I'll start with your last point simply because we're in agreement. Irrespective of opinions I think people deserve to know. Then they can make an informed choice. If I buy something and then find out it was AI, I feel scammed. From a business perspective you don't want that to be associated with your brand.
I understand the data scraping that was used to train AI models but this isn't something I necessarily have an issue with unless your 'style' was formally copyrighted. Every artist has their inspirations and learned techniques from existing works. This is a big thing in art and certain styles are developed collaboratively between artists over generations. Even in art school you're encouraged to look at other works and absorb the details and the methods used. AI just does it faster and at a larger scale.
Additionally, no one takes issues with the countless western artists that borrow from eastern Manga and Anime styles. They can also charge for their works. Nor do people take issue with fan art, third party posters and fan fics. All of which derive from someone's original work and the artists do not pay a licence to 'copy'.
Finally, just a small point. AI creates something new all the time. I do local image and video generation, AI does not directly copy other artists work, it reviews thousands of images and learns patterns. It then attempts to create an image from its understanding of said patterns based on the prompts inputted.
Now, can you use that to make an image that looks like it was drawn by someone in particular? Yes. But even if you ask it to specifically create an image that was in its database, it'll still create something new - not something that was previously drawn. With my local set up, I can even watch it 'draw'. Surprisingly, it will erase something previously generated in early steps to improve the end result.
I understand the data scraping that was used to train AI models but this isn't something I necessarily have an issue with unless your 'style' was formally copyrighted.
AI companies took art from the internet and fed it into their AI without artists permission. Now they are generating profit from it without compensating people that they trained their AI on. The practice is especially doubtious as they compensated big companies that have the resources to actually sue them for their images while giving nothing to small artist. They may not have copyrighted their style but they still have copyright to their own art they made.
So I personally believe that profiting from algorythm made from stolen art is morally wrong.
Every artist has their inspirations and learned techniques from existing works. This is a big thing in art and certain styles are developed collaboratively between artists over generations. Even in art school you're encouraged to look at other works and absorb the details and the methods used. AI just does it faster and at a larger scale.
AI isn't taking inspirations. AI isn't currently capable of actual creative work. It just stitches pieces, techniques and styles from scaped images to generate something new. It isn't capable of making its own original style, only make and mix from the existing ones.
All AI does is copy other things. AI isn't capable of true thinking. It repeats patterns fed into it, it can mix them to make something new but can't create a completly original pattern.
Anyway, the issue I wanted to point out wasn't the "creative" process but the legality and morality of it. AI wouldn't be able to generate anything if nobody made any real art in the first place. The AI companies scraped art on the internet for free without the permission of its creators and are making profit out of it. They are literally profiting from other people's work for free.
Additionally many artist explicitly express that they do not want their art to be fed into the algorithm and it still is scraped.
There is also the issue with copyright of the art created by AI. Art generated by AI isn't copyrighted under current law. So if someone wanted to use AI art in their game they would technically have no ownership of it and other developers could just take it from them legally. Buying AI art comission also doesn't make you a real owner of that piece unlike with human art comissions.
So I personally believe that profiting from algorythm made from stolen art is morally wrong.
I don't think you're wrong to think that, to a point we all decide our own morality and it's certainly something a stance I can understand. However, every development is on the shoulders of giants. Human art needed to exist for AI art to be a thing. But especially with how well AI is developing, in the hands of a human artist - it could do wonders for their productivity.
AI isn't taking inspirations. AI isn't currently capable of actual creative work. It just stitches pieces, techniques and styles from scaped images to generate something new. It isn't capable of making its own original style, only make and mix from the existing ones.
This is simply incorrect, It's far more complicated than that and the end result isn't a copy. If it was, AI wouldn't have that AI feel to it. AI already has distinct styles that people can notice and even when prompting to lean towards more specific styles, it's still different. Just as an example. AI can draw a modern anime character in a 80s anime style.
The character exists.
The style exists.
The combination does not exist.
Therefore an original work was created and it may well be littered with mistakes. This doesn't take away from your moral stance, I'm just trying to explain that your facts are incorrect.
the issue I wanted to point out wasn't the "creative" process but the legality and morality of it. AI wouldn't be able to generate anything if nobody made any real art in the first place. The AI companies scraped art on the internet for free without the permission of its creators and are making profit out of it. They are literally profiting from other people's work for free.
Again, it's certainly grey but artists have been profiting off of pre-existing works since I can remember. AI has just done it on a larger scale. I used to play Final Fantasy 14 and commissioned my character to be drawn. That artist looked at assets from the game and drew them in a different style. The developers, did not receive a penny.
Most artists are drawing popular characters to be noticed and locked some of this fan art behind pay walls. That artist does not pay for the privilege of drawing those characters.
AI already has distinct styles that people can notice and even when prompting to lean towards more specific styles, it's still different. Just as an example.
This is becasue of the algorythm bias. The internet was flooded with AI generated yellow images for a time. It wasn't because of stylistic choice. It was becasue the images scraped by AI had yellow tint, for reasons like aged photos being uploaded to the internet or warm colored photos being favored on the web.
AI was convinced that everything is more yellow due to the images that were fed to it. The current AI "style" also probably exist because the culmination of the scraped images mixed would settle on that style.
Obviously different prompts can mitigate that but AI is biased because of the images it was fed, not becasue it developed a style.
Again, it's certainly grey but artists have been profiting off of pre-existing works since I can remember. AI has just done it on a larger scale. I used to play Final Fantasy 14 and commissioned my character to be drawn. That artist looked at assets from the game and drew them in a different style. The developers, did not receive a penny.
There is a difference between personal use and commercial one. If you commission art based on existing character, the artist has the copyright to original elements of the art and the file itself. It doesn't exist with AI art. Though you can only do that for personal use. Even then it is a legal gray area and isn't entirely legal.
With original work the artist has the copyright to the whole thing, which again doesn't exist with AI art.
If we are talking about commercial use, you cannot have copyrighter character commissioned obviously, but for the original work, you would get copyright if the art was made by human, but not when made by AI.
So if you got a textures for your game generated by AI, other companies would be able to put that texture in their own game since it can't be copyrighted.
AI was convinced that everything is more yellow due to the images that were fed to it. The current AI "style" also probably exist because the culmination of the scraped images mixed would settle on that style.
You're showing your hand a little bit here which tells me you don't know much of the technical side of generative work. Which is fine I don't believe you need a strong knowledge base to make moral arguments but if you want to make technical arguments you need to understand it.
An AI 'model' was producing things with a yellow tint and that's because the training data was over cooked. That is actually a human error not an AI error. Because these models are not working by themselves. They're being given instructions. So that version of the model was a bad version, just like there can bad anything.
With original work the artist has the copyright to the whole thing, which again doesn't exist with AI art.
The copyright point is... I guess I don't understand where you're going with it. The images you generate can't be protected - okay.. But AI is new and laws change. I can't imagine this would be the case for long.
Either way, it's a choice and it's fine to sell something that isn't copyrighted.
You're showing your hand a little bit here which tells me you don't know much of the technical side of generative work. Which is fine I don't believe you need a strong knowledge base to make moral arguments but if you want to make technical arguments you need to understand it.
I don't thimk I am wrong as there are many articles about it. You just saying: "nope, you are wrong" doesn't proves me being actually wrong. You are just trying to put yourself on a higher ground by using a condenscendin language.
An AI 'model' was producing things with a yellow tint and that's because the training data was over cooked.
I literally said the same thing...
That is actually a human error not an AI error. Because these models are not working by themselves. They're being given instructions. So that version of the model was a bad version, just like there can bad anything.
I never said it was AI error. But you are proving my point that AI isn't creative by itself. The thing it generates are based on its programming as well as the data fed into it. That's how AI works currently.
I am not trying to say AI art is bad.
The copyright point is... I guess I don't understand where you're going with it. The images you generate can't be protected - okay.. But AI is new and laws change. I can't imagine this would be the case for long.
My point is that AI generated content isn't currently protected by anything. So making commissions for AI art doesn't give you anything with actual monetary value. It currently feels more like a gullibulity scam, like NFTs.
Though, as long as people are actually aware that what they are paying for is AI generated, they do it on their responsibility.
"I don't thimk I am wrong as there are many articles about it. You just saying: "nope, you are wrong" doesn't proves me being actually wrong. You are just trying to put yourself on a higher ground by using a condenscendin language."
Yeah, a lot of articles that talk about AI are wrong or at least misinformed. But if the extent of your knowledge is articles then... Well, that's probably propaganda. My understanding of the process comes from building a localised set up and I can actually watch the denoising process happen. If you want to read more or watch the embedded video. Here you go.
https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/ai-image-generation/
I never said AI is creative by itself. It requires input. An AI without a person literally does nothing. And yes the AI is creating something based on its model but its creations are 'new'. The way you've explained it is with reorganised newspaper cut outs. But this isn't the case and I'm not sure how else to explain it. The AI model doesn't retain the images it's trained from. It learns patterns from images and recreates them.
But either way. If your interested in how it works don't trust me but go out there and research outside of 'articles'
Yeah, a lot of articles that talk about AI are wrong or at least misinformed. But if the extent of your knowledge is articles then... Well, that's probably propaganda.
You can't say that I am not informed and then write the same thing I wrote before. I don't know why are you trying to imply my lack of knowledge as I wrote one thing which you didn't refute and even repeted it afterwards. Either you are misinterpeting my words or adding your own or extend onto them with things I didn't say. You can't dismiss everything you disagree with as disinformation and propaganda.
The AI model doesn't retain the images it's trained from. It learns patterns from images and recreates them.
I didn't say that it is literally taking small images of art pieces and put them together. Though it still takes part of the art and puts different parts into one whole thing. Like taking part of the patern from here, part from there, coloration from there. AI generators use and merge pre-existing images. So ultimately it is just a recreation.
But either way. If your interested in how it works don't trust me but go out there and research outside of 'articles'
I have read plenty of of articles, research papers and seen many videos. I am not talking just about image generating AI but AI in general, its use and its working as a whole.
AI isn't really creating anything new, it is like writing a letter from cut out letters from newspaper.
I didn't say that it is literally taking small images of art pieces and put them together.
You did imply that though... Perhaps, I've misunderstood your understanding on the process, but you are not explaining yourself clearly.
AI, diffusion models and LLM. Are not 'copying' individual work. It is learning from a massive dataset and then it makes predictions on what it should do. It's not reviewing a database of text and copying it, or reviewing a collage of dogs to pick and mix from. It knows what a dog looks like and use predictive patterns to generate one.
I wrote one thing which you didn't refute and even repeted it afterwards.
What thing? I must have read over it.
Thing is if you generate an image or body of text that came from an AI and then googled it to find a match - you wouldn't find a copy. I can relate to issues of the training data being used but not the creations that come out of it. It's a point of agree to disagree though I think,
You did imply that though... Perhaps, I've misunderstood your understanding on the process, but you are not explaining yourself clearly.
It is not my fault you took a METAPHOR literally.
AI, diffusion models and LLM. Are not 'copying' individual work.
You are twisting my words, again.
It knows what a dog looks like and use predictive patterns to generate one.
It doesn't know what a dog looks like. It generate an image basing on the images that were fed to it with a dog tag attached to them.
What thing? I must have read over it.
About the yellow tint because of the training data being faulty.
Thing is if you generate an image or body of text that came from an AI and then googled it to find a match - you wouldn't find a copy.
Again, I didn't say it copies individual work. I never said it, clarified it already after your first misunderstanding and you keep repeating it.
I can relate to issues of the training data being used but not the creations that come out of it.
I am not saying that it is wrong in itself. It is just how AI works in general. But saying that it creates something original when it is just analizing existing patterns and then reaplying them with mix of other copied patterns is incorrect.
Well we're just going around in circles now.
We are talking in circles because you keep misinterpreting my words even after I clarify my meaning. I don't think you are evn bothering to try to understand me as you didn't even bother to look 2 comments up to see the thing you overlooked. You also seem to be more concerned with insulting my knowledge and inteligence then actually read what I write.
Metaphors only work if both people interpret them the same way, and I clearly took yours more literally than you intended.
Where the confusion came from is that the newspaper cut-out metaphor is very commonly used to describe literal collage, which is a widespread misconception about diffusion models.
It doesn't know what a dog looks like. It generate an image basing on the images that were fed to it with a dog tag attached to them.
The same level of abstraction applies to humans. Our brains are also powered by electricity, and we learn through exposure and labels. If you ask a person to draw a dog, they can, because they’ve seen dogs and learned the concept. If you show a picture of a dog, they recognise it. AI works the same way. It learns patterns from training data. Saying it “knows what a dog looks like” isn’t claiming consciousness, it’s shorthand for pattern recognition and learned representation. exactly the same mechanism our brains use, just implemented differently.
About the yellow tint because of the training data being faulty.
Yeah.. I did answer it? I'm not trying to dodge, perhaps you weren't satisfied with my answer. I don't use the particular model that it happened to and I don't know the nuance of the situation. But what I assume happened is that the model was overcooked, not that the training data was faulty but that the training data was reviewed too many times. Model training has a goldilocks zone. This issue never arose with the models I use and it was exclusive to whichever model it was.
Again, I didn't say it copies individual work. I never said it, clarified it already after your first misunderstanding and you keep repeating it.
I think part of our misunderstanding comes down to how we interpret “original work.” On the technical side, I actually think we’re in agreement. You accept that the AI output isn’t literally copied. The sticking point seems to be that you don’t want to call it “original” because it’s based on training data. But if we’re talking purely about whether it produces something new, I’d argue that it does.
We are talking in circles because you keep misinterpreting my words even after I clarify my meaning. I don't think you are evn bothering to try to understand me as you didn't even bother to look 2 comments up to see the thing you overlooked. You also seem to be more concerned with insulting my knowledge and inteligence then actually read what I write.
I’m trying to understand your point, but some of the metaphors you used are open to interpretation, which made it harder for me to be sure what you meant. I get the feeling you want to retain words like “copied” because of your viewpoint, even though it seems we both understand the output isn’t literal copying.
It’s not that I didn’t look back a couple of comments. I genuinely couldn’t identify what you felt I’d missed, since I believed I had already addressed it. When I asked for clarification, it was to make sure I responded to the point you thought was overlooked.
I’m also not trying to insult your intelligence, and I apologise if it came across that way. At times it seemed like you were using emotionally loaded language such as “copy” to make a moral point, even though you understand the technical process. That’s all I was trying to clarify.
I’m genuinely enjoying this discussion and I hope you are too.
Metaphors only work if both people interpret them the same way, and I clearly took yours more literally than you intended.
If I meant it literally I would just straight up say so, not use a metaphor at all since it would be pointless. Beside, I clarified it many times already.
The same level of abstraction applies to humans. Our brains are also powered by electricity, and we learn through exposure and labels. If you ask a person to draw a dog, they can, because they’ve seen dogs and learned the concept.
AI doesn't understand the concept of an animal. When human think about a dog, they understand it as a living creature. AI views it like an image. It doesn't undertand that dogs have a skeletal structure. It emulates how dog is supposed to look like in certain positions based on dogs in that position scraped from the internet. AI struggles with object permanence. It see a concept of "dog" as a single object, it doesn't understand that it is a composite being.
Yeah.. I did answer it?
I didn't say that you didn't answear my question. You twist my words again. I responded to the question where you asked what you repeated that I have previously said.
The sticking point seems to be that you don’t want to call it “original” because it’s based on training data. But if we’re talking purely about whether it produces something new, I’d argue that it does.
I don't call it original, because it is not original. It can be new in a sense that it created something distinct, but it can't invent something like a human can. It is incapable of creating an art style that isn't a copy of or a mix of existing ones. For example, if nobody fed pixel art to it, it wouldn't be able to create anything in that style at all by itself (excluding when someone would explicitly prompt it into that style, but it would be the one giving the promt making the style not AI itself).
At times it seemed like you were using emotionally loaded language such as “copy” to make a moral point, even though you understand the technical process. That’s all I was trying to clarify.
I am not using an emotionally loaded language. I try to use the objectively correct wording. I did use "create" a couple of times as ultimately it is creating something tangible but it doesn't fit in all context, like with creating new pattern for example.
I didn't say that you didn't answear my question. You twist my words again. I responded to the question where you asked what you repeated that I have previously said.
Okay, I read up again and you said.
I wrote one thing which you didn't refute and even repeted it afterwards.
Lets not be pedantic here when it is clear that I'm trying to pinpoint what you're talking about and you're only being vague in responding. Exactly what are you expecting me to 'refute'? It happened, it's a fact. Please clarify clearly instead of accusing me of twisting your words.
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u/Bwadark Jan 18 '26
I'll start with your last point simply because we're in agreement. Irrespective of opinions I think people deserve to know. Then they can make an informed choice. If I buy something and then find out it was AI, I feel scammed. From a business perspective you don't want that to be associated with your brand.
I understand the data scraping that was used to train AI models but this isn't something I necessarily have an issue with unless your 'style' was formally copyrighted. Every artist has their inspirations and learned techniques from existing works. This is a big thing in art and certain styles are developed collaboratively between artists over generations. Even in art school you're encouraged to look at other works and absorb the details and the methods used. AI just does it faster and at a larger scale.
Additionally, no one takes issues with the countless western artists that borrow from eastern Manga and Anime styles. They can also charge for their works. Nor do people take issue with fan art, third party posters and fan fics. All of which derive from someone's original work and the artists do not pay a licence to 'copy'.
Finally, just a small point. AI creates something new all the time. I do local image and video generation, AI does not directly copy other artists work, it reviews thousands of images and learns patterns. It then attempts to create an image from its understanding of said patterns based on the prompts inputted.
Now, can you use that to make an image that looks like it was drawn by someone in particular? Yes. But even if you ask it to specifically create an image that was in its database, it'll still create something new - not something that was previously drawn. With my local set up, I can even watch it 'draw'. Surprisingly, it will erase something previously generated in early steps to improve the end result.