AI Generated Art
-
So I just finished watching the latest Corridor Crew video on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Mcuh38wyM
My first gut reaction was like “Gosh, there’ve been so many times I wished I was an artist so I could draw my character from whatever MU I’m playing doing cool stuff. With this I could literally just train the AI on the PB I used and then just magic it up myself!”
But then reading the comments on the video there was a ton from artists who are genuinely scared of losing their livelihoods. And now I don’t really know how to feel.
Anyways, I guess I just thought it’d make for an interesting topic of conversation. Either serious debate about the ethics and stuff, or lighthearted chatter about how cool beans it’d be to take your favourite RP log and illustrate it. Or, y’know both!
Personally I can’t help extrapolating things (possibly to absurdity?) When you eventually have AI that can design and maintain the multiple AI that automate 90% or more of the jobs humans are able to do, what happens? I mean I’d like to imagine that we all get to sit at home just relaxing and enjoying the fruits of AI labour, but the cynic in me can’t help but feel like the rich assholes at the top didn’t get to be rich by allowing robot charity.
(On the other hand that AI art is frikking cool!)
-
@Sammich My tabletop group had this debate a few weeks ago… because I caused them to!
So what had happened was I watched that stupid episode of John Oliver about AI art generators, and I plugged my character concept into one and posted the results to our private group. And our newest member who is so gentle was like— full-blown offended. Mind you, the results were so bad and dumb and not art (sorry to you, art). I viewed it as a silly thing to occupy a few minutes of my time, but I see where people are coming from where it’s a slippery slope.
A few times now we’ve all pitched in to hire an artist to do one or all of our characters in their style to commemorate the end of a campaign. And there’s no replacing that.
-
Some examples for people who don’t want to watch through an almost 20 minute long youtube video to join the conversation:
^Sam Gorski from Corridor Crew, as Big Boss and done in the style that Yoji Shinkawa uses for Metal Gear Solid
^Same guy, as an ‘evil wizard’, I’m fairly sure they used the style of Greg Rutkowski for thisAI image generation is getting better fast.
-
I used an AI generated portrait from Artbreeder as a PB in a game. It worked great, from my perspective - I don’t know if anyone else even noticed. I’ve never been entirely comfortable using a real person as a visual image, because there’s just a lot of baggage attached to it, and I absolutely love the idea of being able to generate something that actually looks like I want my character to look without having to be an artist.
Because I can’t draw a straight line.
-
All I know is that I asked Midjourney AI for Goku playing basketball against Jesus and it gave it to me
and so you can pry Midjourney from my cold dead hands you mONSTERS
-
ngl I find the Artbreeder PBs offputting. but oh well not my character, I can just use my imagination and not look again
-
Dream, Womboart ( … I think.)
Words and phrases from recent roleplay turned to AI art turned to ASCII art turned to a piece of art in-game.
I’m digging it.
-
The primary limitations with AI-generated anything is that:
a) It has to be trained on existing works done by existing humans, and b) It can only do what it’s been programmed to do.
Machine learning isn’t true learning the way humans learn. It’s just super-elaborate pattern matching, and is limited by the gears and knobs the programmers put on the box.
For these reasons, it can never be as creative as actual humans, by design. It can automate some simple tasks; it can be useful and even fun; but I’m not especially worried about AI-generated art making artists obsolete any more than I’m worried about AI Dungeon making writers obsolete.
-
@Faraday said in AI Generated Art:
a) It has to be trained on existing works done by existing humans
This is one of the big arguments against it that I’ve encountered, because these generators are fed preexisting works without artist permission.
-
@helvetica said in AI Generated Art:
This is one of the big arguments against it that I’ve encountered, because these generators are fed preexisting works without artist permission.
Indeed. But I personally believe that will eventually be sorted out under copyright laws. There are already cases floating about, though by my understanding they haven’t been definitive as of yet. It could wind up being a boon to artists if such use is said to be protected (which I believe it should be) and the big names end up having to secure permission and pay royalties.
-
@helvetica This has made me want to ask mostly for just for curiosity’s sake. What’s the difference between me making a drawing or otherwise art based on or inspired by someone else’s work and a pre-programmed AI machine doing what amounts to the same thing?
If that’s the case, then isn’t all fan art ever also qualified as violations of copyright?
-
I’m not her, but I’d think it has something to do with it doing so because the AI actually using the painting somebody else did to create something. Like, it’s basically fed into the code. It’s a computer program using something somebody else made to make something new DIRECTLY, rather than just influence or whatnot. With a computer you’re actually putting the art into it.
-
@Testament said in AI Generated Art:
What’s the difference between me making a drawing or otherwise art based on or inspired by someone else’s work and a pre-programmed AI machine doing what amounts to the same thing? If that’s the case, then isn’t all fan art ever also qualified as violations of copyright?
I think you can look to existing copyright cases for hints of where the line is.
Things like chords of music, specific dance moves, individual words and phrases are not copyrightable, nor are broad “styles” like blues music, or even Faulkner’s way of ditching all punctuation. They do not constitute “a work” under copyright law.
However, a specific work of music, art, writing, etc. is copyrighted, and that gives the artist sole privilege to create “derivative works”.
If you’re making your own art based solely on a style of some famous artist, it’s unlikely you’re creating a derivative work. You’re doing your own thing, just mirroring some basic techniques they use.
But if you’re literally taking their work and then altering it to just add some other face onto it, that’s pretty derivative. And that’s basically what the AI-generated programs are doing.
The grammar training for things like AI dungeon feel like they may be different. You might have fed Jurassic Park into the algorithm, but it’s unlikely you’ll get anything even remotely resembling Jurassic Park from the output.
Having said that, I am not a copyright lawyer, and the courts are still sifting through all this.
-
@Faraday Also it bears noting the law almost always lags behind technology, especially when it comes to IT. These issues haven’t come up before simply because there was no such thing as ‘AI generated art’ to test the waters.
Well, since $$$ is in play now those waters will get murky, if not bloody.
-
@Arkandel said in AI Generated Art:
Also it bears noting the law almost always lags behind technology, especially when it comes to IT.
Absolutely. And also, the entire gist of copyright law enforcement is a giant “it depends”. Bitter legal battles have been fought over guitar riffs and tiktok dances, and I’m sure this will be much of the same. But my feeling as an engineer is that this is 90% derivative and therefore copyright infringing. The folks behind the AI generator app might well argue that it’s not. Who knows.
-
This post is deleted! -
@WhiteRaven said in AI Generated Art:
Basically don’t sell it.
It’s worth noting that profit is not required to successfully prosecute a case of copyright infringement. Not-for-profit activities may make it less likely for the copyright holder to think it’s worth the money to sic their lawyers on you, but they absolutely could if they wanted.
Trademarks also muddy the waters. When Disney comes after creators for Mickey Mouse art, it’s more a trademark thing than a copyright thing.
-
@Snackness Okay yes. I can agree with this. Don’t leave link to your characters clothes in your desc. This is the pettiest of peeves, but god, I do literally do not care what your character is wearing.
@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:
@GF I think it’s unenviable position. Either you’re really good at describing how someone looks, or you’re a good enough artists to make your own PBs. Or you just pay someone to do the art for you, which is always a viable option too.
I dunno if there’s a better option for people who lack both of those skills.
Some folks have had good luck with Artbreeder!
So I wasn’t going to bring that up, but aren’t AI art generators kind of…sketch? Like they’re taking visual cues from someone’s else art?
Or do I have that confused with something else?
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
-
@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:
So I wasn’t going to bring that up, but aren’t AI art generators kind of…sketch? Like they’re taking visual cues from someone’s else art?
Or do I have that confused with something else?
Preemptive “this might need to be it’s own thread” because hoo boy is this a contentious and thorny issue.
-
@Testament You don’t have it wrong.
