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AstroAlmost t1_iw56988 wrote

Reply to comment by ImmoralityPet in Secret Menu (oc) by tastycrust

i think it’s the use of “(oc)” in the title that rubs people the wrong way. but in this particular case, OP’s process is hands-on enough that his use of SD resulted in a final product that’s more OC than most people who, in many cases, are stringing chains of words into an AI trained on actual artists’ work, clicking the “make art” button, then calling the highly detailed and painterly image it renders “OC”.

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H3adshotfox77 t1_iw5mkbb wrote

Original: 1. present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest.

It is original content, just not their program. Unless they redid an image already done then the content would be original.

Just because they used an AI program developed by someone else does not imho mean they were not the creator of the art.

That would be like stating the person who created colored pencils should be the original creator of all work created using colored pencils.

The AI is the tool, now it may be a tool removing the majority of the skill but it is still just a tool. It's the difference between a hammer and a nail gun. Makes the job easier but it's still doing a job.

Now there is a ton of semantics, you could argue if they used AI to redraw an image they saw online then it's a copy so not OC. But if you wouldn't make that same critique of someone who used a photograph to draw a picture than you shouldn't make it here either. But thats a different argument entirely.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5otkv wrote

i never implied the artist would be the person who developed the AI to begin with. the AI itself is the artist, as it is the amalgamation of whatever resources it is trained on, and is essentially commissioned by a person to create works of art for them.

the individual using the AI is no more an artist than a person requesting a more upbeat song from a busker, or a company commissioning an ad agency to develop content for their brand.

when “the tool” is the entire artistic process, and the individual using the tool does virtually nothing artistic at all to prompt the generation of the art, then the tool is the artist. artists inherently need to meet certain criteria by definition in order to be artists in the technical and classical sense, and in most instance in such AI is employed for art, virtually none of those criteria are met by the person using their token to generate a piece.

a hammer and a nail gun still require a skilled hand to be effective. a more fair comparison is the difference between using a hammer or a nail gun, and hiring a skilled laborer to use a hammer or a nail gun.

as per your last paragraph: what if, as is done in countless instances, one were to train the AI on a specific piece or series of pieces by a specific artist, then ask it to recreate scenes in a facsimile of their style. in instances where people do this and claim credit for the art, or worse yet, profit off of the skills the actual artist developed and the AI emulated, that is orders of magnitude less artistically ethical than using actual artistic skill to draw or paint from a reference image, something almost all artists already do and have done since the advent of the art form.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw56uo7 wrote

Photography OC: someone just pushes literally one button and then a machine produces a highly detailed and realistic image that someone can post online and call theirs. They didn't even make the waterfall! They should credit God and their digital SLR. Literally the only thing they did was position themselves in space and time and push a button.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw58l95 wrote

photography OC: someone needs to have a trained artistic eye to frame a balanced shot, be on location of whatever it is they are photographing, own or rent expensive camera and lighting equipment, and in most professional examples, expensive lenses, a full editing suite they’ve mastered, and an understanding of how exposure/f-stop works. that’s not even getting into analogue photography and dark room chemical mastery.

the physical button press is probably the least crucial step, and isn’t remotely comparable to someone popping out their phone to copy/paste a prompt they saw someone else do, then picking their nose whilst waiting for the art machine to pump out their new “OC” to mint on opensea.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5a5sn wrote

So weird to mention expensive equipment as giving something more artistic merit. But at least that makes it clear that what defines the value of art for you is that there is difficulty and barriers to its creation.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5bbp5 wrote

i’m not sure why someone would find that “weird”. anyone involved seriously in any art form knows how expensive professional grade gear often is compared to entry level. it’s not like art can’t be made with inexpensive equipment, but the vast majority of serous professional artists, even hobbiests, invest small fortunes in their equipment.

also you seem to have been too busy clumsily cherry-picking my mere mentioning of “expense” to notice the numerous physical and cerebral elements which define the art form i listed for you, but best not to let a little thing like arguing in good faith get in the way of winning said argument.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5cwsq wrote

>numerous physical and cerebral elements

Yes, as I said, difficulty and barriers to creation. Do you disagree with that? I really wasn't aware I was arguing with you, just trying to restate what you said in order to clarify, my opinion that it was weird notwithstanding. It's just that, my opinion.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5e7am wrote

you engaged in the textbook definition of argument with me when i answered the questions posed in your original comment:

> noun

> 1 an exchange of diverging or opposite views…

you’re also using deliberately loaded words like “difficulty” and “barriers” in such a manner as to deflect away from the point that any attempt to build competency in any art form is a part of what makes it an art by most definitions. if that entails a degree of “difficulty”, it’s incidental to the actual skillset developed in the process.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5hdv3 wrote

>... typically a heated or angry one.

to complete the definition. But my point was rather that I wasn't trying to change your view with my last comment, merely state my opinion.

I thought I was using words that were as neutral as I could find. The reason why I didn't characterize it as art requiring a developed skill is because of your inclusion of things like travel and equipment in your list of things about photography that make it more artistic. I'm sure there's a better word choice for "requires skill and knowledge, and money, and equipment," and I'm happy to use it.

Anyway, in my opinion, limiting artwork to a display of skill and overcoming obstacles to its creation is a very limiting view and leaves out a ton of things that are pretty uncontroversially artistically valuable.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5jww4 wrote

would you like to look up the definition of “typically” as well, or shall i explain way a minor, extraneous and contextually irrelevant section of the definition was omitted for simplicity’s sake? what an oddly pedantic thing to wedge in.

art is by many people’s definition inherently a “skill”, and developing skills almost inherently requires overcoming obstacles, in so many words. i don’t personally see anything of value lost by not lowering the artistic bar low enough to accommodate what some people believe to be an art form, but is more akin to a company hiring an advertising agency to develop a campaign around their vision. the average person copy/pasting prompts is no more an artist than the CEO is in the aforementioned scenario. none of this is to say i’m denying that AI art is art. i’m saying (if we ignore the fact that the AI is more or less merely emulating whatever artists it’s trained on) that the AI is the artist, not the individual commissioning the monkey to dance.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5l6bw wrote

>what an oddly pedantic thing to wedge in.

About as pedantic as posting half of a definition of a word that everyone knows the meaning of.

So back to my original question: why does this matter to people? Who is being harmed by not attributing the AI as the artist and the user atrributing themselves? If it's art, and only one person was involved in that specific creation, why is it necessary to give up credit to the tool, no matter how helpful such a tool is?

Any AI that is being licensed has attribution requirements built into the license, so as long as those are being followed, who cares?

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5mhz7 wrote

um, no? haha maybe you need to look up the word “pedantic” as well? please, do explain to me how including an ellipses to unambiguously illustrate i’ve omitted an entirely extraneous and totally irrelevant portion of the definition could possibly be interpreted as pedantry? seriously, i’ll wait. absolutely baffling and extraordinarily transparent attempt to deflect mate, even for you.

> why does this matter to people?

which brings me back to my response answering your first question: the use of “(oc)”, most likely. nobody has to be harmed for people to rightfully call out the undeserved self congratulatory nature of saying “i made this” when actually you used your phone to pay an algorithm to make this amalgamation of talented artists’s work using a text prompt you saw online.

in the vast majority of instances, the “one person involved” as you put it, was involved only in the commissioning of the piece, and was no more a part of the artistic process than some drunk at a bar throwing a buck on the stage and asking the band to play something a little more upbeat. the drunk doesn’t magically become a collaborator in the artistic process. they’re a patron, paying an artist.

the tool is not merely “helpful”. it is the skillset, it is the tools, it is the medium; it is the artist.

> who cares?

anyone who doesn’t appreciate the concept of someone commissioning a piece, then claiming they made it.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5pa03 wrote

>anyone who doesn’t appreciate the concept of someone commissioning a piece, then claiming they made it.

In almost any other context, this is due to someone taking credit away from another person. In this case there's nobody besides themselves that was involved. It really seems like people are just upset that people were able to easily create the work, like getting pissed at people for tracing or using photographic reference.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5rjvs wrote

> In almost any other context, this is due to someone taking credit away from another person. In this case there’s nobody besides themselves that was involved.

innumerable people were involved. AI is trained on the blood sweat and tears of untold numbers of truly talented artists and creators. and people falsely claiming to have made something they didn’t make, even if it wasn’t the product of the amalgamation of actual artists’ hard work, rightfully ruffles feathers of people critically analyzing the scenario.

> It really seems like people are just upset that people were able to easily create the work, like getting pissed at people for tracing.

the entire point is they didnt create the work. they objectively did the least amount of work of all components involved in the creation process of the art. they could’ve done as little as copy/paste, and clicked a button. that will of course not sit well with people who understand what goes into the art forms AI relies upon in order to even function in the first place.

and tracing can of course be seen as lazy by some, and context matters. people thought disney was lazy for rotoscoping famous sequences from their early films. but the results were stunning and every frame still requires a great degree of hands on skill. getting all bent out of shape over some kid tracing manga is obviously lame. but criticizing some low effort etsy seller for tracing over people in stock images, omitting all detailed facial features because they’re too hard to replicate, and using the paint bucket tool to fill the figures in, then slapping it on cheap decor with contrived misappropriated inspirational quotes and selling it is seen as hacky and supremely lazy by many, and they have a point. AI art, on the other hand, makes the aforementioned etsy seller look like rembrandt by comparison. as stated, context matters.

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ImmoralityPet t1_iw5v95u wrote

>makes the aforementioned etsy seller look like rembrandt by comparison.

Ironically, many works attributed to and even sold as works by Rembrandt were actually done partially or wholly by the students in his studio.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw6mg9g wrote

fascinating irrelevant anecdote following my debunking of your flimsy narrative. you certainly successfully dodged any onus to respond to the rest of my three paragraph rebuttal i provided besides the word “Rembrandt”.

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H3adshotfox77 t1_iw5nlwp wrote

Didn't read all your posts before I responded to the other person but made many of the same points. AI is good of a tool as it is, is still a tool used by the artist to make artwork. No need to mention those colored pencils someone used to draw a picture either, or the person who created color pencils.

People are just mad that a tool is giving some people better looking art then their lack of skill with the harder to use tools.

Just because AI uses no skill to use doesn't make it any less of a tool in this scenario. I don't tell wood workers they aren't wood workers cause they use jigs and table saws instead of hand saws and wooden nails.

Anyways just adding more supporting facts to your statement to the otherguy.

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AstroAlmost t1_iw5tdns wrote

my point is AI isn’t so much a tool as it is an artist you commission.

> People are just mad that a tool is giving some people better looking art then their lack of skill with the harder to use tools.

this is a gross oversimplification of a very nuanced and valid array of grievances, many of which i’ve illustrated in my contributions to this thread, one of which was already in response to you, so no point in rehashing.

> Just because Al uses no skill to use doesn't make it any less of a tool in this scenario.

it does when art in this context and by definition inherently necessitates skill. if a tool does all the work and requires no skill on behalf of the operator, the operator doesn’t still get to pretend to be a “skilled worker”. as i’ve said before, they’re in essence commissioning an artist to realize their vision. this does not an artist make.

> don't tell wood workers they aren't wood workers cause they use jigs and table saws instead of hand saws and wooden nails.

that’s because the jigs and table saws can’t come up with inspiration and invent a piece of furniture on their own just because you asked them to.

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