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I am not against AI per se, but I am deeply concerned about the way it is being used. The way it is being used also sparks much bigger concerns about the future. The people creating these systems seem to have utopian views about how this will turn out. They promise us a world in which we will never have to work again and we can have everything we want, whenever we want. Ignoring the fact that not everyone thinks this is desirable, and that arguably, a measure of struggle arguably makes someone better, and that cultivating a skill over many years ennobles them, they promise us a theoretical future good, at the expense of current suffering. They argue that everything we enjoy right now was made by sacrificing the livelihoods of people in similar situation such as medieval book copiers, artisans but just because I enjoy technology and some advancements were made by a kind of symbolic human sacrifice, does not mean this this necessarily has to happen every time a technological revolution happens and that we can't do things in a better way! The present is real but the future is theoretical and they are causing real pain right NOW in favor or some murky, theoretical future.

This COULD have been done in a way that does not spit on the work of people who devoted their lives to cultivating a skill! If the utopia is inevitable, then why not do it in such a way that it does not cause tremendous short term suffering to people? Short term can mean anything from 5 to 15 years, time in which huge swaths of people can be in extreme vulnerability. IF you are a good person who wants to help people and humanity, why not use public domain art out of PRINCIPLE and not just because there is a loophole in the law that lets you do it just because? Why not do good all the way instead of waiting for this sacrifice, that no one asked for, to pay off in the future. Your god might accept your sacrifice or be offended by your hubris and presumptuousness! Even if you don't believe in such "silly fairy tales", because you are men of science after all, you can't deny that these silly stories show a pattern of life and that pattern has a habit of punishing hubris! Besides, this so-called, imminent "utopia" seems to have a creepy religious undertone to it, like it's a messiah whose coming is inevitable.

Limiting the model to public domain might slow technological progress in the short term but In terms of history that can mean 5, 15 or 50 years and what does such paltry time mean if the utopia is inevitable? If an artist loses his job and is forced to flip burgers for the next 15 years, how is he supposed to "adapt or die"? The AI can just shit out 5 results in 5 seconds. How can you compete or adapt to that? If you were a monk in the 15th century who lost his job copying bibles, you could still have an illustrious career writing books about theology, and philosophy! OOPS, YOU CAN'T DO THAT ANYMORE! Your papers will just be fuel for the AI! Even IF you invent a new art style (which is a monumental task in itself) your art will just become fuel for the AI. You will never be compensated and no one will EVER be grateful for your work!

All this is done in the name of so-called "progress". You keep hearing the same mantra online: "you can't stop progress". But this word is very murky, ill-defined and problematic. Progress according to whom? What IS progress? And what are we progressing towards? So far, no one has given me a coherent answer of WHAT "progress" is and WHERE we are "progressing" to. All I get are answers that point to some kind of techno-utopia that they just presuppose is good because "progress".

It's sort of like social media. On paper, it sounds like a really good idea. It would bring people together, make friends across the whole globe, and it enables us to have this conversation but if you really look at it, social media has only made people more depressed and more lonely, exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do! I am not making an equivalence here, I am just saying that based on this precedent (and there are many many more), just because something is new, does not mean it is better. Technological progress does not automatically equate to social, spiritual or even human progress!

If you really want to make such extremely radical changes to society, then you need to find a universal definition to what progress is and not ONE of the tech bros seems to be interested in that! These scientists are all like a bunch of sailors on a ship and we are the passengers. They are all very good sailors but they have no idea where the fuck they are going! At best they have a general idea where they are going. But be careful, there might be sirens on the way or you might land on an island of cannibals! I would be extremely cautious of people who promote ideas of so-called utopia, they are capable of doing anything and stepping on anyone to reach their goals, with a smile on their faces too! Just because I like technology and technological progress does not mean I have to accept everything that's coming my way!

I repeat, I am not against AI, and I was actually very excited for this technology two years ago! I saw those upscaled 4k 60FPS videos from the 1900s, I saw AI upscaled textures and sprites to my favorite 90s video games and I thought to myself how these remasters would be better than human made ones because the remaster wouldn't be "tainted" by subjective impression of the artist. The original vision of the game would just be objectively better. I kept thinking how some tedious tasks like UVs, retopo, making non-tileable textures tileable would be automated. However, it seems like things are going in the opposite direction. Instead of automating the tedious boring, jobs, they are taking away the creative, meaningful jobs, leaving us with either scraps or forcing us to flip burgers because for now, constructing a robot that flips burgers instead of a human is more expensive than hiring a human. You can't eat a digital burger!

I am a 3D artist and I have a very good relationship with my employer and my client. I started 3D 5 years ago so the blow won't/wouldn't be so hard for me but this job is what turned my life around and what gave me a measure of confidence. How am I supposed to grow as a human and what am I supposed to aspire to if the AI does everything better than me, on the backs of people who never consented their works to be used in such a manner? I wanted to learn 2D art as well and since I am extremely picky about who I learn from, Steven Zapata's course is exactly what I need but it's going to take at least 5 years to get decent at it and right now AI is more than decent in just 1 year. Who knows how good this will get in 5 years? Why even bother? Even if I do it for free, it's going to be extremely disheartening to see an AI shit out two results in 5 seconds. No one will appreciate the hard work that I put into this. If I want to switch careers (again), don't be fooled that is coming just for art. If you can replace an artist, you can probably replace any other kind of highly skilled, intellectual job like an architect, lawyer or whatever. You'll just be flipping burgers until the so-called utopia comes.

A year ago I felt like I have the whole world ahead of me but now it seems like I need to plan an exit strategy. I can't even get away from it. I need to hone my craft and I am subscribed to many pages and at least half of them share AI stuff on my feed and the anxiety just starts again. But don't forget, it's all in the name of "PROGRESS"!!!

"What you basically would do is to blind the AI by taking away the training data"

I think that is one of the key issues artists want a remedy for. They're basically saying "hey, I didn't post my portfolio online to have it be used by this software unbeknownst to me, that anyone can use for commercial purposes...please remove it."

It's a sensible request. And trivial to do for the software...for the hypothetical blind child in our example: not so much.

It's the wild, wild west for sure. A new frontier. People will want to explore, mistakes will be made, lessons hopefully learned. It's pretty cool to have discourse about here, because it is us, our industry, our peers, our colleagues and friends that can shape and change it.

"It's completely normal for people to want their piece of mind back.

Next false claim. You cannot want back what you never lost."

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Being a contrarian/taking the position of the devil's advocate/being in disagreement is one thing ; showing a pure lack of empathy is another altogether.

I still can not understand the reason why somebody would call it AI "art" in the first place other than for cynical manipulation of social narratives.

For sociopaths everything can be a "tool", even another person. No wonder they are so loud right now in defending AI with rather very weak arguments, e.g. that it is fun for THEM, the reward is so FAST, oh, it's such a cool toy etc.

Ethics is something beyond their understanding.

They simply can not grasp, that many CG artists aren't against AI in general, but against being treated unfair.

Well first of all it is absolutely possible to design AI-driven tools that have been trained ethically. That's what the team behind Cascadeur did, sourcing their own animation work into a tool that helps ... animators.

But that doesn't mean that an AI-assisted tool, even ethically trained, is necessarily desirable. For instance the 2d side of me would (perhaps) not want some magical AI-driven line smoothing tool even if ethically trained, because it would still feel like leeching on the effort of others. Whereas I don't see that much of a problem with algorithmic line processing (as done by LazyNezumi) because it is 100% coming from ingenuity and clever software design, overcoming the limitations of poorly performing or limited hardware and software.

I also don't know what to think of the inevitable "2D to 3D" AI tools. Sure, they'll be fascinating to watch evolve, and sure enough many designers will love the idea of being able to turn their sketches into 3D renders, skipping manual modeling/sculpting/VR Sketching. But is it really that desirable in the long run ?

Also, I tend to think that a place for artists that doesn't allow any AI-generated imagery (even if ethically trained) would overall feel more welcoming and less toxic. I guess we'll see how all this turns out in practice within a few months to a year.

At the end of the day perhaps it comes down to making the conscious choice of not necessarily being at the forefront of technical progress, for the sake of preserving "slow art". Whether such slow art is commercially viable is a big question, but I honestly don't think that the most successful products are necessarily the ones with the most intricately detailed visuals. See pixel art, Minecraft, and so on.