The amount of absolute unfettered hate I see on here (Twitter) being spewed toward any artist who would ever use an AI program to assist them in their art is… terrifying. It makes me want to just close up shop and disappear from this corner of the internet for the next few years.
How did it somehow become okay to bully people just because they like AI art?
If you’re on the right side, shouldn’t you be able to defend it without bullying?
I’ve made and seen beautiful things with the assistance of AI programs. There are already laws protecting artists.
And yeah, the laws are failing to protect artists, but that’s ALREADY A PROBLEM.
Art already isn’t valued. Art already isn’t able to support people. These problems aren’t actually about AI; it just makes an easy, new scapegoat.
Yes, it took some corporations to create the first AI art algorithms, but they’re open to anyone to use, and more are coming fast. Small time artists can make art with them. They’re not the sheltered purview of corporations. They do add new beautiful things to the world.
If you don’t think AI adds something to the world, think about the fact that Midjourney has a recognizable unique style of its own. You don’t have to like that style, but it is NEW. It didn’t exist before Midjourney, and some people find it beautiful.
Let us find it beautiful.
You want to legislate away the ability to copyright images taken directly from an AI art program? Okay. Sure. It might have weird legal repercussions in the future, but that’s definitely a thing that’s already on the table.
You don’t have to hate on it too.
Some of us just really like the beauty and surprise and ease that AI art programs bring to the world, and I hear a lot on here about not yucking on other peoples’ yums.
SO DO THAT.
If your art gets actually copied, you already have copyright to protect you from it being used.
If your problem is that you’re not getting paid, then that has been going on since before last summer when AI art hit the world.
Disney and other corporations are TOTALLY capable of making bland art and not paying artists for it without AI. They already were.
Look, I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to hold my tongue, but it’s just really upsetting to watch all the communities I thought I might be sort of a part of take a new, beautiful thing and not just throw it out but stomp all over it.
This doesn’t have to be a culture war.