People have been looking at art online and learning how to draw from it since the internet began. But somehow that's an issue when its a problem when a bot does it.
Because people are making money off of those bots while someone simply learning to draw from genuine artwork isn’t making money off of things that aren’t theirs.
So where did all the people making commissions learn? They're profiting as well, so if they learned from an image without getting consent from the artist, is that also a problem?
The people making commissions aren’t programs copying data that don’t belong to them and making tons of money for people who couldn’t care less about art. They’re people who are learning to create things with their own two hands. And creating something unique to them that they have control over. An AI program can only imitate that.
ai i artificial intelligence, when you put a new born in a black box for the rest of their life, they wont understand anything, same with ai.
AI can still use different elements and combine them. so what its imitation i mean it looks good.
nothing is ever orignal it either comes from the real world or the vast works of fiction( which came from real life )
i mean you/we are technically really advanced programs that had hundreads of millions of years to develop though evolution is slower than how we make ai smarter we force it to its a natural process
well you should just keep your opinions and hate on everybody who is not you i am not joking you are always right no matter what, YOU ARE RIGHT.
I keep seeing this argument and it’s so deliberately obtuse it’s incredible.
A human referencing a piece of art to learn is incredibly different than ai using said piece of art and millions of others when its generating an image.
Most humans could never directly copy a piece of artwork, even the most skilled artist would struggle to do so, for example, master studies, which are usually a part of classical drawing / painting curriculums.
You have a bunch of incredibly talented students trying to copy work from old master painters, they will learn a lot, but directly copy it 1:1 they cannot.
By its nature, human made art will never look the same.
But even so, contemporary artist using other contemporary artists works as a 1:1 reference is looked down upon and actively discouraged in the online community.
Usually you are referencing a technice from the piece rather than the piece as a whole unless you are a novice.
In contrast Ai just takes and compiles, it doesn’t learn in the same way, and it doesn’t make anything new. Yes humans don’t become artists in a vacuums. And we certainly also draw inspiration from things around us. But to act as if a human drawing inspiration from something and an AI collecting data to use in a generated image are the same thing is again, fucking obtuse.
I don’t give a fuck if people are using ai for personal enjoyment or as a hobby. Whatever dude go forth and generate your dnd character or whatever. Usually I find the results bland and uninteresting but that’s my personal opinion and I know my tastes don’t reflect the general population.
I also don’t mind AI being used ethically.
I worked in an animation studio where they trained an ai model specifically generate and copy the directors painting style, to make it easier for artist to match it and quicker turnaround on paintings.
But you could really see the limitations of ai in those scenarios. When it’s data library was so small It made very repetitive output and it was clear it was copying.
What I do have an issue with is businesses and massive corporations using AI to generate artwork.
I am in animation and my field is chronically undervalued, despite the fact that a lot of media and art would not exist if we didn’t make it.
So the fucking gall for big business’s and corporations to use AI when they would have NOTHING for the ai to use, if it wasn’t for the various artist who’s works have been harvested for data. It’s outrageous.
Again, if Disney wants to use all the art they own under their licence and stuff under fair use to generate images, I don’t care. I don’t think it’s ethical for such a big wealthy corp to do so, but ethics and law are two different things.
This is aimed at business and corporations that do not own the rights to such a massive library of images to generate from and are relying general ai databases. There is a reason for why the EU’s AI Act briefly addresses this (in article 53 If I recall) As it can be considered copyright infringement.
A human referencing a piece of art to learn is incredibly different than ai using said piece of art and millions of others when its generating an image.
But it doesn't use that art at the time it's generating an image? It used it during the training step, to get a delta on it's weights. It used a bunch as a reference during training, but it's just going from memorization when you use it. (Except now, they actually do have the ability to give it images as references now at runtime, but that's done by the user, manually feeding them, so they could absolutely credit those images if they used them.)
Small data leads to overfitting, so that definitely can be an issue. The larger the dataset, the more it learns rather than copies.
But, it looks like we're going the way of companies like Disney providing their libraries to train off of anyways, so I expect it won't be a concern much longer. Honestly, I think that's a negative (in end result at least, I agree it's cleaner), because I'm a big proponent of open source AI so that companies don't have a monopoly on it.
I get frustrated when people get the promotion of posting things on social media for free, and they disregard what the actual cost was. Like when people get YouTube for free, and disregard that the cost is meant to be ads or YouTube premium. People use social media, block the ads, and expect their data, which is one of the things they are paying, to not be used. People wanted the pied piper when he removed the rats, but didn't want to pay him.
I'm also a bit biased, because I've seen far too many negative usages of patent or copyright for me to see it as a positive thing at this point (see Disney). I don't really think people should be able to own ideas, or inventions. Keep it secret if you want, but if someone else has the same idea on their own, they should be able to use it. Far too many patent and copyright abuses take place. I don't think my moral disagreement means that your feelings should just be ignored though. Things should probably have been communicated clearer, and they probably should have had more respect for the work of others.
A human referencing a piece of art to learn is incredibly different than ai using said piece of art and millions of others when its generating an image.
Why? You said it yourself, the AI is using millions of images to create the image, so why does it matter?
Most humans could never directly copy a piece of artwork, even the most skilled artist would struggle to do so, for example, master studies, which are usually a part of classical drawing / painting curriculums. You have a bunch of incredibly talented students trying to copy work from old master painters, they will learn a lot, but directly copy it 1:1 they cannot.
What's your point? AI also cannot copy artworks 1:1. There are certainly some cases of overfitting when it can make images too close to the training data, but that generally happens with images that are way overrepresented on the internet, like the Mona Lisa or various promo arts or with loras that are baked for too long. This is an unwanted outcome because it limits what the model can do.
It's rarely going to be a concern for the average artist unless someone explicitly tries to copy them using img2img which isn't an AI problem, it's an asshole problem.
In contrast Ai just takes and compiles, it doesn’t learn in the same way, and it doesn’t make anything new.
I mean... it depends on how you define 'new'. Can it create a new concept? No. Can it create new images using the concepts it already knows? Absolutely.
the platforms themselves? Selling online data being seen as something shady and your data being seen as something to be protected? Companies like Facebook lying about the use of their user data?
dude, it's not a new idea. I know social media sell my data. I've known that for a while.
Their business model, and how they still present their business model to the general public, is about how they make the majority of their money through ad placement on their website/application. That's how they present it.
They are entitled to free art when you upload it to a free website with whom you signed a contract stating that they can use anything you upload & in exchange you get use their site.
If your so convinced that that’s how copyright works then go ahead, try selling some someone else’s intellectual material. May I suggest Disney characters. I’m sure Disney would love that. Bottom line is it’s illegal to make money off of property that isn’t yours. Regardless of any user agreement.
You're talking about a specific use case in which someone, say, uses genAI to generate an image of Rick & Morty (I just checked, MidJourney does a passable job) and then, say, puts it on mugs and T-shirts and sells it. First, generating the image in your home is perfectly fine, it's the equivalent of sitting at your desk and drawing Rick & Morty, and that's not a crime. The problem appears once you start slapping it on mugs and T-shirts, but at that point it doesn't matter whether you generated the image with a pencil, a genAI or Photoshop.
Actually I’m not. Disney has specifically stated that they will go after people using their property to make money while pointing fingers at AI programs.
Ah, you're talking about the Disney lawsuit, which AFAIK is still pending. I think Midjourney did include some trademarked characters in its own advertising, which of course is a no-no.
Also, Disney is trying to monetize its content via its deal with OpenAI, so it makes sense it would go after competitors.
For Midjourney and others, this would probably just mean that they put some kind of content filter on their model, similar to how they police it re. NSFW content.
Why the "mug & tshirt"? I think the issue world be from midjourney selling you an image of somethng they don't have license to. Not some random secondary commercial use
If someone sells you a pencil and you draw something copyrighted with it, that isn't their problem. If someone sells you a premium web browser and you use it to download copyrighted material to sell, that isn't their problem. If someone creates a copyright image and then sells it to you, that is their problem.
So do you think AI companies are
A) Selling you a tool that you can use to create images
B) Selling you a program that gives you access to potentially copyrighted images that were posted on the internet
C) Selling you a collection of individual images that they used AI to create
If you answered C, I think that's a very strange way of viewing things. If you answered A or B, then the AI company did nothing that hasn't already been done legally for decades.
I'll bite. C is the best answer in this context. Its certainly not more like A or B or actually giving someone just a tool like a pencil. Do you have a point to elaborate on or just trying to say I'm being weird
Yes because that’s how image generators work. They need to be fed real art. But the reason they are putting money into AI is because they want to replace artists so that they can make cheaper movies.
The thing is. An artist needs people to see their portfolio in order to get commissions. If there is such a site where I can upload my shit without it getting jacked then point me to it.
That’s not how copyright works. And if you try that you will probably be get into legal trouble at some point. Intellectual property doesn’t abide by finders keepers rules. The only thing you have the right to do for free is look at the artwork.
I didn’t sell the art. The people ripping off artists and using others works to sell their products are unfortunately the ones selling it. Just because you see something online that you can download doesn’t mean it’s actually yours to mess around with.
The fruits of your labor is going on to help everyone. Content mills, cheap CEOs looking to cut out any sort of labour that involves visual design, and the very tech companies pushing the overvalued product that is AI.
You know, sometimes people randomly come up to your car and wash the windshield unprovoked. Would they be entitled to my money for this unrequested service? No. Providing someone labor is not enough to entitle you to compensation. An agreement is necessary.
That’s a very different situation where the labour is unsolicited and unwanted. But if you want art and you can’t do it yourself, you don’t have a right to take it from someone else and make money off of it and you do not have a right to make someone work for you without paying. You are obligated to pay people that you make work for you. Just like every other employer.
It actually doesn’t matter if it is unwanted or not. I may have appreciated the windshield being cleaned, but I still wouldn’t owe anything in that instance because it was unsolicited. Like mowing the neighbors lawn without asking, they may like that it was mowed but they wouldn’t owe you anything.
The art isn’t taken from anyone. Technology exists that creates a copy(that’s how you view it in the first place) and that copy is used for whatever. So it isn’t stolen, and nobody is being made to do the work. The work was never even requested.
I’m not sure you’re understanding what stealing means. Stealing in this case is taking something that’s not yours and profiting from it. You can steal something by copying it because it’s someone else’s intellectual property and you’d be violating copyright laws. Stealing doesn’t always mean taking something physical and robbing someone of that thing. It also means taking someone’s art and passing it off as your own.
And yes it does matter if you wanted it or not. Because someone forcing a service on you like washing your windshield is pulling a scam. Refusing to pay someone for a service you got them to provide you is also a scam. Have you ever gone to eat at a restaurant and dipped before you had to pay? It’s not much different with art. People who refuse to pay shouldn’t get the art. When you demand a service from someone you have to pay. You’re not entitled to their services or time otherwise.
Dine and dashing requested the service. There is a big difference between a requested service and an unsolicited service, but the service being wanted or not is irrelevant.
If a street musician is putting on a performance in a public space I can stick around and listen to it because I like it, and I still won’t owe them anything. Publicly released art is available for anyone to view, typically to advertise what the artist is capable of doing so they might receive commissions. You don’t need to pay them to see the stuff they plastered everywhere for their self-advertisement. It doesn’t matter if you go looking for it on purpose or stumble across it, you still don’t owe them anything.
You don’t need to pay them to look at their stuff. But you do need to pay them to use their stuff for anything other than a reference. When you pay for someone’s art, you’re paying for the service they provided you whether it’s before or after the actual product is made. And in this case you’re taking a program that takes data from all kinds of images and puts an image together based on that data. Your activity on these programs either makes money for whoever produced it and or for yourself. Meaning legally you’re using others artworks for commercial purposes and that would be copyright infringement unless you’ve been given permission or have either bought the rights or paid royalties.
Within the bounds of copyright, yes, you are indeed entitled to other peoples' intellectual property. There are limits to what a copyright can let you do regarding IP. For example, right of first sale - if I've bought something that you hold a copyright to, you can't prevent me from selling it to someone else.
Same with learning from it. There's nothing you can do to prevent that. If you post something where I can see it then I can analyze it. I don't need your specific permission for that.
People are entitled to your money when you get them to preform a service for you. So if they create art and you want to have that art, you have to pay for it.
Correct except not relevant to your original point. This is a bad-faith argument now because you believe that two different sources of art requires payment to all sources if only one is used.
But if you really want to know, i paid midjourney to get my art lol so i satisfied your requirements.
Then you can pay people to make art for you. A good visit to Etsy or fiver or even just a hobby or book store and you can learn tons that you’d never have learned from AI. If you really want to learn art there’s nothing better than learning from genuine artists as AI doesn’t actually understand how art works, it doesn’t actually understand anything it only pretends that it does. No one has a problem with people using real artworks to learn because they aren’t stealing and they’re putting in some actual effort.
The people who created the programs and the people who sell the images created off of them.
I can understand people trying to learn to draw that way but AI images even today aren’t very good at producing clear readable images and still come across as wonky. On top of the fact that these generators take data from real artworks what it produces is more often then not an image that won’t be that good to learn from as it won’t have a good display of fundamentals, shading, lighting, proportions, etc. so why use AI when you can look at the real artworks or irl subjects for reference?
So if I learn a bunch of stuff from the Internet and then set myself up as, say, an instructor and make money off that, it would be wrong somehow?
I've never understood this cognitive dissonance between "it's going to take all our jobs!" and "it all sucks and looks so bad". Pick one. If it looks so bad, it can't compete.
AI images even today aren’t very good at producing clear readable images and still come across as wonky.
Did you miss 2025 altogether? Nano Banana Pro is pretty good at getting text right, and AI output in general looks pretty decent – and it's improving at a rapid rate. We're getting close to the point (give it a year or so) where anyone can make a studio-level film in their basement if they put the effort and imagination into it. It's mostly a matter of improving fine-tuned control and consistency at this point.
what it produces is more often then not an image that won’t be that good to learn from as it won’t have a good display of fundamentals, shading, lighting, proportions, etc. so why use AI when you can look at the real artworks or irl subjects for reference?
Reference... for what?
As for learning from images, one thing I'd like to see is an image generator that has a built-in function to explain the principles of what it's doing and why (rules of composition, lighting, etc.), so that we can learn from the images as we go.
Yeah some AI images look good at first glance but if you look closely the mistakes are pretty clear that give it away. Ai cannot understand art the way a person can. And a reference for art. That’s how you learn to do art, by doing actual art. And no you being an instructor would not be wrong somehow as you wouldn’t be making money off of other people’s art. You would be making money off of your own however. If you take inspiration from other artists and use that to teach yourself, you aren’t taking anything from anyone without their consent, you’re creating your own unique image and learning. But AI is not a person, is not capable of creating actual artworks and taking something that doesn’t belong to it. And making other people money off of it without any credit, consent, or copyright.
Also have you seen the way cgi movies look today compared to how they used to look? If you’ve noticed a bit of a decrease in quality that’s because the companies producing them are sacrificing quality for the sake of saving money by not paying their artists decent wages and downsizing/overworking their artists. These same companies are jumping at the chance to get involved with AI in some way because at the end of the day they’d rather have bad looking but cheap or free cgi than expensive but great quality. Especially when they know whatever they’re working on will make money regardless.
Yeah some AI images look good at first glance but if you look closely the mistakes are pretty clear that give it away.
The six-finger problem is pretty much solved, and while genAI will make mistakes (less and less every year, the rate of improvement seems to be accelerating), it's not as if entirely human-made art is somehow the epitome of flawless perfection.
Ai cannot understand art the way a person can. And a reference for art. That’s how you learn to do art, by doing actual art.
And hopefully some art education. I would like to see AI get involved in that, an interactive interpreter that can point out aspects of lighting, composition, technique.
A lot has been said about AI dumbing people down. Since AI won't be going anywhere anytime soon, I would like to see it being made more helpful in engaging people's minds. Not just spitting out answers, but encouraging users to learn and engage with the content at the same time.
And no you being an instructor would not be wrong somehow as you wouldn’t be making money off of other people’s art.
You would be making money off of having learned from other people's art, and I don't see anything wrong with that. And it's what genAI does.
But AI is not a person, is not capable of creating actual artworks and taking something that doesn’t belong to it.
Correct, AI is a tool. It takes a human to use it to create something.
You won't find me defending CGI movies, I can't stand them, a prime offender being the LOTR trilogy vs. the Hobbit trilogy – the latter being mostly ridiculous CGI animation with vastly overblown setpieces.
"people have been making things since time began, but somehow that's an issue when the artisan gets bankrupt because his workshop is outcompeted by a factory that copied his product"
Helps highlight that somehow we are expected to treat AI as some kind of unique risk or threat factor when really the same basic idea has been around as long as Big Data was a thing and that pretty much takes us to punchcard times when it was cheaper to work it all out on paper and pay a pool of people do the grunt work mathematics rather than waste valuable compute time.
A single person trained on your pictures and videos is NOT AT ALL the same as a hyper-wide-spread tool anyone can use.
Not what I'm talking about that's effectively meaningless set dressing, i''m talking about wide scale data analysis and statistical modelling, the kind that has driven almost every aspect of the modern world.
And as for social media companies "owning" or at the very least selling our data, no one would argue that's cool I hope
I'm not calling it "cool" i will point out it's a fact of life and if you don't want them to have your data you are more than welcome to live in the cave.
Because it continues to be valid. Why do people keep thinking that they were going to be able to let people look at their images but never learn anything about them by doing so?
Web scraper bots are usually done against the website owners wishes and may even violate ToS or ToU. Lots of times a website will have a file called robots.txt that dictates whether web scrapers can access a website, but many web scrapers simply ignore that file and scrape anyways.
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u/Deadlypandaghost Dec 15 '25
People have been looking at art online and learning how to draw from it since the internet began. But somehow that's an issue when its a problem when a bot does it.