#The Wizard of AI

[adastra-sf]

"The Wizard of AI"

We're just concluding our fall "Writing in (& about) the Age of Artificial Intelligence" workshop at Ad Astra headquarters (critique weekend is coming up!), and one of the participants shared this in our Discord. So naturally we have to share it with you, too, because relevant.

Artist and media critic Alan Warburton has released a brilliant new documentary about the evolution and state of artificial intelligence and its impact on creators, The Wizard of AI.

"I would say 99% of it was made using generative artificial intelligence tools," the 43-year-old filmmaker told The Guardian. Could his 20-minute film be the world’s first AI-generated documentary?

"I’m taking a leaf out of the AI hype playbook there," he admits with a laugh. "In truth, there is never going to be a first truly AI-generated documentary, because it always will involve labor of some kind. Labor is what makes it watchable."

The film does a fantastic job of sharing what he calls "wonder-panic" through its very existence.

One take-away after watching:

If AI has already "created" more images than humans have, shouldn't there be less to fear about their stealing human art? Surely they've polluted their own fishing waters, so to speak, so will AI "art" become increasingly inbred and thus (hopefully) irrelevant to the creative world?

We'll have to wait to see, because surely AI trainers at working hard at this problem, and big IP owners like Disney are, too. So perhaps it'll only be small artists who remain at risk of their work being stolen to train AI generators.

Warburton wrote the script, and says AI text generation lags far behind imagery. So at least there's that. For now.

Perhaps the most powerful part of the film is the closing "In Memoriam" section, listing all the creatives who didn't contribute to making it because AI took their jobs:

We strongly recommend everyone check this out, especially creatives, to get a glimpse at the state of AI in our daily lives:

"The Wizard of AI" on Vimeo

[pngblog]

[goblincow]

[johnsmith23sblog]

[galacticjonah]

RE: Tumblr selling data to GenAI companies. (prev reblog.)

At this point I'm truly wondering what to do, really. (Glaze your art and so on, sure) But even the words we write, our personal thoughts, asks, everything is getting fed into these fucking machines from any site available. "Make your own page!" - Services like Squarespace, which are what I and most of my peers use, have sneakily added the option to allow third-party crawlers to harvest data. And portfolio websites are not social media. I want to interact and I have to reach clients.

Are we reaching the point where we have to post only previews and send finished art via Newsletters or post behind paywalls? Print it out and send a pigeon to our followers' homes?

I'm so fucking tired. So angry.

I've been an artist through life-threatening depression, through working and studying full time, through moving house and country, through the pandemic.

And this? This might just be what breaks me.

[prokopetz]

A word of advice: before you accuse someone of posting AI-generated wizard art, give David Mattingly's gallery a once-over and see if you can spot it there. Like 90% of the popularly memed-upon paintings of wizards on this site are his work, and it'd be real embarrassing if you accused, say, the cover illustration of a mass-market paperback from 1993 of being AI-generated.

[robertmoore010]

Me 😁🖤

[leidensygdom]

WOTC is hiring a "Principal AI Engineer"

After multiple scandals of them trying to "covertly" using AI (and denying it, when found out, up until the evidence was too big to deny), declarations from Hasbro's CEO, Chris Cocks, saying how much he loves AI, after their empty promises with dubiously worded "No, we won't use AI (in our final products)", Wizards of The Coast is now hiring a "Principal AI Engineer".

And as highlighted (the highlighted version was posted by @/SpicyEncounters on Twitter), this does include AI usage for all sorts of things- Including writing, audio, and art. (Which is an incredibly broad amount of subjects, but the wonders of AI is being able to have a single guy hitting the keyboard 'til the plagiarism machine pukes something decent)

This is no surprise to most people, I think, but it's still a great time to just boycott WOTC, and make noise about this everywhere: Social media, on your way out for your DnD Beyond subscription, amidst many others. Don't give them the money. The cents they save from not hiring artists shouldn't be worth much amidst many users refusing to use their products and bringing their money elsewhere. They already had massive layoffs- Which of course heavily hurt their artists, and this was the "natural", greedy next step.

I keep thinking about getting sent death threats over bringing up this in the past with people who were too deep in on the corporate bootlicking. Who would've thought that the same company that threw their creators under the bus with the OGL would now be looking forward to keep running them over for a measly profit.

[victoriaangelts996]

Do you consider me girlfriend material or fuckdoll material? 🙊

[shadow-von-vamp]

sonic channel calendar illustrations

[sub-mst-franklin]

If you message me, do so with respect. Introduce yourself properly. I expect self-awareness, clarity, and hunger for purpose not play pretending to be power exchange.

[redtallin]

A couple of recent commissions!

I'm nearly at the end of my list now, and if you're interested in commissioning me the best way is through Patreon! I post when commissions open and Patrons at the Selkie tier or above get priority and access to the form at least a day before anyone else ^_^

[ts-celine-dijjon]

Looking nice 💋😋♥️

[omanauara]

Bom dia senhores.

[saravictoriazx4]

All trans lovers ❤️ reblog