Do you believe AI art is "stealing" artworks?

[Something Different]

I think this take is honestly a pretty flawed one but I see so many people sharing this opinion. By saying that AI is stealing art that makes it sound like the AI is just straight up copying the artwork and claiming that it made it. But this very clearly isn't the case, but it's the only case where the statement, "AI is stealing artworks," is true.

I know people are not claiming what I said before, what they are actually referring to is the AI using artworks to learn. But then where does the stealing part come into place? Stealing refers to taking a belonging away from someone without permission. When it comes to digital art though that definition doesn't quite work. So to steal digital art would be to copy it, then claim it as your own work, which we all know AI art generation doesn't do.

But that isn't my only problem with this take. My other problem is that what the AI is doing is essentially what a lot of other artists do as well. Artists will look at other artists' works, perhaps the artists like something about it, so they adopt it into their style. That is exactly what the AI does as well. The AI will take images, add it to it's knowledge database, then uses that knowledge to make better art. So to me it's kind of hypocritical of artists to say things like this because it's fine for them to do it, but not for AI to do it for some reason.

That is why I don't like this take all that much.

[Kamiyama]

It still has issues with faces and limbs.

Stable Diffusion 1.5 should work better but there wasn't a 1-click installer for it last time I checked. I'm using the 1-click installer for 1.4

Also it expects you to use an Nvidia graphics card. I'm using an AMD APU so mine is stuck in CPU only rendering mode. Each pic took 1-2 hours.

Someday I would like to build a rig optimized for running Stable Diffusion. But I lack the money for that.

[Something Different]

Escrito originalmente por Basho:

forgive me if i go on at length for a bit, but these things interest me.

Escrito originalmente por Something Different:

Reading about this just makes me hate copyright laws in general... I mean you can't copyright everything made otherwise we will run out of things to make

of course, but here we are.

but it is also trickier than just abolishing copyright law, because then there is nothing stopping wealthier people from literally copying other peoples artwork outright and selling it off in whatever form without the original creator seeing any profit at all from their works.
could be t-shirt designs and such for instance.

copyright laws are well-meaning in essence, but they have been twisted by greed.
at their worst they become a means of attack rather than defence so to speak.

there's an interesting theory about expensive fashion like gucci and why many consider it to be ugly:
if they made designs that "everyone" wants to wear, then a clothing company with bigger means of production/distribution could simply make a similar design and churn it out by the thousands for much cheaper.
so making designs that few people want to wear and selling them at high prices (for wealthy people to show off in their circles) means the bigger companies can't justify the production cost of a design few people want to purchase.

i also think it is worth mentioning that there are people who believe applying a photoshop filter onto someone else's creation will render it an original work now under their ownership.
this is a rather crude and clear-cut example, but i believe AI art in some cases borders on this phenomenon.

tangent:

after looking at some more AI art, i am starting to feel my convictions change a bit in regards to "what makes art".
i usually dont like the attitude that "art need to send a message", and i still dont.
but what strikes me when looking at much of the AI generated works is the lack of any real meaning/intent behind it.
some works are pleasant to look at for sure (and i do love abstract art in general) but with the AI works i get the feeling that something is just "missing" most of the time.
like if a human would have produced a work along the same visual idea, there would have been something more to it to enjoy and/or think about.

take the art of Simon Stålenhag for instance.
presumably the visual style could be replicated by AI means, but the element of storytelling by implication is what really makes his art come alive imo and that "spark" is usually missing in the AI generated/assisted works i have seen.

thats not directly related to originality (though i suppose indirectly it may be, seeing as the works may or may not be considered derivative) and i suppose we will see what future developments bring, but for now there just feels like something is missing.

thats some worrying implications considering big budget movie productions often give off the feel of having been crafted by means of algorithm and formula rather than by creative vision.
pairing this outset with automated production makes for a rather bleak prospect.

all that said, regardless of what the future may or may not bring i have no doubts that AI assistance even in its current state can be a wonderful creative asset, making in seconds tasks that would have taken manual human effort hours.
i believe Far Cry 5 used some sort of assistance in placing foliage, rocks, and such according to some set of rules (things like slope angle, proximity to water, etc) to give a natural feel to the world without having to manually place every rock and tree.

Copyright laws are a tricky thing to get right, perhaps there might not even be a good way to enforce copyright laws, but something needs to exist to stop other people from copying already made works. My entire thing is that people nowadays are able to copyright everything, even literal words. I know there was this one instance where a dev team wanted to name their game Pray for the Gods, but there was a game already called Prey on the market, and those people sued the other people and they had to rename their game to Preay to the Gods. It's like how are they about to copyright an entire word... soon enough it's gonna be illegal to say a mf sentence in public.

As for the AI art missing something, that I feel is what real artists still have over AI art. There is always that artificial look when it comes to AI art, and I don't think that artificial look is going anywhere considering it's all made artificially to begin with and will remain that way.

[Something Different]

Escrito originalmente por s w e k:

Yes, some AI programs are stealing artist's works and using it without their permission.

Then again real artists do this as well, I doubt artists ask other artists to look at their artworks, so why should an AI have to?

[Something Different]

Escrito originalmente por nullpo:

Escrito originalmente por agu:

No, regular artists also steal every idea they have and they call it "inspiration". They just want to do everything in their power to stop AI art from getting more popular because nobody will ever hire them when it's good enough. They say stuff like AI will never surpass human art and it has no merit because it has no qualities like "beauty" and "soul" that they aren't able to describe and wouldn't even be able to recognize. It's just a big cope as a survival mechanism.

Human art will always find a niche imo. People will still become fans of specific artist and follow them for art. Also those AI just cobble multiple art into one. It still needs original art to be pumped out,. then those AI merge them together.

If this was the case then why can't we pinpoint specific parts of artworks to other, already existing artworks? I mean a lot of you guys say all it does it paste things, but if that was the case I feel we would be seeing duplicates at this point and also we would be able to see exactness between other artworks, but that is never the case.

[nullpo]

Escrito originalmente por Something Different:

Escrito originalmente por nullpo:

Human art will always find a niche imo. People will still become fans of specific artist and follow them for art. Also those AI just cobble multiple art into one. It still needs original art to be pumped out,. then those AI merge them together.

If this was the case then why can't we pinpoint specific parts of artworks to other, already existing artworks? I mean a lot of you guys say all it does it paste things, but if that was the case I feel we would be seeing duplicates at this point and also we would be able to see exactness between other artworks, but that is never the case.

Because there are countless of arts to sample from? The massive amount of arts makes the number of possible arts that can be mashed together from it a lot. And I think you missed my main point, which is human art will find niche even with the existence of AI art. Even discarding all that, do you think artist who do it for hobby will stop just because AI art exist? Nope.

[s w e k]

Escrito originalmente por Something Different:

Escrito originalmente por s w e k:

Yes, some AI programs are stealing artist's works and using it without their permission.

Then again real artists do this as well, I doubt artists ask other artists to look at their artworks, so why should an AI have to?

If it were me, I'd have a problem with the creators of the AI program monetizing it while using my artwork while I get zero compensation. Besides, I feel that if an artist takes heavy inspiration from another artist, it's only common decency to credit them, but that's my personal feelings. Not saying it should be a law or anything.

[Azza ☠]

Escrito originalmente por Something Different:

Escrito originalmente por Azza ☠:

AI aren't stealing, it's taking and questioning the errors in human illogical ways and their repeated mistakes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpUpVznI4Yc

(each frame is AI generated)

Even in this instance the AI can't even copy itself for each frame, let alone someone else's artwork lol

That music video was crafted through the process of stitching together 10,000 frames of AI-generated imagery via Midjourney AI, linked together via individual prompts entered manually into the AI program. It uses a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm trained on a large amount of image data to produce unique images.

So yes, it's taking in thousands of reference images to create it's own. Such as doing a google image search upon the keyword(s) you wanted.

To create AI art, artists write algorithms not to follow a set of rules, but to “learn” a specific aesthetic by analyzing thousands of images. The style of other people's artwork, art techniques and brush strokes is taken into factor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5FnWkSxNp8

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

In principle no, not necessarily. But in practice possibly.

I feel if the AI in question can become complex and nuanced enough that it contains elements of learning that in humans we would instead call "inspiration" from existing art styles, then not necessarily. If the AI remains primitive enough that you can look at its output and very clearly see that it by design copied several distinctive styles and simply produced them in combination, then yes I feel that represents an ethical (and potentially an IP) quandary.

If the AI gets to the point that it is simply doing something analogous to what human brains do though - learn art by initially copying an instructor or taking inspiration from other styles, usually early on by literally copying them - but then generates combinations of those other styles so complex as to simply appear at most inspired by them, then I don't see the difference in principle between what it does and what we do.

Other than intentionality, which at the moment AIs still lack, as far as we can discern. Which is where the theft argument becomes salient. If a user is telling it specifically, "Make something in the style of _____" and what it produces very clearly references their art, in an unvarnished way, then yes I think that has the potential to be a problem. Because that's intent.

But again, would we call it theft if the artist did this themselves and was homaging or taking inspiration from someone's style, without directly copying? I'm not sure. And if not, why does it become so if the AI does it? And at what point is it transformational enough in nature that it becomes fair use? That's another question.

So as usual, I think it depends.

[Plaid]

I got a thing for craftsmanship and pumping some words into an AI program ain't it.

[Kamiyama]

Escrito originalmente por Plaid:

I got a thing for craftsmanship and pumping some words into an AI program ain't it.

I have no doubt it will improve. New versions of AI generators can already do photorealistic images. I think it's going to keep getting better, and keep getting more accessible.

There's already AI generators for pictures and text. There are projects working on AI music generators. I expect movie generators will eventually be a thing too.

Some day I expect they will take these generators and build them into other software packages.

Maybe someday someone will remake "rogue" but it will be a 3D game with all assets generated on the fly. The textures, the weapons, monsters, NPC's, quest text, music. It could all be generated on the fly by AI.

It's probably going to be really janky. But just like "rogue" was the first of its kind, this will be the first AI generated game and there will be a whole new genre of games following behind it.

[agu]

Escrito originalmente por Plaid:

I got a thing for craftsmanship and pumping some words into an AI program ain't it.

Do you think people who did everything by hand think the same about you or other artists using tools like a brush or a pencil or a camera for example? Would that make it less valid somehow? How would this be different? Where is the line drawn?

[Magma Dragoon]

The difference is that the AI never develops a style of its own, and can neither appreciate nor experience beauty. It just learns that certain vectors representing color and shape frequently appear in the training data and mimics that, often to unintelligible results.

[Something Different]

Escrito originalmente por nullpo:

Escrito originalmente por Something Different:

If this was the case then why can't we pinpoint specific parts of artworks to other, already existing artworks? I mean a lot of you guys say all it does it paste things, but if that was the case I feel we would be seeing duplicates at this point and also we would be able to see exactness between other artworks, but that is never the case.

Because there are countless of arts to sample from? The massive amount of arts makes the number of possible arts that can be mashed together from it a lot. And I think you missed my main point, which is human art will find niche even with the existence of AI art. Even discarding all that, do you think artist who do it for hobby will stop just because AI art exist? Nope.

Even though there is so much I feel that if the AI truly was copy and pasting parts from other artworks we would have found a case of this already and the AI would be shutdown for copyright infringement.

I said this before but there is something special about human art, AI art always has this artificial look to it and that will always be the case because it is artificially made.

[DarkCrystalMethod]

If its generating art through production rules and NOT from sampling then thats not stealing.
Also I'm certain that at some point the AI code that uses samples can output a list of all the sources it used and where it ended up in the final image. It would be stupid not to have that so the lawyers can cover their butts.

[Angel]

I do AI Art (link in my profile).

It's not stealing, it is AI learning from the images online however we still need to compile the image with Photoshop and/or algorithm. I think for those that don't understand it think it's just like Googling an image but it's more like a filter.

If people are not catching up with the times then they will fall behind. The same arguments happened with digital photography, printing press, computer based music mixing/composing and linen machines doing all the work. I'd love to see those that complain AI Art still use a film camera and traditional music instruments.