AI Art questions - Feedback is appreciated

[ErikFinster]

Here is a series of questions from our AI workshop we plan for the next semester.​

(I noticed the question of AI art and text pops up in this community quite frequently.)​

I'm sharing it with you all so I can collect some feedback. . . . . . ໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७✎▤​

@staff - if this topic is deemed inflamatory, feel free to remove this thread​

​

Question 1: What is Art, and Can a Computer Make It?​

Introduction: Imagine you’re in an art gallery. You see a beautiful painting of a sunset.
You can feel the warmth of the colors, the way the clouds are painted, and you might even wonder what the artist was feeling when they painted it.
Now, imagine that the artist isn’t a person - it’s a computer! How does that change the way you feel about the painting?

What is Art? Art has always been about human expression. When people make art, they are showing us their feelings, ideas, and their internal and external experiences. Think of famous paintings like the "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci or the colorful "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh. These artworks are not just pictures; they tell stories and express emotions. A part of their artists time and personhood went into the creation of these works.

But now, computers are being used to "make art" too. AI can learn by looking at millions of pictures or paintings and then create its own versions. These computers don’t feel emotions like people do, but they can learn patterns and styles and remix them. This raises a big question: Can art created by a computer be as meaningful as art created by a human? How much of the art is in the creation process of an artwork - and how much of art is in the experience of an artwork as an outsider?

Examples to Think About:

1. AI-Generated Music and Art: There are AIs like "DALL-E" or "Midjourney" that can take a simple description (called a "prompt") and turn it into a unique piece of art. For example, if you typed in "a dragon flying over New York City at sunset," the AI would make an image based on that description.
2. Can AI Feel? Unlike human artists, who make art based on their feelings, memories, or thoughts, AI doesn’t have feelings. It doesn’t know what it’s like to be happy or sad. It just uses patterns it has "learned" to create something that looks like art. So, can something without feelings create something that truly expresses emotion?

Discussion:

• What do you think? Can a painting made by a computer be as special as one made by a person? Why or why not?

---

​

Question 2: The Ethics of AI Art: Is It Fair?​

Introduction: Let’s imagine you’re a talented artist, and you spend a lot of time painting a beautiful picture.
One day, you find out that someone used your picture to teach a computer to make art just like yours, and they didn’t even ask you!
How would you feel?

What is Ethics? Ethics are rules about what is right and wrong. When it comes to AI, ethics becomes really important because computers don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Computers just do what they’re told. So, people have to make sure they’re being used fairly.

Problems with AI Art:

1. Using Art Without Permission: Many AI programs learn to make art by looking at millions of pictures from the internet. Some of those pictures belong to artists who didn’t give permission for their art to be used. This is like taking someone’s homework and copying it without asking!
2. Bias and Fairness: If an AI learns from pictures that have a lot of stereotypes, it might create art that also has those stereotypes. For example, if an AI only learns from pictures of doctors who are men, it might think only men can be doctors, which isn’t true!

Examples to Think About:

• Imagine an AI is taught using only pictures from a specific country. What kinds of biases might that AI have when it creates new art?

Discussion:

• Do you think it’s fair for AI to use people’s art without asking? Why or why not?
• How can we make sure AI art is fair and respectful to everyone?

---

​

Lecture 3: Is AI Really Making Art More Accessible?​

Introduction: People who support AI in art often say it makes creating art easier for everyone.
For example, you don’t need to know how to draw or paint; you just type a few words, and the computer makes the art for you.
But does that mean it’s truly helping everyone?

What Does "Accessible" Mean? Accessible means something is easy and more comfortable for everyone to use or reach. For example, a school with ramps makes it easier for people who use wheelchairs to get inside. So, when people say AI makes art more accessible, they mean more people have easy access to art.

Is AI Really Helping?

1. Yes, It Can Help Some People: AI can help people who don’t have traditional art skills make (or rather commission) beautiful pictures. It can also help artists create or brainstorm new ideas and concepts or try things they never thought of before.
2. But, There’s a Catch: While AI tools can help some people, they can also hurt professional artists who make a living from their art. Imagine you’re an artist who makes money by drawing pictures for people. If everyone starts using AI to make pictures for free, you might not get paid for your work anymore. This makes it hard for you to continue being an artist - which means working in jobs outside of creating art to support your living conditions.

Examples to Think About:

• Think about famous artists today. Do you think they would be happy or upset if computers could make art just like theirs? Why?

Discussion:

• Can AI make art more accessible and still be fair to artists? How could this be done?

---

​

Lecture 4: Who Owns AI Art?​

Introduction: Let’s say a computer creates a fantastic piece of art.
Who owns it? The computer? The person who typed in the idea?
The company that made the AI? This question is really important and is still being debated today.

What is Ownership? Ownership means having the rights to something, like owning your bike or your favorite toy. When it comes to art, the owner usually has the right to decide what happens with their work. They can sell it, show it to others, or keep it private.

Who Owns AI Art?

1. Different Opinions: Some people think that the person who comes up with the idea owns the art. Others believe that the company that built the AI should own it, especially if they provided the tools. But many people think that if the art is made by a computer and not a human, it should belong to everyone—like being in the "public domain."
2. Legal Decisions: Recently, the U.S. Copyright Office decided that AI-generated art does not get the same protection as human-made art. This means that anyone could use it without asking permission. But this decision is still new, and things could change in the future.

Examples to Think About:

• If you wrote a story using a computer program that suggested the words, who would own the story - you, the computer, or the company that made the program?

Discussion:

• Who do you think should own AI art, and why?

---

​

Lecture 5: The Future of AI in Art: What Could Happen?​

Introduction: AI in art is not just about what’s happening now;
it’s about what could happen in the future.
Could AI help us create things we’ve never imagined before?
Or could it change the way we value art and creativity?

What Could Happen?

1. New Ways to Create Art: AI could become a tool that artists use to make new and exciting types of art. For example, some artists are already using AI to create digital sculptures or immersive experiences that feel like stepping into a different world.
2. New Challenges for Artists: If AI becomes too powerful, it might take over many jobs that artists do today, like designing characters for video games or creating animations for movies. This could mean fewer opportunities for human artists to get paid for their work, resulting in less artists overall.

Examples to Think About:

• Imagine if a computer could write books, paint pictures, make movies, and even compose music all by itself. Would there still be a place for human creativity?

Discussion:

• How do you think AI could change the future of art and creativity? Are there ways we could make sure that human artists are still valued?

---

​

Lecture 6: Why Does This Matter for Society?​

Introduction: Art isn’t just something we hang on walls or watch on screens;
it’s how we express ourselves and communicate with others.
So, when we talk about AI creating art, we’re also talking about how it could change our culture and our connections with each other.

Why Art Matters:

1. Art as a Universal Language: Art helps people understand each other. It can tell stories, share feelings, and bring people together. If AI takes over creating art, we might lose some of that personal connection.
2. What’s at Risk: If big companies control most of the art being created, they could decide what kinds of stories get told or which types of art become popular. This could limit the variety of voices and ideas that we see in art.

Examples to Think About:

• Think about your favorite book, movie, or song. How would you feel if you knew it was created by a computer instead of a person? Would it change how much you enjoy it?

Discussion:

• How important is it to have human voices in the art we enjoy? What could happen if those voices become fewer and fewer?

---

​

Lecture 7: Conclusion – The Balance Between Humans and AI​

Wrap-Up: AI is a powerful tool that is changing the way we create and experience art.
It can be exciting to think about all the possibilities, but we also need to consider the challenges and questions it brings.

Final Questions to Consider:

• Can computers really understand what it means to be creative?
• How can we use AI in a way that respects human artists and their work?
• What kind of world do we want to create with these new tools?

Let me know what you think and if you see something lacking. 彡໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७彡​

 

[Mialyansa]

Thanks erik for bringing a sectioned and well developed anàlisis to the table.
It has been interesting reading the questions thinking about the possible interpretations and reading your interpretation.

Metaphysics and art.
Okay, this post might be removed by mods because the subject is a bit burnt out. Art does not have soul, all that "creativity" and "soul" is metaphysical, it simply is not there. You cannot point at the painting and tell, yeah, that section, is the "soul".

But what is there is the art market, and in srp especially, the fun of the market is making both money and enjoying creating. Because the souk of the painting is not in the painting but in the own creation, you can point at the brain and there, the neurons are processing the art and are able and do enjoy it.

What many people fear is ai takes away the fun part of creating artwork. The creativity and hardwork is meant to be the fun, and ai just throws the artistic process out of the window. It sounds dystopic that artists that work to enable self expression in a hobby are pushed a way by a machine aiming to make money(which is not even real money, it is just the currency of a game.)

Lets apply this to SRP, and come from the axiom that srp is a hobby, therefore the hobby is done for fun. Considering that artistic process enables self expresion which results in fullfillment, we can say that the fun is in the creation. Lets put that we take away the fun. Then SRP by definition becomes meaningless.

Now regarding skins
If you cannot afford an skin, steal it from pmc. Edit it to make it fit your character. You only steal ONE skin, not only that but you will slowly edit it, and it will start looking better and you will say, "oh lets try making an skin by myself". The skin will look horrible, but you will edit it and again it will look better. And in time youll say "Wow, when did i learn this?". And you will never need to steal an skin ever. (That is literally what happened to me)

 

[electric_sheep_dreams]

Hey! As a disclaimer, I am not an artist, but a data scientist that has read a few papers on AI and would like to give my two cents on the idea of the "soul", or more concretely, is there a ghost in the machine?

I'd like to first open with that we, as humans, like to attribute human-like traits to things. We like to think that a chess engine has "plans", or that AIs have "thoughts". This is simply human nature! We try to understand things by applying our concepts on to them.

We are also hesitant of labeling things as "intelligent", for this reason, we do not find natural selection intelligent (even if it is incredibly amazing at adaptation and is what made us all survive thus far!). Why is a monkey using tools intelligent compared to a chameleon that could camouflage? Simple: because we, too, use tools, and recognize the complexity of the process.

To get back on topic, we also would like to attribute this human-like trait of a "soul" and "emotions" to things that might not exhibit the same/share that! This is where things get complicated, specifically on defining the concept of a soul.

Models are inherently mathematical computations that learn a certain distribution! So this opens up another open-ended question: are humans a distribution to be learned, or are we more complicated than that? Even if a model were to be an exact replica of you, would you reject its idea of consciousness and soul because it's not flesh and bones? You probably would, because us humans are terrible at assigning human-like traits to things that are not us.

So, all I want to end with is, even if a model did have a soul, could internalize what you give to it and have a "thought process", we would probably never view it as intelligent or conscious. Memories, experiences, and so on, are extremely human-like concepts that is hard to attribute to anything else, and perhaps it is in our best interest to not do so.


If anyone is curious on this viewpoint, it is a paper from google (which I love, and that is why I am responding to this thread)!

[1911.01547] On the Measure of Intelligence

I cannot respond on the matter of ethics when it comes to text2image generative AI, my specialty is within LLMs (large language models), and I do not have particular thoughts on this matter.

Parting words for anyone that might be on the technical side, yes, latent representations might just be what is equivalent to human thoughts. However, I find the comparison to not be useful, and we should not try to associate human intellect with models, as we'd likely never see them as intelligent in a long time. And yes, I do agree that if humans are not open-ended questions, we can, and will be, approximated by UAT, but that is not a question anyone could answer currently.

 

[maraa]

As an art student ai sucks point blank period

 

[electric_sheep_dreams]

As an art student ai sucks point blank period

Can you elaborate on this? I am genuinely curious on the viewpoint of people who are studying art/have a career in art, and how generative AI for images has affected them.

I do not have a strong stance on the matter, but I would like to understand the strong dislike this community has towards generative AI, specifically for images.

 

[astri]

Can you elaborate on this? I am genuinely curious on the viewpoint of people who are studying art/have a career in art, and how generative AI for images has affected them.

I do not have a strong stance on the matter, but I would like to understand the strong dislike this community has towards generative AI, specifically for images.

it’s disrespectful towards people who put time and effort into their work just to be outclassed by a robot

 

[Popo]

I just got back home and read through all of this. A lot of great questions with even greater answers, let me just say that a lot of people will have different inputs regarding this topic— However, nevertheless, artificial intelligence is not a bad thing.

Let me top something off to initiate that these opinions are, inherently, biased in favour of the artists. I am not encouraging people to quit supporting your local next-door artist, but these are opinionated for their own benefit.

A lot of people tend to write essays, code, etc. — A lot of these people put a ridiculing amount of effort into writing these, yet at the very moment, artificial intelligence can outclass their performance in many ways through the click of a button & typing a few words into an encryption key. However, people don't complain about the idea of being dependent on AI to write things for us. People, especially on SchoolRP, use ChatGPT, Quillbot, Grammarly, etc. — These are all, mostly, websites backed up by artificial intelligence and machines that were fed a ton of data.

Yet, when art comes into play, the idea of supporting artificial intelligence is suddenly out of the table. I understand, and trust me good ol' artists, I sympathise with your problems. I have a lot of artist friends on the server, and the only person I would love to see homeless is @bheom. People are extremely dependent on their art commissions for money, but so are writers, authors, freelancers, etc. that can easily be outclassed by a machine.

Ultimately, the world will embrace artificial intelligence. Inevitably, the world will be extremely dependent on artificial intelligence in multiple fields— writing, coding, art, scientific research, so on and so forth. However, the “good” thing (subjectively) about SchoolRP's community is that it's a very tight knit one that will never allow AI to go mainstream for art and skins.

How do I personally see it? It's honestly fascinating to see how far artificial intelligence has come. Yes, people extremely dislike it because they can be outclassed by a machine that's fed unconsented art from other artists. The same goes for writers, the same goes for computer engineers, etc.

(Hell, my degree is literally the epitomy of creating machines in combination with learning about artificial intelligence and computer science and I firmly believe I will be outperformed by a robot in the years to come lmao.)

Edit: I forgot to point that there are certain art styles that simply can't be replicated by artificial intelligence, at least not yet, and not any time soon. There are many artists, especially on this server, that have a very distinct style contrary to what AI can currently offer.

 

[electric_sheep_dreams]

it’s disrespectful towards people who put time and effort into their work just to be outclassed by a robot

I appreciate the reply, although, I'd like to inquire a tad further as there are some points of confusion for me. To clarify, I hold great respect for both artists and machine learning models that are constructed by the pioneers of our times.

Is this matter in regards to there being less demand for human art when AI exists, or a principle matter where you dislike something that is inherently not human creating artworks which while trained in hours, would take humans much time and effort to comprehend?

I'd like to retain an open conversation on this, as from my point of view, stable diffusion has been built on human brilliance for over decades. It took on some of the best things mathematics has to offer, it uses probability theory, calculus, linear algebra, and to its beautiful potential, stable diffusion as an idea was a breakthrough. (VAEs is a work of genius, how did someone even manage to make gradient descent work for inherently stochastic mechanisms?)

It took thousands of GPU hours (built by probably geniuses that could construct NVIDIA H100s), probably for the budget in the millions of dollars to rent and train them all, which is a testament to how far we have come. I believe we don't see things the same way, so if possible, could you explain your sentiment further?

Engineers and academics from all over the world through different lifetimes collaborated on hundred of tooling, researches, principles, and more to achieve what stable diffusion is now.

 

[electric_sheep_dreams]

I just got back home and read through all of this. A lot of great questions with even greater answers, let me just say that a lot of people will have different inputs regarding this topic— However, nevertheless, artificial intelligence is not a bad thing.

Let me top something off to initiate that these opinions are, inherently, biased in favour of the artists. I am not encouraging people to quit supporting your local next-door artist, but these are opinionated for their own benefit.

A lot of people tend to write essays, code, etc. — A lot of these people put a ridiculing amount of effort into writing these, yet at the very moment, artificial intelligence can outclass their performance in many ways through the click of a button & typing a few words into an encryption key. However, people don't complain about the idea of being dependent on AI to write things for us. People, especially on SchoolRP, use ChatGPT, Quillbot, Grammarly, etc. — These are all, mostly, websites backed up by artificial intelligence and machines that were fed a ton of data.

Yet, when art comes into play, the idea of supporting artificial intelligence is suddenly out of the table. I understand, and trust me good ol' artists, I sympathise with your problems. I have a lot of artist friends on the server, and the only person I would love to see homeless is @bheom. People are extremely dependent on their art commissions for money, but so are writers, authors, freelancers, etc. that can easily be outclassed by a machine.

Ultimately, the world will embrace artificial intelligence. Inevitably, the world will be extremely dependent on artificial intelligence in multiple fields— writing, coding, art, scientific research, so on and so forth. However, the “good” thing (subjectively) about SchoolRP's community is that it's a very tight knit one that will never allow AI to go mainstream for art and skins.

How do I personally see it? It's honestly fascinating to see how far artificial intelligence has come. Yes, people extremely dislike it because they can be outclassed by a machine that's fed unconsented art from other artists. The same goes for writers, the same goes for computer engineers, etc.

(Hell, my degree is literally the epitomy of creating machines in combination with learning about artificial intelligence and computer science and I firmly believe I will be outperformed by a robot in the years to come lmao.)

Edit: I forgot to point that there are certain art styles that simply can't be replicated by artificial intelligence, at least not yet, and not any time soon. There are many artists, especially on this server, that have a very distinct style contrary to what AI can currently offer.

I agree with your points, while AI's advancement is nothing short of impressive, the data used to construct them is estranging the community it could've been used for. The hope is that as the field matures (we are in the infancy of the 3rd AI boom), models and artists could co-exist and better tooling to integrate the two in some way.

I can understand why writers and programmers don't have the same rejection, LLMs as it is right now is nowhere near the power text2image AI can proide. ChatGPT cannot write a full-stack application or a good proper-length book. It'd also be a bit terrible at writing research papers (tone would be impeccable, but the supporting information or conclusions could be dubious than not).

Anyhow, cheers! Your takes, I've noticed, has been very much on looking at both sides to this. It's very reasonable

 

[bmei]

I think AI is cool with certain things. I work in tech and around AI constantly, most prominently has been Microsoft's CoPilot. The NPU on the CoPilot+ devices is incredibly fascinating and I am genuinely interested in the way our technology has advanced. The art feature on CoPilot is impressive - the slider of choosing the quality of it, it does scare me a little bit as I am an artist but I can totally see how it makes art more accessible.

Tying this into something more relevant, I don't think AI has a place on School Roleplay. Even if it does, in my opinion, it shouldn't. A roleplay server is centered around lore building where everyone can contribute - anything AI generated doesn't belong in a space that is centered around creativity. It's inevitable though - I see AI generated text and images constantly. When we create anything AI generated, it loses the value of human touch, at least nothing that we can see to the eye.
AI is a powerful tool for coming up with ideas, for suggestions in coding, for creating reference images when Google just isn't showing the right thing, and much more. Utilizing AI in a way that profits you or takes away from a humans profit is where it will become vexed..

But since AI does have so many positive things, the development and evolution of it is inevitable, but not necessarily for the worse. Creating lines between AI generated content and human-made content is the start of balancing it, and that can contribute to ensuring it isn't detrimental. Lots of social media apps are already starting to implement features to help cross this line, so it's not unreasonable :)

 

[Squidjees]

Can you elaborate on this? I am genuinely curious on the viewpoint of people who are studying art/have a career in art, and how generative AI for images has affected them.

I do not have a strong stance on the matter, but I would like to understand the strong dislike this community has towards generative AI, specifically for images.

The image libraries that AI uses to train with are made with art from artists who did not consent to having their images used for this purpose. It's theft, period.

 

[SkyFantasyWorld]

While many people have made so many valid and reasonable points in this thread, as an artist who also uses art as a side job, I see the issues as to why AI isn't welcome to the art community is because it regards to mostly theft and the copying of artists' styles.

Some might argue that writing, coding, and other fields also involve AI processing people’s work. While yes, of course, it is true that these fields use AI, the nature of text, code, and data is different. Words and numbers, strings of text, are unique whether created by AI or humans, and you cannot copyright the text or code itself if you get what I mean? Instead, you copyright the specific story, application, or program right?

However with art, it's different. Many artists have had their work outright STOLEN to replicate their style. This is a reason why countries are drafting new laws about copyright in AI art. Many artists strongly hate AI because it copies our work without consent and feeds it into systems we may not even know about.

While AI can be a tool for reference, people misuse it by profiting directly from AI-generated art, pretty much pushing us actual artists out of the way because our job is too 'easy', which was a reputation art has already been getting even before AI, and only getting worse with it being a thing now.

 

[GuestGuest9]

I definitely liked this, you pretty much ended on my thoughts exactly. About how much of a grey area this is, as AI is such a new thing, we don’t have the laws or methods to deal with it yet.
I’d like to consider my self very knowledgeable in how these AI’s work down to their core bones. But I don’t want to post another big paragraph because frankly some peoples onions can’t and won’t be changed (and that’s fine!).
I just hope people can educate themselves on how AI works and how it’ll help us in more ways than hurt us. Instead of just saying “AI bad! AI bad!” And not actually looking into it.

 

[Squidjees]

While many people have made so many valid and reasonable points in this thread, as an artist who also uses art as a side job, I see the issues as to why AI isn't welcome to the art community is because it regards to mostly theft and the copying of artists' styles.

Some might argue that writing, coding, and other fields also involve AI processing people’s work. While yes, of course, it is true that these fields use AI, the nature of text, code, and data is different. Words and numbers, strings of text, are unique whether created by AI or humans, and you cannot copyright the text or code itself if you get what I mean? Instead, you copyright the specific story, application, or program right?

However with art, it's different. Many artists have had their work outright STOLEN to replicate their style. This is a reason why countries are drafting new laws about copyright in AI art. Many artists strongly hate AI because it copies our work without consent and feeds it into systems we may not even know about.

While AI can be a tool for reference, people misuse it by profiting directly from AI-generated art, pretty much pushing us actual artists out of the way because our job is too 'easy', which was a reputation art has already been getting even before AI, and only getting worse with it being a thing now.

THANK YOU
u said that so well

 

[Squidjees]

I just hope people can educate themselves on how AI works and how it’ll help us in more ways than hurt us. Instead of just saying “AI bad! AI bad!” And not actually looking into it.

Read some of these comments, my guy
there are some really nice explanations against AI in this thread

 

[tobbby]

I definitely liked this, you pretty much ended on my thoughts exactly. About how much of a grey area this is, as AI is such a new thing, we don’t have the laws or methods to deal with it yet.
I’d like to consider my self very knowledgeable in how these AI’s work down to their core bones. But I don’t want to post another big paragraph because frankly some peoples onions can’t and won’t be changed (and that’s fine!).
I just hope people can educate themselves on how AI works and how it’ll help us in more ways than hurt us. Instead of just saying “AI bad! AI bad!” And not actually looking into it.

I'm gonna say what i always say "AI ASSISTED NOT AI CREATED." I myself bave used ai to generate ideas for characters, or poses, or even baselines for baxkstories. But the fact that people are using it to profit directly and stealing peoples art makes me hate them more than i like them.

 

[Infi]

It’s certainly okay to have a discussion and your own opinion about this topic, but make sure to be respectful in your replies! :)

 

[Lewk]

Figured I would leave my two cents here after all!

For starters, I should likely start with that I am a huge advocate for AI, which I never really attempted to hide and was always vocal about. This might honestly be rather silly of me as my profession is at risk due to the rapid progression of AI and machine learning.

However, I try to look at AI from a much broader perspective! When in the confines of a community such as SRP, it is very valid and honestly correct to say that AI does not have a spot in it. Roleplay exists to create human-told stories, with human emotions and plans attached to them. Sure, AI can attempt to replicate those emotions and plans, but it cannot and honestly will likely never have exactly what a human has.

But, let us widen the scope of this matter just a little. Art, as a whole, is much like my profession strongly at risk due to AI. However, what exactly is art in the first place? The answer would vary from person to person. For me, what I consider art is typically things that I find connected to me. Those do not have to be actual art pieces (such as the Mona Lisa) but instead could be poems or works of writing I respect and wish to one day be capable of doing.

Now, that is from the perspective of someone who likes writing, for someone who likes drawing they would have an entirely different definition. So, in a strange way... would AI also not classify as a form of art? Sure, its method of learning is by taking something human man and mixing it with other human-made works to create something which is a mix of the two, but, the coding behind that is rather insane in my opinion.

In the same way, we are proud of our professions and talents, I think it is not entirely fair to dislike AI, which is also a profession of someone who has put in just as much effort as you and I to be capable of creating something like that.

Which honestly leads me to my biggest point. It is not AI that is evil, nor is it AI that does bad deeds. Those deeds and actions are done by the humans behind them. The AI does not have a concept of right or wrong, but instead only parameters assigned to it by its coders. The usages of said AI are also controlled by humans who are utilizing it's services for their appeal. Yes, many use it for wrongful deeds, and yes, the AI does do as it is told. At the end of the day, whilst we can blame AI for this and that, and we would not be incorrect, I think it is important to remember that AI is not human, it is not out to harm us, it does not have free will and never will. What it has is simple code, and then a user who is telling it what to do. Be it creating art, writing an application, or something else.

Yes, it is frightening at the rapid progress it is making. Yes, many things in the future will change due to AI. However, it is up to humanity as a whole to choose the actual path. Just as can be seen on SRP, the path chosen was to disallow the use of AI, which is beyond fair for a community such as this. But, AI will not vanish anymore, it has proven itself to have become a stable part of society even in its infant stage, and will likely cement itself even deeper as time goes on and AI continues to evolve and improve. All we can do is hope that the humans behind them, keep the goodwill of humanity in their minds, as AI won't be stopped, and honestly, I don't think it should be stopped either.

I respect all those who disagree with my take. I do not major in the field of AI science and simply have encountered it many times over due to its encroaching effect on my field. I am also more than willing to admit if any of my viewpoints are incorrect if proven so!

 

[Yonio]

AI art is generally disliked by bigger communities. Hell, even SRP forbids the promotion of AI art in the discord server. Nobody's gonna stop you from making an AI-generated art piece of your own character, of course, but you shouldn't expect people to praise you for your very-specific prompt that got you a 4K image after taking people's already-existing art (usually) without consent

 

[SkyFantasyWorld]

Which honestly leads me to my biggest point. It is not AI that is evil, nor is it AI that does bad deeds. Those deeds and actions are done by the humans behind them. The AI does not have a concept of right or wrong, but instead only parameters assigned to it by its coders. The usages of said AI are also controlled by humans who are utilizing it's services for their appeal. Yes, many use it for wrongful deeds, and yes, the AI does do as it is told. At the end of the day, whilst we can blame AI for this and that, and we would not be incorrect, I think it is important to remember that AI is not human, it is not out to harm us, it does not have free will and never will. What it has is simple code, and then a user who is telling it what to do. Be it creating art, writing an application, or something else.

While I understand where you're coming from, the issue isn't just about is 'AI is evil or not'. It's about the ethics and copyright concerns surrounding the use of AI especially in art. As I mentioned earlier in my original reply to this thread, the problem is that many AI systems that generate art are trained on pieces created by actual human artists without their consent. This essentially means that the work of individuals is being used to train these systems without proper acknowledgment or compensation, or hell even some form of being notified that their work is going to be used to train those AI.

In the same way, we are proud of our professions and talents, I think it is not entirely fair to dislike AI, which is also a profession of someone who has put in just as much effort as you and I to be capable of creating something like that.

Which brings me to your point about AI being a profession. Yes it’s important to recognize that AI still involve effort coming from those who code them, this still doesn’t remove the AI itself or its creators from the ethical responsibilities in the eyes of the law, or even from actual people. The issue here is that, regardless of the intent behind the AI, the current use often flat out IGNORES the intellectual property of human artists in ways that people find unjust or even illegal as more AI laws are getting passed depending on which country you're in.

So, even if the people developing AI have invested time and labor into their work, it doesn't remove the fact that the end products of some AI systems are built upon the unauthorized use of other people's work. This is why it raises questions about the fairness and respect for the original artists they stole from. It’s not necessarily about disliking AI as a profession, but rather about the property rights and exploiting artists without their permission. Simply put, being labeled as an 'AI Artist' does not equal you to being an actual artist in the traditional sense, unless AI is used in a way that still respects the work of human artists, for example as a reference only, we rather have that than having AI replicating or profiting from OUR work without credit or compensation.