching and writing about it for years. But for other women, especially those in more conservative or patriarchal environments, appearing in a deepfake-porn video could be profoundly stigmatizing, even career- or life-threatening.

As if to underscore video makers’ compulsion to punish women who speak out, one of the videos to which Google alerted me depicts me with Hillary Clinton and Greta Thunberg. Because of their global celebrity, deepfakes of the former presidential candidate and the climate-change activist are far more numerous and more graphic than those of me. Users can also easily find deepfake-porn videos of the singer Taylor Swift, the actress Emma Watson, and the former Fox News host Megyn Kelly; Democratic officials such as Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the Republicans Nikki Haley and Elise Stefanik; and countless other prominent women. By simply existing as women in public life, we have all become targets, stripped of our accomplishments, our intellect, and our activism and reduced to sex objects for the pleasure of millions of anonymous eyes.

Men, of course, are subject to this abuse far less frequently. In reporting this article, I searched the name Donald Trump on one prominent deepfake-porn website and turned up one video of the former president—and three entire pages of videos depicting his wife, Melania, and daughter Ivanka. A 2019 study from Sensity, a company that monitors synthetic media, estimated that more than 96 percent of deepfakes then in existence were nonconsensual pornography of women. The reasons for this disproportion are interconnected, and are both technical and motivational: The people making these videos are presumably heterosexual men who value their own gratification more than they value women’s personhood. And because AI systems are trained on an internet that abounds with images of women’s bodies, much of the nonconsensual porn that those systems generate is more believable than, say, computer-generated clips of cute animals playing would be.

As I looked into the provenance of the videos in which I appear—I’m a disinformation researcher, after all—I stumbled upon deepfake-porn forums where users are remarkably nonchalant about the invasion of privacy they are perpetrating. Some seem to believe that they have a right to distribute these images—that because they fed a publicly available photo of a woman into an application engineered to make pornography, they have created art or a legitimate work of parody. Others apparently think that simply by labeling their videos and images as fake, they can avoid any legal consequences for their actions. These purveyors assert that their videos are for entertainment and educational purposes only. But by using that description for videos of well-known women being “humiliated” or “pounded”—as the titles of some clips put it—these men reveal a lot about what they find pleasurable and informative.

Ironically, some creators who post in deepfake forums show great concern for their own safety and privacy—in one forum thread that I found, a man is ridiculed for having signed up with a face-swapping app that does not protect user data—but insist that the women they depict do not have those same rights, because they have chosen public career paths. The most chilling page I found lists women who are turning 18 this year; they are removed on their birthdays from “blacklists” that deepfake-forum hosts maintain so they don’t run afoul of laws against child pornography.

Effective laws are exactly what the victims of deepfake porn need. Several states—including Virginia and California—have outlawed the distribution of deepfake porn. But for victims living outside these jurisdictions or seeking justice against perpetrators based elsewhere, these laws have little effect. In my own case, finding out who created these videos is probably not worth the time and money. I could attempt to subpoena platforms for information about the users who uploaded the videos, but even if the sites had those details and shared them with me, if my abusers live out of state—or in a different country—there is little I could do to bring them to justice.

Representative Joseph Morelle of New York is attempting to reduce this jurisdictional loophole by reintroducing the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, a proposed amendment to the 2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Morelle’s bill would impose a nationwide ban on the distribution of deepfakes without the explicit consent of the people depicted in the image or video. The measure would also provide victims with somewhat easier recourse when they find themselves unwittingly starring in nonconsensual porn.

In the absence of strong federal legislation, the avenues available to me to mitigate the harm caused by the deepfakes of me are not all that encouraging. I can request that Google delist the web addresses of the videos in its search results and—though the legal basis for any demand would be shaky—have my attorneys ask online platforms to take down the videos altogether. But even if those websites comply, the likelihood that the videos will crop up somewhere else is extremely high. Women targeted by deepfake porn are caught in an exhausting, expensive, endless game of whack-a-troll.

The Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act won’t solve the deepfake problem; the internet is forever, and deepfake technology is only becoming more ubiquitous and its output more convincing. Yet especially because AI grows more powerful by the month, adapting the law to an emergent category of misogynistic abuse is all the more essential to protect women’s privacy and safety. As policy makers worry whether AI will destroy the world, I beg them: Let’s first stop the men who are using it to discredit and humiliate women.

Nina Jankowicz is a disinformation expert and the author of How to Be a Woman Online and How to Lose the Information War.

[berry-s0da]

AI “art”

Yesterday I argued with an idiot that thought giving directives to an AI makes you as much of an artist as someone that is actually capable of creating art. It’s extremely worrying that our youth is so incapable of understanding this topic, too self absorbed on their own rigid conception of reality and utterly detached from the real world and the importance of the people you share it with, of consequences, of tangibility. They don’t know how to define art, such a core concept for our species, they are unaware that it’s an exclusively human practice a machine cannot produce by itself or for them.

Some of Oxford Language Learner's Dictionary definitions if you want tangible sources for something that has existed for longer than any piece of technology;

Definition of an Artist: a person who creates works of art, especially paintings or drawings.

3 definitions of Art:

1) the use of the imagination to express ideas or feelings, particularly in painting, drawing or sculpture.

2) the skill of creating objects such as paintings and drawings, especially when you study it.

3) an ability or a skill that you can develop with training and practice.

(defining a piece through words could turn into literature, writing is an outlet for creativity and imagination too, the problem is that they want to claim a graphic piece they had no part on as their creation…which makes no sense for obvious reasons. This might blow your mind but you actually have to be involved in the making of a piece in order for it to be an artist. Writing a brief description of what you want the AI to make for you is not a form of creation, it’s a directive for a machine to do what you can’t)

If you don’t have mental resources, talent, skills, capacity of handling different tools, mediums and techniques then you are not an artist (and that’s okay), but you could be if you tried. Writing a prompt is not making art, everyone with enough mental capacity can come up with a concept for a piece, people that commission artists do that and that doesn’t automatically make them artists.

An AI won’t do shit the way you request it even if you say it does. An AI makes an interpretation of the request but asides from mild guidance, you have absolutely nothing to do with the process or the final “piece” (Frankenstein monster of already existing pieces, taken with or without consent).

An AI without regulation isn’t a new medium or something comparable to the fucking Industrial Revolutionjust, specially considering it isn’t a new, easier way to do the same task (like with an art software). It’s but a shameless way of reusing or straight up stealing pieces produced by the same artists you deem to be now useless and outdated. What you call the future is nothing but plagiarism, the usage of things that already existed in a much higher quality, a wonky replica that is only valued because it’s free for your cheap ass.

“Good artists have nothing to worry about, only shitty artists will disappear” im sorry you have to find out this way but every good artist had to be shit first. We reached a point where we are unaware of periods of time any artist needs in order to grow and develop. This logic is baffling because if only good artists are worth of being respected and having stable jobs then we’ll eventually run out of artists, which is not only silly but impossible. This is but an excuse to avoid the obvious issue that represents stepping over people and making it seem as a fair, natural process.

Finally, If you wanna draw, learn to draw first, nobody stops you but yourself. If you wanna paint learn to paint, if you wanna sculpt, learn to sculpt, if you wanna be an artist then get your ass to work. Not everything is laid out for you in life, you actually have to put work into something, as shocking as it sounds. There are people that draw masterpieces holding pencils on their mouths, you have no excuse other than self pity for being useless, being jealous of those that can actually make things and, ultimately, the unreserved, unapologetic disinterest in those affected by this monster y’all wanna have fun with.

[gravidasomnia]

A text post for a change! tldr: There's some technical details re: Dayspa Squad which spills into discussion of the software & hardware used, and a few other thoughts. Group pics are difficult with the limitations of the AI I'm using (SD 1.5, sdxl is better but my budget gaming laptop can't run it the way I use 1.5 without overheating), and people have noted that they often look like a row of clones. So this time (and last) I've found a suitable txt2img generation (top left) then re-run it through img2img and added variations in the prompt to produce different, still very similar looking groups, with many typical AI pic problems e.g. too many/not enough fingers & hands:

but from that I'll use Krita + the clone tool aligned to each pic and take parts of each that seem apt; hopefully between all the iterations there's enough non-freaky hands and other parts to go around!

You can see I haven't done a perfect job - especially with the 2nd woman from the left's dressing gown and hand, and the breasts still look cloned. Such flaws and others are much less noticeable on IG with it's limited image resolution and most users having a small screen experience. My excuse is that the milestone came up sooner than expected and I rushed it (I only started after noticing I'd hit 8,995 followers and it took about 20 minutes all up, a few minutes before I hit 9k). But a little more time and scrutiny and even running a couple more iterations could have gone a long way. Photoshop could just regenerate individual elements if you want it to but I'm not a pro user and can't justify the expense (such functionality wouldn't be available to unlicenced users). I'm more familiar with GIMP but I prefer Krita for simple clone tool operations because it loads quicker and the default brush is perfect for how I use it + the smart patch tool is also handy. I could also use the SD plugin within Krita/GIMP for similar functionality but I found the interface too clunky so I prefer to work manually for this sort of thing. This method is the sort of thing I'd use earlier on to fix weirdness like mutant hands, multiple weird bellybuttons and other AI body horror. Or to get a striking individual image juuuust right, like this one or this one. Nowadays the raw outputs are often realistic enough that simple touchups can take care of aberrations. We're not far off having an app that laypeople can use that will make pics like this without a need for editing - but for now I'm happy in this niche. Assets Used (All software free for personal use, mostly free for commercial use):

Software: Stability Matrix with the Automatic1111 WebUI Krita (has a learning curve but so does PS, amazing functionality that I've barely made use of because I'm not an actual artist) Irfanview (free for personal use but I've licensed it so I can use it for work if needed, totally worth it) AI Checkpoints/Loras/Embeddings: Photosomnia Omega (my SD1.5 photorealism model blend) Pregmix 2 Lora (will update eventually but it's not available yet, for now try Pregmix 1 or other pregnancy Loras on civitAI) FreeU/FreeU webUI plugin Negative photorealism embeddings used to help a lot but I don't need them so much now due to how far the model and Lora has come. They still deserve a mention as they have been very useful and will continue to be so with a variety of models: fcneg kkw-ph1-neg Bad_NegAnatomy Hardware: 2nd hand laptop with an i7, 16gb ram, 1G SSD, and 8gb rtx graphics. 4gb nvidia GTX graphics is considered the bare minimum but an RTX with 8gb is gonna be the minimum practical for working with HD resolutions & SDXL. Cheaper laptops will struggle with heat management, PCs will hit your power bills. Radeon graphics can technically work, they're good for people who love fucking around with linux because things aren't working and want to apply that approach to AI artgen software. If you don't enjoy that sort of frustration don't bother. Apple isn't supported for Stability Matrix yet but apparently many implementations of SD will work on a Macbook Pro with the M1/M2 chip and preferably at least 16gb of ram. Draw Things will run on an newish iphone/ipad but I found it too clunky to use for serious pics and it's not practical for high resolution work. While reflecting on the artistic mediocrity of this otherwise pleasing pic, a paraphrase of T.K. crossed my mind, namely that the AI revolution has been an utter disaster for human art. It does have a place alongside real art but as an example I hate seeing AI garbage in advertisements knowing that it's not only deceptive garbage that pretends to be something it's not AND it's also more lost payments for working artists/photographers/models. But I also think that fake erotica photos people make for themselves or share freely are outside of that problem, as long as they don't depict actual identifiable persons. I will not do fakes without consent, maybe everyone has their price but mine hasn't even come close to being reached, which I'll admit isn't possible without some level of privilege.

I'd like to not be judgmental of people who do make AI fakes for $ but otoh AI users must have some level of privilege to be able to access and use the technology. What I have seen with technology and other things is that irresponsible use is likely to be met with irresponsible regulation and I do wonder (not worry) how much longer blogs like this will be legal. Anyway for now just enjoy the pics! There will be more to enjoy soon. If you've bothered to scroll through thanks for reading and thanks for being a fan!

[yinyuappreciationweek]

Yin Yu Appreciation Week; Event Rules and Guidelines

Hello! This is the event guide for Yin Yu Appreciation Week 2024! Not everything is a hard and fast rule so read on if you would like to know more!

*Important: This event is being hosted by one individual on Tumblr and AO3. There are no plans to create event pages/accounts on other platforms but you are more than welcome to post there. If you are interested in creating one to run yourself, please DM this blog or @juicedpeachy for assistance.

This event is a FAN event. Meaning no money will be made from this event and no official TGCF accounts or individuals are involved with the event. All characters from Tian Guan Ci Fu belong to Moxiang Tongxiu.

Because this is a FAN event and the host does not stand to gain any income, please treat it as such. The host is putting this together for fun in their free time and any rude or entitled behavior will not be tolerated.

In addition, this guide is subject to change at any time.

RULES: Violation of these rules will primarily result in blocking and/or muting. In extreme cases, reporting to Tumblr and/or AO3 staff.

1. NO AI WORKS. Any use of artificial intelligence in the creation of your piece is not allowed. There are many other accessibility tools out there to support your creative process without stealing from others.

2. No reposting without permission and credit! Before sharing someone else’s work on another platform, please check with the creator and LINK their credentials and account to the post. If the creator says no—do not ask again. Reposting without permission is stealing.

3. Do not spam the tags! Spam in the suggested event tags will not be tolerated. Please refer to AO3 and Tumblr’s guidelines for definitions of spam.

4. While explicit, disturbing, or violent content is allowed, it must be tagged before posting. These terms include but are not limited to: rape/non-con, graphic violence, suicide, underage, incest, sexual content, homophobia, racism, transphobia, colorism, etc.

5. Including more specific tags for content that is not necessarily disturbing but may be unfavorable or controversial to some are highly encouraged but not a requirement. Specific tags can help to keep the community safe from personal triggers and help some to avoid content that they personally don’t agree with. This can include terms such as m-preg, gender-bend, whump, omegaverse, etc. If you don’t wish to tag specific terms, an umbrella term such as “potentially triggering/controversial material” or “creator chose not to use archive warnings” can suffice.

6. Creators are not at fault for content that may be triggering or controversial to you. It is your own job to curate and filter your online spaces and creators do not owe you anything. If you see something that you think should be tagged, you may kindly let the creator know but they are not responsible for your mental state and you must take care of yourself.

7. No harassment or hate speech of any kind is permitted. You will be reported for such behavior.

8. Ao3 and Tumblr’s rules should also be followed. Their guidelines are not necessarily listed here and you should visit their rules on your own to understand them.

Guide: These are not necessarily “rules” in the sense that you will be blocked, but they are a guide about how you should participate and behave for the event. However, your content may not be reblogged or included in any collections.

1. First and foremost, this event is to celebrate the character known as Yin Yu from Heaven Official’s Blessing. Content created for the event should focus on Yin Yu. Shipping is welcome but the priority should be Yin Yu.

2. Do not leave unwarranted criticism on others works.

3. Tag your work with #yinyuappreciation2024 or #yinyuappreciationweek if you wish to be featured on the tumblr page or the ao3 collection

This has been the general rules and guidelines for this event. Please check the FAQ for more info detailing the specifics of your creations and how to participate.

[magicalmeily]

I've made a google doc collection of 150 useful design and art resources! Whether youre just starting commissions or want to make your workflow more streamlined, I recommend checking it out

The full list is below the read more, but I suggest looking at the google doc as well sincce it will be updated more often. 

This list was created by @MagicalMeily

I encourage you to share this list with other designers, artists, or even students via this tumblr post, the google doc, or my tweet. Links marked as ‘Free/Paid’ usually means the free version has a lot of features anyway and the paid just has some extra templates or storage space. *Disclaimer - I haven’t used all of these services myself, so please let me know if anything dodgy slipped through the cracks, or if you have any others I should add.

I do not support NFTs or AI Art generators, so hopefully you won’t find any listed. Always double check commercial usage rights

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMISSION SETUP

Collection of designers rates - Graphic Design Rates Master Sheet

TOS Example, Free to use (by kawa_kunn) - Twitter / kawa-kun.art

Tiktok walkthrough of a commission TOS form - artofthecatt

Longer Video of commission TOS form - How to Create a Commission Form

Commission Advice (by AerlyaGraphics) - Aerlya Graphics

Merchandise/printing services (by @sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

COMMISSION TRACKERS/MANAGEMENT

(Free/Paid) Clients can see your progress - Trello

(Free/Paid) Single user or collaborative project tracker - Notion

(Free) General Commission Management - Commiss.io

TEAM DESIGN/COLLABORATION

(Free/Paid) - Zeplin

(Free/Paid) - Notion

(Free/Paid) - Figma

(Free for Individuals) - Box

(Paid) - Sketch

FILE SHARING

(Free) - Google Drive

(Free/Paid) - WeTransfer

(Free/Paid) - Jumpshare

(Free for individuals) - Box

(Free) - Blindsend

MOODBOARDS

Design Inspiration

Image search for inspiration - Muzli Search

Makes and automatically sets out moodboards - Visualist

DESIGN PROGRAMS

2d Animation (Free/Paid) - Cavalry

Graphics, Photo editing, Publishing (One -off payment) - Affinity

Graphics, Audio, Video (Free, Browser) - Artboard Studio

Graphics (Free) - Inkscape

Graphics/Layout (Free/Paid, Browser) - Canva

Graphics, Photo Editing (Free, Browser. Can open Adobe files) - Photopea

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vectr

Vector making (Free, Browser) - Vector Ink

Wireframing (Free, Browser) - Moqups App

GENERAL HELPFUL TOOLS/PROGRAMS

Bulk file renamer - Bulk Rename Utility

Bulk image resizer - ImageResizer

File Converters - FreeConvert

Image Upscaler - Waifu2x

Floating view of reference images - PureRef

Timezone converter - World Time Buddy

Twitter image crop guide by @dripchirp - Twitter Crop Guide

Learning how to use the pen tool - The Bézier Game

PORTFOLIO HOSTING/WEBSITE MAKERS

Portfolio hosting (Free) - Foriio

Portfolio hosting (Free with Adobe Subscription) - Adobe Portfolio

Portfolio hosting (Paid) - Portfoliobox

Website builder (Free) - Carrd

Website builder (Free) - Google Sites

Website builder (Free) - Weebly

Website builder (Free) - Wix

Website builder (Paid) - Squarespace

Make a blog you can use as a folio - Tumblr

(Posts Selective Folios) - Bestfolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - PFolios

(Posts Selective Folios) - Pafolios

(Posts Selective showreels) - Showreelz

LINK AGGREGATORS

(Free) Linktree

(Free) Lnk.Bio

(Paid/Free) Later

(Free) Solo.to

(Free) Campsite.bio

DESIGN MARKETPLACES

BOOTH

Gumroad

Ko-fi Shop

COLOUR

Various colour palette tools - Adobe Color

Colour palette search and generator - Coolors

Colour palette generator - Color Space

Colour converter, make colour palettes - RGB.to

Displays big brands colour schemes - BrandColors

ACCESSIBILITY

General design accessibility tips - Lemonly Infographics

Font accessibility tips - UXdesign.cc

Accessible colour combination generator 1 - Accessible color palette builder

Accessible colour combination generator 2 - Color Safe

FONTS FOR DOWNLOAD

Google Fonts

Adobe Fonts

Pixel Surplus

Fontesk

Befonts

Behance

Gumroad

Free Japanese Fonts

BOOTH

TYPE TOOLS

Displays inputted text in fonts installed on your computer - Wordmark

Identifies fonts on a web page  - Fonts Ninja

Typography Resources - Typewolf

Font Pairing Help - Fontjoy

Examples of fonts in context - Fonts In Use

Font Management - FontBase

MOCKUPS

Mockup World

Mr.Mockup

Unblast

ls.graphics

Anthonyboyd.graphics

Anagram Design

DesignHooks

Mockups-Design

STOCK PHOTOS/TEXTURES

Pexels

Unsplash

Barnimages

LostAndTaken

Freepik

Rawpixel

PATTERNS

Pattern Inspiration - Pattern Collection

Customisable Repeating SVG Patterns - Pattern Monster

Seamless background pattern maker - Patternico

Mesh Gradient Maker - Mesh Gradient

Make and print your own grids - Gridzzly.com

Downloadable Patterns - Subtle Patterns

ILLUSTRATION LIBRARIES

Toools Design

Irasutoya / いらすとや

Open Peeps

Humaaans

Open Doodles

ICON LIBRARIES

Paid/Free - Streamline Icons

Paid/Free - Flaticon

INSPIRATION GATHERING

abdz

Mindsparkle Mag

Behance

Dribbble

Muzli Search

100 Archive

Design Inspiration

BP&O

Pentagram

It's Nice That

DESIGN ADVICE/EXAMPLES/BLOGS/ ARTICLES

(Free) - World Brand Design Society

(Free) - AIGA Eye on Design

(Free) - Creative Boom

(Free) - The Design Team

(Paid) - UnderConsideration

LOGO/BRANDING DESIGN

Company logos categorised by letter/number/symbol etc - Logobook

Logo/Branding Examples - Logoed

PACKAGING DESIGN

Kawacolle

Packaging Design Archive

Packaging Of The World

WEB DESIGN

Siteinspire

Httpster

Lapa Ninja

Best Website Gallery

Dark Mode Design

Awwwards

Dribbble

(Wireframing) Moqups App

PUBLICATION/EDITORIAL DESIGN

Zine Creation Tips Masterpost - How to Organize a Zine 101

Editorial Design Examples 1 - Formagramma

Editorial Design Examples 2 - Pentagram

POSTER DESIGN

Typographic Poster Design Examples - Typographic posters

Poster Design Examples - Poster Poster

CHARACTER DESIGN

Character Design Library, Challenges, etc - Character Design References

Anime Settei/Reference Sheets - Settei Dreams

Historical Costume references - OSF Costume Rentals

V-DESIGNER/V-ARTIST

‘How to Design Your Own Vtuber Logo’ (by the-tragic-heroine) - The-tragic-heroine

Discover V-artists/V-designers - Heartist

V-Artist/V-designers Catalogue (Hiatus) - VTuber Catalog

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

View badges/emotes will look like on Twitch - Twitch Elements

Resize badges/emotes to actual sizes - Twitch Emote Resizer

Vtuber based commission hub (beta) - VGen

PAYPAL ALTERNATIVES

Square

Stripe

Wise (previously TransferWise)

Kofi

Direct Bank Transfer

OTHER RESOURCE COLLECTIONS

Vtuber Resource Collection (by VTResources) - VTuber Resources

Designer Resources Collection - Design Resources

Merchandise/printing services (by sunshinehoney6) - Merchandise Resources

Typography Resources - Typewolf

[silkendandelion]

We try not to get political around here but in light of recent events, I gotta say something—

I am begging you to keep these companies accountable for their censorship bull.

Implementing AI tools to scan your stuff (no I don’t care what their “reason” is), not allowing sexual or graphic content to be shared is unacceptable in terms of free speech and the right to privacy.

Look at me: the only thing these companies understand is clicks bc clicks = money. You are gonna protect your wellbeing by:

1. Downloading all your fanfiction onto your PC hard drive, get it off google docs, yes all of it.

2. Download a document editor that is not Microsoft Office either, there are free ones who respect your privacy, I use LibreOffice for PC. Now you have an actual hardline editor that does not require internet and does not log your activity. Your words are yours, finally.

3. You’re gonna get an encrypted email service, there are free ones, I like Proton bc my mailing list is small but there are others.

4. Make that email the one attached to your fanfic hosting website of choice, get google out of your business

5. Make a mailing list of your alpha/beta readers, and exchange documents in emails like the olden days bc it’s one of the few forms of communication that can actually be private and protected. But do not send with, do not send to—a Google Mail address.

6. Don’t ever. Touch. Google Docs. Again. Dont send your documents with Google Mail. Don’t do your research on Google.com. Don’t give them the clicks, don’t let their ads get runtime, tank their traffic, hit them where it hurts

If they don’t give us what we want, we don’t use their service. Period.

[netherworldpost]

AI art predictions with a laundry list

This is a very long post, so as an advertisement to entice you to read it, let’s start off with my proof points. It ends with advice on what to do if you make things and/or want to make things and are concerned.

I remember when royalty-free microstock ($1/photo) began. It fundamentally changed stock photography, ending a significant number of careers, creating a significantly larger number of photographers -- as well as graphic designers AND illustrators who now had floods of reference photos they could not access before.

I remember when boilerplate WordPress starter themes began. They largely are a “paint by numbers” kit of parts. A lot of web developers rallied against it, claiming they would go out of business. Some did, most did not, a great number went into business using them as tools.

Hell, I remember when WordPress started. Similar story to above.

I remember when Adobe created built-in color palette tools. These are, essentially, color wheels. There were a lot of designers and illustrators who claimed this would give the public and/or low skill designers too much power.

I remember when free logo generators started. See above notes.

I remember when ultra cheap graphic design freelance services began. Fiverr and Upwork, etc. See above notes.

Hell I remember when digital printers started gaining a neck grip on small scale commercial printing. Bad time to be a 1 and 2 color press shop.

Tech bros and their priests will continue to throw money and other resources at it from about mid 2022 until early 2024

A combination of boredom, other opportunities (good, bad, and neutral), lawsuits, and the inescapable physics of what is required to create new AI art will taper off interest around early to mid 2024

The arc of interest will diminish far sooner but will occasionally be spiked back up by a combination of:

^- click-bait news articles and new breakthroughs in tech

^- click-bait news articles that claim there is a new breakthrough because the reporter/outlet is just catching on to existing things

^- tech bros claiming a new breakthrough (that isn’t new) because they have reinvented existing tech and/or are outright stealing from existing tech

Some levels of AI will continue forever with varying degrees of aesthetic attraction

On some level, the continuation will be because some tech bros and their priests are interested in pursuing the tech and are uninterested in the benefits/costs

On another level, it will continue as a weapon against artists (at large) because all tech invented is utilized as a weapon by bad actors against specific groups people

On yet another level, it will continue as a weapon against specific artists because all tech invented is utilized as a weapon by bad actors against specific people

Some (a moderate sample size) artists will lose everything for a little while but ultimately adapt, a smaller sample size everything permanently and leave the art profession

The public at large will begin in earnest interest as a “we can create stuff too!” but then lose interest over time because quality (as measured by uniqueness) and accessibility (as measured as “free vs. paid”) will steadily decrease

The decrease of interest will spike tech bros desperate to reclaim their throne into accelerating outright theft and abuse because at the nature these specific tech bros are parasites and have nothing positive to offer either the tech or art ecosystems

Corporate interests will both utilize AI art for their own interests while suing to stop their own direct properties from being used. These lawsuits will generate attention-grabbing headlines but almost exclusively be settled out of court and/or the AI companies will simply be bought to bring the tech/people into the fold/shut down

Artists (at large) will engage in the various platforms. There will be generalized outrage for 1 - 5 years as a combination of acceptance, resignation, and useful labor-saving tools are built

^- schisms will enter the art community. Some points will be made as legitimate discourse, most will be stated as individual artists use this as the point-of-the-day to prove themselves better than everyone else.

Ultimately:

Tech will continue building what they can, scraping every resources available at the lowest cost possible and often through piracy, until it becomes untenable via cost and boredom

Artists will continue to create, adapt, and evolve. Some unfortunately will legitimately lose everything and drop out of the career for a period of years, some forever.

There will be a convergence point then the two will separate out slowly. The path will be painful for artists. The public will vastly be ignorant, those who know mostly won’t care, some will passionately rally for artists.

Advice for people who make things:

Keep making things. Despair is an automated weapon that targets you, the more you feed it, the stronger it grows.

Do not personalized despair. It is easy to give into the thought of a conspiracy theory against you, or your industry. I view the accuracy more as “people/institutions who do not know, or care, about your existence are building their own empire. Sometimes you’re a tree line of border protection against wind, sometimes you’re lumber. Either way you’re not considered in any instance except when you’re useful, and never as an individual.”

Protect yourself as possible (file copyright takedown notices, keep an eye on prices to keep yourself in business, do not actively participate in contests that scrape AI, block people onsite who advocate for AI art if you yourself do not)

Protect your business funds as possible (multiple streams of income where possible, keep an eye on costs -- is fancy packaging actually necessary, from a business perspective, or are you making it fancy because you’re an artist)

Build a community as you can, everywhere you can. There is an absolute effort-to-cost ratio that must be watched -- you can, as of writing, literally sign up for a MySpace if you want. I wouldn’t recommend trying to build a network there.

And to repeat: keep making things. There are tools you used to get started, there are tools you USE RIGHT NOW, I promise you, that were once heralded as “the thing that will kill art.” It didn’t, except where it did, and in both instances everything evolved to whatever our current state is.