If a robot had an easel, some paint, and a paint brush and proceeded to paint an original piece on it's own would it be art? Or would it just be a printer?

What if it was a Cyborg? Half human have robot? Being the brain is half flesh and half wires. Would his artwork lose credibility because of it's bodily make up?

Obviously things like Midjourney and Imagine are completely different, as it sources actual art that exists and applies filters and feathering and layers using an algorithm to make *ehem "it's own art", but the topic really has my brain moving in all sorts of directions. As one day I guarantee a robot painting on canvas and selling it at auction could happen in the next few decades.

Interesting questions indeed!

Edit: Also shouldn't the LSD, Mushrooms Chat GPT thread be added to the science sub forum as well? Basically the same thing.

A dedicated chat room for AI art would be nice, as I feel like I'm constantly scrolling through spammed uploaded AI art in the Hyperspace Chat while trying to find a beautiful photo of mushrooms that Artificer uploaded haha.

I've got some strong opinions on this.

The usual source of outrage around AI generated art revolves around a few similar papers that were published, suggesting that the AI are capable of directly copying work with or without mild stylistic changes. In these papers, a scenario is constructed where this outcome is extremely likely, for demonstrative purposes.

An example paper is here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.13188.pdf

For those who don't wish to read the whole thing, the tl;dr is that they trained what is called a GAN (Generative Adversarial Network), and used that to attempt to reconstruct images from the training set:



So they've made another AI who's goal is to optimize the problem of generating prompts that produce a near-copy of a piece of the training data. This is done with partial knowledge of the input set. This means that the AI is aware of some of the images used, and some of the captions used to for training with that image. This is to simulate a worst-case scenario, where you have a malicious user attempting to create "original" art which is nearly identical to an existing image.

The problem I see, in general, is that people see this paper and a few papers similar to it, and say "See? AI just copies people's art/doesn't produce anything original". However, what is actually happening in the paper is, they're showing a program what a bunch of pictures look like, and what its captions are. Then a separate entity is saying "Generate an image with a prompt identical/nearly identical to ones you have already seen". This is like showing a picture of the Mona Lisa to an artist, then asking the artist to paint the Mona Lisa. They're going to produce something very similar. The only difference here is that it's a computer doing it.

Usually, following this, people assume malicious intent when they hear somebody is using an AI to generate art. It's just another tool. If people want to use a tool to produce near-copies of existing art and then claim it to be original, hate those people. Most people using AI to generate art have no such malicious intent, and are not going out of their way to find the captions of training data to generate something similar.

There will always be room for truly inspired, human art. AI art will become dull and the models will get worse over time without it. This is generally well understood in the AI space. Training AI on data from a generative network generally produced degenerate results. This does have a huge economic impact on artists doing commissioned work, and that's a whole other discussion. On the ethics of freely produced (not profit seeking, freely shared) AI art, I think there is nothing wrong with it.

Saying AI art CAN plagarize existing art so we shouldn't use it, is like saying word processors CAN be used to plagarize existing works, so we shouldn't use them.

Some people argue that everything produced is stolen, because it used pictures everybody can see to train. Artists study existing content to train as well. Are they stealing when they produce something in a similar style to an artist they've seen? Is level of effort the deciding factor for if art is art?

Every major leap in technology has significantly impacted practitioners of all kinds. I suspect my job will be very, very different in 5 years due to some of the leaps I've seen from GPT-2 to GPT-4. I think, for most commissioned artists, the prudent thing to do would be to adapt somehow. A great disruptor has entered the market, and there's no commanding it to leave. Consider tuning an AI using your own private works and your own stylistic details. Your tuned AI will produce something no other AI will.

To the idea that AI Art makes 'cheap' art, and degrades all other art, all I can say is, that's true. It's been true of every technology that produces something. Every automation we create makes the product cheaper and less personal. Hand-made tools are a thing of the past, and it shows. Any modern mechanic can tell you.

I'll move it. I had no particular opinion on it as it wasn't in the art section, but I'll drop it down to science.




I have no issue with a special section for this stuff - as long as it's somewhere I don't have to see or interact with it, ever - meaning somewhere other than the art section.




Nope. Not me. Not as long as the model is trained on stolen data. But probably not ever, honestly - although it would be super easy for me to do so and generate infinite variations of my work that I'm sure would look quite compelling. Lots of my peers are doing just that and are making lots of money. Whatever. They've relinquished any credible claims to being artists as far as I'm concerned. They haven't a care in the world for those who are damaged as a result.




And that's the other reason why I don't want anything to do with it. I think it's cheap. I think it's gross. I think it degrades most everything. I think it's the lamest of undertakings for those who don't enjoy the work or don't have the hard earned goods. I do, so I leave it alone, because I think it's not good for humanity.




People may or may not have malicious intent. That doesn't really matter. By using the tech as is it exists today, they're complicit in data theft. This isn't subjective and it's not debatable. None opted in and none can opt out, yet all visual data which exists online has been co-opted to train their models.

Or consider the case of f1 here, who loves to post big titted anime girls for chat room circle jerking. Does he have malicious intent? Does it matter? I say not a bit. He uses special software to get around the tech's anti-porn filters, in order to pump out images compiled of data taken from real people without their consent or compensation, some of whom, I'm sure you realize, are most certainly minors. I would submit that this is an objectively bad thing - and yet he and others who behave accordingly have an endless array of awful excuses as to why it's all okay.

It's not okay. It's none of it okay. And it doesn't take some kind of a saint or supercharged moral compass to get this; it just requires one to subordinate their whims and act like responsible adults.




It's not, and I've explained exactly why about 100 times here already, so I won't break it down again. Suffice it to say though, I take this as a bad faith argument every single time, because I just don't believe that anyone can possibly not understand the difference.

Perhaps it's good to share this again.



One love

I'm not saying it's not art.

I'm saying it's art, stolen, manipulated, and presented under a false premise.

It's roundabout plagiarism.

AI = "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

CC, the desire to communicate your vision is fully noted and understood. You are invited to read through the threads here detailing with eloquence just why AI “art” is a crime, and not a good one. I don’t have the time to link them for convenience.

Also, Bill is not the only one here, or in the world of working artists and those who appreciate their hard work, who truly, truly hates it.

This is not an indictment against you, reading your written posts, outside of being a little reactive, you seem like a good person. Lovecraft and Schubert and DMT? I can get down with that. AI shite? Not so much.

A slight tangent:

I can see AI art taking over mainstream culture despite its moral questionability.

The silver lining is that it gives artists a new challenge: to create something outside the mediums currently presented to us--something un-copiable, un-digitize-able. Something beyond our current ways of seeing and perceiving art.

I think that is a beautiful and formidable challenge to artists who feel willing to take on the task. Art will evolve.

But in the meantime, we must protect and respect the artists that do honest work.

(This is in the "SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY" forum, so I think this is perhaps at least mildly appropriate.)

I think that's a wonderfully optimistic way of looking at it, especially with something that's hard to be optimistic about. It will most surely have an impact on artists of the human variety both negative and... the universe willing... positive.

And sorry for sounding like a broken record (new thread) but I felt the same way when snapchat and iMovie for the phone came out. I've put tens of thousands of hours into video editing over the last few decades, and to watch everyone become a self professed video editor over night was very difficult for me to swallow. You could do in seconds/minutes what took me days/weeks. I was bitter.

I realize this is wayyyy different, but my point is that it lit a fire under my butt to take my work more seriously and to fine tune it even further. Not that we should have to, but in the end it was a healthy experience for me.

I still feel as if the movement of the thread is because the mod team is compromised on people biased on this issue. And this mod in particular seems very sensitive to the topic and is a mod that spends a lot of time in the art forum. I don't believe it's disrespectful or 'reactive' to presume a large part of moving the thread is for the purpose of protecting their sensitivities, especially after certain PM interactions with them and seeing their replies on this thread. But if they hate this stuff and think it's debasing art and stolen and gross and everything, they could just not open the thread. The fact the thread has to be moved to a less used part of the forum just to protect a few people who are reactive to it is problematic.

Intention does matter. I wouldn't ever post one of these generated pictures without stating how I got them and I wouldn't ever claim I made it. I will take credit however for the concept behind the image because I wouldn't share an AI generated image that didn't produce the results for the idea I have. This is not an exhibition of skill, it's an exhibition of imagination.

As for whether not the use of this technology is not moral in of itself, I'd say it's fine as long as you're not trying to take credit for these images as your own handcrafted work. It can be a source of personal enjoyment or a way to kill time. Sometimes it produces images that are nice enough to share and I also see nothing wrong with that as long as you're honest about it. The idea that the presence of the technology and the images themselves are a threat to all artists and therefore any discussion relating to or discussing them needs to be avoided and moved to less active parts of a forum is kind of silly.

So as long as I'm not banned for speaking my truth on this matter in an honest way, I'm going to keep discussing and posting my AI generated images. The people that can't stand it don't have to come into the thread, and the people that like it are welcome to post their own and talk about it.

Yeah... it's part of how he makes his living...



You seem very concerned about the popularity of a subforum the thread is in. Why? It doesn't really matter. Where it is now it's getting more traction than where it was...



What do you mean? There's been plenty of discussion and continues to be plenty of discussion...

Also, it's as the technology stands now and it's implementation that most of us have moral and ethical qualms with, not its existence in general. The point and issue is more nuanced than that.



Just keep doing you. Share what you wanna share. But the thread stays where it is.

One love

Well if I'm going to be honest it at first looked to me like it was the work of one biased mod that wanted to throttle the thread by bringing it off the art forum, which is why I was concerned about how much the forums are viewed. Now it's looking more like it's the entire mod team not wanting it to be in the art forum and I just personally disagree with the mod team's stance on this topic.

I was going to make a thread where I took all my trip reports and quoted visual descriptions in them paired with an image I generated with the AI that looks like what I put in the trip report quote. But considering the fate of this thread, I better not. Or maybe just do it in this thread. But I kinda wanted it to be in a standalone thread so idk.

You keep saying biased... as if you're not. You are too, just in opposition to the mod team.

This is our stance: As AI and ML art stands now, we have a moral issue with it and our way of showing that we don't agree with how AI and ML art stand (using works without consent, etc) we aren't giving it the credibility of being in the art section. When the tides change, our minds [the mod team's] will too. Granted, that'll be something that happens in the court arena during litigation.

One love

I think you could just do as you planned. You wouldn't be violating any rule.

It was my choice to put any discussion here about AI generated images in science or philosophy and not in art.

I still stand by that decission.
Some people may want a total ban on it. Others seem to consider it a godsend.
So this is sort of a compromise: by recognising that plagiarism cannot be art, but also that it is now something that exists and is a legitimate topic of discussion, we categorise it as something in the domain of science and technology, or philosophy (as AI started as a branch of analytical philosophy).

Using AI generated images in trip reports is completely allowed here, as long as you don't post them in the art forum, or claim you made those images yourself.

It seems as if there is some "right" to be protected. This is simply an online community. If a certain topic creates discussions, quarrels, unpleasant feelings for so many members, why should you talk about it? For what? It's full of forums dealing with the same topics where I'm sure there are people who maybe can appreciate what you post. To me, more than AI """art""", it's bothering to always read the same discussions about it...

This is just my opinion, of a member who is not very active and who doesn't play any role in the management of the forum.

Well it seems the matter is settled... That's alright. I do plan on continuing to use the AI generator because it's fun. I might use it to aid trip reports in the future, if it's capable of showing my trip correctly. I'm not going to sweat it anymore.

Looking forward to seeing more of your art on the forums and your trip reports!

Please read this article and have a little think about things.

Anyone can be an artist. It just takes years and years and YEARS of dedication and practice.

This is why sharing real art is appreciated. The viewer gets a sense of the energy and effort that went into learning to portray the mind on paper.

That is why AI art is so uninspiring, even offensive, to many people who understands the love of any creative skill.

It's one thing that you get to share your trips visually without learning to convert mind to paper.

It would be another thing all together if you wanted to share your trips so strongly that you actually learned to produce your own art.

People appreciate that drive to learn how to share.