I'm just going to take a moment to appreciate that they considered software development an art. It's a rare moment.

If I see an AI image for a song on spotify, there's a 90% the music is too.

The reality is that almost no self sustaining artists can afford each other's work. Instead artists are forced to charge prices other artists would consider their entire grocery bill. Instead they have to hope they can either get patronage from the wealthy or some sort of corporation.

"I'm an artiste, machines shouldn't do what I do, those other folks have it easy." repeat for every group thinking of every other group.

See also: People who HATE AI, but still use it to make/upscale their "memes." Was somewhat common in reddit the "this is the only good use of AI" crowd.

I think a big part of the problem is that most people just can't afford each other.

Sure, you can do "paid in kind" (which has it's own complexities) but mainly there's so many overheads in life, as well as middlemen extorting out their cut that hiring a creative is cripplingly expensive.

It's something only affordable to either those with a lot of disposable income, or those who are planning to make a hefty profit from it (and won't be worrying about money in the meantime either).

Even in times when I was making the same income as a plumber, the idea of hiring one was deeply financially intimidating. Even an independent one. The way it's stacked, you can only afford to hire people in a lower class/caste/tax-bracket than yourself.

Everyone thinks AI can do everyone else's job except their own.

I personally don't think so, and will not disrespect people by using it. It's just amazing how the fad at work went with everyone posting how they were going to automate away every other job responsibility but theirs. The crazy part is how eager they shared their concepts with the very people they were basically saying were obsolete.

Unfortunately I'm pessimistic it will ever happen. AI rewards you with what you want (or a mimic of it anyway) for not talking to people. Which feeds the largest insecurity all artists have, expressing themselves and connecting with others outside their art.

Could it be a symptom of everybody being broke af and not wanting to ask someone to work for exposure? Because a lot of artists are lucky enough to make enough money to cover their expenses for doing the art, let alone anything else.

I would love to see more collaborations and rejection of AI for everything but the tasks that are actually a decent use case (preliminary searches and compiling massive pools of data) and I think one of the best way to start is to just pay people a living wage.

IIRC that "You wouldn't download a car!" piracy screen used it's music and font without a license.

It's selfishness, not any sort of consistent belief system. AI that undermines me is the worst thing ever, but I'll use AI that shits on other people without a second thought.

I was thinking about something..

Like text books used to have illustrated artist rendition depictions of things. They weren't the real thing but people kind of accept them as the real thing in a way. I guess like ancient times and dinosaurs... A lot of how it's presented in artist rendition. But now Ai does it... So it like a photo copy of a photo copy. It adds another layer of not being real.

I started thinking about this because I did a search on YouTube recently and almost everything was ai created.

It's getting fucked up fast.

While there are individuals skilled at multiple disciplines, some creatives are very good at a specific type of art (even computer programming or designing websites), but are deficient in others. To make up for those shortcomings, it used to be that they ask for the help of other creatives, or take time to learn how to.

But the invasion of LLMs have upturned art and polarized people, and who is really profiting from this? The tech moguls demanding that all embrace the number and code of the beast.

Ehhhh sorta? There's always been some cynical people who aren't really about the art. Like, I remember reading tutorials on how to churn out bullshit self-help books to make money on amazon before the LLM craze. They weren't really artists, and those are the people I mostly associate with using AI-generated book covers.

When it comes to games, the people using AI-generated assets are mostly the kinds of people who slopped together pre-made assets before, or would have, anyway.

There are some people who turned to the dark side so to speak but they're kinda the exception. AI is a pretty good marker of a trash product. Like, people who actually write well or make good games or music usually don't use Ai generated bullshit for their products.

solidarity brother! im a visual artist, and i deleted spotify in solidarity with musicians. i download from bandcamp now.

I have an old buddy who’s a pretty accomplished tattoo artist, and as goes is also a pretty good artist in many other ways- pen/ink, paint, etc. We have a few of his hand drawn or painted pieces hanging on our walls.

I saw sometime last year that he was proudly telling everyone about his AI art shop on Etsy…selling art he was just having AI generated and printed via whatever those shops that just print whatever you want on whatever you want and drop shipped to you. …so sad…

Rather than seeing themselves as members of a creative class, they see themselves as free floating individuals in the marketplace of ideas. They don't unite together to gain a stronger bargaining position, they tear each other down for even the slightest edge.

Seen this myself.

I just semi-retired after 10 years of writing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfiction. It was a nice little side hustle that brought in 1-2k a year and I enjoyed learning how to write stories.

In the past I would write a story and then either commission an artist for some cover art, or find some that suited the story on one of the many MLP art databases and ask permission to use it. In 10 years of writing over a million words I was never once refused my request to use someone's art, and I always made sure the artist was credited.

But, in the past year or so the primary website for MLP fanfictions (fimfiction.net) started allowing AI art for covers which like the OP, I feel to be a betrayal of our fellow creatives. We definitely need to stand together against the tide of AI slop, no matter its genre.

Realistically a lot of the people who are using AI for these were previously just ripping them off the internet and hoping nobody would notice...

Artist spoiler : art is work and work needs pay. We don't have any money. Wanna see your favorite artists make human collabs? Pay them, back them or stfu.

If you don't follow limebar hes on peertube and his music fuckin slaps

Unions. We need 'em. Great episode on unions in a TrueAnon ep (podcast) about a week ago.

Amen.

reminds me of piracy in the early days of napster and kazza.

The human brain always picks convenience.

We simply cannot help ourselves.

I’ve grown immensely cynical about that this past decade. Like, literally every chance we get to take a less destructive path, I observe people skip it because it’s slightly less convenient… that’s why they use AI.

They could give another artist $20 for something important, but our monkey brain is tired and picks the 5 second solution instead. I bet they don’t even look outside ChatGPT.

…So yeah, I think we’re in trouble. As this is not going to stop.

EFF leading by example in their post yesterday Who (or What) Generates Images for EFF?

BASED

As a musician, and as a friend of many graphic artists, writers, programmers, designers, and other kinds of artists, I hate how many people just think in their own benefit. Like, they don't seem to understand that's one of the main problems, because while I use AI to create cover artz and at the same time complain about not having enough demand and about my music being stolen, which takes away my opportunities to work, a graphic artist/cartoonist could be using AI to make music for their showcases/shelves and complaining about not having enough demand and about others (me, in this case) stealing their art. What I mean is, we're both harming each other and reducing our net benefit margin, thus leading to a Pareto suboptimal.

Stop it. Get some help.

Edit: image for clarity

Edit 2 for more clarity: Stop using generative AI and get help from artists and creatives.

If everyone were angels we wouldn't need money and the issue is that struggling artists have none to spread around. Collaboration is not the answer. Ending the oligarchic kleptocracy so we can afford to pay artists their worth is.

I do music and other art. I did use early AI to make a few music videos because I liked the jankyness of it all. How it was strange and surreal - like a dream. If anything, it was more of an experiment in a medium that wasn't ready.

I don't use any AI today except to mock it. I reject it as much as possible.

Dude have you ever tried to collaborate with anyone?

Also, A, no one has money.

And B: it turns out learning an art form to a high enough degree to use it to sell something involves (generally) doing it from a young age and each different skill requires other related skills. Nobody has the time to make music, and learn art, and then graphic art, and marketing, and writing, and accounting.