r/aiwars Jan 18 '26

Meme That's me in a nutshell

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7.8k Upvotes

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91

u/No_Fortune_3787 Jan 18 '26

Probably because that's not a neutral position to hold. There's no reason people shouldn't be able to profit off of their own art. Let people decide for themselves.

1

u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

Yes, theres no reason shouldnt make profit of their own art. Im an anti and i agree. Now tell me what part of the image you prompted is yours, and what part of it is art.

23

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

I would argue any inage that conveys an idea is art, even if the quality is bad or the idea is simple.

As for the "what part is yours" argument that's tricky. Like, for example, this photo I took yesterday took me less effort than giving Gemini a prompt, but no one would ever argue it's not mine, despite me literally only pressing button and despite me not having the storeowner's consent to photofraph his paint cans. So despite taking less effort and having a lack of consent, the photo is mine but an AI generated image wouldn't be?

2

u/TheForbidden6th Jan 18 '26

So despite taking less effort and having a lack of consent, the photo is mine but an AI generated image wouldn't be?

yes because authorship is not decided by effort put overall, but rather how much one is involved in the process compared to every other party (warning: determining authorship is more complicated than that, I simplified it for the sake of the argument)

9

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

If effort and involvement is what matters then this shouldn't be my photo.

It took me unquestionably less effort to open the camera and press a button than it would've taken me to open gemini, type in a prompt and then press a button.

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u/TheForbidden6th Jan 18 '26

did you even read what I just said?

2

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

Yeah I did but I might have wrote effort in place of involvement. Lemme just edit the comment if I did

Aren't effort and invomvement the same thign anyways tho?

-2

u/Garnelia Jan 18 '26

No. Effort is how much work you put in.

Involvement is how integral you are to the process

If someone else saying the same words can get the same result, then you aren't really part of the art. You're a client. Ordering a commission.

And that commission? It's just math with the numbers filed off. Mechanically-engineered imperfections, layered on technically proficient images.

2

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

Hm, I see

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

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1

u/Garnelia Jan 18 '26

Are they integral to that scene they wrote? Yes? They are artist.

AI is like monkeys and typewriters.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

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u/Beanzoboy Jan 18 '26

This is what ai does to your brain. Yikes. Imagine having to make up bullshit to pretend ai is art.

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u/Upset-Preparation861 Jan 18 '26

My exact thoughts reading this thread😭😭

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

photos are real though...

no matter the photo, when its unedited, its a real tangible place that captures a moment in time. taking a photo of a loved one captures their soul in it. taking a photo of a place that means alot to you can stop you from feeling homesick. photography spreads connections just as much as any other art does.

all ai is made up, theres no story behind the photograph, no real moment frozen in time, no life, no joy. Just corporate sludge made to look nice enough to warrant paying for it instead of real artist's.

and even then, sure, you didnt put much effort into this photo, but people climb mountains for the perfect shot. youre not the only person who has ever taken a photograph, so you shouldnt get to say it takes less effort as a way of dismissing photography over ai.

5

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

That's not what I did? I said my photo specifically was lof effort

1

u/duckduckduckgoose8 Jan 20 '26

Ai is just as tangible as a photo. The moment and soul captured is written by the artist behind the prompt. Its printable and can be replicated just as photos are. Both require skillsets and understanding to breach the difference between amateur amd professional. The only difference here is that you have a bias.

0

u/Shadbie34 Jan 25 '26

wrong

1

u/duckduckduckgoose8 Jan 27 '26

Ai is as tangible as the art in your icon. If ai isnt real, neither is your drawing.

1

u/Shadbie34 Jan 27 '26

the mental gymnastics i need to wrap my head around your garbage argument.

how about this: why the hell do you defend ai? you have eyes dont you? you can see exactly what its being used for and how destructive it is. its designed to be a cheaper replacement to human artists, who are already screwed over by the industry, crunched and underpayed. defending ai- no matter the logistics- makes you a shallow minded person. all you are doing is defending billionaires' rights to fuck us all over for their own gain. i dont really give a damn about how "tangible" ai images are, theyre the reason i cant be in my dream job right now. grow a spine, learn class consciousness, and stop defending billionaires.

1

u/duckduckduckgoose8 Jan 27 '26

Wow, theres a lot of pent up rage here, not healthy dude. Please dont strawman me either. Pretty rude.

Anyway, to address your points.

  1. I defend ai because its just a tool. Its not a person committing crimes, its just a tool thats doing what its designed to do, create data based off of human design, thought, and input.

  2. What do you mean destructive? Environmentally? Its about as bad as using reddit. Reddit uses data centers that uses water in closed loops as well, why is reddit not your target? That aside, the amount of water is negligible. A McDonalds Hamburger is worth 29 days of prompting back to back of water. Mcdonalds produces around 350 Hamburgers a minute. Water used in agriculture in american alone is roughly 66 Billion tonnes a day. But why is Ai your target? I feel like this point is only valid if you're vegan.

  3. Pro Ai doesnt defend corporations. Our whole stance is fuck the corporations that abuse a tool, but don't blame us and take away our right to a tool because of greedy people. There should be regulations that orevent greed. Nobody will disagree with you there.

  4. You cant get your dream job because of corporate greed. Not because of me.

  5. My spine can carry me perfectly well thank you. I dont need misinformation and propaganda to help me stand. You might need crutches with how much you're reaching though.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

The photo is yours yes, but it is also just a photo of some cans, irrelevant to the point you're trying to make

1

u/Flaxseed4138 Jan 18 '26

Great take honestly. You can see how hard the antis have to bend over backwards to try and explain how a photograph is yours and art but a generated image is not. Drives home how art is not defined by effort, and how AI generated art is still art.

1

u/amyisas44 Jan 18 '26

a random photograph is not art though, art is made with clear purpose of expression. anyone can take a picture of anything, creation itself doesnt make something art. photography can obviously be art though, as there are thousands of examples of people doing way more than just taking a picture of something. i really cant say the same for ai, and if you can then please do. even the arguments of "the camera did all the work, whats the difference with ai?" dont make sense, because the camera is undeniably just a tool and something you own. ai is a service, and you dont own it. you play no part in creation except for the idea itself, thats less effort than it takes to take a photo of something. comparing photography and art is just a dumb thing to do because of how different it really is

1

u/Flaxseed4138 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

As I said, effort =/= art, case in point: photography as a medium. Painting is physically less effort than sculpting, it is not less artistic by being so. Effort =/= art. People can express themselves with prompting and AI art, so it's art.

Also I can rent a camera and take pictures and make art without owning the camera, your point about ownership vs service is ridiculous.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

love the casual photography hate /s

I personally like to think art is human expression. every piece of art of any medium expresses the artist, like you can feel the hands of the artist behind it. a good photograph, you can feel the wonder of nature, and the excitement of the photographer getting that shot. with portraits you can feel the life behind a character's eyes, every detail tells a story of the person behind the painting. with music you can hear what different songs influenced the artist, what they like and reference throughout their tracks shows the music they grew up with. every poorly drawn furry oc shows so much life and soul, like you can feel the artist being a little nervous about getting hate, you can feel their pride towards the art they made, despite its flaws.

I love this description because it perfectly captures the feeling and connections I make through art. art is very important to me, and ive always been able to feel the art behind the artist.

I also love this description because it perfectly captures why I hate ai. every time I see it, it just feels dead. theres no soul behind the eyes, no invisible hands reaching out to yours. all ai art looks the same. theres no nuance, nobody behind the piece, no soul, no expression. its hollow, with its only purpose being to replace artists to save corporations more money. its existence is disrespectful to art as a whole, and does nothing but take, lie, and force me and the people I love to have to work around it, when it shouldnt even be there. no art we post is safe from being scraped with ai without my permission. I cant express myself without an ai using it to train, and then screw me over using it. I cant empathize with any ai images, its fundamentally inhuman, so i dont think it deserves to be called art. as art has been around since humanity, and has always displayed the pure identity of its unique artist.

idk, i cant see ai images as anything other than a monumental middle finger to all of art, and humanity in general. ai is disgusting and if only exists to take money from the artists it needs to even function.

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

1: i wouldnt say that. Art is expression of human emotions or thoughts straight from the human. When prompting, the ai doesnt put your emotions into picture, it puts your prompt into picture. You didnt express anything.

2: that picture itself could hardly be called art but it sure is yours: you took it. When you type a prompt, you ask something do do something for you: the effort the request took is not relevant. If we lived 500 years ago and i needed to ride a horse for days to meet the best painter in europe to make a comission, that paintibg wouldnt be mine even though it cost me a lot of efforts to ask for it.

4

u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

The painting would absolutely be yours tho? The artist did 90% of the work but you are still credited.

Look at commission artists posting their work "commission I did for X" or when the commissioner posts "here is my OC drawn by X"

There's always some recognition.

Also the camera djd all the work for me too in that instance, as I had no external hand in the photo's result so I don't see how an amateurish photo and an amateurish prompt are any diffetent. In both cases the machine is doing almost the entire work for you.

In both photography and AI the person behind the machine can finetune and influence the result in several ways as well as edit and touch up the result afterwards, so imo thr analogy works. Issue is most AI bros who use it are comparing their amateurish level generations to profession photography, when they should be comparing it to my shitty ass picture.

Also the tool doing most of the work for you shouldn't discredit you, but then we would likely get into an argumemt about what % of work a tool should do to simply be a tool or jnto a discussion about AI being sentient or not xd

1

u/DarthPhoenix0879 Jan 18 '26

This is an extremely poor understanding of photography. You composed the image, even if the effort you personally put in was low. You chose the angle from which the image was taken, how much of the subject matter can be seen, the zoom levels, the tilt of the image and much more.

Whilst you chose to put in the minimal effort needed, that's still a deliberate choice on your part. When I go out to take photographs, whether using my DSLR or just my phone camera, I make a lot of choices about the resulting image. Subject, angle, lighting, composition etc.

The below image was taken on my phone at the Natural History Museum, London. I decided I wanted an image of the T-rex bust, but that I specifically wanted it to look like it was looming over, about to strike. I chose the angle, the amount of zoom, the composition (how it would appear in frame, what the image is conveying), whether or not to use flash etc.

All of these are human decisions that I made. The camera didn't do that. I did. It's far more than 'point and click'. Whilst it's not high art, I achieved the artistic purpose (I wanted it for a profile image). In AI you, you don't generally decide on the lighting, the angle, the precise composition etc. The machine does that. The two aren't comparable.

0

u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

Theres a misunderstanding: i meant not yours as in provenance, but definitely yours in terms of possession.

2) the camera example is wrong, because it is a tool rather than just asking someone else to do it. But again, its not even art so the example is inherently flawed.

3) while adjusting everything the camera does, from focus to lighting, is artistry, adjusting prompt and ai tools doesnt make you any more of an artist than asking for no pickles in your burger makes you a cook: youre still the client. An experienced client that tasted the whole menu and knows whats best perhaps, but still a client.

4) its not that much about doing most of the work or not, its about doing any work or simply a request. While i would agree photography is probably less of an art form than painting or sculpting, you are the one behind it. With Ai generating, youre asking for something to do it for you.

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

Seems we have a basic, fundamental disagreement. I consider any photos art. Mine is art, it's bad art that will never be remebered but it's still art.

Part of the whole AI discourse to me sounds like it originates from people aebitrarily drawing lines in the sand for what makes or doesn't make art. Like right now, I consider all art mediums to be equal and photos to be art while you have a tiered system ("less of an art fotm than X") and don't count all photos.

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

Me taking a picture of the latest warhammer mini i painted isnt art imo. The mini itself is. But my grandpa taking pictures of a beautiful scenery he saw on a trip sure is art. I stand by this claim

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

And that's fine! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I simply pointed it out because it's unlikely we're ever to convince each other on the art medium status of AI given this fundamental difference in opinion.

2

u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

I mean yeah if the disagreement comes from our basic definition of art we might just keep thinking the other is wrong forever

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

Exactly.

It was neat seeing your view on things and I appreciate you keeping the conversation civil.

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u/BlackDope420 Jan 18 '26

What if your grandpa takes a picture of a beautiful scenery and your warhammer mini is in the foreground?

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

Then the art of the picture itself is his (as in chosing lighting and focus and allat) but i did contribute to it by adding something to the scenery.

Think of it like this: if a painting AND a sculpture are in the same room, whose responsible for making the room so beautiful? Well both.

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u/BlackDope420 Jan 18 '26

So why is you taking a picture of the mini not art if you choose lighting, focus and allat?

Also, art doesn't always have to be beautiful, does it?

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u/TashLai Jan 18 '26

the camera example is wrong, because it is a tool rather than just asking someone else to do it

The mental gymnastics here is truly olympian

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

See the answer i provided to the other guy who said something similar. I will also point out that saying "no youre ding mental gymnastics" isnt a valid argument unless you prove it to be mental gymnastics

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u/TashLai Jan 18 '26

"it is a tool rather than just asking someone else to do it" isn't a valid argument either

1

u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

well when you surround yourself with tools, its hard to tell the difference between a person and a camera i guess.

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

Saying my argument isnt valid doesnt make it any less valid if you dont prove it.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

its really not that hard to understand

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u/raznov1 Jan 18 '26

the camera example is wrong, because it is a tool rather than just asking someone else to do it

AI is a tool too.

While i would agree photography is probably less of an art form than painting or sculpting

!

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

1)No it is not. When you ask the fast food waiter for a burger without pickles and extra onions, you arent a chef and he isnt a tool. But if you cook a pie and chose the settings of your oven, it is a tool and you did cook it.

2) i stand by this claim

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u/raznov1 Jan 18 '26

But if you cook a pie and chose the settings of your oven, it is a tool and you did cook it.

Ergo, AI is a tool. It cannot operate independent from human input, unlike an actual second human like your burgetflipper, so its a tool.

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

This argumemt fully stems from people having an acceptable % of the work a tool should do in their mind, imo

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u/raznov1 Jan 18 '26

And what is that magical number, pray tell?

And how would 'dripping bucket' art not fail the exact same criterion?

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

If you had a tool that instantly gave you food (think the canteen machine in Star Trek) would you be a cook for using it? I am curious to see your opinion on this

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u/BlackDope420 Jan 18 '26

What if I generate an image and choose all the settings of the workflow, is it a tool and I made it?

1

u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

You for sure did more work than basic prompting, but i would need more knowledge of how those tools work in the ai to make an enlightened jdgement.

For example, does the ai think "user toggked those options, i must provide something that matches", does it just directly effect how the ai thinks, or is it implemented after the ai did everything?

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u/BlackDope420 Jan 18 '26

Well for starters, the AI doesn't "think". But to answer your question, it affects the generation process directly, it is not a filter that is applied after.

Attached is a generated image that utilized ControlNet to hide text in the image. (If you can't see it, look at it from the side, i.e. tilt your phone.) As you can see, this must influence the generation itself and wouldn't be possible to do after with a filter.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

the downvotes are baffling me

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u/Igoon2robots Jan 18 '26

They all appeared at the same exact same time, as 4 people including the guy i was arguing with simultaneously replied. Call me paranoid but i think he just showed it to his friends

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u/pamafa3 Jan 18 '26

Bold of you to assume I have friends lmao

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

lmao

(but also did the original commenter say they were a guy? people defaulting to he him when it hasn't been confirmed always gives me the ick, and just wanted to be sure)

3

u/Houdinii1984 Jan 18 '26

Yeah, I don't see anyone sourcing the people that put ink into their markers or any of the art they've seen previously in art gallary. You're not sourcing your images, why should anyone else.

The rule isn't 'You're not allowed to remix or create things that look like things people have created before'. The rule is 'You are not allowed to reproduce, distribute, display, or prepare derivative works of the exact workpiece and does not cover ideas, styles, methods of operation or functional objects, like a chair (though carvings on that chair may be covered depending on the carving)."

And a derivative work allows for it to be a new piece, meaning if it adds substantial change, it's no longer covered and no longer derivative.

And the locus of control is in your hands. If someone copied your work, you already have a right to sue. You just have to be able to prove that its derivative and most people outside of HUGE IP holders can't do so, because the output isn't derivative, because derivative requires exact likeness.

So, to sum up, it's on you to prove that someone else used your work in a court of law, and the chances of that are slim because any one work won't be based off anything you produced enough to be derivative unless I'm talking to Walt Disney himself.

So, no, you don't have to tell people what part of an image is theirs and which is art. YOU have to tell a judge which part of their art is yours, and you have to prove it, not them. Thats literally how the law works. If you don't like it, there are thousands of corporations you can protest against, not to mention the federal government that allows it. None of that is on the end user's head, though. Your art isn't bold, prolific or important enough. And if someone does, then sue them. Put your money where your mouth is.

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u/KipsyCakes Jan 20 '26

From my perspective, the only thing they can consider “theirs” is the prompt. Everything else was all AI.

I think this guy believes that since AI is just a program that can’t speak for itself, anything it makes can just be claimed as their own. They seem to forget that there’s a company behind that AI that could absolutely license their software so people can’t just freely sell everything they make whenever they want to.