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?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Wes]

Polygon, your art is amazing and unique and that unique style is a huge asset precisely because it doesn't look like everything else.

I don't necessarily see a competition between art and generated art because:

• Even if I had unlimited money to commission artists I'd still generate art for fun. There's a certain appeal to the unpredictable nature of it and the speed. it's not an artist replacement, it's more of a fun art gambling machine that's useful to make fantasy stuff for my RP.
• Likewise no amount of AI art would stop me from getting art commissions because getting art of my character in the right uniform and with the right face and look is one of the greatest things.

I will always be trying to make or buy unique art. Star Army having unique art and a certain look to it has been a defining feature since our earliest days and I don't want to lose that by settling for generic images pumped out en masse. Besides, anything I can generate, so can any competing community. That said let's be real that SARP runs at a loss for me. We don't sell anything or run ads. Sometimes AI art is all I have available other than trying to scribble something on copier paper and taking a photo with my phone, lol.

@Primitive Polygon : If it'll help you feel less depressed, I'd love to commission you sometime. A Polygon artwork is always a joy to behold. Literally every time you post one I feel giddy. Don't give up.

I really appreciate how cool everyone has been in this thread, by the way. We have people with different views in here and everyone has been totally civil and respectful. It's definitely given me some things to think about.

 

[Soban]

I feel like we had a good convo in discord that might be relevant.

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:40 PM
So the Midjourney Style List got found out and now it will be used in a lawsuit

Soban — Today at 4:41 PM
Style list?
Can I have a article on this lawsuit?

Lizalopod — Today at 4:42 PM
o.o

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:43 PM

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MEglfejpqgVcaf-I-cgZ5ngV_MlaOTeGXAoBPJO69FM/htmlview#gid=1096178862

Soban — Today at 4:43 PM
Thanks

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:43 PM
it is everyone that midjourney has used

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/artists-take-new-shot-stability-midjourney-updated-copyright-lawsuit-2023-11-30/

and the lawsuit

Soban — Today at 4:44 PM
Thanks! So I think they might have issues with 'style' being a part of this in much the same way that you can't copyright mechanics, but you can copyright the exact wording of the mechanics in RPGs

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:45 PM
It has been given for this, because by style, it means it has taken their artwork, to use for other people
But with things like Disney, nintendo, playstation and that, I don't think it would matter too much

Soban — Today at 4:47 PM
I've never really been convinced that their artwork is in there because it gets mixed in. Every time people say 'well it's exactly like mine' I see differences

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:48 PM
Yea, but this also shows they use these people actual art

Soban — Today at 4:51 PM
ok, and? When i look at someone's art on line I'm not stealing it. Using it as training data is pretty much the same thing.

Lizalopod — Today at 4:52 PM
It's kinda touchy tbh for a lot of artists

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:52 PM
it is that grey area

Soban — Today at 4:53 PM
I can see why, I'm just not sure that I agree with their conclusions

Lizalopod — Today at 4:53 PM
I think the main issue a lot of them have with AI art is the attempt to just invalidate their art. And yes, the AI rn is basic. But it will improve.

Soban — Today at 4:53 PM
It's a bit like self-service gas pumps taking away jobs from gas station people
I nearly fought someone who touched my car the first time I went somewhere that didn't allow self service.

Lizalopod — Today at 4:54 PM
As an artist myself, working on a piece for hours and then seeing an AI model do the same thing in less than a minute with better shading and line work is like...

Soban — Today at 4:54 PM
I don't think it invalidates it at all.

Lizalopod — Today at 4:54 PM
I understand its a tool, and I'm not completely against it

Soban — Today at 4:55 PM
One of the things that is going to become important I think is the AI poisioning aspect.
I can see a world where we basically say 'if you don't have some sort of rights to it, then you can't use it in your training data'

Lizalopod — Today at 4:56 PM
But the possibility that the tool is trained on art that I put a lot of effort into is a bit yknow, ouch.

I'm not big enough to remotely rely on it, but these are a lot of people's income so I can see where they are coming from

Lizalopod — Today at 4:56 PM
This would be the best alternative honestly

Soban — Today at 4:56 PM
It's something that I'd be willing to settle for. The problem of course is enforcement.

club24 — Today at 4:56 PM
The biggest issue I have with ai art as a consumer is that i don’t want to pay an “ai artist” 200 bucks for a stolen artstyle that takes them 2 minutes to make

Rizzo — Today at 4:57 PM
I’m not gonna lie, that is a bad lawsuit.
Artists do not want that lawsuit to set precedent.
if it becomes unlawful to “copy the style” of another artist every single artist that has ever published anything can be sued.

Lizalopod — Today at 4:57 PM
I think AI has a place in art, ir just shouldn't be used as a way to attempt to replace artists, but as a tool to help them

club24 — Today at 4:57 PM
The technology is definitely interesting, it’s people abusing it i have the most issue with

Lizalopod — Today at 4:57 PM
Yeah lol the wording on that sucks

Soban — Today at 4:57 PM
One of the intresting pieces of reseach I've found is that people aren't able to identify AI art better than just flipping a coin but do consistantly prefer real art over AI art.

club24 — Today at 4:57 PM
If it has hands
You can always tell

Soban — Today at 4:58 PM
100% and right now we are figuring out where those lines are.

Soban — Today at 4:58 PM
This isn't as true anymore, as we have been training them to do now pretty much perfect hands.

Rizzo — Today at 4:58 PM
This is an amazing point though, that could be a lawsuit worth pursuing.
The people abusing that artwork should have to cease-and-desist. That one artist’s name on google being associated with an AI image made on Midjourney is unacceptable.

Lizalopod — Today at 4:58 PM
That's one of the things I feel a lot of people don't take into account. These models are developing scarily fast. Given time they will improve
It's not always going to be uncanny
Or soulless

BloodyScarlet — Today at 4:59 PM
I am not against it, it is more, I can see where people are coming from when someone goes "Hey, I just made this in your artstyle, so I don't have to pay you" or all of that sort of stuff with AI

club24 — Today at 4:59 PM
^
I refuse to pay someone for ai generated art

Soban — Today at 4:59 PM
The problem is that 'I just did this in your style' is a pretty valid defense

club24 — Today at 4:59 PM
Because they’re not actually providing a service or good

Soban — Today at 5:00 PM
I'm not sure I agree. I have a friend who in really into the promt engineering and I'm never able to get images that are as good as his
prompt engineering isn't as easy as people think
granted, the next iteration usually includes some of the prompt egnineering of last time.

Lizalopod — Today at 5:01 PM
Which honestly isn't a good point either. The technology will continue to evolve so that it's easy to use. Ultimately this won't matter
It just needs to be regulated legally
It's the only way

club24 — Today at 5:02 PM
Yeah, prompt engineering may take a couple hours even to create, but ill give ya 5 bucks for it because its equivalent to writing twitter hashtags
I personally wont pay for a string of key phrases
Id rather just go to the actual artist who can make adjustments if needed ect

Soban — Today at 5:03 PM
I'm not so certain, there are always a lot of ways for things to grow and diffrentiate.
The more sophisticated the more the diffrentiation work that needs to be done
I'm a software engineer so I see a good set of engineered prompts as being similar to code

Sunny D — Today at 5:04 PM
We're already in a beauricratic hell and you want to make it worse?

Lizalopod — Today at 5:04 PM
Well, fair, but I'd like my work to mean something atleast

Sunny D — Today at 5:05 PM
Any legislation that is pushed through is only going to gate AI off from the masses, to only be used by the elite.
And it already does

Soban — Today at 5:06 PM
100%

Sunny D — Today at 5:06 PM
I don't think AI is ever going to get Sovl
though saying that

Lizalopod — Today at 5:06 PM
Thats the issue, we don't know lol

Soban — Today at 5:06 PM
I think that it's going to take at bare minimum 20 years if not longer for us to be able to write good legislation about it

Sunny D — Today at 5:06 PM
GPT used to have the sovl until they started gimping it

Lizalopod — Today at 5:06 PM
I can see this tech easily improving and getting better

Sunny D — Today at 5:07 PM
They keep knecapping it though

Soban — Today at 5:07 PM
get Sovl?

Lizalopod — Today at 5:07 PM
Some of them keep kneecapping

Sunny D — Today at 5:07 PM
Soul

Lizalopod — Today at 5:07 PM
Others don't care

Sunny D — Today at 5:07 PM
v=u

BloodyScarlet — Today at 5:09 PM
it is the thing of, it is a great tool to help, it iswhen people are ripping off others work with it that I have the problem with

Sunny D — Today at 5:10 PM
Look, I just want Mikoyan to draw more shark girls
But he's only one man

Soban — Today at 5:11 PM
I think we are closer than we would like to think to AI having what might be described as a soul.

Soresu — Today at 5:11 PM
Skynet.gif

Charmaylarg Dufrain — Today at 5:11 PM
It will either come within this year or not at all.
Look back to where we were 20 years ago with radioactive brick cellphones and 100mb computers to now with pocket supercomputers I can call someone across the world with no loss of clarity.
The AI boom might mostly be centered around shitty automated chatbots, cloning voices, and art within seconds but theres more foundation to the technology than those examples. Its also said that all the great things humanity has envisioned when looking towards the future wont be made by us but by AI we have designed that will make those things as stepping stones towards other projects.
Pretty much our techology is snowballing every five years or so.

Lizalopod — Today at 5:12 PM
I personally don't have that big of an issue with AI art being used and such, but It does still concern me and I wish there was a better way to tell it appart from real art.
It's just, ergh how do I word this. To us artists, having spent years learning and refining our styles only to be outdone by a text prompt is a metaphorical kick to the teeth lol. There's no way we're going back anyways so the only thing we can really do is cross our fingers and hope our hobbies are still relevant in 10 years

Soban — Today at 5:12 PM
Horray for the singularity, hopefully we won't be crushed in it.

Sunny D — Today at 5:12 PM
You can tell the difference at the moment though

Lizalopod — Today at 5:13 PM
It's concerning for the future atleast

Sunny D — Today at 5:13 PM
The layman might not be able to, but anyone who's played with AI generators knows the artefacts
Art livestreams will be where its at

Soban — Today at 5:14 PM
Research shows you actually can't do it better than guessing, but still like the human stuff more.

Sunny D — Today at 5:14 PM
where you can see the person making the image

Soban — Today at 5:14 PM
I think Chess might be an intresting case of AI taking over
But we still have humans playing it and it's more popular than ever

Sunny D — Today at 5:15 PM
I disagree. I look at Pinterest and can tell AI art. But I've had a play with the generators. Did these studies control for those familiar with the technology and outputs?

Charmaylarg Dufrain — Today at 5:16 PM
The new chess meta as I have learned it this past year: Wearing shoes is cheating, and Buttplugs make you a grandmaster.

Sunny D — Today at 5:17 PM

why do I hear boss music? (original)

This hot garbage went viral on Reddit.Chess world champion Anatoly Karpov wipes Misha Osipov from existence.Russian TV show with subtitles: https://youtu.be/...

www.youtube.com

YouTube
Daniyal Shahrokhian
why do I hear boss music? (original)
Image
Lizalopod — Today at 5:17 PM
Wheeze

Soban — Today at 5:17 PM
I don't know, but here is the article I'm refrencing Viewers can’t tell the difference between AI & human-made art, but still prefer the latter – BG Independent News
BG Independent News
David Dupont
Viewers can’t tell the difference between AI & human-made art, but ...
Here is the research it's self APA PsycNet
Abstract:

Artistic creation has traditionally been thought to be a uniquely human ability. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), however, have enabled algorithms to create art that is nearly indistinguishable from human artwork. Existing research suggests that people have a bias against AI artwork but cannot accurately identify it in blind comparisons. The current study extends this investigation to examine the aesthetic judgment factors differentiating human and machine art. Results indicate that people are unable to accurately identify artwork source but prefer human art and experience more positive emotions in response to human artwork. The aesthetic judgment factors differentiating human- and machine-generated art were all related to positive emotionality. This finding has several implications for this research area and limitation and avenues for future research are discussed.

Charmaylarg Dufrain — Today at 5:19 PM
I also have a view of AI art that nobody has really liked in that if not exactly AI, I saw this kind of boom comming years ago with the Learn to code migration going when technology seemed to really skyrocket and millenials and boomers alike suddenly learned you couldnt just inherit your fathers place in his job when he retired but needed to get certified, go to school, or learn to code which was becomming more popular. Everything was potentially at risk from your job to your hobby and needing to adapt.
Imo art is also a hobby and not a job (im no arists, I know that invalidates my claim a lot). The only people I see living off being an artist are the people who throw paint at a canvas and sell it for a few thousand dollars to a millionaire after having it valued at ten million dollars so they can get a ten million dollar tax writeoff.

Sunny D — Today at 5:21 PM
The only issue with the Learn To Code thing?
AI is really REALLY good at making code
You can get it to alter libraries if you want, tell it to change structure and it will just do it.
Coders will have to add AI to their pipelines.

Charmaylarg Dufrain — Today at 5:22 PM
It is. The whole thing about the AI is about what it can do compared to the time it would take us. Thats why its possible AI when fully relalized will be designing technology for us and roadmapping the future because it can do in time with enough processing power what it will take a whole team years to do.
You tell it to design itself a better processor and it does. Then if you told it to get a man on the moon it would need to design the rocket but would first need to design heat resiliant materials, spacesuits, and etc as the foundation that would trickle down as it worked to achieve its objectives.

Sunny D — Today at 5:25 PM
There's a limit to that though. The simulation always has a deviation from reality. QC and testing would still need to exist.
I fear they won't though and hand it all to the AI
simply because no one is competent anymore to do the QC

Charmaylarg Dufrain — Today at 5:26 PM
Tho I also will point out there is no Asimovs three laws everyone is programming. And we will very soon see some kinds of viruses or cyber attacks that utilize adaptive AIs somehow that can very well spiral into crippling nations within years.

Sunny D — Today at 5:27 PM
That will be interesting but also kind of impossible. Current AIs are cudgels. Neural networks often need specific environments and vast resources to run.
The only systems possibly vulnerable to such an attack would be badly segmented server farms. And even then.

 

[Rizzo]

Interesting. On one hand viewing art is not a crime, but on the other hand, they are a for-profit company using that art to generate new works of art for paying customers. They are not selling the art so it should not be legal, but they are still making a profit using other peoples art which would be illegal if it were redistribution.

As far as lawsuits go it’s not bad, but still very weak as it has no prior president to draw from.
The legislation that would come from this could be very interesting.

 

[Yuuki]

This is kind of a related tangent, but I had been thinking about it, and starting to get motivated to do more logos/patches/flags in the backlog kind of solidified it. My tenure as a working artist was in graphic design, and I spent it, and the time since, with kind of the feeling that we were second-class to illustrators when it came to professional art. That makes it really, really ironic I guess for me that AI is closing in on high-end illustrators in all styles, but it can't even come close do succeeding at things that I consider barely more than trivial in terms of graphic design. Its inability to deal properly with text is part of it, but that's not all of it. It is just kind of strange, to me, I guess.