Do You Support Star Army's Use of AI Art?

[Wes]

I was asked recently:

Does your site support the use of AI as character images?​

This is what I said:

See, Star Army has historically been a "we buy art for characters" site rather than the "use a celebrity's face" and use of AI hasn't changed that. We just have a lot more illustrations than before. We're using AI to make stuff like inventory items, you know boots and backpacks and stuff. For character art, we want the characters in the right uniforms and we want that human touch.

AI Art is wonderful for roleplay sites. It's amazing we can now generate characters in seconds for random NPCs and stuff. I've been making tons of it with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. That said, there's a certain level of randomness in AI art that makes it difficult to use for a specific character when you have a clear vision of them in mind. It's best used like random generator when you sort of know what you want. I especially like to use it to make placeholders and references which I then pass on to artists when I get art commissioned of the character.

Opinion time: I think the "AI Art is theft" angle is basically an overblown meme. I'm not sure the people who say that understand the technology or how copyright works. Instead, I the real reason people hate on AI art is because it's flooding the internet with low quality junk images. There's just too much of it. It's spammy. People need to be way more judicious about what they post, especially in spaces meant for artists. AI art pics are like photos of your kids, their creator is super excited about their creation but no one else really cares or wants to see them. And all this AI art posting is crowding out the art of real people who spent 6 hours slaving over their computer to make something cool, and sites like DeviantArt haven't really made a good filter for it because their moderation is a joke.​

In summary: AI generated images are welcome on my RP site, but human-made art is preferred. We've embraced this phenomenon while still supporting human artists. AI art is a supplement to human art, not a replacement.

What do you guys think?

 

[Lizalopod]

As someone who puts a lot of effort into my own work, it is a little.. meh.. that someone can make an illustration with way better line work and shading that I can do by just typing a prompt in but yeah. The main issue people have with AI art is that to train these models you need to feed them real art, and a lot of these AI models were fed by art belonging to artists who never knew or consented to it.

Personally I don't really mind it, I do art moreso as a hobby than anything, but I can certainly see why a lot of other artists are upset about AI art models being trained with their works. In my opinion AI should be developed as tools for artists, instead if just flat out trying to replace us.

(Though I will say sometimes the images they make is a little too detailed and hard to replicate o.o

 

[Charaa]

As someone who doesn't have the means to pay online, AI art is amazing, and something i can easily afford without worries. I have via others (Ame, Jack Pine) supported artists before though.

 

[Soban]

Do I support Star Army's use of AI art?

In a word? Enthusiastically.

The fact is that AI is a new tool that people can use to make art. I think that the whole 'stolen' thing is wrong because AI makes art by looking at a lot of examples and then replicating to create something that is similar but different. If you toss a Picasso into an AI, the Picasso isn't stored in the AI's memory the same way that even we have memory of a painting we have seen. It changes the weights in such a way that you can't pull the Picasso back out or any piece of art that's been thrown into it. It is my firm belief that AI is a tool not a threat and that AI will raise the baseline of all art.

 

[Alex Hart]

While I don't enjoy being the lone voice speaking out against the usage of generative AI on the site, I feel that I should speak my mind on the matter. To paint in broad strokes first, I'm opposed to the usage of generative AI in pretty much every form on SARP, barring extenuating circumstances. This is for a few reasons, ethical/moral, pragmatic, and personal ones.

To start out with the ethical issues, as Lizalopod mentioned earlier, the models used for the AI art and AI chatbots used by many people here on SARP these days were trained on data obtained without consent in almost every case, with it being practically or fully impossible for artists to request that their data be removed from models or for them to avoid having their art used. It is, broadly speaking, stolen data being used to create a product that is then sold back to the masses, and I feel this to be immoral.

To address a recent point from Soban, as recently as a few days ago, once Midjourney v6 began to roll out to users, it became apparent that training data could be reproduced nearly exactly. Several stills from the recent Dune movie were reproduced almost perfectly, along with stills from several other movies. In addition, a method has been circulating on Twitter for replicating the artstyles of very popular shows, again almost perfectly. To claim that any one of us on this site really understands how these programs work is foolish, they're a black box to all of us and to claim that they do or they don't "learn" like humans is a fool's errand, but the results do speak for themselves, and the results are proving to be all-too close to the training data.

It is now the case that you can, practically speaking, pull a Picasso back out of the AI.

From a pragmatic standpoint, I feel that the growing prevalence of AI-generated text and imagery on the internet is creating a lot of junk data, for lack of a better term. The more these technologies are used, the more junk data that will be created, until we're all swamped by images that aren't really of what we're looking for, and receiving search results that are more inaccurate than ever. This has already started to occur with many search engines, and while one website certainly won't make that much of a difference, I think that the choice to not contribute to this degradation of the internet is a valuable one to make.

Further, I feel that it's important to mention that per guidance from the US Copyright office, the output of generative AIs currently cannot be copyrighted, meaning that the images created from midjourney or other generators don't really belong to SARP, or to the SARP users who entered the prompts. The same can, more than likely, be said for any text generated for use on SARP.

Finally, I generally believe that the images and text created by generative AI lack the creative spark that underlies art, and have no desire to see this kind of content proliferate our website. Certain things might be easier, like getting art that's almost right, or having an AI assistant spit out a post wholesale for a user, but these tools have the potential to make us lazier, especially when it comes to the writing assistant usage of ChatGPT or the site's own AI bot.

I've already seen a number of wiki articles and forum RP posts that are basically unedited GenAI output, almost totally removed from the hands of the people that supposedly wrote them. This isn't what I want to see SARP become.

So, to reiterate my original point, I broadly oppose the usage of GenAI on SARP, and though I understand why many other users support it I disagree. I have few illusions that a single pebble can stop a landslide, on this site or on the whole internet, but I hope that I've given many of you something to think about more deeply.

 

[Andrew]

I support it, however it is not from a standpoint of copyright, or controversy about AI. I support it purely because it's fiscally responsible. SARP is funded 90% by Wes, and 10% by its users, the cost of art is outrageous and last I checked Wes is not a millionaire. I'd rather the art budget, what little there is set on art that really matters that will be front and center vs. just common wiki article art.

 

[Ametheliana]

I think you're undermining just how much character art is created for SARP.

I am also in the camp where I think AI images are certainly created in a scummy way. It's not a meme that plenty of artists are having their life's work ripped off. It breaks my heart that some artists google their names and get AI images made with their name as a value on the top row and not their actual art. I'm deeply entrenched in art twitter and they could care less about the junk art spamming the internet and more about their life's work being used without their consent.

I am in communities where it's banned to use AI art in any way. I've been in a voice call with artists where I have a sort of neutral stance but explain I have made drawings based off of AI art and they were pleasant enough, but definitely let me know they didn't support even that. I think SARP is a little bit of the odd man out for wholeheartedly embracing it and yes, I definitely think some people might take a look, see all the AI art and nope out.

 

[raz]

In summary: AI generated images are welcome on my RP site, but human-made art is preferred. We've embraced this phenomenon while still supporting human artists. AI art is a supplement to human art, not a replacement.

I think that is generally fine. The "it's good when you sort of know what you want" statement really resonated with me because that's how I use it: to generate a lot of slop and pick something close enough to my character out after already having an established and unique character aesthetic. Every time I've tried to have the AI transmute my words into something novel from my mind's eye, the result falls flat.

Those few times I've really appreciated AI art was for technology and other inanimate objects. Like the pink battlepod or survival pill packs.

What I do not really like at all is AI writing. The reader can always tell (at least if you're familiar with who posted the AI writing, and often even if you aren't) and that takes away some of the magic. Part of writing/roleplaying collaboratively is to see other voices and ways of thinking and AI generated prose eliminates that. When an AI post happens, I know I'm not seeing that other person's thoughts but rather a fanfic of their characters written by computer algorithms.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

No long answer from me; I dont like the less-than-legal and unethical way it came to be, and there are many instances that can be tracked back to the discord of me saying such when the first AI boom started last year.

But, I understand the genie is now out of the bottle and that can't be taken back. That said despite my reservations about how it came to be, I am in support of the recent AI boom and the technology and progress it represents.

(Angry artists stay out of my DMs.)

 

[iaincarter]

Given a choice, I'd take traditional human-handmade artwork. But, that usually isn't a choice as said artwork usually costs money that I can't afford. AI art is free/cheap, so ends up being the winner for me. So, given that, I can't fault SARP for allowing/using it either!

Again, if people want to use AI to write stuff, that's fine too as long as it's credited as such.

 

[Andrew]

In terms of the AI writing, I had the AI assist (with many edits and changes) when I was having difficulty with my hand movements after my stroke. So I see its usefulness too, I think people should make a conscious effort to use the AI as an assistant but not to write the entire post/article.

 

[Wes]

Above it was mentioned that AI art isn't copywritable unless it's transformed by a human, and I'm okay with that. If basically the whole internet was used for training data, the benefits should be shared with all of humanity. AI created, unedited stuff should be public domain IMO. Share the love.

As noted in the OP, I really like AI-ing up a semi-random look for a character, then using that as the reference for an artist so they know what I want. I did this with Captain Aoba, Colby Wando, Miyagawa Taro, Kawa Euikoshi, and Pidole Henitot and for example (the last two started as Waifulabs AI art!).

AI art is legal. Midjourney, one of the main AI art businesses, has successfully been open for 3 years and has over 15 million users. There is no way a huge business like this could operate outside of the law, and there's now over a dozen similar businesses in operation. DeviantArt is in the AI art business now too. You can now generate AI art from Microsoft Windows in Copilot. It looks like AI art is here to stay. But so is human art. Just like natural diamonds have greater value over ones made in a lab, human art that took time and effort will have greater value over art generated in 45 seconds by a computer.

I think if I could commission everything, I would 90% of the time (some art I generate I would just never commission like cans of beans lol). We (as in me acting on behalf of Star Army) spend most of the limited amount of donation money we get on infrastructure to keep the site working smoothly, so I can only get 1-2 images a month from human artists, and this is almost always used on character portraits. We don't make profit, we're not a business or a publisher. We're a gaming/writing group. Where AI art shines is when GMs immediately need a map, or a prop item. Basically, we use what we have access to and this is often all we got besides crudely making it ourselves in MSpaint.

I think there's an important distinction between use of AI Art in a hobby RP forum than making commercial products with it and selling those for profit.

I think there's also nuance to how AI art is used. Don't deepfake real people. Try to get permission for stuff (like I wouldn't, say, img2img her Ame's art without her consent). Keep supporting artists when you're able to. If it feels like it's a jerk move to do something, it probably is.

 

[Sunny D]

I really hate how this conversation is so mixed up in copyright and IP law because it does make my opinion very biased. The modern internet landscape is absolutely hampered by the DCMA with false take down notices issued by corporations and overly litigious people used to remove criticism over the internet. The old days of the internet are gone, most services are consolidated on large sites as those are the ones who can afford automatic moderation services and I largely blame the DCMA.

AI images being declared uncopyrightable was so refreshing and the abundance of it I believe increases the process overheard of DCMA web trawlers.

The arguments against image generators and LLMs are largely ephemeral. Humans also copy and imitate each other and its a very academic if you feel digital to digital is different to digital to analog. Skill building and style development aren't skipped, they've just been off loaded earlier in the development process and repeated for retraining. Human artists all, in my experience, have an art senpai and their style is a result of imperfections in imitation. Digital artists also have their art effected by the program they use. The hand of the engineer who programmed the brush is evident. I can't really tell the difference between Pinterest before and after August 2022.

There is certainly a metaphysical aspect that AI art is missing and will always miss. They are simulacra, but they're entering a world in which simulacra are dominant already. We are not our actions, we are our Linkedin and Facebook profiles. Problem is, while ordinarily I would say human drawn art has Sovl, the over saturation of schools like Calarts already had flesh and blood humans generating simulacra. Commissioned art is generally fine, but the hand drawn shit so prolific in the mainstream I want to see it all burn.

I believe in a healthy society, because AI is a simulacra and would be recognised as such, it would either co-exist with flesh and blood artists or not exist. I don't think we live in a healthy society and the plight of artists are the least of our issues.

Its also cool I can get my own computer to generate images.

 

[Ametheliana]

AI art is legal.

Actually, a lot of AI artwork infringes on legal copyright! Alex's example of shows and movie scenes being replicated 1:1 are good examples of illegal use of copyrighted material.

To do with writing like raz mentioned, recently NY Times opened up a lawsuit saying ChatGPT's dataset was obtained illegally and the effects on journalism feel devastating when taking into account this quote from the lawsuit:

“The protection of The Times’s intellectual property is critical to its continued ability to fund world-class journalism in the public interest,” the lawsuit states. “If The Times and its peers cannot control the use of their content, their ability to monetize that content will be harmed. With less revenue, news organizations will have fewer journalists able to dedicate time and resources to important, in-depth stories, which creates a risk that those stories will go untold. Less journalism will be produced, and the cost to society will be enormous.”

Many artists are also trying to get rulings in favor of their works that were obtained without consent. These are ongoing legal debates questioning the legality.I think to say it's legal just because it's been operating for a couple of years is shortsighted and forgets the law works slowly (she's blind after all!). People are currently speaking up to say they don't agree with the infringement of intellectual property and copyright, I think there will be changes and at least defining of its legality beyond what we've seen.

My opinion as far as writing goes... I like reading people's writing for their voice. I really appreciate the way individuals on this site write. I am constantly talking about the facets of how certain roleplayers write or how their characters operate and what I like about them. It's something that brings me a lot of joy, but when people use ChatGPT I just want to (and usually do) just go past it. There's no bigger let down than seeing one of my favorite SARP writers use ChatGPT for RP and that's probably a tough pill for a few of my friends to swallow. But I appreciate your writing, not a computer's.

I think the exception to this is when someone struggles with writing grammatically correct. It feels better to read then because it almost feels like a learning aid.

 

[Sunny D]

It's something that brings me a lot of joy, but when people use ChatGPT I just want to (and usually do) just go past it. There's no bigger let down than seeing one of my favorite SARP writers use ChatGPT for RP and that's probably a tough pill for a few of my friends to swallow.

I will 95% cosign this sentiment

The other 5% being I will use GPT to get me started off if I'm not in the mood, but as of late it seems they've neutered it a bit so its utility has diminished.

 

[demibear]

I tend to not look at LLMs (I will call it AI when it gets general intelligence, now that will be a scary time) through the lens of legality. What is legal, not legal, enforced, not enforced seems to change as fast as a Kardashian's sense of fashion. It's all above board when you are big enough to have the required legal team to go after others and prevent others from doing the same to "stop" you. Slap on the wrist fee for doing something, part of doing business. Sucks to be you if you don't.

I instead look at it for what it is, a tool. Is it useful, very. But anyone with a hint of aesthetics is going to be put off by what is produced by what is freely available/doesn't require a Hollywood tier workstation to operate. That includes midjourney on any more original ideas where there isn't a lot of training data on a concept you are trying to create. Humans learn much the same way to create derivative art styles (and rarer entirely new art styles).

I personally use LLMs to make reference material for future commissions since no one draws the same face the same way. I am blessed to finally have found a couple of artists that have styles that conform with what I like and within a reasonable price range (one only because I was an early commissioner, yay for brand loyalty rewards) that I can finalize concepts with.

Most I will never since finding an artist that does the artwork and not working more professionally in the industry (vehicles, starships, androids, etc) and I have to edit what I can to make it more presentable or just live with all the strange artifacts that LLMs love to spit out since their collective knowledge is limited. Alex has helped a couple of times on the starship art problem, which I am very grateful for.

Text LLMs are a whole different can of worms. I use it to learn and refine concepts and ideas I have. The vast amount of wip articles I have recently is a result of that, lol. But I really don't like the prose and how chatGPT answers. So I will often use it as a basis and expand on it. Only really use it on its own for history sections (still often edited to fit SARP) and short descriptions.

When I was younger, I always wondered what it was like when the internal combustion engine was invented and cheap enough to start proliferating into society. Now I have that answer with LLMs. Sadly humans will be humans that always abuse and use tools for purposes not intended.

TLDR: I love LLMs and use them as the basis for human art wearing the right uniform. But I am okay using it on its own if I have to.

 

[Gles]

I'm in the "AI art is theft" camp and generally think it looks soulless at best, uncanny and creepy at worst. If someone says they're an AI Artist, I want to roll my eyes. I can ignore other people using it since I understand it's an appealing alternative to paying for commissions, even if I think it doesn't justify its use, and partially because there's not many ways you can stop someone from using it. As long as I'm not expected to use it to depict my character.

Considering how much the law bends to corporations, I also don't think relying on what's legal or not is a strong stance either.

 

[SensualCoder]

I'm also strongly in the "AI art is theft" camp, but I think that the legality lens is the wrong way to look at it, as there are plenty of things that are "legal" but are still wrong. The issue is ethical and moral to me, as the companies that utilize the LLMs do not ask permission for utilizing the works that are used to create their models, nor is there any sort of compensation provided to those same creators while companies like OpenAI and Midjourney reap the profits. Ultimately I believe this will lead to less human-made art being created as people find less ability to make any sort of living with their artwork.

That being said, I do believe there is a place for it being used as a tool to support and aid people in creating things, but only if those tools are controlled by the people that use them. This is currently not the case, as the actual process that LLMs use require a vast amount of computing power and infrastructure to operate, and the process necessarily uses more than just a single person's writing or art to produce output.

I'd also like to echo what Ame said above about hearing a person's unique voice in writing. One of the reasons I took a hiatus from the site a little while back was due to feeling burnt out and unable to effectively write RP to my own satisfaction. The real final straw back then, though, was when an RP partner I was working a scene out with used an AI output to add some to the scene. This was really demoralizing to me, as if felt like my contribution wasn't really appreciated if it could be replaced with something computer generated.

Finally, I'd like to paraphrase something I saw about this subject elsewhere that I can't find now unfortunately, that went something like: If a person couldn't care to create this, then why should I care to read it?

 

[Soban]

I disagree pretty strongly with the idea that "AI art is theft". That said, I do agree to a degree with the sentiment of "If a person couldn't care to create this, then why should I care to read it?" Frankly most AI stuff is expected and correct. What it doesn't really do well is the unexpected and correct in the way that a person does. I think the nature of AI, as it is right now, is the average-ifacation of whatever it draws on. Which turns it into bland muck. It's why I don't really use AI for writing even though I'm pretty enthusiastically for it. I'll use it to create images, but even then I'll edit it in some way to be mine (I've done that with images of Sacre as far back as 2019) because AI is a tool, one of many that a good artist can use if they want.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Been on the fence about this for a long time.

I'm not personally losing revenue, because I was always kind of a weird, niche, mid-level skilled artist in the first place, never quite good enough to earn real money... But I think this kind of thing has absolutely cratered my willingness to improve, too. Having a few good ideas just doesn't feel like enough anymore... Guess that's a personal perspective, but potential new members could well be feeling the same way.

Don't want to accidently insult anyone by saying I generally find AI art to be very generic and homogenized, taking directly from the zeitgeist of modern games and movies in the way that all big company projects do- Because yeah, that's probably another personal opinion.

But... Isn't that what random internet roleplaying forums are supposed to be all about? Getting the weirdest, most out-there stuff that a corporate CEO wouldn't possibly greenlight, and just making our own little collaborative clusterf**k here away from public eyes?

Have no authority. You can do what you want.

But it depresses me immensely.