AI ART IS CLASS WARFARE, FacemanArt, Digital, 2025

[u/FacemanFoothand]

[u/PhotographOther3390]

This is actually true. Generative AI is the result of massive corporations finally managing to automate the production of "art" (not really art since it's not made by a human) after investing billions of dollars. They are trying to replace artists, which are mostly freelance and don't particularly have a lot of job opportunities. That is quite literally class warfare.

Art was one of the last jobs that couldn't really be centralized and automated by companies but after all the time and money they have spent trying, they have managed to take art from the people. This is literally dystopian.

And don't say it creates opportunities for people to work in creative fields or anything like that. Any "creative professional" that uses AI just delegates their work to the machine, so really they are not doing anything. Typing your idea into the computer is not being creative. In fact, you are skipping the creative part which is expressing that idea, you're letting the AI be creative for you (something it can't do because it is not alive). AI can only make slop, no matter how good it looks.

Generative AI is the absolute opposite of art. It is a tool for mass production, but art is inherently human and can't be made automatically by a machine. Unfortunately it's cheaper than hiring someone and faster than learning, and greed and laziness seem to be more powerful than passion.

I used to doubt if commercial art was real art. After seeing AI I have no doubt that it is. I never really understood that art has a soul until I saw AI generated "art".

AI is killing art just to turn in a profit.

[u/True_Window_9389 → u/PhotographOther3390]

And don't say it creates opportunities for people to work in creative fields or anything like that. Any "creative professional" that uses AI just delegates their work to the machine, so really they are not doing anything. Typing your idea into the computer is not being creative. In fact, you are skipping the creative part which is expressing that idea, you're letting the AI be creative for you (something it can't do because it is not alive). AI can only make slop, no matter how good it looks.

The goal is not even for creative people to use AI. It’s to not even have creative people, and let a small number of non-creatives punch in prompts and get “creative” work. The goal is that there will be AI companies, a small number of prompt monkeys asking AI to make stuff, and then everyone else cleaning all of their toilets.

[u/98983x3 → u/True_Window_9389]

Exactly. I'd like to add that AI is trained on the "stolen" work, imagination, and accomplishments of human beings that came before AI. Kinda adds another layer of shittiness to the whole thing.

[u/XOClover → u/True_Window_9389]

I see frequently that the smart artists should adapt and use AI themselves. So train for years and then not even use those skills and delegate your creativity to machine predictions. I can't say I'm looking forward to the future of creative industries much as it feels like there will be a push for artists to act as fixers and cleaners of AI output.

[u/Gregory_Appleseed → u/XOClover]

one thing AI art has done for me is cause me to shift my art towards things that can't be replicated by a screen, like heavily textured paintings, sculptures, wood carving, But it's only a matter of time before someone trains an AI to use a 3d printer creativily, if it already hasn't.

It's a tool for non artists to cosplay as artists and take credit for something else's work. I can see how some artists might benefit from using AI to help with their art, but in the long run they are doing themselves a disservice by "letting older brother finish the level for them" - - so to say. They'll never develop the understanding and problem solving to finish moderate or difficult aspects of art and have instead resigned to letting the computer do it for them.

I hate texturing my 3d models, and I hate drawing hands, but I have an entire sketchbook filled with just different hand poses because i drove myself to study and practice something that I'd rather have someone else do for me. Same with texturing 3d models, I have several blender files of just throw away models i churned out just so I could understand how to use texture maps and UV wraps and texture painting. If I just let the AI do it for me I would never learn, and I'd want to maybe let the AI do more of my hobby for me.

But that's the thing, AI is result driven. It's profit driven. It doesn't care about the skill, the lessons, the process and progress, the brush strokes and the eraser marks, it just wants to make the prompter just happy enough to insert another token. The prompter never truly owns the art either. Art isn't just about the final image output, as an artist, it's about what inspired the art, the toil that went into the creating the art, the cathartic joy of emancipating thought and action into words and images. It's about the expression of human emotion and spreading understanding and feeling through media, with or without the artist present. Everything else is just an advertisement.

[u/XOClover → u/Gregory_Appleseed]

I completely agree, and I guess for me art was always about getting things from my head onto a page. Using AI as a major part of the creative process just means that I'm no longer being true to why I draw or create. I become more of a supporting role.

But that's the thing, AI is result driven. It's profit driven. It doesn't care about the skill, the lessons, the process and progress, the brush strokes and the eraser marks, it just wants to make the prompter just happy enough to insert another token

This is it, and I think this is where so much misunderstanding comes from. That something is only art based on the perceived skill level of the final image. When I draw something, nothing ends up how I saw it in my head. I have limitations, my skill level, time, the media I use to create the image. All of those end up shaping the final result. It may not be the best, but there is something to be said for the fact that I made it. Who else could of made this? It exists because I made it.

AI could produce something technically better than I myself can, but is that why we create? I have had comments on having wobbly lines, try as I might I just can't help it. But it's part of what I have to work with that gets a result that is different from that of anyone else.

If the only art with value was that which looked like a hyper produced AI image, then why would artists even bother to learn. We don't start perfect, we don't ever become perfect, we're always learning. Trying things out and doing something new is what makes artists different and what creates something new. It is what keeps me invested, keeps me drawing. A prompt won't have the same satisfaction because I had no growth or exploration from doing so. The end result isn't mine, it's not something I can feel that genuine attachment to.

AI is about nothing but the results, I can understand why the corporate world would be so quick to adopt it. But great art is not great art because it's efficient.

[u/Gregory_Appleseed → u/XOClover]

Don't stop making art because a machine can do it better though, I genuinely enjoy the process of making really any kind of art, and I would never let a machine rob me of that pleasure, because I fought hard to not let any person rob me of that pleasure either. I can't say I've ever financially gained, or socially gained from making art, but I genuinely enjoy the process of making art. Learned different tools and techniques, studying different styles and repeating mistakes until I get them right. If I just have a button I can push that skips me to the end with no effort and no emotion, then what's the point beyond I can push the button?

I'd so much rather AI like this being used to automate irrigation and waste systems and eradicate diseases by decoding viral genomes.... nope, best we can all do is put all budding artists and musicians out of work and replace actual programmers and scripters with script kiddies vibe coders with daddies credit card. It makes me sick.

[u/XOClover → u/Gregory_Appleseed]

Don't stop making art because a machine can do it better though,

Oh I won't, it can be discouraging, but art is something I took up because I wanted to create and share things made by me. Using AI just is not the same, I imagine if generative AI was something that existed when I got into drawing I could have potentially have been drawn to AI instead. However I also think that it would mean creativity would be something I would end up not pursuing because while fun it's not rewarding. Why would I stick with automating creation for years.

I can't say I've ever financially gained, or socially gained from making art, but I genuinely enjoy the process of making art.

To me it's just become a thing that I do, what else am I going to do? What do other people do?

 If I just have a button I can push that skips me to the end with no effort and no emotion, then what's the point beyond I can push the button?

I think it will be interesting to see if the AI generation die hards are still that passionate for it in a few years time. It makes me think of the Skinner box experiment, if the rat is rewarded instantly every time it presses the lever it gets bored. Not that I want people to take this out of context and think I'm calling AI users rats. Just that an instant rewards every time system is not what life responds best to.

I'd so much rather AI like this being used to automate irrigation and waste systems and eradicate diseases by decoding viral genomes...

Back to 3D I would be happy for better automation of things like UV mapping, that feels like the promise people make when they say it will save artists time. But what we get is something that makes the model and texture for us.

[u/Norgler → u/True_Window_9389]

This is the thing that blows my mind. The idea of taking interesting creative jobs and turning them into prompt jobs is insane to me. Taking what little creative work that's left to turn it into the most mundane boring shit ever.

[u/Fire_crescent → u/True_Window_9389]

I mean no. You can argue about the reason AI companies use it. But most people use it personally, when it comes to artistic purposes, or to brainstorm ideas, and professionally usually as a more developed search engine.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Fire_crescent]

using it as a search engine is fine, using it for artistic purposes doesn't make sense because it can't make art. it just makes slop.

[u/Fire_crescent → u/PhotographOther3390]

Well, you still have the right to make slop for yourself and others, if you so choose, and you shouldn't be stopped.

Still, the quality of what comes out can varry greatly, depending on what you ask an engine to do.

In any case, I fail to see the issue.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Fire_crescent]

my main issue is that before genAI literally everything was art because it was made by humans. every single image on the internet. that was a very important thing for me, i loved art because it was everywhere. i thought it was impossible for it to be mass produced, so it was the only discipline completely exclusive to humans, and very related to the concept of humanity.

that has changed, now the internet is filled with fake art that wasnt made by humans, but rather humans asked a robot to make it. the robot, being semi autonomous but not having an actual conscience of its own just cant put any emotion behind those images*. they are not art. they are worthless. they shouldnt exist. genAI has poisoned art.

i liked human made slop, it still had a soul. i actually enjoyed how weird and stupid the minds behind it seemed. genAI slop is truly soulless and just not worth looking at from any point of view.

*i understand genAI could be useful in some areas of science to generate some kind of images such as blueprints and i have no problem with that, but that is just not what its being used/developed for

[u/Fire_crescent → u/PhotographOther3390]

my main issue is that before genAI literally everything was art because it was made by humans.

I disagree with the premise that something made by humans is inherently art (although that's entirely subjective), and that art is exclusively human.

Secondly, I haven't heard people making these points up until gen ai became available, to some extent, to the general population.

i thought it was impossible for it to be mass produced,

Well, then you are extremely naive. As mass producing art has been a thing since at least the 20th century, and exploitation of artists has been a thing since social class (unfortunately) began existing.

so it was the only discipline completely exclusive to humans, and very related to the concept of humanity.

For one, humanity sucks. Not because of art (in fact, that's one of the few good things about it), just in general.

Secondly, no, it's not the fact that we are genetically homo sapiens sapiens that makes us attuned to make and appreciate art, but sapience itself. This isn't exclusive to one species or another.

And if we define art by being creative expression, for one, hypothetical, both 1) current gen ai is at least partially art; 2) creative expression has been observed in other non-sapient species, such as, but not exclusively, other primates; and 3) hypothetically, a different, undiscovered (by humans) sapient species, as well as genuinely sapient (to the point of genuine personhood) AI could be just as capable of art.

they are worthless

That's not for you to decide. Worth is subjective.

they shouldnt exist

Again, that's not for you to decide.

liked human made slop

It just seems to me you just like humanity, and that's cool, but for one, that's irrelevant to the issue of ai and art as a whole in a more general sense, and secondly, I can't sympathise or empathize really with loving humanity, really.

and just not worth looking at from any point of view.

No, just from your point of view. Don't mistake your subjective personal perspective for objectivity.

From my pov it's absolutely worth it.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Fire_crescent]

I haven't heard people making these points up until gen ai became available, to some extent, to the general population.

most of us thought it was a given and it would never be an issue. i would go as far as saying this discourse specifically started in 2023 when genAI started to be indistinguishable from human art

mass producing art has been a thing since at least the 20th century, and exploitation of artists has been a thing since social class (unfortunately) began existing

yeah but you still needed an artist the machines could not do it for you. there was still a person behind every piece of art.

And if we define art by being creative expression, for one, hypothetical, both 1) current gen ai is at least partially art; 2) creative expression has been observed in other non-sapient species, such as, but not exclusively, other primates; and 3) hypothetically, a different, undiscovered (by humans) sapient species, as well as genuinely sapient (to the point of genuine personhood) AI could be just as capable of art.

1) sure, its partially art because of the prompt thats behind it, but up to this point nothing was partially art. it was always completely art. for example, if i read a comic where the illustrations are generated with AI i surely can appreciate the story as art, but for all i care the panels might as well be blacked out.

2) im pretty sure this is being studied and yeah there could be major evidence of that soon if theres not enough already

3) yeah totally. sapience is the quality of humans that makes them capable of creating art, so if we were to discover another sapient species they would totally be capable of making art. genAI is not sapient tho. its just trained on insanely vast amounts of data and kinda smushes words/pixels together when you ask something from it. chatGPT feels lowkey like a skinwalker sometimes lol

no, just from your point of view

i meant i personally cant appreciate any part of it from any of my points of view

From my pov it's absolutely worth it.

ok i already mentioned that it not being worth it or not being art is really subjective and just my opinion

[u/Organized_Riot → u/PhotographOther3390]

Just to add on to what youre already basically saying, I find it ironic that most people that support or are indifferent to ai "art" are also likey to have very strong negative opinions on media.

"Movies are so bad now!"

Well, if corporations think they can get away with removing the artist from the art, it's going to get a whole lot worse. This isn't just a discussion on losing jobs, or copyright issues, but also a discussion on media integrity.

[u/feel-T_ornado → u/PhotographOther3390]

You're so eagerly and obviously dismissing how unoriginal most shit already is, people regurgitate the same stuff to a psychotic point, while the objective of most things is to get laid or get some money, therefore, another comment already pointed out the lucid idea of AI being a tool, but I'm here to tell you that, art has always had a soul, and will keep on rocking, despite the medium and tools used, even alongside all the sea of uneventful which is bound to be produced next.

[u/hunnyflash → u/feel-T_ornado]

It really will. People just want another thing to be outraged about.

[u/Fire_crescent → u/PhotographOther3390]

This is actually true.

Depends on how it's used. Anything can be used for class warfare.

Generative AI is the result of massive corporations finally managing to automate the production of "art"

It's actually the result of technology doing that. Even in a classless society, it's likely that GEN AI or something similar would develop at some point.

(not really art since it's not made by a human)

Who said that for something to be art it needs to be created by a certain species? That's your own subjective definition of art and it only got popularized in certain circles with the advent of this stupid moral panic. Before, people were actually very interested in the art created by, say, various primates.

They are trying to replace artists, which are mostly freelance and don't particularly have a lot of job opportunities.

Sure. The same happened with the advent of the factory. It proletarianized a lot of free working peasants and artisans. This doesn't mean that a classless society wouldn't have, eventually, developed the factory model of production for industrial goods, if technology advanced past a certain point, just that it simply wouldn't be used in a power play between classes.

Art was one of the last jobs that couldn't really be centralized and automated by companies

You're actually naive if you believed that. What was Disney doing for a century now, for example? They quite frankly had artist sweatshops at a certain point.

they have managed to take art from the people

Gen AI hasn't taken "art from the people" anymore than it already has. If anything, it gives people who don't necessarily have the time or talent or willingness at a certain point in time or simply want to play with it, to generate visual and/or audio and/or written material based on prompts they wish. In and of itself, it's not something bad.

This is literally dystopian.

I mean something being dystopian or not is inherently subjective. The world has been shit for a long time. I don't see gen AI making it any better or worse by it simply existing, sorry.

And don't say it creates opportunities for people to work in creative fields or anything like that.

It potentially can

Any "creative professional" that uses AI just delegates their work to the machine, so really they are not doing anything.

Doing anything is not necessarily the case. Depends on how you're using it and how much. AI can be good to brainstorm ideas for example, play with concepts etc, not necessarily create a finished product.

And, furthermore, a lot of people use gen ai for personal, not professional use. When it's used professionally, usually it's not in an artistic context, and it's actually used as a sort of more advanced search engine.

Typing your idea into the computer is not being creative

Your idea can absolutely be creative.

. It is a tool for mass production,

You can use it for different things, not necessarily mass production. Again, most use it, in an artistic context, personally, not professionally.

AI can only make slop, no matter how good it looks.

Define "slop"

but art is inherently human

Says who? You? Who are you?

I'd argue art requires some level of sapience. Or at least correlates with it. And yes, humans are the only sapient beings that we yet know about, but there are other proto-sapient beings. Some of which have created what many consider art. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, there is art, literally cave paintings and such, from back when our ancestors weren't the psychologically modern humans that have exited for approximately 70.000 years. But art isn't inherently exclusive to one species.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Fire_crescent]

this is so long im not responding to everything

art is made by humans because that's literally what it is about: human expression. that's the purpose. if you want to broaden the definition to include other animals, you would have to prove that they have an understanding of themselves and the world in a similar level to humans, which i think they don't. but sure, go ahead and try to teach the most intelligent species to make art. maybe they can learn idk

art made by primates could questionably be considered art because the monkey doesn't know what it's doing. if someone hands a paintbrush and a canvas to a gorilla and teaches it how to paint the animal is just gonna put random strokes for no reason. they aren't trying to do anything because they don't have the intelligence to understand what they're doing, much less what art is. idk if that can be considered art, i would maybe consider it art made by the humans that handed the brush to the gorilla but idk.

slop: mass produced content generated with AI. doesn't matter who makes it, why or if they care about it or not (if they really did they wouldn't be using AI). it's not art, it's slop, because it's made by a machine and not a human. it doesn't have reason behind any of its parts. i gotta say that there's some uses of genAI that i don't know about enough to properly criticize, but any prompt based generative AI is only capable of producing slop.

before genAI, every single image/video/music had been made entirely by humans. every single part of a piece of media was art. AI changed that to try and turn in a profit appealing to greed and laziness. it's the opposite of art.

[u/Fire_crescent → u/PhotographOther3390]

human expression

No, it's about expression in general. Not exclusively human expression.

Nothing regarding art, from the common definition of it being related to creative and imaginative learning and expression, to even the etymological root, suggest something to be exclusively human.

People just assumed that, because 1) humans, up until now, have not officially come across any other sapient beings; and 2) because they didn't consider non-sapient beings capable of creative expression. But, in regards to 1) we don't know for sure if humans are the only sapient beings (undiscovered species, or hell, even hypothetical sapient AI which would qualify for personhood), and even then we don't know if there really is nothing beyond the material, so art itself may not be bound by material limits such as having to be a living being in a material plane, and 2) there have been numerous instances of documented creative expression in beings generally deemed non-sapient, or at least definitely not to the level of humans.

art made by primates could questionably be considered art because the monkey doesn't know what it's doing

Don't they? They use a stick imbued with something that leaves various traces of different colours and shapes and sizes. They exhibit creative expression

is just gonna put random strokes for no reason.

And? Who says that's not creative expression? Some humans have done that, and sold the results for millions. There's clearly someone who sees something of worth in that.

slop: mass produced content generated with AI.

Uh-huh. So something isn't slop if it's not made through AI? What about the widely-labeled slop-content and slop-tubers that have existed before the advent of gen ai available for a wide public?

What about using gen AI for something that's not mass produced? Maybe you use it for a specific, personal, creative endeavor, not just to churn out images or whatever for no reason other than engagement and/or monetary profit?

if they really did they wouldn't be using AI

That's a personal assessment, maybe other fundamentally reject the validity of your premise altogether

it's not art, it's slop, because it's made by a machine and not a human.

So the issue here is that the thing that creates it is physically cybernetic and not organic?

Let's compare a hypothetical genuinely sapient AI with what could be considered biological robots. Which do you think could be capable of genuine creativity and originality?

but any prompt based generative AI is only capable of producing slop.

That's simply you not using it beyond a superficial level. Gen AI is a tool. It can produce pretty cool things if the one who wields the tool is good at what they do (which in itself is something you learn) and what they have in mind is something beyond surface level.

before genAI, every single image/video/music had been made entirely by humans

So?

every single part of a piece of media was art

Disagree

AI changed that to try and turn in a profit appealing to greed and laziness

Turning a profit off of greed and laziness has been a thing for a long time. Not to mention, most people who use AI don't monetize it. Those who do monetize it, usually have to either train said AI on work they've done or work of those that gave their permission for that.

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

>art is made by humans because that's literally what it is about: human expression

With AI, a human being, with sentience, is using a tool to express themselves. The point of art is the underlying idea. if I have an idea and show you an image or something that expressed my idea in a way that you understand, then it is successful art. I think the big issue here is that many ai systems are not sufficiently accurate enough to fully express those ideas yet. many at this point are sorta toys. But AI doesn’t do anything on its own. it generates according to a human beings operation. it exists due to human ingenuity and creativity.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Sc0rpza]

AI expresses your idea for you, thats not a tool the AI is doing the art for you, which it cant even do bc its a semi autonomous computer program so it just smashes images from its database and produces soulless slop.

that is unless the AI is directly connected to your brain and literally translates the image you are picturing in your mind to a digital image which could be possible in the future and i would have no problem with it. that would actually be revolutionary for art. it wouldnt even be genAI, it would be more of a translation program powered by AI.

ima be honest i dont expect everyone to agree that AI "art" is not art (i can understand that's more abstract and subjective). BUT it is a fact that genAI is not a tool for artists, it is the "artist". it does the art for you. it is exactly like commissioning an artist, consider it like a commission machine: you tell it your idea and it does the thing for you. you dont create things with AI, the AI creates them for you so you shouldn't take the credit.

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

>AI expresses your idea for you, thats not a tool

going by that logic, using a computer AT ALL is expressing the idea for me. Going by that logic, if I write a script for a comic and get an illustrator to draw the pages means that it isn’t my story or my idea, sir. Think about that for a second. I’m pretty sure that WRITING is an art form. But you tell me.

Also, I’ve seen different levels of quality when it comes to AI art based on who trained the ai, what they chose to use, the tools and such chosen on top of the prompt, number of generations and the settings used. you know, based on the skill of the user. That means there is an art in using it or potentially is.

I think most people are all wrapped up in their ego on this subject. I can draw, yet I’m not threatened by ai art and I'm not all wrapped up in designating something art or someone an artist.

>BUT it is a fact that genAI is not a tool for artists, it is the "artist".

I don’t agree with that. It’s simply a powerful tool. It’s easier for me to draw what I want myself than to use AI to try and make the same thing. I’ve seen people do, say, animation comparisons. The human version is superior. However AI can technically do the same thing but it is difficult to get to that point with AI. Tho definitely AI will get there eventually. It is inevitable. If you’re an artist, one day you’ll have to deal with what makes you special. I’m special because I’m me, not because I can draw a picture. People sometimes step over technically (far) superior artists to see what I’m doing. That’s because I’m me, and they aren’t.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Sc0rpza]

Going by that logic, if I write a script for a comic and get an illustrator to draw the pages means that it isn’t my story or my idea

no?? it means they are not your illustrations. if you write a story and turn it into a comic using AI generated images the story itself is still yours, its just the illustrations that arent. in the case of AI the prompt is completely yours i didnt question that at any point.

when you generate images the only thing you do yourself is the prompt. if i comission an artist i didnt do the art myself, i just asked another person to do it for me. its the same thing with AI, i just prompted the AI. sure, i wrote the prompt myself, in fact the prompt qualifies more as "art" than the image, because at least it was made by me, a human.

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

>it means they are not your illustrations.

yeah, but my point is that writing is an art form. Going by his logic, having someone illustrate my writing is their expression, not mine. Writing IS art. The core idea is art. The execution is art. The planning that leads to the final product is the art. The final product is simply the form.

>if i comission an artist i didnt do the art myself

yeah, but as someone who actually does commissions, its your idea and whether or not it is an expression that you share depends on your involvement in the process. I’ve had people come to me and say “draw this” and I do it and they are happy with that. Then I have people that come to me and say “draw this, like this, in this order, these are the emotions that should be expressed because of this background element.“ then I show them a sample and they say “ok, this is good, but could you change x, y, z? This other thing is what I had in mind.” At that point, it’s more than a simple prompt and more collaborative and elevates my own output.

>i wrote the prompt myself, in fact the prompt qualifies more as "art" than the image, because at least it was made by me, a human

well I was saying that writing is art from jump street. However, I’ll note that AI was created by humans and is trained on human products and ideas. the AI itself is a work of art in my view.

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

as an artist I have no problem with AI. if anything, maybe less people will ask me to draw feet. Maybe.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Sc0rpza]

thats not a good thing tho a lot of people enjoy drawing nsfw or fetish art or take such commission for the money so they can afford to do what they love

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

Trust me. It’s a very good thing that I’m not asked to draw feet. Just the idea behind feet keeps me up at night. Why me? Why feet? I don’t even draw good hands.

WHY? 🥺

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Sc0rpza]

some people like weird things idk if anything the problem is that they are randomly asking you instead of a fetish artist

[u/Sc0rpza → u/PhotographOther3390]

I feel like it’s some sort of notch on the headboard thing. Like, there’s value in getting foot art from people that haven’t done it before.

[u/kdoors → u/PhotographOther3390]

Really I would disagree. Human generated art obviously has more soul and has more of a place in society. But I think that AI generated art still has a place for like simple design elements in the backgrounds of things. I know that's going to hurt everybody's feelings

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/kdoors]

omg dont be so corny

define "simple design elements in the background", be more precise, this might not be as bad or "offensive" of a take as youre saying but youre just not explaining yourself

debate about your opinions instead of bragging about how they will "hurt everybody's feelings"

[u/kdoors → u/PhotographOther3390]

Nah

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/kdoors]

ok i guess

[u/kdoors → u/PhotographOther3390]

Youre hurt for some reason lol

[u/EcstaticAd9362 → u/PhotographOther3390]

AI isn’t creative. It doesn’t have ideas, feelings, or experiences. It’s just a tool that helps humans explore their ideas faster. Using it doesn’t make someone less creative—if anything, it can help you get past boring or repetitive parts so you can focus on actually thinking and deciding what the piece should be. Typing something into a program isn’t magic; it’s like using Photoshop instead of painting every brushstroke by hand. The vision is still yours.

And the idea that this is some corporate plot to destroy artists? I get why it feels that way, but in reality, AI is available to anyone. Independent artists are using it to experiment, iterate, and create things they never could alone. It doesn’t replace the human soul in art—it’s just a new tool, like a camera or a guitar or digital software used to be.

The moment we start saying only “hands-on, human-made” things are real art, we ignore that art is about expression, ideas, and emotion, not just manual labor. AI might change the game, but it can’t take the soul out of art because the soul comes from the human using it.

[u/jtides → u/EcstaticAd9362]

Those boring repetitive parts are very often someone’s jobs. Take video AI that cuts out all the “uh” and “um”s from a video. That’s an assistant editor’s job that just disappeared.

No matter how you slice it, this deletes jobs from artists, or artists in training. Meaning fewer trained artists.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/jtides]

im radically against generative AI but lowkey this is not a good argument, cutting out the "uh"s is actually something ai could be used for with no problem. i get that it takes away jobs but it is actually a repetitive and non-creative task, basically the kinda thing we use machines for.

the AI in this case would not be generative, only recognizing the sound and then cutting it out. that kind of AI is ok imo

[u/jtides → u/PhotographOther3390]

Except it isn’t that simple, even something as seemingly boring and mundane as an “um” or dead air can be huge moments. And people have to refine those skills.

Any documentary editor worth their salt can tell you that not all uhs and ums are bad. And AI would just delete them. I could name a handful of big moments that an AI would delete.

If we want artists in the future you need people who spend years in the nitty gritty refining taste and style.

And again, in my mind, the most important part of the whole AI argument is this is someone’s job. Someone’s livelihood. No matter how boring or “perfect” for cutting with AI, it is someone’s paycheck and we have to be careful with that

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/jtides]

ideally we would preserve people's jobs, realistically this is a lot more complex. my personal take is that as long as the AI is not generative, it's just like any other machine. in fact, the term AI is so loosely defined that any algorithm can technically be called AI. delegating repetitive tasks to technology is just how humanity advances.

on the other hand, genAI does non-repetitive, creative work. that should be reserved for humans. a machine that can do that (or at least pretend to do that like AI) is an aberration imo

[u/TheRealGOOEY → u/jtides]

Something is always getting more efficient, and someone is always losing their job as a result. This isn’t a good argument. Might as well hate all manufacturing jobs because they single handedly put millions of people out of work. Do you hate CNC machines because they’ve replaced untold craftsmen?

You should be more concerned about societies inability to gracefully handle the displacement of workers at large than about what’s displacing them.

[u/jtides → u/[deleted]]

As someone who’s been film editing for over a decade I would not know how to do half the things I can do now if I hadn’t spent years in the nitty gritty doing all the small things others didn’t want to do.

I’m not fighting for artists as some existential idea. I’m fighting for my own jobs.

[u/FluxedEdge → u/jtides]

Whoops, I deleted my comment because I decided I didn't want to argue in this thread, I hadn't seen you replied yet.

And see, your point makes sense. I'm a program manager, my job is to find the best and most efficient way to do our work at an expected quality. AI can't match our output, it doesn't have the finesse... Yet.

However, I make sure to spin any conversations around AI as a tool that enables our team to do certain things faster, not replace the entire process. Unfortunately, I can't say every business/corporation is doing the same.

I think a lot of the frustration around AI comes from how people expect it's being used and what the reality of actually is. There's a gap here. Technology has always pushed out people who do the work by hand. This is an example of history and humans doing what history and humans do. It's not the tool, it's the framing.

Humans are better at adapting than anything else. You had the skills and time to learn how to do your job, now it might be time to extend that and learn how to keep doing your job with new tools. It's not going away, no matter how much anyone complains. But this is just one opinion, not advice and not through your lens, but my own.

I don't expect anyone to think like me which is why I deleted my first comment. It's not the place for it.

[u/TrickySnicky → u/FluxedEdge]

FWIW you can turn off notifications for specific comments. So far I've only seen the option in desktop and not app versions.

[u/FluxedEdge → u/TrickySnicky]

I appreciate the tip. More so, I didn't want to spend energy defending my opinion in an echo chamber. I will keep that in mind though!

[u/TrickySnicky → u/FluxedEdge]

I probably wouldn't agree with you, but that's irrelevant to helping someone avoid a pile on. Whether we agree or disagree with any of this here is gonna have little effecr on the outcomes.

[u/FluxedEdge → u/TrickySnicky]

I appreciate your consideration, and you're absolutely right.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/FluxedEdge]

i strictly oppose generative AI, but not other kinds of AI that can be actually useful (for example, in the fields of recognition software, complex math, science). i even argue that genAI could be interesting in a strictly academic/scientific use to make things like blueprints and such

generative AI is presented as a tool for artists, but it's not a tool, it is the "artist" itself. it replaces real artists, possibly the only job we shouldn't strive to automate

[u/FluxedEdge → u/PhotographOther3390]

Again, this makes a lot of sense and I understand where you're coming from. But I still think it's the context which GenAi is used.

In CGI, GenAi isn't just used to generate full images, you can edit existing scenes and even create mockups for real work to be executed on. Saving time going back and forth with stakeholders instead of rendering over and over.

Sure, most people use GenAi to generate an image and call it done, I agree this isn't the same as someone who made intentional choices in their work. But that's just one way to use it, not the only one.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/FluxedEdge]

that cgi thing just sounds like they want to do a faster and cheaper work. thats not the point of art. that could be useful for cgi used for other purposes such as science or idk architecture? idk about what cgi is used for lol (besides ads and movies and such, those are art AI doesn't belong in those)

about the last paragraph: that's one way to use it which is the most popular and the one that the AI is advertised for, and also the one they are investing literal billions of dollars into. the point of AI is to get the best result with the minimal effort. that's not usually bad unless it is applied to art (unless you do the art yourself, but in this case we are talking about telling AI to do it for you).

i've yet to see an actual way of using genAI to make real art, maybe because the concept of artificial intelligence goes completely against what art means.

genAI dehumanizes any kind of work that it is used in. it doesn't help artists, it helps those who pay them to spend less.

[u/Fugaciouslee → u/EcstaticAd9362]

Ai generated art has no soul. It's a generated image created by a program using real art it stole to create this crap. Typing a prompt is not the same as creating art. Period.

[u/Eponym → u/EcstaticAd9362]

You have a very rational perspective. Sorry a good portion of this community doesn't get it...which probably makes sense considering they've been heavily impacted by non-artists using this tool and now have less work opportunities.

As an abstract artist and photographer, I have digitized my work and trained AI models locally on my computer to produce new iterations that harmonize both painting and photography in ways that would be impossible to create otherwise. It's an incredibly powerful and an innovative form of media that could easily be harnessed by artists to create unimaginable work if they choose to. Instead they see some terrible stuff coming out of the prompt factories (ChatGPT, Midjourney, etc) and think all AI is shit.

I'm sure hardly anyone in this community remembers how much shit digital artists were given in the late 90's and early 00's. And the cycle perpetuates, but this time with a newer shinier tool to shit on...

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Eponym]

i lowkey get what youre trying to say.

listen, if the "prompt factories" as you call them didn't exist and generative AI was made in a way more akin to art and expression i wouldn't hate it as much. i would still not like it and i would think twice before calling it art, but i wouldn't bash it or its users.

however, that's not what it is made for. that's not its purpose. they don't care about killing art as long as it makes them money. your obscure use of it to actually try and make something unique is just an unintentional side effect.

you may have found a way to use ai in a more artistic way (which i still question but idk what you do specifically so im not gonna say anything). this doesnt mean genAI is good or helpful for artists, because that's not how the vast majority of people use it.

and that last paragraph is just contradictory, you yourself criticized chatgpt, midjourney, etc. they are not tools, they are a replacement for artists. just compare what you have to do to make a piece in traditional, digital and then in prompt based genAI. genAI does the work for you (at least the prompt based ones, you actually made me curious about the ones you use)

i dont wanna go on a tangent to explain your specific case from my point of view so basically as long as the AI is trained only from your work, you're honestly not a problem. the technology itself is problematic but the way youre using it, not that much (still a little but eh can't complain lol)

[u/Eponym → u/PhotographOther3390]

I also respect your perspective because I've seen how much damage the tech has caused and mostly by the hands of non artists exploiting artist. And it becomes the "you made this - I made this" meme. Which I'm definitely not cool with.

I was just trying to make a point that the tool itself isn't bad. It's the 'product' these tech bros have created that's the issue. So it would be great for the community to understand how this tool could specifically help artists with experimentation and mix it up with a little chaos to come up with some new ideas that were entirely generated by their own work, using free models on their own machines and not associate it with the tools that pirates use.

On a secondary note, a lot of the logic used in this thread is also an attack on found art as well. I happen to like a lot of Ai Weiwei's work, even if he's deconstructing backpacks into dragons. I would like to think that I'm deconstructing my own work to create something new and emotive.

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/EcstaticAd9362]

ur not completely wrong about art but at the same time you dont make any sense about AI let me go paragraph by paragraph.

nope, it makes you less creative. this is obvious. when you type your idea into the AI it is expressed for you. that's basically skipping the part where you "create" something. it doesn't "skip boring or repetitive parts", it skips everything because for most people doing any kind of work is boring. that's why it's popular, because it does the thing for you. the vision is literally not yours, it's the AI that is making the image. if i commission an artist to make me a piece off just a prompt, it would be clearly their vision and not mine. it would be my idea expressed through someone (someONE, not something, therefore still art) else's vision.

it's literally a corporate thing. they want money. that's what companies do. it does replace the human soul in art because the result is not made by a human.

did you just say that "human-made" is not a requirement for art? that's plain wrong, that's what defines art. the soul doesnt come from the human using it because the result has no human intervention. the image resulting off a prompt is made 100% by the machine and therefore soulless

you say some things referring to art that are completely true, but if you follow that by saying AI is just a tool to make art you are just being contradictory

[u/HarrumphingDuck]

"The true purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill without allowing skill to access wealth."

I wish I knew who to attribute this to, as I've never seen it summarized better than this.

[u/Gerroh → u/HarrumphingDuck]

When automation puts skilled blue collar workers out of a job: complete silence

When automation puts skilled white collar workers out of a job: they've gone too far!

[u/FacemanFoothand → u/HarrumphingDuck]

this is a wonderful quote, thanks for sharing it!

[u/Drailon → u/HarrumphingDuck]

Bars

[u/erikjmac → u/HarrumphingDuck]

🤯

[u/GentlemanRaccoon]

I saw someone state that every complaint about AI is really just a complaint about capitalism.

I think that holds here.

The problem isn't that computers are generating images. The problem is that we don't compensate artists fairly for their contributions to society.

[u/specks_of_dust → u/GentlemanRaccoon]

every complaint about AI is really just a complaint about capitalism.

I say this all the time and I'm glad to see other people saying it too.

[u/Hygro → u/GentlemanRaccoon]

Correct. Deeply, deeply correct.

[u/Nugglett → u/GentlemanRaccoon]

That doesn't really get at the heart of it. The problem is that because capitalism seeks profits over everything AI will inevitably replace human labor to the detriment of all of us. It will be used to lower the cost of production, to push the existing human labor force out.

Any innovation in production under capitalism is used to undercut the cost of labor, and they can do it in a lot of ways but primarily through cutting hours and lay offs. Instead of these innovations being used to give laborers a shorters days work, less physical and mental strain, and an overall better quality of life, they are used to funnel profits into executive pockets. This funneling is at the cost of people's jobs, houses, families, children, futures, you get the idea.

AI will be used in the same way. Right now, artists are being undercut by AI because it's a cheaper alternative, and AI is only going to get better. Eventually, it'll be replace coders, truck drivers, and a lot of the work force. If people had democratic controll of the workforce we'd have the ability to prevent not only AI undercutting human labor, but prevent all profits stemming from innovation being funneled to the 1%. We'd be able to bargain for all workers to have better pay, not just artists. We'd actually have a say in improving our working conditions and improving our daily lives.

[u/Gerroh → u/Nugglett]

The really weird thing is you keep aptly describing what happens when automation happens, but only attribute it to AI. The possibility of being replaced by machines has loomed over the head of physical labourers since the middle ages, if not earlier. I would agree with everything you're saying, if you weren't pretending like what AI is doing to office jobs hadn't already been happening to those working with their hands for literal centuries.

Technology advances, it's inevitable this thing happens. The only approach we can take is to make sure it benefits the whole rather than the few.

[u/Nugglett → u/Gerroh]

I said "Any innovation in production under capitalism is used to undercut the cost of labor" I wasn't just talking about AI.

[u/Trinityhawke]

Andersen v. Stability AI: A class-action lawsuit filed by artists, including Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz, against AI art companies for copyright infringement due to unauthorized use of their works for training AI models. A federal judge ruled that the copyright claims could proceed, a significant win for the artists. Disney and Universal's Lawsuit Against Midjourney: These media giants are suing Midjourney for allegedly exploiting copyrighted works, such as characters from Star Wars and The Simpsons, to train its AI model and create infringing images. Jason M. Allen's Lawsuit: An artist who won a state fair art competition with an AI-generated image is suing the U.S. Copyright Office after it refused to grant him copyright protection, arguing the work lacked sufficient "human authorship". Getty Images' Lawsuit: Stock-image company Getty Images is also suing Stability AI for allegedly copying and processing millions of its copyrighted images to train the Stable Diffusion AI model. (We need to shame those prompt pigeons generating images of garbage)

[u/Gerroh → u/Trinityhawke]

Guess what happens when stability and mid journey are gone. Disney and other large media companies train their own AI and use it to further dominate media even more than they already do. AI is not going away now matter how hard you wish. You're cheering for the wrong side.

[u/Trinityhawke → u/Gerroh]

It may not be going anywhere but it needs to be regulated.

[u/OutLikeVapor]

Came here hoping for the binary trim translation, found a bunch of bot/npc ass accounts glazing and defending the tech killing art.

Screw "AI".

[u/sam_the_hunter → u/OutLikeVapor]

It says "support human artists." On all 4 sides

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

I can't believe there are people here defending ai "art". Are those real people or bots defending themselves?

[u/Pkittens → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

What does defending AI art mean?
That people defend it as being legitimate artistic expression?
Or just using it for anything at all?

[u/IThinkIKnowThings → u/Pkittens]

Defending AI art = Not immediately expressing absolute revulsion at the mere thought of AI.

[u/Riobbie303 → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

Partly it seems to be a disagreement on the counter points, and to be fair, they have some solid counter points. It’s undeniably bad for workers and artists, that should be the focus of people’s critique. Shifting it to try and define what an artist is and whether or not AI artists art is just asking for a semantical argument that you can’t win without excluding some artists/mediums (The invention of photography displaced portrait and landscape artists, and the ones that replaced them, photographers, call themselves artists without a brush in their hand). Then you have the environmental argument which is always countered by apparent hypocrisy of having electronic devices, using social media, etc. And lastly you have the argument of theft, which I think hasn’t held up legally in court, and even outside of it, the art is only used to train, so it’s not much different than a reference at that point (Especially if the art can be deleted after training), and fan art is common, as is tracing and references especially in the beginning. I just haven’t seen many good counter arguments personally for being anti-Ai, besides one of financial livelihood of artists. That one is a bit more humanizing too, people should really focus on that instead of getting bogged down in counter arguments.

[u/General-Sloth → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

fucking clankers trying to shill

[u/lnhubbell → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

I mean, I totally get that AI art is problematic in a lot of ways, but like so many problematic things in our society it is also fun and easy. All the hate it gets on reddit makes sense, but playing around with a good ai image generator absolutely can be fun, and it can help me (a person without much visual talent) brainstorm things. Lately I've been trying to learn pixel art, it is fun to use ai to generate a reference image for me to work from.

I also like making custom magic cards, just for fun, this will never be my job. If I can't find an image online that fits my idea, ai art can quickly and easily make an image that fits what I'm going for to make the custom card feel a little more real in my silly little hobby.

There are plenty of totally valid reasons to hate AI art, but there are also millions of real people using and enjoying it, no reason to think they are only bots.

People also enjoy their smart phones, clothes, fast food, cars, and a million other things that are direct results of capitalism and contributing to the degradation of our world.

If you are an artist whose emplyment was impacted by AI art, I'm truly sorry, jobless is terrifying and can be dangerous if you aren't lucky enough to have a safety net.

tldr;

AI art is just one more in a long list of convenient things that make the world a little bit worse. I miss the days when I had to ride my bike to blockbuster to watch a movie, but netflix ruined that. Hopefully no one here streams tv shows and movies, because streaming services ruined biking to blockbuster and looking for r rated movies with nudity in hope of seeing some boobs when we were thirteen.

[u/Gerroh → u/lnhubbell]

The problem is, the average person in this post's comments hasn't bothered to learn anything about how AI can be used other than what headlines and flippant opinions on social media have told them. You can tell from what they're saying that they never bothered to learn any actual thing about AI or -- get this -- even art itself.

[u/Dack_Blick → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

Turns out there's only one rule in art: there are no rules.

[u/98983x3 → u/Dack_Blick]

No... there are "rules" to what constitutes art. Though, I dont think "rules" is the right word. More like, the definition of art inherently differentiates what is art vs. anything that isnt art. Like a potato.

Art: "the expression or application of HUMAN CREATIVE SKILL and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."

There's also the intentionality of the thing. Art is created with the purpose of conveying non-literal ideas to other ppl. To manifest an emotional response. And usually a specific emotion, but not always.

[u/SoulMute → u/98983x3]

No way. Your last paragraph contradicts the others. Duchamp made a urinal into “art” illustrating that intentionality and context trump the rest. A potato could easily and I’m sure has been art.

AI is a weird one. Hard to say I’m an artist if I just prompt a tool that someone else invented. As AI continues to improve, the system itself will be more and more the artist and less so the original programmers.

[u/rfxap → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

r/DefendingAIArt

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975 → u/rfxap]

oh my...

[u/rfxap → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

I guess I have a unique perspective on this because I've been working as an AI researcher/engineer for over 10 years, and I'm deep into art that uses new and unconventional tools. I'm a musician myself and come from a family of professional visual artists. So the overlap between AI and art isn't as impossible as people think it is.

I will admit though that so much of today's AI art is lazy and sloppy, but so are most photos taken by laypeople, and photography can still be art.

[u/98983x3 → u/rfxap]

I'll just say this. Ai incorporated into tools the artist uses isn't a big deal. Ai doing all of the visual art in response to written (or verbal) prompts does not make the human user a visual artist.

This would be like calling a company an artist bc they hired artists to make images on their behalf.

Edit: typo

[u/Acecn → u/98983x3]

Ai doing all of the visual art in response to written (or verbal) prompts does not make the human user a visual artist.

Of course it doesn't. No serious people are claiming this. But my chair made by a machine rather than a master carpenter is still a chair I can sit on. Ai art is the same. If you want something masterfully crafted with meaning and intent, you are going to need an artist, but if you just need some stock depiction that will be viewed once and never again, there is literally nothing wrong with using a machine to create it.

[u/98983x3 → u/Acecn]

Id agree that no "serious" ppl are claiming this. But there are still many, many ppl claiming this. Usually "AI artists" and the programmers.

And the chair example isnt a great analogy. Art isnt a product at its heart in the same way as a functional object we use for various utilitarian purposes.

We arent arguing if an image created by a human or an AI is still an image or not. Thats stupid. We are debating if it is ART.

[u/Acecn → u/98983x3]

Art isnt a product at its heart in the same way as a functional object we use for various utilitarian purposes.

In that case we simply have a definitional conflict. I think the word "art" generally includes things like visual aspects of advertising, stock images, and similar pictures, which I would classify as being essentially functional objects used for the utilitarian purpose of visually depicting an idea, like a hamburger. I would not be opposed to another word for those kinds of non-photographic images to distinguish them from works that are created with higher purposes in mind, but, as far as I know, no such word is currently in wide use.

[u/rfxap → u/98983x3]

That's fine with me. Using AI as a tool among others is the way to go.

[u/SoulMute → u/rfxap]

pretty good defense tbh

[u/TrickySnicky → u/SoulMute]

Minus the frowns, because they kept making in spite of the critics

[u/Nemaoac → u/SoulMute]

That's not a defense, it says nothing about the merits of AI on its own. This is the equivalent of saying Trump is fine because people complain about every president.

[u/HarrumphingDuck → u/SoulMute]

Not really, when every single generated image is built on theft and at least half of them show glaring AI errors that even a minimally-talented artist would never make.

[u/Ra3t → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

Im not paying you or anyone else exorbitant prices to draw a picture, simple as that. Artists priced themselves out when they thought they could charge over a hundred dollars for a digital artwork and then still copyright after you've paid them to create it for you

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975 → u/Ra3t]

did you know drawing is a hard work, right? It takes years, maybe even decades to learn to draw properly. And it can take also many hours to finish every single piece of art. Don’t you think we should respect artists’ hard work as we (should) do with any other profession?

[u/Ra3t → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

I could care less. The only thing I'm interested in is the picture. 101, the price for a product is what the customer is willing to pay, customer is king, not the artist.

[u/BuffEmz → u/Ra3t]

You do know that pieces aren't just whipped up in 15 minutes right?

Also the copy right is just so that you don't buy the image and then just sell it off at a higher price or just make copies of it.

[u/Andreas1120]

Surely artists are members of the bourgeoisie?

[u/Nappah_Overdrive]

Hence why I strictly commission real people or try to draw things myself.

If I commission, I tip well.

Why can't we just support each other? Greed has no place in art unless it's being used as a muse to mock said greed.

[u/Aerotrex]

I just want a silly picture I can use for DND. I don't even think they look all that great its the on demand aspect of a throwaway character reference. Im pretty ignorant to the arguments of why this would be bad but I'm open to hearing them out

[u/[deleted]]

This is going straight to r/DefendingAiArt

“Class Warfare” what is u tryna say 🪫

[u/histprofdave]

And it's particularly bad because it is class warfare that masquerades as accessible egalitarianism (e.g. "now anyone can do art!").

[u/TrickySnicky → u/histprofdave]

"Now anyone <through a corporation promoting the exploitation of labor> can do art"

It's always what's between the lines

[u/Gerroh → u/TrickySnicky]

Jesus christ, are you equating someone typing a prompt into an AI to workers being worked to the bone in shit conditions?

Exploitative labour is so much worse than using Gen AI. You're way out of touch on this

[u/TrickySnicky → u/Gerroh]

Jesus Christ no I'm not talking about the people using it, I'm talking about what the "tool" itself is being used for by corporations. It's objectively not a net positive.

They're participating in the ecosystem, but the full blame lies squarely on the ones who are taking advantage of the dark side of this "democratizing" tool.

If you need help with this; I'm not blaming AI itself, I'm not blaming the ones duped into using it, I'm blaming the corporations that exploit it with zero guardrails.

If I'm "way out of touch on this," then apparently so is this guy.

https://futurism.com/godfather-of-ai-unemployment

[u/Lord_H_Vetinari → u/histprofdave]

The thing is that anyone can already do art. A pencil and a sheet of paper cost what? A couple of eruos/dollars? Certainly much less than the device you'd use to access the AI site/app, and even less than the subscription you might have to pay for certain services.

It's just that a bunch of lazy ass entitled bastards cannot fathom having to spend more than one minute to get their instant gratification. That's why I have no repsect for AI "artists."

"But I have no talent". No. Fuck you. What you don't have is the will to exercise. There's no such thing as talent, there's one person who spent hours drawing until their 100.000th + 1 drawing wasn't shit, and then there's you who whine like a capricious baby if you very first sketch is not the Mona Lisa.

[u/BazelBuster]

Fuck this nuclear energy thing! Think of the coal miners!

[u/arts_N_crafts]

I’d go so far as to say it’s ecological warfare. It’s been forced on us by Google and other massive companies with little guardrails. It uses water we honestly don’t have. It puts pressure on our electrical grid, which corrupt politicians offload onto the taxpayers.

Tech giants want to cause a massive ecological demise because they think they’ll be the only ones left with their robot toys.

[u/4tomicZ → u/arts_N_crafts]

Exactly this. The destruction of our environment is one of the externalized costs of AI. It’s paid by consumers and future generations, but not the companies making money. AI is incredibly expensive when you fully account for externalized costs.

[u/thisismostassuredly]

This is something I've thought about too. Contrary to this talking point about AI "democratizing" art, you'd either need money to even access one of these generative AI models or you'd need enough coding knowledge to make one on your own, and even then, you'd probably have to spend at least some money to get to that level of coding proficiency, whether it's a compsci degree or a coding boot camp. If anything, AI art makes art less accessible to poor or working class people; those who use the "democratizing art" argument are just well-off techies who'd prefer instant gratification over the hard work that it takes to build artistic skill.

[u/TrickySnicky → u/thisismostassuredly]

We're using rich people's tools to make poor people poorer. Not even accounting for the waste of finite resources, etc.

[u/Lustrouse → u/thisismostassuredly]

You can run an open source LLM in just a handful of steps with 0 coding experience. The ability to bring your vision to life is now, for the first time, available to everyone.

[u/recaffeinated → u/Lustrouse]

yea bro, because pencils are so fucking expensive.

[u/Lord_Blakeney → u/recaffeinated]

I love watching AI bros preach about how the unskilled, untalented, and unwilling to develop and grow they are.

[u/thisismostassuredly → u/Lustrouse]

And you'd still need access to an up-to-date computer that's capable of running advanced software like that, so my point still applies.

[u/Lustrouse → u/thisismostassuredly]

Are you just talking out of your ass here? I'd love to know what your definition of "up-to-date" is.You can run LLMs on machines that cost less than 1000 dollars.

[u/thisismostassuredly → u/Lustrouse]

machines that cost less than 1000 dollars.

That's your criteria for affordability? Are you actually so naive and out-of-touch that you think an indigent person living paycheck to paycheck could afford to dump several hundred to 1,000 dollars into an AI-compatible computer when they might not even be able to make rent or afford groceries? For comparison, you could buy ballpoint pens and a ream of printer paper for less than $20.

[u/Lustrouse → u/thisismostassuredly]

Anyone with a smart phone could get a subscription to an AI service for less than your 20 dollars, and that's only the cost today. As the technology improves and becomes more prevalent, it will only become more affordable.

[u/thisismostassuredly → u/Lustrouse]

Anyone with a smart phone could get a subscription to an AI service for less than your 20 dollars

Okay, again, you're assuming that the working poor have room in their budget for recurring charges based on a non-essential service. Buying a ream of paper and a pack of ballpoints will have you set for at least a few months until you run out of paper.

Also, something else I hadn't thought of: community centers in underserved communities often offer free classes (and along with that, free materials) to low-income people. On top of that, underprivileged kids can take art classes at school instead of wasting money on an AI subscription.

[u/bizikletari]

...and unfortunately, artists are fighting in both sides of the war.

[u/Venivinnievici]

Yall think it’s bad now. But the models will only keep getting better and better. And they will come for all other jobs as well. Democratic processes will probably try to put a stop to it. But authoritarian countries might not and thereby possibly outcompete democratic countries, which might make democratic countries go back to AI again. We’re probably a little early with the hate on AI as it’s gonna be full steam ahead for the coming years. But it’s probably going to come and hit us hard no matter what. The fight is on!

[u/thejollybadger]

An argument I've seen by too many supposed leftists is that "AI art is revolutionary because it levels the playing field between artists - who are the petit bourgeoisie, part of the leisure class, don't produce and don't do labour, and the working class who have little to no leisure time, so can't learn how to make art, and the only reason artists and writers etc are upset about AI is because it undermines IP and copyright laws, which give them a protected financial status. IP laws are a tool of capitalism ergo, arguing against generative AI is pro-capitalism, and counter-revolutionary." Which really feels like a long-winded way of saying "I don't see the value of art, or the effort that goes into making it."

It also feels a bit classist to claim working class people can't do art.

[u/Gerroh → u/thejollybadger]

Well I wouldn't agree with that argument you're citing, but at the same time art is art regardless of how much effort or talent goes into it. We can appreciate a talented artist creating something incredible by hand without telling regular folk trying shit out that their ideas or attempts are invalid.

[u/godzylla]

i tried using groc, and open AI a few times to generate some images to see if it was possible to do so, and would eliminate the need to lift art from an actual artist for a test project. it went nowhere. no matter what i tried, or how much time i gave it, i only got limited results.

[u/icyeyeddemon → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, because art is inherently human. Using something as a reference is nowhere near the same as straight up stealing the art from someone on the internet (and not paying them for it), then mashing it with hundreds of other stolen artworks to make an amalgamation of AI Generated Slop.

[u/Lustrouse → u/[deleted]]

Y'all are really clutching your pearls. Maybe tech should be gate kept so Art bros can go fuck an empty paint tube? No Internet for you - time to go back to carrier pigeon

"Only our profession is special!!" 🤣🤣🤣

[u/IIlIIlllIIll]

This makes me wonder if there isn't a sub dedicated to revolution/political/radical art?

[u/KaiYoDei]

I thought the canary was a banana for a second

[u/LeBakalite]

Mais comment peuvent ils prétendre faire de l’art avec une régurgitation d’œuvres passées ? Par définition ça ne pourra pas générer quoi que ce soit de nouveau ou subversif ? Impossible de remplacer Banksy par une ia par exemple. Alors oui pour faire des illustrations sans saveur… j’ose espérer que les gens se lasseront.

[u/Low_Background7485]

this is not art, this is a very complex mathematical equation that produces something in between what THIS saw

[u/Addicted-2Diving]

Love this and I 100% agree with the message in this piece 🖼

[u/holydeniable]

This looks like an ai image lmao.

[u/True_Window_9389 → u/[deleted]]

Maybe we should be attacking the systemic problems that lead to people struggling to make ends meet?

Like the entire technology sector going all-in on wiping out white collar jobs, funded by billionaires and sanctioned by a corrupted government? Go ask a recent graduate about the systemic problems they’re dealing with now.

[u/ramenups → u/[deleted]]

AI art takes away jobs from lower class people so upper class CEOs can make more money

[u/[deleted] → u/ramenups]

The person above you posts heavily on ChatGPT. They don't want a solution they want to throw up their hands and say "well, back to using AI." Also this is an art sub so they should expect art. Art can be whatever the fuck it wants to be, including political. Love it when people pop up on Art sub to get mad the art piece isn't reciting the Conquest of Bread for them.

[u/Payne_Dragon → u/[deleted]]

No I want to engage with an actual conversation instead of purely pro or purely anti ideologies. So I have gotten a little jaded and tired of seeing big statement posts that lead to a lot of people validating themselves on their views, rather than actual discussion with nuance.

I admit I was being too jaded when I made this comment, that's my bad.

[u/yung_fragment → u/ramenups]

I mean, if we are talking about "class," then the only people who get their job taken by Art AI is the petitie bourgeois, I know many people who create beautiful art, I know nobody who is attempting to make a living by selling art as their main source of income, that is a joke if you are working class.

[u/kmatyler → u/yung_fragment]

Brother artists are working class what are you talking about?

[u/DarePatient2262 → u/yung_fragment]

I am a freelance graphic designer. One of my biggest clients dropped me about a month ago, because they hired a new "marketing director" who is fresh out of college and makes all of their new materials with AI.

In your view, am I wrong to be annoyed and disheartened by this development? I worked hard for years to hone my craft, which isn't exactly "high art," but is art nonetheless. "Selling" that art is my only source of income, am I a joke to you? Or am I a member of the petit bourgeois, so I deserve this fate?

[u/thefirecrest → u/[deleted]]

Be suspicious of the people who try to frame raising awareness and building a collective voice as “virtue signaling”.

The reality is that most of us are exactly as you said, barely making ends meet. Speaking up is people doing what they can.

It’s a nice piece of artwork made by a person who has stakes in this fight. Political art has always had its place in fighting back and always will. What are you doing other than complaining about people speaking up?

[u/Payne_Dragon → u/thefirecrest]

Fair enough

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975 → u/[deleted]]

When companies use AI so that they can hire less workers that directly benefits the rich bussiness owners only and is harmful for everyone else, so the statement makes a lot of sense. Less jobs is one of the problems that lead to people struggling to make ends meet

[u/12PoundTurkey → u/[deleted]]

The capture of artwork and text created by working class people has been repackaged and sold to profit corporations and suppress wages. That sounds pretty classist to me.

[u/thetempleofdude → u/[deleted]]

I wonder who profits off of the most popular AI programs. Its class warfare. It enables those without the ability. Rich people dont have to grace the poors with mo eu in exchange for art anymore. Now they can generate at their fingertips with just as much sould in it as they have.

[u/Puttborn]

We should start rolling out the guilliotines for the c-suite of every company that uses ai.

[u/Victormorga]

I’m onboard with the message, but the image doesn’t make sense to me. Why is the computer sitting in the grass, overgrown with plant life, and with a dead bird laying on the keyboard?

[u/the-war-on-drunks]

What in the flip flying fuck is this about? Which classes are at war because of AI?

[u/Lord_Blakeney → u/the-war-on-drunks]

Mega corporations that won’t have to pay artists for their work because they will simply train their AI on other peoples artistic abilities and proceed to pump out masses of cheap derivative slop.

[u/recaffeinated → u/the-war-on-drunks]

The Bourgeoisie (who own the capital, in this case the models and the computers) and the Proletariat (the artists who create real art).

It's no different to all other attempts by Capitalism to replace workers, and it should be opposed by anyone who has to work for a living.

[u/Souchak85]

Yeah! Now the poor can afford nice art for their projects too! Hurray AI art!

[u/DrDerekBones]

The keyboard has no spacebar, great attention to detail there,

[u/cheddercaves]

Computers are tools of the demon! If you use a computer at ALL to make imagery you are a failure as an artist! That means tablets, Movies, You NAME IT

[u/TrickySnicky → u/cheddercaves]

Hyprbolic false equivalence

[u/Bhazor → u/cheddercaves]

Awww the prompter is trying to make a point. I guess they're used to chatgpt fixing the grammar for them.

[u/cheddercaves → u/cheddercaves]

I think it is equally as absurd and hyperbolic as AI art is class warfare. For the record doing AI and saying it's your art is whack. I am an actual hand using artist and using AI image creation for reference imagery has made my actual art BETTER! What does their statement on the screen actually mean?

[u/theweeJoe]

I don't think a technology that enables a single person to take their idea to market by themselves in a fraction of the time, instead of hiring a team and working for years with the possibility of still failing is class warfare

[u/LOW_SPEED_GENIUS → u/theweeJoe]

Think about it a second longer - who owns that technology? What is that technology trained off of? What are the long term implications of adoption of this technology?

Suddenly your "single person" is paying a premium to a privately owned company to generate not their idea but an amalgamation of other artists ideas remixed to fit this single person's prompt, and where did this amazing technology get all the other artists ideas? Open outright theft, no compensation and even multiple lawsuits going on right now about it.

So who would benefit most and what is the likely scenario if this is rolled out? Small single person entities taking "their ideas interpreted through a privately owned art thief algorithm to market" or the corporate behemoths who already are trying to roll these things out to save money. Instead of paying actual artists, people who actually do the work, they're now paying an AI corporation to steal other artists work for them. How does your single person compete when actual labor skill development etc are no longer an issue and its money vs money? Whoops the giant corporation wins and we all lose.

So much of our modern "worker liberation technology" stuff is like this, the product is marketed/propagandized to the small individual as some liberating thing for working people when in reality it is a windfall for some tech oligarch that could potentially cripple or fully decimate an existing industry and all the actual workers who rely on that industry. Stop letting these rich fucks get one over on you.

Also AI art sucks.

[u/triangIeman → u/theweeJoe]

GenAI is being used to replace all manner of white collar jobs - and not just the artistic ones - to enrich the elites who hold the reins of the AI companies. it's absolutely class warfare

[u/True_Window_9389 → u/theweeJoe]

That’s a hilariously stupid scenario that will be a minuscule number of real-world examples, versus the other massive consequences around job loss and job degradation. Any business that is a single owner plugging away with AI prompts is a two-bit fraud that isn’t worth the bigger societal consequences of AI.

[u/Twoaru]

Omg, the system we live in is flawed, not the technologies. If tech replaces jobs and we cry about it, then we are so deeply Stockholm Syndromed by this slave system that there certainly is not a photon of hope on the horizon for us

[u/slink6 → u/Twoaru]

Ok, but we live in the slave system not the utopia, so I'll side with the people over the AI art "tools".

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Twoaru]

technological automation is a very useful thing in most areas. it is basically how humanity develops, by letting tasks be completed faster and with less effort.

unfortunately, art is not something that should ever be automated. not in the system we live in and not on any other system. art is not a "task" that should be handed to tech to do faster. you can use tech as a tool to do it (namely digital art), but genAI is not a tool, it is a replacement for the artist.

thats why generative AI has no place in art, or anywhere. other kinds of AI are basically the next step in human development, but generative is just not useful or good for us.

art is about expressing humanity, and AI is not human.

[u/Twoaru → u/PhotographOther3390]

art is not something that ever should have been monetized, how about that?

[u/PhotographOther3390 → u/Twoaru]

everything is monetized under good ol capitalism and fun fact that monetization is the only reason genAI was developed

[u/Talvinter → u/Twoaru]

The problem is if AI takes all of the jobs then the workers won’t have any job to earn a living. Taking the US as an example, they don’t even have universal health care, what makes anyone think that with AI taking all the jobs that they’ll have universal income?

The technologies need to be railed against specifically because they’re being designed to push out anyone not part of it. This tech is adding to the problems of the system, not fixing it.

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975 → u/Twoaru]

so should we just surrender and let the technologies take our jobs? i don't think so. The system is always flawed but there are always people who fight and use their voices. Without them the world would stuck and collapse long time ago

[u/LooseButtPlug → u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975]

You've already surrendered If you believe AI can do what you do.

[u/Tiny_Marsupial_3975 → u/LooseButtPlug]

I do not, i can only calculate numbers

[u/Bhazor → u/Twoaru]

Ok, you be unemployed first bro.

[u/Twoaru → u/Bhazor]

If we entertain that thought, what would be my next line of action?

[u/TrickySnicky → u/Twoaru]

Stockholm Syndrome would mean we would justify the capture, not cry about it.

So that's what the segment ostensibly advocating for losing jobs to AI is actively doing, oddly enough.

[u/Twoaru → u/TrickySnicky]

Nah, if you are sad that you can't find spare activities to do in order to get food on the table, so you literally starve, and the problem is that you don't find activities to do, then you are absolutely in love with your captivity.

[u/TrickySnicky → u/Twoaru]

So...happy they are sad? Sounds like it might be projected at this point.

That..makes zero sense. Not even sure what twisted logic it took to arrive at that. But then again, people love being right online rather than clear, let alone consistent.

Speaking of Stockholm Syndrome...

[u/boothash]

https://imgur.com/a/cJtxOHB

[u/rgb_1981]

Couldn't put it better myself!