# AI generated art



## Mon0Zer0 (May 23, 2022)

Generated using a deep dreaming algorithm in Google Collab and trained on Artstation. 






Below was generated, then edited afterwards in Photoshop.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)




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## Astro Pen (May 24, 2022)

Okay, you have got me excited. Any supporting info appreciated.
I found this








						An Introduction to DeepDream with TensorFlow 2.0
					

DeepDream is a powerful computer vision algorithm that uses a convolutional neural network to find and enhance certain patterns in images.




					www.mlq.ai
				



And vids of some guy doing TLDNW interactive sessions.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)

Astro Pen said:


> Okay, you have got me excited. Any supporting info appreciated.
> I found this
> 
> 
> ...



I'll PM you a script you can run on google collab. You'll need to connect a google drive account.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)




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## Astro Pen (May 24, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> I'll PM you a script you can run on google collab. You'll need to connect a google drive account.


Got it, thanks.
I don't have a google drive or anything beyond gmail but I can probably find someone I know.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)

Astro Pen said:


> Got it, thanks.
> I don't have a google drive or anything beyond gmail but I can probably find someone I know.



If you already have gmail then you should already have a drive and collab account.


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## Astro Pen (May 24, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> If you already have gmail then you should already have a drive and collab account.


OK I'll check that out.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)

"The Censor" - this is a photoshopped AI image, using iterations 50,100,150 and 250, with added haze and a light beam.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 24, 2022)




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## Swank (May 25, 2022)

I'm sorry, is this "AI generated", or "AI collaged"? This stuff looks like other art that has been chopped up and stuck back together using some some algorithm that reads for common shapes and depth.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> I'm sorry, is this "AI generated", or "AI collaged"? This stuff looks like other art that has been chopped up and stuck back together using some some algorithm that reads for common shapes and depth.



Generated. As I understand it, it starts with randomly generated noise as a seed (see below), and uses weighted probabilities to generate shapes based on a training set and shape recognition and in accordance with a prompt.





50 iterations on from the noise - generated shapes (prompt was: "A spaceship by John Berkey")





100 iterations from base







The "other art chopped up" is also how the original art on which this is made (photobashing). It's a stylistic choice. For the warrior monk / censor images I'm using Johnson Ting's art as the intended look:


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## jd73 (May 25, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> View attachment 89906
> View attachment 89907


Nice. The work "cybermonk" popped into my head on seeing these


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)




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## Rodders (May 25, 2022)

Quite a lot of Syd Mead (RIP) in that last one.


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## Swank (May 25, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> Generated. As I understand it, it starts with randomly generated noise as a seed (see below), and uses weighted probabilities to generate shapes based on a training set and shape recognition and in accordance with a prompt.
> 
> View attachment 89912
> 
> ...


Your description still strikes me that the AI has a catalog of "John Berkley spaceships" to work from, otherwise it wouldn't be able to produce spaceships.


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## SilentRoamer (May 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> Your description still strikes me that the AI has a catalog of "John Berkley spaceships" to work from, otherwise it wouldn't be able to produce spaceships.


This is true - but isnt this conceptually how human creativity works?  

We just draw from our own organic memories in the same way.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> Your description still strikes me that the AI has a catalog of "John Berkley spaceships" to work from, otherwise it wouldn't be able to produce spaceships.



The AI is trained on a body of his work (and hundreds of other painters, images and objects). There's no catalogue of images but a  relational model, or a series of "weights". You can instruct it to paint something Berkey never once painted in his life and it'll use his sense of composition, colour and brush strokes to create something.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)

This is one created by David Martinez using Midjourney. Midjourney is really next level with what it can create, but it's in closed Beta right now.


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## Swank (May 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> This is true - but isnt this conceptually how human creativity works?
> 
> We just draw from our own organic memories in the same way.


I don't think so. People don't generally read a lot of Balzac and then write a series of Balzac-like things.



Mon0Zer0 said:


> The AI is trained on a body of his work (and hundreds of other painters, images and objects). There's no catalogue of images but a  relational model, or a series of "weights". You can instruct it to paint something Berkey never once painted in his life and it'll use his sense of composition, colour and brush strokes to create something.


The AI isn't trained to think like Berkley or to have a rationalization of technology like Berkley. It is being trained to reassemble visual cues around certain "spaceship-like rules", which have more to do with some rules about up and down, symmetricality and perspective combined with "pointy to the left, holes to the right" guidance. It just doesn't seem much different than a text generator.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)

Swank said:


> I don't think so. People don't generally read a lot of Balzac and then write a series of Balzac-like things.



Because humans aren't restricted to just one set of training data, but everything we experience in life trains our representational models. You can pick out influences in people's writing, and some writers do write like other writers.



Swank said:


> The AI isn't trained to think like Berkley or to have a rationalization of technology like Berkley.



This is true, there's no sense that it understands what it's making in any deeper sense than the probabilities of a set of pixels appearing in certain positions on a field.

However, we don't really understand how human vision or creativity actually works either - so we don't know whether the understanding is outside of conscious experience or not. Chomsky seems to think 80%+ processing happens outside consciousness.

The next level of adversarial / GAN networks are far beyond what I'm using here (see David Martinez's work above) and it seems to have an intuitive sense for reflections in water and other phenomena which suggests that it has some level of "understanding" - An AI which can rationalise technology may not be that far away.

Personally, I like the impossible nature of the images - it's an aesthetic that's valid in itself even if it's not a perfect representation of "real painting".  As starting points for digital paintings they're also useful.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 25, 2022)

Imagen: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
					






					imagen.research.google


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## Swank (May 25, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> The next level of adversarial / GAN networks are far beyond what I'm using here (see David Martinez's work above) and it seems to have an intuitive sense for reflections in water and other phenomena which suggests that it has some level of "understanding" - An AI which can rationalise technology may not be that far away.


If it can understand creating symmetrical objects in vanishing point perspective, it can understand reflections. They are the same kind of math problem.

I like these images, but I feel like their generation doesn't accomplish anything but produce visual spam versions of people work. I'm sure they will soon take over the self published cover art market. (Which might be a good thing compared to the schlock often assembled from bad clip art.)


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## Rodders (May 26, 2022)

Is this the art equivalent of bot written scripts?


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 26, 2022)

Rodders said:


> Is this the art equivalent of bot written scripts?



I don't know enough about that to say, tbh.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 27, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (May 27, 2022)




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## Toby Frost (May 27, 2022)

Wow!


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## CupofJoe (May 27, 2022)

I like the images but I wonder how many failed/nonsensical images this system produces?
I'll be impressed with AI when it decides that it really wants to be in a band and starts learning the guitar.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 27, 2022)

CupofJoe said:


> I like the images but I wonder how many failed/nonsensical images this system produces?
> I'll be impressed with AI when it decides that it really wants to be in a band and starts learning the guitar.



From playing with it for a few days, it depends. It seems to like Landscape more than Portrait - portrait you get odd perspective errors.
It is excellent at fantasy landscapes, not so much at actual objects like a car or a spaceship. People's faces are always weird.

 You can also play with some of the underlying code to get better results - getting more seeds (and therefore more odd shapes splattered around randomly).

Anything which is too far away from the training data gives you odd results.

Here's a failed one: "Dragon fights soldiers in the polish countryside."


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 28, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (May 28, 2022)




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## Mouse (May 28, 2022)

Heh. Weirdly, I discovered AI generated art only yesterday and been a bit obsessed with it since. Mine is... erm... weird, though. Maybe it's my prompts.

I call this terrifying image "Guinea Pig with a Doughnut"






And there's this joy of joys:






And um... this is a thing, too. "Dog with Boy Face"






Mine are all wrong.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 28, 2022)

Mouse said:


> Heh. Weirdly, I discovered AI generated art only yesterday and been a bit obsessed with it since. Mine is... erm... weird, though. Maybe it's my prompts.
> 
> I call this terrifying image "Guinea Pig with a Doughnut"
> 
> ...


That is TERRIFYING!


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 28, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (May 28, 2022)




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## AE35Unit (May 28, 2022)

A Fractal mixed with AI (google deep dream)


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## Mouse (May 29, 2022)

Ok I finally managed something not terrifying!


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 29, 2022)

Dragonwasp. Quite heavily edited afterwards in Photoshop. I think the biggest use we'll get from these kinds of technology is to use them as starting points for photobashing / editing.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 30, 2022)

So, discovered a feature where, instead of starting with noise, you can start with an image. 
Before and after:


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 30, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (May 30, 2022)




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## Laura R Hepworth (May 31, 2022)

Just a word of caution about AI art generators, there is a ton of debate right now over the unauthorized use of images to train the AI models and whether or not it is a violation of copyright. I've played around with several AI art generators (particularly Artbreeder), but have backed off of it for now until I see how this controversy with it turns out. Personally, I really hope it works out that they aren't considered copyright violations as AI art generators have so much potential as inspiration/reference material. The issue hasn't come up in court yet (that I know of), but that's probably only a matter of time.


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## Mon0Zer0 (May 31, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Just a word of caution about AI art generators, there is a ton of debate right now over the unauthorized use of images to train the AI models and whether or not it is a violation of copyright. I've played around with several AI art generators (particularly Artbreeder), but have backed off of it for now until I see how this controversy with it turns out. Personally, I really hope it works out that they aren't considered copyright violations as AI art generators have so much potential as inspiration/reference material. The issue hasn't come up in court yet (that I know of), but that's probably only a matter of time.



Definitely. This is just a bit of fun for the time being. I suspect they'll be too useful to concept artists to hold back, though. It's awesome to photobash / 3d model a scene and then run it through a diffusion network to add all the textures. It's not a million miles away from what concept artists already do!


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## Laura R Hepworth (May 31, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> Definitely. This is just a bit of fun for the time being. I suspect they'll be too useful to concept artists to hold back, though. It's awesome to photobash / 3d model a scene and then run it through a diffusion network to add all the textures. It's not a million miles away from what concept artists already do!



Oh, it definitely is fun! It could be super useful too so I hope this can all get sorted out. The difference though is that all the images concept artists use for their photobashing or matte paintings have been properly licensed and the AI generators haven't purchased the licenses to the images they trained with. I also think they'll be able to figure it all out, but, as a freelance artist, I'm personally a little uneasy with it right now as I need to know for sure it won't come back to bite me later since what I make would be used in commercial projects.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jun 2, 2022)

I don't think you can use other people's work without paying for it. But the digital generation's motto is that if it ain't nailed down, it's free to take, until you get to court anyway. It works great using your own images.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 2, 2022)

Robert Zwilling said:


> I don't think you can use other people's work without paying for it.



You're not using someone else's art. 

The algorithm is a set of data that has analysed an artist's body of art and created a statistical model that answers the question: "What defines an artist's style?" 

Starting from a seed image based on perlin noise, the programme creates a series of shapes defined by the user's prompt and then uses the statistical model to build on those shapes in combination with what it understands about objects and perspective, and the way the artist uses brush strokes to render an object. The programme is not combining elements of an artist's work, it's performing a routine that 'says', "based on the content and the shapes how would [artist] tackle this object".

It is trained on a body of work, but the models it uses to render an object in no way contain that work, only a mathematical representation of the artist's style as a series of weights and biases.

The grey area revolves around whether an artist owns a style or not. 

I suspect that the answer is likely to be "no" on the grounds that technique and use of materials can't be copyrighted and pretty much every artist, knowingly or not, owes a huge debt to some other artist ("swiping" is the term professional comic artists use). Until someone is taken to court it's impossible to say for sure. I'm not sure the kind of artists that are used in the training data are well off enough to bring such a case, and unless it affects Banksy or Damien Hurst it's hard to see it ever getting there (in which case Blek Le Rat may want to have a word with Banksy!).


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## Daysman (Jun 2, 2022)

Saw this recently...


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## Harpo (Jun 7, 2022)

I just heard about DALL•E mini thanks to a couple of friends









						DALL·E mini - Generate Images from Any Text Prompt
					

Craiyon / DALL·E mini is an AI model that can generate images from any prompt you give!. Made by Boris Dayma using Weights & Biases




					wandb.ai
				




Here’s an example, based on a well-known Gary Larson cartoon


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## Harpo (Jun 7, 2022)

Of course, as with any new art form or technology, the “early days” are over once people start using it to be silly.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Harpo said:


> I just heard about DALL•E mini thanks to a couple of friends
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You can't un-see that!


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> You're not using someone else's art.
> 
> The algorithm is a set of data that has analysed an artist's body of art and created a statistical model that answers the question: "What defines an artist's style?"
> 
> ...



What annoys me is that this whole situation could easily have been avoided if the companies working on the AI art generators had simply posted a public call explaining what they were doing, what sort of images they needed, how the image would be used, etc. and asked for anyone alright with their photographs/artwork being used in such a way to submit them to them at a dedicated submissions email address. Sure, it might have taken longer, but it would have prevented the whole issue of using unauthorized images and had no need to be sorted out in court.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 7, 2022)

These are from Midjourney. Rick & Morty by Ralph Steadman:





Dog Emperor:





Pig in a wig:





Cyberpunk:


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> What annoys me is that this whole situation could easily have been avoided if the companies working on the AI art generators had simply posted a public call explaining what they were doing, what sort of images they needed, how the image would be used, etc. and asked for anyone alright with their photographs/artwork being used in such a way to submit them to them at a dedicated submissions email address. Sure, it might have taken longer, but it would have prevented the whole issue of using unauthorized images and had no need to be sorted out in court.



I think these images are a by-product of image recognition systems, rather than something they intended. Dall-e2 has been trained on 635 million images from the web, I don't think it would be even remotely possible to do that, at that scale.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> I think these images are a by-product of image recognition systems, rather than something they intended. Dall-e2 has been trained on 635 million images from the web, I don't think it would be even remotely possible to do that, at that scale.



The problem is that the AI modeling still starts with images that they don't have the rights to use. I've been reading a lot bout the issue lately and both sides of the argument make very good points. I genuinely hope it works out in favour of the AI programs though as I would love to be able to use them in my commercial work and have full confidence that it won't somehow land me (or my client) in legal trouble. It just bugs me that there was a way around it and nearly all of them opted for the easy and legally questionable webscraping method instead. I have seen an AI portrait generator that sourced all their training images in-house and with full permissions from all involved. So, it is possible, just much harder. On one hand, I don't see much difference between the more advanced AI art generators and an artist using indirect reference, but, on the other hand though, I also recognize the illegality of taking someone's photos/artwork and using them without permission and the concern of whether or not the AI generator will actually create fully new image or simply a reiteration of the original. I find the tech rather fascinating so I really hope they get things sorted out quickly so I can feel at ease to go back to playing with it to my heart's content.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> The problem is that the AI modeling still starts with images that they don't have the rights to use. I've been reading a lot bout the issue lately and both sides of the argument make very good points. I genuinely hope it works out in favour of the AI programs though as I would love to be able to use them in my commercial work and have full confidence that it won't somehow land me (or my client) in legal trouble. It just bugs me that there was a way around it and nearly all of them opted for the easy and legally questionable webscraping method instead. I have seen an AI portrait generator that sourced all their training images in-house and with full permissions from all involved. So, it is possible, just much harder. On one hand, I don't see much difference between the more advanced AI art generators and an artist using indirect reference, but, on the other hand though, I also recognize the illegality of taking someone's photos/artwork and using them without permission and the concern of whether or not the AI generator will actually create fully new image or simply a reiteration of the original. I find the tech rather fascinating so I really hope they get things sorted out quickly so I can feel at ease to go back to playing with it to my heart's content.


Couldn't one just use a random photograph paired with the artistic style from somewhere else?


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> Couldn't one just use a random photograph paired with the artistic style from somewhere else?



No, because there is no such thing as a 'random photograph.' All photographs are copyrighted to the photographer automatically. Using any of them without permission is copyright violation. While there are public domain image sites, unfortunately, a number of these sites are having problems with image piracy where people are uploading images that they don't have the rights to and so don't have any legal standing to make them available for public use.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> No, because there is no such thing as a 'random photograph.' All photographs are copyrighted to the photographer automatically. Using any of them without permission is copyright violation. While there are public domain image sites, unfortunately, a number of these sites are having problems with image piracy where people are uploading images that they don't have the rights to and so don't have any legal standing to make them available for public use.


You are capable of taking a photo and granting yourself the right to use it.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> You are capable of taking a photo and granting yourself the right to use it.



Unless you are the photographer of said photo, no, you can't. It's still stealing and people have been sued for it. Even bloggers have been sued or issued DMCA takedowns for the use of photos they didn't take themselves (and even when they give proper image credit and linkbacks).


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> AI generator will actually create fully new image or simply a reiteration of the original.


On that point the answer is yeah it is a brand new image.

I've been testing it and running my own 2d and 3d work through and bypassing the perlin noise seed stage and it produces new works around those images. If you arrange some 3d primitives in blender into a shape (a castle / a hill / stream etc) and then render out a rough scene, the programme will add lighting / textures as if it were a painting all along. It doesn't always get it right, so I've been overpainting / comping different passes together.

Those are brush strokes in the style of someone else around shapes / colour / depth that I define up front, and definitely not a patchwork quilt of other people's images as if it were photobashed. It's pretty remarkable.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> On that point the answer is yeah it is a brand new image.
> 
> I've been testing it and running my own 2d and 3d work through and bypassing the perlin noise seed stage and it produces new works around those images. If you arrange some 3d primitives in blender into a shape (a castle / a hill / stream etc) and then render out a rough scene, the programme will add lighting / textures as if it were a painting all along. It doesn't always get it right, so I've been overpainting / comping different passes together.
> 
> Those are brush strokes in the style of someone else around shapes / colour / depth that I define up front, and definitely not a patchwork quilt of other people's images as if it were photobashed. It's pretty remarkable.



Definitely remarkable what they can do, that's why I specified the more advanced AI generators. Some really do just distort the original image or make a chopped up version and those would certainly not qualify as 'new,' but a clear derivative in copyright violation. As I said, I think the AI companies have a strong case to win the controversy, it's just that, as a professional freelancer, I have to wait until this plays out to fully jump on board or it could end my art career even as it's beginning.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Unless you are the photographer of said photo, no, you can't. It's still stealing and people have been sued for it. Even bloggers have been sued or issued DMCA takedowns for the use of photos they didn't take themselves (and even when they give proper image credit and linkbacks).


I'm sorry I was unclear:

You are capable of creating a photo using your camera and then using that photo you created with your camera as the seed for making AI art. So you would be the "photographer of said photo".


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> I'm sorry I was unclear:
> 
> You are capable of creating a photo using your camera and then using that photo you created with your camera as the seed for making AI art. So you would be the "photographer of said photo".



Yeah, using your own is no issue. Though, I have heard much concern over the images on which the AI models were trained. However, if found to be a copyright violation that violation would be on the company's part and shouldn't be transferred to those that, in good faith, used their software.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Yeah, using your own is no issue. Though, I have heard much concern over the images on which the AI models were trained. However, if found to be a copyright violation that violation would be on the company's part and shouldn't be transferred to those that, in good faith, used their software.


So, what's the problem? Why not just snap some photos of the cat and go from there?


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> So, what's the problem? Why not just snap some photos of the cat and go from there?



Because, right now, it's all speculation as to how a case would playout in court. As a professional artist, I can't take the risk that how I think it will (or should) playout is wrong. Personally, I don't see how they could transfer the violation to the users of the site as they are not responsible (and, in large part, aren't even aware of) the company's decision to ignore copyright laws. However, that doesn't mean a court will indeed see it the same way. I desperately want to play around with the AI software and was utilizing Artbreeder until the concerns over the site came to my attention. I just don't feel completely comfortable with continuing to use the software until this is actually cleared up by a court. I am really enjoying seeing what everyone else is making via the software though. It's just a little bit different of an issue when it's for business purposes rather than just personal fun. I'm still doing research though in hopes of finding a software that isn't trained on webscraped images that I could use in the meantime.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Because, right now, it's all speculation as to how a case would playout in court. As a professional artist, I can't take the risk that how I think it will (or should) playout is wrong. Personally, I don't see how they could transfer the violation to the users of the site as they are not responsible (and, in large part, aren't even aware of) the company's decision to ignore copyright laws. However, that doesn't mean a court will indeed see it the same way. I desperately want to play around with the AI software and was utilizing Artbreeder until the concerns over the site came to my attention. I just don't feel completely comfortable with continuing to use the software until this is actually cleared up by a court. I am really enjoying seeing what everyone else is making via the software though. It's just a little bit different of an issue when it's for business purposes rather than just personal fun. I'm still doing research though in hopes of finding a software that isn't trained on webscraped images that I could use in the meantime.


Are you back to talking about the picture you use to start with, or the way the program emulates a style? Because it sounds like the first one is easy to deal with.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> Are you back to talking about the picture you use to start with, or the way the program emulates a style? Because it sounds like the first one is easy to deal with.



I'm talking about how the AI models are trained. In order to be able to follow the prompts to recognize and create different forms, styles, etc, the AI base models are trained off of real images and the companies don't always have permission to use the images they trained their models on. While the end product images created from the AI generators might be completely different from the images that the models were trained on, there is still a huge debate going on as to whether or not they still violate copyright. It's this that I'm most concerned about. I know I won't upload to an image I don't personally own the rights to, but it's the machine learning that concerns me as, many, of the AI programs didn't get permission for the seed images that they used to develop their software. I don't want their failure to adhere to copyright law to come down on me. While I don't see how it_ can_, until there is an actual case before court I won't entirely know if I'm safe to use it. There are different types of AI art generators. Some combine images and/or prompts that you input with ones that they've already trained on, others work entirely off of the images they were trained on, and some give you both options. In all cases though, there was a point were the tech was developed around other images and, this, is where the problem is.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying everyone has to be as cautious as I'm being about it. Only that it's good to be aware of the possible risk around the software and, that, for myself, I've decided to be extra careful as it's not just me that it would be affecting but my clients also.


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## Swank (Jun 7, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> I'm talking about how the AI models are trained. In order to be able to follow the prompts to recognize and create different forms, styles, etc, the AI base models are trained off of real images and the companies don't always have permission to use the images they trained their models on. While the end product images created from the AI generators might be completely different from the images that the models were trained on, there is still a huge debate going on as to whether or not they still violate copyright. It's this that I'm most concerned about. I know I won't upload to an image I don't personally own the rights to, but it's the machine learning that concerns me as, many, of the AI programs didn't get permission for the seed images that they used to develop their software. I don't want their failure to adhere to copyright law to come down on me. While I don't see how it_ can_, until there is an actual case before court I won't entirely know if I'm safe to use it. There are different types of AI art generators. Some combine images and/or prompts that you input with ones that they've already trained on, others work entirely off of the images they were trained on, and some give you both options. In all cases though, there was a point were the tech was developed around other images and, this, is where the problem is.
> 
> Just to be clear, I'm not saying everyone has to be as cautious as I'm being about it. Only that it's good to be aware of the possible risk around the software and, that, for myself, I've decided to be extra careful as it's not just me that it would be affecting but my clients also.


I guess I'm a little confused (and probably not the only one), where the line between "use" and "view" is. When I look at pictures I like, I am using them for entertainment, self training, etc. It seems like if the courts decide that a program can't learn by looking at pictures posted opening on the web, neither can I.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 7, 2022)

Swank said:


> I guess I'm a little confused (and probably not the only one), where the line between "use" and "view" is. When I look at pictures I like, I am using them for entertainment, self training, etc. It seems like if the courts decide that a program can't learn by looking at pictures posted opening on the web, neither can I.



There is a difference between you viewing a piece online and gleaning information from it to improve your own work and the images themselves being incorporated into a program in order to train the software, but I'm not really sure how exactly to explain it. And, absolutely, the whole thing is very confusing and it's partly this confusion that has me holding back lest I make a costly mistake. Personally, I don't see a whole lot of difference between AI training (as I understand it, which, admittedly, is still limited) and an artist compiling an inspiration mood board of indirect references and then creating a completely unique piece of art with the mood board simply guiding their composition and design decisions. Guess we'll just have to see what happens. I've seen some rather heated discussion over it in various artist circles so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before courts do get involved. I know some EU courts are already dealing with issues that are cropping up regarding AI generated art, including, whether AI art itself can be protected under copyright.


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## Swank (Jun 8, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> There is a difference between you viewing a piece online and gleaning information from it to improve your own work and the images themselves being incorporated into a program in order to train the software, but I'm not really sure how exactly to explain it. And, absolutely, the whole thing is very confusing and it's partly this confusion that has me holding back lest I make a costly mistake. Personally, I don't see a whole lot of difference between AI training (as I understand it, which, admittedly, is still limited) and an artist compiling an inspiration mood board of indirect references and then creating a completely unique piece of art with the mood board simply guiding their composition and design decisions. Guess we'll just have to see what happens. I've seen some rather heated discussion over it in various artist circles so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before courts do get involved. I know some EU courts are already dealing with issues that are cropping up regarding AI generated art, including, whether AI art itself can be protected under copyright.


I'm not suggesting a legal principle, just pointing out that at one time the only way to see a piece of art was to travel to it (and often pay a fee), or to view a published print that publisher paid to print. The internet has, seemingly without any prior discussion, made image sharing/viewing something we expect to be able to do gratis. That essentially transformed many kinds of images into a kind of public use, even while music and print have remained at least partially protected.

It is a confounding situation.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 8, 2022)

Swank said:


> I'm not suggesting a legal principle, just pointing out that at one time the only way to see a piece of art was to travel to it (and often pay a fee), or two view a published print that publisher paid to print. The internet has, seemingly without any prior discussion, made image sharing/viewing something we expect to be able to do gratis. That essentially transformed many kinds of images into a kind of public use, even while music and print have remained at least partially protected.
> 
> It is a confounding situation.



I absolutely agree. That's pretty much what I've been struggling with as, for years, artists have collected bits and bobs, cut out photos from magazines, etc., to use as an 'inspiration morgue' and I see very little difference between that and how they train AI models. I understand the concern and issues about image theft and why people would view this the same way and are upset about it, but I don't think it really is quite the same issue or what they think it is. It's a gut reaction to get upset if you think your images/artwork are being wrongfully used and there's a lot about how the AI art generators work that people don't understand and I think it's caused a lot of unnecessary alarm and accusations. I'm hoping it eventually blows over and gets cleared up as I really do want to do more with it. It has such huge potential to be a great asset in concept art that it would be a shame for it to be declared a violation of copyright over what I'm pretty sure is a misunderstanding of how the tech works.


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## Swank (Jun 8, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> I absolutely agree. That's pretty much what I've been struggling with as, for years, artists have collected bits and bobs, cut out photos from magazines, etc., to use as an 'inspiration morgue' and I see very little difference between that and how they train AI models. I understand the concern and issues about image theft and why people would view this the same way and are upset about it, but I don't think it really is quite the same issue or what they think it is. It's a gut reaction to get upset if you think your images/artwork are being wrongfully used and there's a lot about how the AI art generators work that people don't understand and I think it's caused a lot of unnecessary alarm and accusations. I'm hoping it eventually blows over and gets cleared up as I really do want to do more with it. It has such huge potential to be a great asset in concept art that it would be a shame for it to be declared a violation of copyright over what I'm pretty sure is a misunderstanding of how the tech works.


I think the problem may simply be the monetization. If for-profit software company incorporates a work of art into its software with the intention of eventually selling the program, then that's arguably an infringement. 

But if you buy a program with nothing in it and then train it yourself using art you select, that would be harder to show is a usage problem. 

Personally, I don't know why people talk about the specifics of their process as programmers to put this sort of spotlight on the art they source. What happened to trade secrets?


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 8, 2022)

Swank said:


> I think the problem may simply be the monetization. If for-profit software company incorporates a work of art into its software with the intention of eventually selling the program, then that's arguably an infringement.
> 
> But if you buy a program with nothing in it and then train it yourself using art you select, that would be harder to show is a usage problem.
> 
> Personally, I don't know why people talk about the specifics of their process as programmers to put this sort of spotlight on the art they source. What happened to trade secrets?



Oh, the monetization is definitely part of it. As well as, those that would use the software and monetize their creations. Plus, there really has been a ton of image/art theft so people are just a bit extra sensitive over it and jumping at everything they think might be infringing on them. With the way that they are being used though (if my understanding is correct on it), I think if/when this ever does come to court that there is a pretty good argument for fair use, at least for some of the AI programs out there. I've looked at several and some are definitely more infringing than others. With so many AI art generators popping up though, I have a difficult time seeing them being ruled against as you'd think that at least a few of these would have checked things out with an intellectual property lawyer first before getting into it too deep. I actually hope it come sup in a court sooner rather than later just so I can completely put my mind at ease and get back to using them again. I'd made over 20,000 images (mostly portraits and landscapes) on Artbreeder already when I found out what, exactly, was the controversy regarding AI art generators. It's incredibly fun and I really want to get back to it so this wait to find out how it's going to play out is seriously bugging me.

I mean, technically speaking, Pinterest is also in violation of copyright as people pin or upload all sorts of images without permission and I've seen almost this exact argument against them that's happening now with the AI art generators, yet, Pinterest is clearly here to stay. Though, with Pinterest, they will quickly remove any image that the copyright holder complains about having included and, with the AI sites, this is a little harder to do. I have been able to recognize some of the source images on Artbreeder that user uploaded that they didn't have permission for, but, most of the time, it's pretty impossible to know what images were breed together with the AI models.


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## Swank (Jun 8, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> I mean, technically speaking, Pinterest is also in violation of copyright as people pin or upload all sorts of images without permission and I've seen almost this exact argument against them that's happening now with the AI art generators, yet, Pinterest is clearly here to stay.


I would like to see the argument that Pinterest is doing something different than Google image search. Neither are printing products from the images, but both are for profit companies.

The cows are out of the barn. But judges are still catching up.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 8, 2022)

Swank said:


> I would like to see the argument that Pinterest is doing something different than Google image search. Neither are printing products from the images, but both are for profit companies.
> 
> The cows are out of the barn. But judges are still catching up.



I think the difference, in part, is that Google creates a lower resolution thumbnail of the images it crawls and links to, but Pinterest actually duplicates the full resolution image (and doesn't always link to the source). Google also generally has been granted permission to do so for site visibility (though they will also remove links to images that are found to be in infringement) while Pinterest users have not been granted permission from the image owner. Personally, I don't have much of an issue with the Pinterest itself, some of the users, yes, but not the site as a whole or the concept of it.  The time I do have an issue with something being pinned on Pinterest is when the user doesn't pin it from the source, but either uploads the image themselves so that it is credited to them or changes the link to redirect people to something completely different than the image shown. I had someone pin my jewellery work, but they changed the link to direct to a site for jewellery making tutorials. Gave me a fright as it looked like they may have not simply taken one of my images for their own use, but stolen my designs to pass of as their own. Thankfully, I could find no trace of my actual photo or design on that site and they were simply misrepresenting their link. Still bugs me though. However, that's not Pinterest's fault, but the lack of ethics of one of its users. 

Yeah, I don't think much of this is going to ever change. With all the AI stuff that's coming out though, it might be good for them to revise some of the laws regarding image copyright to set clear guidelines of how AI companies can/cannot use images to still ensure image protection, while not completely putting the kibosh on or otherwise crippling the tech itself.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jun 8, 2022)

As Spock would say about this thread: fascinating.


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## Mouse (Jun 13, 2022)

I asked for The Monkees. AI gave me this nightmare.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 14, 2022)

Forest Ranger:





Warrior Queen 1 + 2:









Wild Woman of the Woods:


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 14, 2022)

starships:









After John Berkey:


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 16, 2022)

Curious, which AI programs are you all using? I'm making a list of AIs I want to play with at some point. There are a ton of them out there and I experimented with a few of them before taking a (hopefully) temporary step back from them, and some are definitely better generators than others   .


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 17, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Curious, which AI programs are you all using? I'm making a list of AIs I want to play with at some point. There are a ton of them out there and I experimented with a few of them before taking a (hopefully) temporary step back from them, and some are definitely better generators than others   .



All of the above are using Disco Diffusion v5.3 - it's the earlier project of the coders behind Midjourney. It's very techy with hundreds of parameters to tweak and slower, but it's free and you can get as good results if you know what you're doing. DD also means you can start with an image (such as a roughly photobashed landscape) and DD will render it in an artist's style. 

The berkey painting above started life like this:


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 17, 2022)

Recently, I've been using them as starting points for paintovers. With DD you see a snapshot every 50 iterations that are just fantastic for generating compositions. 





that started off as one of the earlier iterations that I added to with a mix of overpainting and photobashing.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 17, 2022)

@Mon0Zer0 Thanks! I hadn't heard of that one so I'll check it out and add it to my list   . Oh yeah, I think their main contribution to artists will be as a source of inspiration. Those I see on DeviantArt fretting and complaining about AI 'taking over' and replacing 'real art/artist' are really whining about nothing.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 18, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 18, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 21, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 22, 2022)




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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 22, 2022)

Nice! I've yet to figure out how on earth to install/set up Disco Diffusion   .


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 22, 2022)

I have, however, successfully applied to the beta of Midjourney   . Applied a week or so ago and got the invite today .


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 22, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> I have, however, successfully applied to the beta of Midjourney   . Applied a week or so ago and got the invite today .



use your credits wisely! I used mine up in about twenty minutes!


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 22, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Nice! I've yet to figure out how on earth to install/set up Disco Diffusion   .



Try this:


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 22, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> use your credits wisely! I used mine up in about twenty minutes!



Yeah, they went pretty quickly   . Personally, I think it would have been better for them not to count upscaling and variations against your credits, but just unique prompts. Especially since you sorta waste the first few allowed jobs just figuring out to use the thing .

Thanks for the video! Will definitely take a look as I'd like to figure the thing out. Even if it turns out I shouldn't use it for commercial work, it would still just be fun to goof around with.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 23, 2022)

These were my favorites of my Midjourney experiments. Just wish the limit was higher for the free trial so I could have played with it a bit more  .

The prompt for these two were the same 'magic portal in a forest of glowing mushrooms, semirealism, digital painting, colorful, mysterious.'








And the prompt for this one was 'steampunk fairy.'





Following the tech with interest and hoping all the issues that have me being cautious with it right now get sorted out soon, because these generators are such good fun.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 23, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> Try this:



Unfortunately, it's not working   . Followed what the tutorial said, but keep getting error messages no matter what I do.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 23, 2022)

Laura R Hepworth said:


> Unfortunately, it's not working   . Followed what the tutorial said, but keep getting error messages no matter what I do.


Can you cut and paste the error message here?


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 23, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> Can you cut and paste the error message here?



This is the main one I keep getting when I click on the 'Do the Run' at near the bottom of the page: 

_NameError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)

<ipython-input-1-59aa9c154b7a> in <module>()
      4 n_batches = 50 #@param{type: 'number'}
      5 
----> 6 if animation_mode == 'Video Input':
      7     steps = video_init_steps
      8 


NameError: name 'animation_mode' is not defined_

Even when I do try to set the animation mode to something, I still get the same error message. In the big long string of code above this error message I found three other ones under the animation mode section:

_if animation_mode == 'Video Input':
    frames = sorted(glob(in_path+'/*.*'));
    if len(frames)==0: 
        sys.exit("ERROR: 0 frames found.\nPlease check your video input path and rerun the video settings cell.")
    flows = glob(flo_folder+'/*.*')
    if (len(flows)==0) and video_init_flow_warp:
        sys.exit("ERROR: 0 flow files found.\nPlease rerun the flow generation cell.")
if steps <= calc_frames_skip_steps:
    sys.exit("ERROR: You can't skip more steps than your total steps")_

Was there anything that you had to download in order to make the program run? The tutorial I watched didn't say anything about it, but other places have though with conflicting information as some said those things were no longer needed. I followed what the video tutorial said to do, but something isn't working right so no idea what I'm doing wrong. Though, the version I'm trying to use is different from the version in the tutorial. This was all on Disco Diffusion 5.4 and he was using 4.1


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 23, 2022)

Right - did you start with "Run All" in the dropdown menu?


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 23, 2022)

No, I hadn't. Was looking for it, but looked in the wrong place. Thank you! I'll give it another try and see if I can actually get it to work this time.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 23, 2022)

Queen of Hell - DD5.4 + Photoshop


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 23, 2022)

@Mon0Zer0 Thanks for the help! After disconnecting/reconnecting Google Drive, using 'run all' worked. Have a test batch going right now to experiment and compare with the AIs I've tried before.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 24, 2022)




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## Laura R Hepworth (Jun 26, 2022)

Had some interesting results with this batch that I ran. Text prompt was 'a beautiful painting of crystals trees at night in a river of starlight' with Artstation, wlop, and Thomas Kinkade keywords used to help guide the art style. No post editing.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 26, 2022)

Beautiful!!


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## Bramandin (Jun 27, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 27, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 27, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 27, 2022)




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## Mon0Zer0 (Jul 2, 2022)

Dall-e2 application has been accepted!

First images - Miss Piggy as a cyberpunk warrior









A synthwave cat:





A 2d cel-shaded anime teddy bear


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jul 11, 2022)

Some of the results from running the same mushroom/portal prompt I used in Disco Diffusion 5.4 that I used in Midjourney. Rather fun that you can run them in batches and get very different results from the same prompt.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jul 11, 2022)

And a few other AI experiments with Disco Diffusion that didn't quite fit their prompt, but were interesting nonetheless. The fourth one in this group is incomplete as it timed out while running it so didn't get to finish.











And one of today's results from a prompt inspired by the Glittering Caves in_ The Lord of the Rings_.


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## Harpo (Jul 18, 2022)




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## Laura R Hepworth (Jul 25, 2022)

Midjourney's now in open beta! They gave people a new free trial too as they're now in gen 3 and wanted to be able to show off the improvements. So, I got to do some more playing around with it! Absolutely love this AI and would probably get a subscription if I could justify the expense. Of all the AIs, it's the one I'm most confident in regarding the copyright concerns that surround the AI art generators. Talked with someone recently who asked the developers about it and it looks like this AI generator at least may be in the clear of those issues. Anyways, here are my favorites of what I made with the new trial.


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## Elentarri (Jul 26, 2022)

I love those, especially the sea horse!


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jul 26, 2022)

Elentarri said:


> I love those, especially the sea horse!


Thank you! I love that one a lot too. It was made with the prompt: hybrid creature of a dragon and seahorse. I'm going to have a lot of fun doing some paintovers on these to tweak and add details to make them even more 'finished' images.


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## Harpo (Aug 7, 2022)

Spot the difference.


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## therapist (Aug 9, 2022)

I am loving midjourney. I'm blown away with how good some of these images look. I got the $10 subscription, and I can't stop using it, i'm hooked. I'm not very good at prompting it yet, but here's one of my best.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Aug 9, 2022)

therapist said:


> I am loving midjourney. I'm blown away with how good some of these images look. I got the $10 subscription, and I can't stop using it, i'm hooked. I'm not very good at prompting it yet, but here's one of my best.
> 
> 
> View attachment 92020


Very nice!

Yes, Midjourney is amazing. It's by far my favorite of the AIs that I've tried and, so far, the only one that has managed to allay my concerns regarding the dodgy copyright issues that surround some of the other AIs. I have every intention of getting a subscription as well just as soon as I can justify the added monthly cost.


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## therapist (Aug 10, 2022)

Found a great sight to help with promp modifiers https://rexwang8.github.io/resource/ai/teapot


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## therapist (Aug 16, 2022)

Well my $10 midjourney subscription ran out very quickly. It gave me a total of 251 images (200 minutes of server time). I will resubscribe at some point, maybe with the $30 sub, because then you can use slow mode, which won't burn through the time as fast.
Here's a picture of a mechanical alien girl.


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## CupofJoe (Sep 13, 2022)

"Art is dead Dude" - the rise of the AI artists stirs debate
					

A number of new artificial intelligence systems turn simple text prompts into striking images.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Mon0Zer0 (Sep 13, 2022)




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## Elentarri (Sep 13, 2022)

Creepy - almost looks like a photo.


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## Robert Zwilling (Sep 14, 2022)

Art isn't just pictures. 3-D printers create sculptures. Literature is part of art.

There's a line in the article that says "Microsoft's spreadsheet software Excel, which - he notes - "didn't put the accountants out of work, I still pay my accountants." Micromini's spreadsheet probably didn't replace accountants but Quicken and other programs like that took a lot of work away from accountants and bookkeepers who got their work from small businesses.

"There is a *human instinct *that comes to an accountant when they have been in the field for years. When you have years of accounting experience, you are able to spot a problem even before it becomes clear in the numbers. Yeah, it is very easy to want to trust a computer over a human, but only about 5% of our thinking is conscious." From Will Accountants Be Replaced by Computers? by Billy Costo. Perhaps a bit too optimistic and maybe even conflict of interest as Mr Costo's position at his workplace is Director of Technology. His statement is in stark contrast to the results that AI medical diagnostic programs are able to achieve because they can come out ahead of the doctors long years of experience in prescribing the best treatment. However, accountants can be used to shift the information so that a better set of numbers are the outcome. Will AI come equipped with a "shady" button?

In the Art is dead dude article it ends with the line, "But policy makers, he says, need to get the rules right, "so nobody feels ripped off", and money isn't just siphoned off from artists and into the pockets of big corporations." That is a big joke. The galleries, collectors, and critics all work together to make sure that the big money goes to the right people, that is artists who have places in the galleries. Its not unusual for an artist to get in a gallery 10 times what they can get on their own. People with money go to galleries, which makes sense, but the galleries probably are the biggest gate keepers in the world. IMO they are far worse than editors and publishing houses. 

At the end of the day, it seems like the prime directive of human owned computers is to separate people from their money, and they are very good at doing that. And they don't care who gets the money or how it is done. AI art might be considered to be legitimately forged blank checks. I think people using AI routines will try to wrestle control of the massive rivers of art supporting money away from the people who handle it now.

The rationalization for most people is that a computer can't do my job. Apparently creating art is a "job" that can be done by AI, while for doctors, accountants, writers, etc., their jobs can't be done by AI, making their jobs supposedly secure, in their dreams. 70 years ago there would be floors of workers handling the paper work for any big business. Those jobs are all long gone now. 20 years ago there were still secretarial pools that were needed to handle their bosses paper work and handle all kinds of other jobs. Thanks to computers without AI, one or 2 secretaries can do the work of the entire pool. And part of that load has been shifted back to management as they can schedule their own work or perform other functions, without needing a person to do that for them.

The most likely scenario is that on the creative side, making new things, is likely to be dominated by AI, while the field of physically using/repairing/working on existing things will be dominated by people. Art and creativity will be the rewards the machines bestow on people for their continued support.


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## Stephen Palmer (Sep 28, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> View attachment 90738


This is fantastic!


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## VRlass (Oct 10, 2022)

I am speechless with this one…


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## Stephen Palmer (Oct 11, 2022)

I've just had a book cover image come through done with AI help. This AI method is pretty amazing stuff. The ethical considerations however...


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## Stephen Palmer (Oct 13, 2022)

Here's Jim Burns on FB. Most of his posts are set to public. 





						Log in to Facebook
					

Log in to Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family and people you know.




					www.facebook.com


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 13, 2022)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Here's Jim Burns on FB. Most of his posts are set to public.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm glad to see Jim embracing it. Pat Mills has recently publicised an NFT project using AI illustrations and garnered something of a backlash from John McCrea. There seems to be quite a split in the comics community about it with opinions ranging from "Argh! Armageddon" to mild interest.

Recently I was approached by one of the Saatchi's for his CULTUR Dao projects, but to be honest I'm a little confused as to how it works. Anyway, one of the participants is working on a pipeline for producing comics with AI - something like Novel.ai - the results are very impressive, although it can't yet do hands!


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## Stephen Palmer (Oct 14, 2022)

We live in extraordinary times. Is creativity about to stop being a mostly solo process? I see Group Creativity on the horizon...


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## Harpo (Oct 14, 2022)

Stephen Palmer said:


> We live in extraordinary times. Is creativity about to stop being a mostly solo process? I see Group Creativity on the horizon...



It’s been around for a while. Perhaps there should be a thread for it



			https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28144


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## SporgyTheReader (Oct 19, 2022)

As a young traditional artist, I absolutely loathe the current use of AI-generated art, as people use it as a substitute for actual art that took time and passion. Resulting in every AI generated "artists'" art being very uniform and lacking any form of uniqueness, this would also fall into the category of art theft as your technically gathering pre-existing art and blending it into a weird amalgamation. I believe the use of AI generated art would be better off as being used as a reference than actually replacing man-made art.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 20, 2022)

SporgyTheReader said:


> As a young traditional artist, I absolutely loathe the current use of AI-generated art, as people use it as a substitute for actual art that took time and passion.



It's a bit of a generalisation. There are a tonne of people who are using it unimaginatively, but there are also some real cutting edge uses, such as this:






AI is just a tool. The generic use will sink to the bottom, but people will find new and innovative ways to use the tool to enhance their workflow.


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## HareBrain (Oct 20, 2022)

At the moment, it seems to really fall down when asked to handle perspective.


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## SporgyTheReader (Oct 20, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> It's a bit of a generalisation. There are a tonne of people who are using it unimaginatively, but there are also some real cutting edge uses, such as this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just because you spend so much time on telling a robot to draw things is not the equivalent of manually making your own piece, it's like me carefully opening a bag of pizza rolls, gently placing it on a plate, and gracefully heating it in a microwave or using a already prepared dish and adding some extra bits and using the bare minimum of effort to make the actual meal and calling it "my cooking"


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## Wayne Mack (Oct 20, 2022)

Though I appreciate the skills of people who paint, sculpt, etc., I enjoy beauty regardless of the personal effort that went into to creating it. I seem to recall similar complaints that photography wasn't art, yet now people are stunned by the images generated by the Webb telescope (and computer processing). Art exists on a spectrum. Judge it by the result, not the process that went into it.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 20, 2022)

SporgyTheReader said:


> Just because you spend so much time on telling a robot to draw things is not the equivalent of manually making your own piece, it's like me carefully opening a bag of pizza rolls, gently placing it on a plate, and gracefully heating it in a microwave or using a already prepared dish and adding some extra bits and using the bare minimum of effort to make the actual meal and calling it "my cooking"



It's more like you instructing a robot master chef trained by the world's greatest chefs to prepare a dish according to your strict recipe. If the recipe is excellent, the dish will be divine.

One thing to bear in mind is that many of the world's masterworks of art - Davinci, Michaelangelo etc, were not actually (wholly) painted by the artist's themselves but by a team of people labouring under their orders. It's quite common for artists today to not actually design the piece they're working on but to just conceive it (Damien Hirst being a famous offender). One of the most important pieces of the 20th century was a urinal signed "R.Mutt". The separation of labour from art and the effect of mechanical reproduction on the production of art has been something the art world has grappled with for over 100 years.

Collage, photobashing, CG, photography - all of these had their luddite moments and are now fully accepted art forms. Ultimately technology will not simply churn out goods - they will always need a human mind to will them into existence and as long as there is will there will be art.


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## SporgyTheReader (Oct 21, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> It's more like you instructing a robot master chef trained by the world's greatest chefs to prepare a dish according to your strict recipe. If the recipe is excellent, the dish will be divine.
> 
> One thing to bear in mind is that many of the world's masterworks of art - Davinci, Michaelangelo etc, were not actually (wholly) painted by the artist's themselves but by a team of people labouring under their orders. It's quite common for artists today to not actually design the piece they're working on but to just conceive it (Damien Hirst being a famous offender). One of the most important pieces of the 20th century was a urinal signed "R.Mutt". The separation of labour from art and the effect of mechanical reproduction on the production of art has been something the art world has grappled with for over 100 years.
> 
> Collage, photobashing, CG, photography - all of these had their luddite moments and are now fully accepted art forms. Ultimately technology will not simply churn out goods - they will always need a human mind to will them into existence and as long as there is will there will be art.


The difference between AU generated art and digital forms of art is that digital art takes some level of skill and knowledge to perfect, while for AI, its just you telling some robot to do it for you. Also leading a group of people to aid in your projects is not the same as telling an AI to do your entire work for you, being a project leader is also a skill in and out of itself and I don't consider contemporary art like that signed urinal to be art as its just rich people evading taxes.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 21, 2022)

SporgyTheReader said:


> The difference between AU generated art and digital forms of art is that digital art takes some level of skill and knowledge to perfect, while for AI, its just you telling some robot to do it for you.



And photography is just pointing and clicking a button. /sarcasm. 

The skill in AI is going to be conceptual (ideas), curative (choosing what to keep and what to lose), compositional (what to juxtapose and where to place objects), mood and lighting (dramatic, cinematic, romantic etc), lenses (wide angle, narrow) and style. It will be about the exact same aesthetic and conceptual choices as photography. As it becomes more complex and more controllable it will require the same knowledge and skill sets as a photographer. 



SporgyTheReader said:


> Also leading a group of people to aid in your projects is not the same as telling an AI to do your entire work for you, being a project leader is also a skill in and out of itself



It isn't the same, but this was to counter the idea that all art is the product of singular labour. 



SporgyTheReader said:


> and I don't consider contemporary art like that signed urinal to be art as its just rich people evading taxes.



That is pretty poor knowledge of art. Duchamp's fountain was a radical. anti-elite political statement in a time when art wasn't a tax dodge. Duchamp said of his readymades, they were "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice." In this he sets out the key component of art: choice.


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## Stephen Palmer (Oct 21, 2022)

I think the main difference between AI and human art is that in the overwhelming majority of cases human art is created by one person. AI images are effectively created by more than one - many more, in most cases, I suspect, if you count multiple sources as multiple individuals. I note however that a lot of AI art is created by a process of iteration controlled by the artist. That could count as the human side of all this.


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## SporgyTheReader (Oct 21, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> And photography is just pointing and clicking a button. /sarcasm.
> 
> The skill in AI is going to be conceptual (ideas), curative (choosing what to keep and what to lose), compositional (what to juxtapose and where to place objects), mood and lighting (dramatic, cinematic, romantic etc), lenses (wide angle, narrow) and style. It will be about the exact same aesthetic and conceptual choices as photography. As it becomes more complex and more controllable it will require the same knowledge and skill sets as a photographer.
> 
> ...


At the end of the day, you're just telling a robot what to do, you could just pick up a brush and do it yourself.

I'm gonna stop discussing this, the moment when anyone thinks that complete garbage is art because some snob says it has some "profound meaning" that it has no taste in art, a hobo ****ting in streets of my town is profound. If a signed urinal is considered high in terms of art then the boy's bathroom at my high school is an art gallery, hey if "art is a choice" then I say my damn shoe with gum on the sole is art, you wouldn't know actual art if you would just pick up a damn pencil.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Oct 21, 2022)

SporgyTheReader said:


> At the end of the day, you're just telling a robot what to do, you could just pick up a brush and do it yourself.
> 
> I'm gonna stop discussing this, the moment when anyone thinks that complete garbage is art because some snob says it has some "profound meaning" that it has no taste in art,



The point has gone over your head. Duchamp was railing against the snobs of the time who were defining art according to an elite set of standards. He was saying that art is whatever you say art is and nothing else. 



SporgyTheReader said:


> a hobo ****ting in streets of my town is profound.



If it's a work of art it could be very profound - do hobo's not deserve respect? Are you above defecating? What does it say about your town that people are more worried about the feces, than the plight of a down on his luck human being?



SporgyTheReader said:


> If a signed urinal is considered high in terms of art then the boy's bathroom at my high school is an art gallery,



This is exactly Duchamp's point. That what we call art IS arbitrary. There are no transcendent standards, just elite snobs who gatekeep. We can marvel at the ability of someone to render a scene perfectly, but the act of realistic depiction is redundant in the face of photography. Art is the label and meaning we assign to something - and that something can be _anything - even __nothing__. _



SporgyTheReader said:


> hey if "art is a choice" then I say my damn shoe with gum on the sole is art, you wouldn't know actual art if you would just pick up a damn pencil.



With respect, there's no need for insults. You may react strongly to the idea of AI art, but it's worth keeping some perspective.


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## Wayne Mack (Oct 22, 2022)

For AI (more precisely Machine Learning or ML) generated art, the primary driver is the selection and quantity of training material used to define what 'good' should be. This is a complex process (involving people's judgement), though it is less complex than a human artist determining what he or she feels is good. AI is simply a labor saving tool, much like many others that people utilize.


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## THX1138 (Oct 23, 2022)

Mon0Zer0 said:


> View attachment 93089


You can see the various archeological, metallic, and insect shapes and textures (or AI data searches) that have influenced the outcome of the characters costume.

Just looking at each of these aspects on their own, then at the image as a whole again gives a better insight into the programmers understanding of the mathematics of the world around them, and how to guide the AI in its interpretation. That's an art unto itself. Then add to this the artistic eye of the end user (you AI artists out there!) it really becomes a vast collaboration!   

Although, and this is just me, (I'm not an art critic at all. So, grain of salt please!) the more I look at it, the 'flatter' the metallic components of the piece tend to become.


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## Toby Frost (Oct 23, 2022)

This reminds me somewhat of the debates over electronic music that happened when I was young. It was sometimes said that people like Orbital, The Prodigy and so on weren't making real music because they weren't really playing instruments. If you do make that argument, you've got to rule out all electronic music, virtually all hip-hop, and a lot of pop. However, I do take the point that the skill of the player can be taken into account when considering how "good" a piece of music is, whatever "good" means.


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## Danny McG (Dec 16, 2022)

This AI generated stuff should apply to books as well ....I'd like a machine that can ask a series of questions and then write a good space opera, based on what I would *like* to read, not what some scribbler *thinks* I should read.


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## Harpo (Dec 16, 2022)

Danny McG said:


> This AI generated stuff should apply to books as well ....I'd like a machine that can ask a series of questions and then write a good space opera, based on what I would *like* to read, not what some scribbler *thinks* I should read.


Something like this?








						AI Book Writer - neuroflash
					

In this comprehensive wiki you will learn all about Ai Book Writer. Get to know the benefits and application examples.




					neuroflash.com


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## Stephen Palmer (Dec 20, 2022)

I took out a basic subscription in order to have some Xmas fun.


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## Stephen Palmer (Dec 20, 2022)

Thoughts on AI images... 








						AI Art & All That
					

I’ve been very interested in the current debate about AI art, which has kicked off in recent months. I’ve read lots of thought-provoking blogs, Facebook posts and more, which have pushe…




					wp.me


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## Astro Pen (Dec 20, 2022)

As a practicing artist I will say that what is absent from AI art is the personal.
By way of example here is a snap of an unfinished ( the mounting board will be dark green) piece I am working on for  Christmas.
It is very simple, a mounted collection of pebbles and stones that my partner and I have picked up on our various walks around the country.
(I think most of us do this on country path or beach) Each one encapsulates a place and time.


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## Harpo (Dec 20, 2022)




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## Aknot (Dec 21, 2022)

AI will continue to develop and improve, supporting or even replacing many tasks that humans do. I don’t doubt it and it will, hopefully, improve our lives in many ways. As it is, the creators of those AI solutions need to invest time and money to have them perform well. They, and their employees, do it for a return. If nothing else, for a salary.

My main issue with AI art is that in other fields the resources used to improve the algorithm are thus paid for. With AI art, however, the key resource is stolen. All the work by artists to used to train the models - copyrighted and valuable work - is used without permission and without compensation. 

There are AI trained to create music. The music used to train them is paid for and the record labels would go after any tech start up using an artists material without consent. The same should be true for art AI and any tech firm basing their model on unlicensed material should be fined and have a cease and desist ordered until they stop their unconsented use of others work. 

For anyone not understanding the meaning of this let’s put it in a writers perspective: a start up uses any published text - book, article, 75 word writing challenge material etc - to train an AI and then charges users for the model. All the stolen texts will increasingly push out the writers, while users paying for it lines the pockets of the AI company.

Current AI art is based on theft and using the models is supporting that. For anyone involved in creative work I would think of “First they came…” 

I don’t expect AI art to disappear. I think it’s here to stay and it will hopefully improve how many industries work and benefit artists as well. However, the artists behind all the work used for model training should have their say about that usage of their work and those that agree should be justly compensated. Just as a music artist is. Until that happens I hope any creator discontinues the using the tool and speaks up for the artists.


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## Toby Frost (Dec 22, 2022)

Can you actually create art without a mind behind it, at least being pretty actively involved in the creation?

Say a man commissions an artist to paint a picture of a horse. The horse itself isn't art, although it might be a very impressive specimen of a horse. The man commissioning the art isn't creating art, he's just paying for something. The artist, by painting the picture, is creating art. I would say that that process of creating the art involves making some kind of aesthetic decision (perhaps not conscious, but definitely requiring higher brain functions) as to how to make the picture. 

So if I use AI to draw a picture, am I the artist or the man commissioning the picture? I think that I would be closer to the commissioner than the painter. I'd be like a general saying "Capture that hill with a tank" rather than the soldier who actually does the fighting. Which means that the role of the artist would be the job of the AI, but I'm not sure that, being unable to take the decisions and use the taste (or lack of it) that a human brain would do, the AI is making a picture, but it's not creating art.

Of course I might be completely wrong about this, or it might be one of those issues where there is no clear answer.


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## Stephen Palmer (Dec 23, 2022)

I think a distinction should be made between image and art, but some consider that sophistry. Midjourney et al are in my view making images.


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## althea (Dec 27, 2022)

I have been doing digital art for ten years or so. I have been painting in the usual way for about seven years.
I have been in so many discussions with people who will comment on my "real" art ,but not my digital art.
They don't consider digital art IS art. I would beg to differ. Sometimes it can take days to produce a piece of digital art, with a lot of work and skill involved. 
Sometimes I can paint on canvas and finish a painting in an hour or two. Of course it depends on what I am painting.
I know one thing for sure, you can have all the art software going, but unless you have ideas and visions you want to create, you won't get far.
I submit that the value of art has been set by an exclusive, elitist , small group of people who think their views are superior to the majority.
People feel intimidated to say if they like a piece of art, in case they fall foul of the "intelligencia".  However and whoever art is created by, it is art.


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## Vertigo (Dec 28, 2022)

Aknot said:


> My main issue with AI art is that in other fields the resources used to improve the algorithm are thus paid for. With AI art, however, the key resource is stolen. All the work by artists to used to train the models - copyrighted and valuable work - is used without permission and without compensation.


I think this is a little harsh. How is it different from artists that have developed their skills by studying the work of previous artists and being influenced by them. How is that acceptable if doing the same thing with software is theft?


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## Aknot (Dec 28, 2022)

Vertigo said:


> I think this is a little harsh. How is it different from artists that have developed their skills by studying the work of previous artists and being influenced by them. How is that acceptable if doing the same thing with software is theft?



A corporation using copyrighted material without approval is guilty of theft. Legally it’s that simple in most countries. Granted, there are countries that do not abide international copyrights laws. Usually they don’t care much for human rights either…

As a private individual there is everything from fair use etc to your right as a consumer after you’ve purchased something. If you buy an album or pay for a streaming service, you are free to use that music to learn how to play. They key word here is pay. 

And as to reference music further; music artists are paid by the same, and/or similar companies, building music generating AI. Their work is not stolen by these tech companies. But that of illustrators, photographers etc is. 

So no, it’s not harsh. It’s the fact that artists don’t have the backing of money like the music industry that has allowed this theft to happen without consequences so far.


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## Vertigo (Dec 28, 2022)

Aknot said:


> A corporation using copyrighted material without approval is guilty of theft. Legally it’s that simple in most countries. Granted, there are countries that do not abide international copyrights laws. Usually they don’t care much for human rights either…
> 
> As a private individual there is everything from fair use etc to your right as a consumer after you’ve purchased something. If you buy an album or pay for a streaming service, you are free to use that music to learn how to play. They key word here is pay.
> 
> ...


So you are saying any university (they are commercial operations after all) that is using existing works of art to teach their art students should be paying a fee to the artist of that work? And the same would apply to anyone using an existing piece of literature to instruct their literature students?


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## AllanR (Dec 28, 2022)

Aknot said:


> For anyone not understanding the meaning of this let’s put it in a writers perspective: a start up uses any published text - book, article, 75 word writing challenge material etc - to train an AI


I would expect that this is already happening.


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## Aknot (Dec 28, 2022)

Vertigo said:


> So you are saying any university (they are commercial operations after all) that is using existing works of art to teach their art students should be paying a fee to the artist of that work? And the same would apply to anyone using an existing piece of literature to instruct their literature students?



Yes. Because I’m quite sure all proper school schools pay for the books and material they use. I’m not a legal expert but I would be surprised if most western countries don’t have laws that regulate how copyright material is used in education.


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## Vertigo (Dec 28, 2022)

So what you are saying is that the companies training the AI art programs are stealing the original artworks, rather than using reproductions which they will have bought from someone and who, presumably, will have paid the artist for publishing their work. I doubt these people are sneaking around taking illegal photos of the art for training the software.


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## Aknot (Dec 28, 2022)

Mo


AllanR said:


> I would expect that this is already happening



Most likely yes as many tech companies operate in ways that current legislation and authorities are still not ready to handle. That said, I would say more powerful interest groups are ready to protect such material (publishing houses, media companies etc), which probably helps. A startup being shown using the Harry Potter books to train an AI to churn out Hogwarts stories is very likely to have lawyers come knocking.


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## Aknot (Dec 28, 2022)

Vertigo said:


> So what you are saying is that the companies training the AI art programs are stealing the original artworks, rather than using reproductions which they will have bought from someone and who, presumably, will have paid the artist for publishing their work. I doubt these people are sneaking around taking illegal photos of the art for training the software.



This is entering into the public debate of copyright material around the heyday of Pirate Bay. They are not stealing an original piece of art. They are using the material for commercial purposes without consent or payment for it. And as you probably can guess: in the 2020s it’s not cloak and dagger with a hidden camera at the Louvre but scraping the net. This means billions of photos and art work taken from sites without permission.


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## Vertigo (Dec 28, 2022)

Don't get me wrong; I am totally and one hundred percent against any form of pirating (a glamorous name for theft if ever there was one). I'm just not convinced the people training their art software is likely to be doing this any more than the people training their music software, or, for that matter, any more than a uni lecturer scrapping works of are for their power point presentation for that next class they have to teach. It goes on all over and it's wrong; I'm just not convinced (not from any particular inside knowledge I hasten to add) that this particular group of people are doing it any worse than all the rest.


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## althea (Dec 28, 2022)

In the world of digital art, I certainly know there is a huge amount of theft of images. It has been going on for a long time.
Many people see an image and don't realise, that it belongs to the person who created it.
They think that anything on the 'net is up for grabs.
It's true that the Old Masters used to look at each other's works and use their ideas. They often met and discussed various techniques they used
and shared them with their friends.
I would say AI generated art is up for grabs. because a creation is the intellectual property of the creator and a robot has no intellect.
That's going into a whole different discussion though.


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## Aknot (Dec 28, 2022)

I’m no expert but I’ve read up a bit and listened to those that are much more knowledgeable. There is a difference. Stable Diffusion for example (that now has made some acknowledgements regarding the use of copyright material), has to my knowledge treated music and art/photos differently, paying royalties or the like to record studios.

And it’s hard to grasp what technology does but the chef difference between human activities (a teacher using a PowerPoint based on material downloaded from the net - which also might fall under educational laws) and a scalable for profit tool is so vast that it boggles the mind.


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## KGeo777 (Dec 28, 2022)

Someone I know asked me to come up with an idea for the AI art generator--I said

how about a hedgehog standing on a cliff by the ocean and a Greek temple --realistic scene

and this is what it did:


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## KGeo777 (Dec 28, 2022)

I also said "giant gumby destroying the Golden Gate bridge" but it couldn't do Gumby
it did a gummy bear instead.


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## Astro Pen (Dec 28, 2022)

Aknot said:


> Yes. Because I’m quite sure all proper school schools pay for the books and material they use. I’m not a legal expert but I would be surprised if most western countries don’t have laws that regulate how copyright material is used in education.


I think we are into the territory of 'fair use' clauses. These have to exist or we would live on an internet paralysed by copyright lawyers.
(They would have a field day with our 'makes you smile' thread for example.)

Exceptions to copyright

Private (commercial) colleges may find the fingers a little tighter around their necks.


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## KGeo777 (Dec 28, 2022)

Porn is going to be the most extreme area for this--because soon you can literally do anyone in a porn scenario that will be about as realistic as is possible and that will create a lot of problems legally and also expose the public to things that are extreme and probably better off not seen. If you try to limit the visual information available to the AI system, I don't know--I just think it is going to be scenarios like: Colossus, do the Last Supper as an orgy with current members of Congress naked and bloated, in place of the apostles. etc.


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## Stephen Palmer (Dec 31, 2022)

As someone whose day job is in education, I can say that most teachers don't have the time or the energy to properly monitor their image/text use. However, in some repro offices the CLS scheme does operate, and is adhered to. Some authors therefore do get their just reward. The ALCS monitors and administrates such use.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jan 5, 2023)

I have flip-flopped in my position on AI so many times I'm beginning to feel like a yo-yo. The legal and ethical concerns over AI art generators as they stand right now are legit and need to be sorted out. Personally, I am back in to a holding pattern with AI until things are more settled. I find the technology both fascinating and disturbing, but can see how it could be a very useful tool if trained/used ethically. I'm not against the tech itself, just how it is set-up right now. The Concept Art Association is presently raising funds to begin lobbying about AI companies in the hopes of forcing it to adhere to copyright laws and ethically source its training data (something that the music AIs are already doing). I truly hope they are successful in bringing about a good solution for all parties involved.


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