this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No. It's like microwaving a TV dinner and saying you cooked.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are levels to everything. People have a very shallow understanding of how these tools work.

Some ai art is low effort.
Some ai art is extremely involved.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It can often take longer to get what you want out of it than it would've to have just drawn it. I've spent 8 or 9 hours fiddling with inputs and settings for a piece and it still didn't come out as good as it would have if I had commissioned an artist.

I've been using it to get "close" then using it as a reference when commissioning things

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes. I also think that's how it is. If you want to generate something meaningful, something that contributes something deep, it is quite a lot of effort. You need to do the prompt engineering, generate a few hundred images. Skim through them and find the most promising ones, then edit them. Maybe combine more than one or put it back into the AI to get the right amount of limbs and fingers. And the lighting, background etc right.

You can just do one-shot, generate anything and upload it to the internet. But it wouldn't be of the same value. But it works like this for anything. I can take a photo of something. Somebody else can have their photos printed on a magazine or do an exhibition. It's a difference in skills and effort. Taking artistic photographs probably also takes some time and effort. You can ask the same question with that. Are photographs art? It depends. For other meanings of 'OC': Sure. The generated output is unique and you created it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That's a great analogy. TV dinners, while presentable at first glance, are both low effort and not that great.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I generally consider "OC" to mean specifically that it's original - you didn't get it from someplace else, so broadly yes if you're the one who had it generated.

But if it's a community for art or photography generally, I don't think AI art belongs there - the skills and talent required are just too different. I love AI art communities, I just think it's a separate thing.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

It depends on the context for me. As a meme base or to make a joke and you don't have the skills? Sure. In an art community? No.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Original Content".

Is it content? Yes.

Is it original? That depends on the context. What do you ask about, in what context? Where is it placed? Which AI? How was it trained? How does it replicate?

If someone generates an image, it is original in that narrow context - between them and the AI.

Is the AI producing originals, original interpretations, original replications, or only transforming other content? I don't think you can make a general statement on that. It's too broad, unspecific of a question.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

You absolutely can make a general statement. Humans don't make original content if you don't think AIs do. The process is basically the same. A human learns to make art, and specific styles, and then produces something from that library of training. An AI does the same thing.

People saying an AI doesn't create art from a human prompt don't understand how humans work.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (11 children)

AI art is not OC. It cannot be.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nothing is oc.

There is a book "steal like an artist" by Austin Kleon that addresses this idea. Real short read and interesting visuals.

As for AI specifically. Ai image generation tools are just that, a tool. Using them doesn't immediately discredit your work. There is a skillset in getting them to produce your vision. And that vision is the human element not present in the tool alone.

I personally don't think terribly highly of ai art, but the idea that it's "just stealing real artists hard work" is absurd. It makes art accessable to people intimidated by other mediums, chill out and let people make shit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

So an AI that is trained on many copyrighted Images from Artists without being asked, and then asking the AI to create from this Artist its drawing style. Is it not a copyright nor a steal?

I mean, weird enough if a person would do that it would be more ok than an AI. But the difference is that you as a human get creative and create an Image, an AI is not really creative, its skill is to recreate this exact image like it would be stored as a file or mix it/change it with thousands of other images.

I have no standpoint in this topic, I can't agree or disagree.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is my problem. The tech itself is fine, no one is arguing about training data and making art from trained data.

But the source of all of that data was ripped without artists consent. They did not agree to take part in this. (And no, I don't think clicking "I Accept" 15 years ago on DeviantArt should count, we had no concept of this back then). Then on top of that people are profiting off of the stolen art.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure this whole issue has to end either in some catastrophe or the complete abolishon of interlectual property rights. Which I already don't have any love for so I'm fairly convinced we should see artists and inventors get their needs met and being able to realise their projects as a separate issue from them effectively owning ideas.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Isn't that a bit like someone faking a painting? Let's say by Monet? This can be everything from 100% alright to illegal.

In addition to that, there's also a difference between being inspired by, or copying something.

I think all of that is just a variation of an old and well known problem.

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[–] JackbyDev 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The way you put original content in quotes is weird.

OC as an acronym typically just means something that someone made. In this sense, yeah, if you make something with AI then it's "your OC'.

Original content used as the words generally means something slightly different and it's more debatable.

Having used AI art tools there is more creativity involved than people think. When you're just generating them, sure, there's less creativity than traditional digital art, of course, but it is not a wholly uncreative process. Take in-painting, you can selectively generate in just some portions of the image. Or sketch and then generate based off of that.

All that said though I don't think "creativity" is necessary for something to be considered OC. It just needs to have been made by them.

Would you call fan art of well known characters OC? I would.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Steam bans games that contain such AI content because they are not near OC. Except you train the AI on only your own Copyrighted Images, which mid journey and various other AI aren't. They are all trained on copyrighted images without asking.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It's an interesting thing to ponder and my opinion is that like many other things in life something being 'OC' is a spectrum rather than a binary thing.

If I apply a B&W filter on an image is that OC? Obviously not

But what if I make an artwork that's formed by hundreds of smaller artworks, like this example? This definitely deserves the OC tag

AI art is also somewhere in that spectrum and even then it changes depending on how AI was used to make the art. Each person has a different line on the spectrum where things transition from non OC to OC, so the answer to this would be different for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah in the same remixing a song is considered original

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mmm yeah like consider daft punk, songs made entirely out of samples from other peoples songs but tweaked and remixed enough to make something that anyone would consider original. I think people arguing essentially β€œit only counts as music if the songs they are sampling were originally recorded by them” are being a little disingenuous

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I really think it comes down to the individual. I personally think that Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World was likely derived at least partially from the book We by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin but both Aldous Huxley and my 10th grade English teacher would disagree. I don't think it's wrong to take someone else's work and add upon it in a way you view beneficial. I view it as a natural evolution if anything and if it gives someone something to enjoy or makes the creative processes a little easier I'm all for it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

As someone who has been trying to get my vision for a piece to fruition using AI for months…I absolutely think AI is OC. The argument that it references existing work cracks me up because all of art history is derivatives of what has come before. I do think there is β€œlow effort” pieces, but you get that in other mediums as well such as photography. Also…need I mention Duchamp and the urinal?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That's an interesting question. I haven't spent very much time thinking about how to define AI art. My immediate thought is that AI art can be OC, but it should also be labeled as such. It's important to know if a person created the content vs prompting an AI to generate the content. The closest example I can think of is asking someone to paint something for you instead of painting it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I do. I play with AI from time to time and people don't realize creating the correct prompts is a skill in itself, it's not just some magical doodad that does what you want out of the box. AI generated stuff is OC if you're the one who made it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what's your definition of art?

For example, I personally don't think hyper realism (people spending months "painting" an exact large copy of a hi-def photo) is art, for me it's just craftsmanship, no creativity even.

AI feels the same, it's just a tool as the chisel or the paintbrush. What do you create when doing your prompts?

It can be art I guess, but I also think it usually is not at all.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

AI is a tool like any other. You can't say that art made with some tool is not art just because you don't like the tool. When photography came around, there were people saying it's not a real art because it does everything for you.

A world where banana taped on a wall is art, but something you spend many hours tailoring to your vision is not, well, that's not a world I can agree with. How can we claim some random splashes are art just because there's some vision behind them and at the same time claim that AI art created with some vision is not?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (24 children)

Yea, the AI is a tool used by humans to make art. Like other artistic tools, you can use it in a low effort way to make stuff (like the abstract and ultra random modern art). Similarly, people can use it in a much more directed and creative way, such as by using ControlNet to determine the content of the art manually, then have the AI follow whatever style directed.

There are many ways to use AI art in a more involved way than just prompting and hoping for the best. Still, like the other artistic tools that have been invented, people want to gatekeep and call it not art. Don't listen to them, art is art regardless of how you perceive it. You may not think it as worthwhile, but it is still created only for aesthetic value and is thus art

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