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Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

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Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#191

Post by CamperBob2 »

lifthrasiir wrote: post #184
catach wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the human effort spent in creating the original images in an AI's data set is an important element to consider when thinking of the "difficulty" here.

Yes, that 4 GB of data can't be really independently generated, but the fact that a large chunk of that effort can be compressed into 4 GB is still amazing.

If your life's work can be compressed down to 2 bytes, it wasn't that hard.

OTOH, if the 2 bytes is an index into a larger corpus of collected works, the question becomes more interesting.

OTOH, if the corpus is an ensemble of other 2-byte objects...

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#192

Post by asddubs »

superb-owl wrote: post #173
gdubs wrote: post #29

I have a degree in Studio Arts in addition to being a software developer (and recently I've started making a lot of creative work with AI). Back when I was in school, there was already plenty of debate about 'what is "Art"'? It's always been hotly contested. Most of my teachers felt that 'technique' was not Art. Others were more purists – life painters, etc – and felt that, no, technique is art. Duchamp poked the art…

I totally agree [1]. Once all the panic dies down, I think you'll see these technologies enabling artists more than hurting them. The displacement problem isn't quite there yet. While it's a good replacement for stock photo aggregators, it's not a great replacement for commissioning an actual artist. E.g. if you want a consistent look and feel for each of your images, you'll struggle. It's only the C-listers, who cre…

I think it'll displace a chunk of what artists do. Anything where there don't have to be super precise specifications for the end result, where there's some leeway and you just need something that goes into a general direction. Which is a non insignificant chunk, and maybe kind of unfortunately also the jobs where you can be more creative about what you're doing. Like if I'm making a magic-like card game and I need illustrations for my playing cards, I could use an AI for that. If I want a comic strip or an illustration of a specific object, it's probably a poor fit.

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#193

Post by sn0w_monkie »

I'm not surprised more and more art communities are banning AI images, 99% of them are dull and ugly. Definitely not something I would print out and hang on my wall. I tried playing around with these models, but I was too bored to bother futzing around with prompts to try and make something I liked.

But I have seen some cool things made using these models by creators who put more effort in than just writing a prompt to get back an image. I can definitely see how these tools can enhance human creativity but like most art the results are just bad.

At least with some human art even if it's not aesthetically pleasing you can appreciate the thinking or time and effort put into producing a piece of work. When you go to an art museum you can learn about history, politics, culture etc even if you don't appreciate how something might look.

Most AI art, however, is useless and ugly.

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#194

Post by catach »

causality0 wrote: post #190
catach wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the human effort spent in creating the original images in an AI's data set is an important element to consider when thinking of the "difficulty" here.

Certainly, but those human artists were also trained on a data set their whole lives. Raise a baby with no training data set and they might produce a handprint on a wall or a rectangle of facepaint. There's a reason indigenous tribesmen don't spontaneously invent hyperrealism.

Absolutely. Though I think that speaks to one of the ways we tend to discount the difficulty of developing human artistry, rather than a defense of AI gen being "not hard".

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#195

Post by asddubs »

Axauv wrote: post #96
pavel_lishin wrote: post #82

Aside from the debates about "artistic merit" and the ethics of using AI trained on existing artists' work, one of the key things is that this new technology allows anyone to flood a place with images. There are some scifi-themed subreddits that I visit that allow posting art, and at this point it feels like 50% of all submissions are Midjourney/Dall-E generated art. Fine, it looks ok, but there's such a low barrier…

This could be solved on basically all arti communities by simply putting in a post limit per day. Say an artist can only upload 5 images per day or something, why would someone need to upload more than that?

because they're migrating there from another platform

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#196

Post by [deleted] »

thih9 wrote: post #185
gdubs wrote: post #29

I have a degree in Studio Arts in addition to being a software developer (and recently I've started making a lot of creative work with AI). Back when I was in school, there was already plenty of debate about 'what is "Art"'? It's always been hotly contested. Most of my teachers felt that 'technique' was not Art. Others were more purists – life painters, etc – and felt that, no, technique is art. Duchamp poked the art…

> The 'reverse Monet' (too lazy to link) that caused such an uproar when it was shared last week I haven't found the HN discussion; I have found a 2017 paper [1] that had relevant examples [2]. [1]: https://junyanz.github.io/CycleGAN/ [2]: https://taesung.me/cyclegan/2017/03/25/monet-to-photo-summar...

[deleted]

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#198

Post by nurbl »

DefineOutside wrote: post #2

They should also ban creating digital art, as digital art takes less effort than paper.

If you are a "digital art" community, clearly you have already accepted some digital tools.

I do think it makes logical sense to try and ban "AI" art if it is not what the community is interested in. It's likely not just about pretty images. They might value the mental process, the individual's style, progression, techniques, and yes, the effort. Someone coming in with generated images expecting to be treated the same is to me a bit like commissioning art from someone else, and then presenting that as your own. The images might be great, but it's not in the spirit of the community. There must be tons of "AI" focused communities for that.

I suppose they will eventually fail at resisting this, but that's another matter.

Re: Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images

#199

Post by _greim_ »

AI art is striking at first glance, but devoid of meaning once you really try to engage with it. It's the meaning people want, but an image's visual impact has been a reasonably cheap heuristic for finding it. The viability of this heuristic is now dead or rapidly dying, and AI generated art is degenerating into yet another form of spam. Relatedly, feeds full of visually-striking images, once impressive, are taking on a "spammy" tinge. New, harder-to-fake signals will be found, and social media will reorganize around whatever those end up being.
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