I find that i can spot AI Images fairly easily these days, especially the sort of fantastical tableaus that get posted to the various AI communities around lemmy. I’m tired of seeing them; it all looks the same to me. Was wondering if im being too sensitive, or if other people are similarly bored of the constant unimaginative AI spam…

For the record, I block any explicit AI Art communities that pop up in the feed, but there are more every day…

  • TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    It doesn’t really bother me, but like you I am bored of it and I generally ignore it, or block communities if I’m seeing too much of it.

    It is really cool that the models can generate fairly detailed images, but they’re all so similar and… boring. I once saw someone describe it like corporate art. It just tries to imitate something popular in a very mediocre way. You can keep re-training it, but it can still only imitate.

    Still, if people are into it then that’s ok too. I have used it at work on occasion to create stupid little icons for internal tools I’ve built, so I guess there’s some little bit of utility.

    My guess is that it’ll be used for a while for cheap and low effort branding, but soon companies will want to hire real artists again to differentiate themselves from the ML spam.

    • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Still, if people are into it then that’s ok too. I have used it at work on occasion to create stupid little icons for internal tools I’ve built, so I guess there’s some little bit of utility.

      IMO, thats sort of the main use I see for AI image generation (and a lot of other “art”-AIs). There are plenty of cases where a graphic is needed that doesn’t need to be original, nor have any meaningful thought put into it. This could be a small icon that would normally be a free peice of stock art or programmer art, or it could be adding a unimportant backdrop to some character art that would otherwise just be left blank. Not all graphics have to be “art” and things that are “art” don’t have to be 100% original and hand crafted.

    • SomeGuy69@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s because people are lazy. It needs extra work to generate something non generic. Also a lot of people using AI have no sense of beauty, as without AI, they are not very creative.

      Using stable diffusion on a1111 myself, with controlnet, regional prompter, different checkpoints, a ton of Lora and inpainting, one can create much much better stuff. It’s not harder that way, just takes longer than copy pasting prompts and hitting the generate button.

      I know this is true, because I see this daily by now. The amount of generic images uploaded to for example Civitai is proof of it.

  • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    I’ve seen a lot of really cool AI art and a lot of shitty AI art. I don’t mind it as long as it is labelled as AI art

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      9 months ago

      Good take here. Quality content is quality content. Spam is spam. AI art can be quality or spam. I say label it as AI but don’t ban, just enforce the rules about spam

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        9 months ago

        I feel like people holding up human made art as some bastion of high quality being encroached upon by the AI scourge have not spent much time delving deep into places like deviantart

  • DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    At this point I’ve just blocked every AI art community that I come across. The art itself is rarely interesting and it’s really easy to spot. Kinda wish lemmy had more artists, would love some human-made stuff to balance it out.

    • GoodbyeBlueMonday@startrek.website
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      Some of us are a lot more hesitant about internet-publicly sharing work now, since it’ll likely be scraped and used for someone else’s profit.

      Rational worry or not, I know I just don’t post what I’ve been working on because of that. I know I’m not some artistic genius, but I still don’t like my data being hoovered up for any purpose, be they privacy concerns or training models without my explicit consent. Same way when I show my work IRL I wouldn’t be happy if someone was dragging around a photocopier, or taking high-res photos of everything I do. Granted, I have the same concerns about even posting comments, but that’s had the upside of my posting less.

      • Toneswirly@lemmy.worldOP
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        9 months ago

        I totally get this concern. Copyright law seems to barely benefit the small artist when a large tech company can “train” their AI on others work without their consent. I personally would love to see all the LLM producers be held accountable for the IP theft they have perpetrated on such a massive scale.

          • Toneswirly@lemmy.worldOP
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            9 months ago

            Its just concentrating power in large tech companies who are stealing to profit. The great job they’ve done is find yet another loophole in an already broken system. They are not “showing everyone” anything… People, largely, dont give a shit about that kind of thing. Thats why there are loopholes to exploit in the first place.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              I love this strawman so freaken much.

              If the law is unjust does that mean the criminal is good? No.

              If the law is unjust doesn’t that mean the criminal is bad? No.

              Take the worst most vile corporation in human history, partner them with thirty other of the most disgusting inhuman monsters of a corporation. A true legend of doom! Then have your legion of doom take advantage of a small legal hole in the copyright system. Is the copyright system now a good just system because very bad people got around it? Was it a good justice system before that?

              The moral character of a person and how good the law is are seperate independent facts. I don’t care that some big tech is exploiting the hole I don’t care if the nicest person whomever lived was. The law is shit and I won’t defend a shit system. Me attacking a bad law is not me defending a lawbreaker.

              The good news is because it is groups with deep pockets breaking this shit system is regular folks have a shot of being free of it. Me vs a giant media company? I will lose. A billionaire against one? They might win. Once it is understood that running something thru an AI removes the copyright the rest of us can gain.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Oh sorry I forgot to ask. How is copying the same as stealing? If I take your money you no longer have it, and I do. If I copy your idea do you still have your idea?

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Content created with some thought, attention to quality, and correctly disclosed is fine. Endless waves of mindless garbage taken directly from some automatic generation to post it as fast as possible in as many places as possible? These can’t go away fast enough.

    AI is a tool people can use. Generative AI is far from being the most useful of them. And people posting raw “generated” output that instantly gets spotted as AI garbage should really question themselves about why they’re doing it.

  • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    I block those communities because low effort images spam up the feed super fast.

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    9 months ago

    I do not care at all as long as it’s labeled as AI art. The only problem I have is when people try to pass it off as something they actually made

    • TheDorkfromYork@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      A lot of AI art is highly controlled. Control net, manually redrawing the noise to guide output, additive models just to name a few ways artists control the output. It’s genuinely more art that some people give it credit.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It honestly depends on a community. On Ten Forward, where I’m a mod, we have banned AI posts because, at least this was my reasoning, they never do Star Trek right. I also mod on Lemmy Shitpost and, in general, I’m pretty lenient with them there as long as it isn’t so lazy that someone practically typed in ‘funny meme.’

    That said, I’m also on another forum where an AI art thread that began with the first Dall-E has become mostly us finding ways to put Godzilla in ridiculous situations. Now that is a fun use of AI.

  • Sombyr@lemmy.zip
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    I don’t mind AI art at all as long as it’s not posted in any art of photo based communities (besides ones intended for AI art.)

    When it comes to memes, I don’t even care if those are labeled as containing AI art. Memes are naturally derivative, so labeling it as AI art would be like linking the exact stock photo you used. Wouldn’t be mad if we did label them though. Just don’t want there to be a double standard.

    Encountering AI art in photo communities is super annoying though. It’s increasingly common for people to submit obviously AI photos and that’s super annoying.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      All ideology can ever do is reassert itself endlessly

      I read that quote many many years ago and it has influenced my career and personal life more than any other sentence.

  • GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    I can’t stand anything AI generated, but people are free to post it wherever they want. I just block/filter it when I see it.

    I’ll also add: it’s not art. No one punching a sentence into a text field is EVER going to be called an artist by me, nor will their heartless images ever be called art.

    • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Funnily enough people said the same thing when photography was first invented (“No one pressing a button and getting a perfect representation of the real world will EVER be called an artist by me, nor will their heartless imitations be called art.”)

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I wonder how often this has happened in history. Imagine the first person making a handprint on a cave wall being told that it only counts as art if you make stacks of animal bones.

        • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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          But even this application is limited to the mere reduction of copying of works previously engraved or drawn; for, however ingenious the process or surprising the results of photography, it must be remembered that this art only aspires to copy, it cannot invent. The camera, it is true, is a most accurate copyist, but it is no substitute for original thought or invention.

          -The Crayon, 1855

          In particular, art historians are wary of the “high-tech” look of computer-generated images, and they tend to keep away from them for that reason alone. In a sense, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: as long as the majority of art historians shy away from computer art, the historical discourse surrounding the new images will remain an impoverished “ghetto”… … It is true, I would point out, that any new technology seems at first to have an overwhelming, often irrelevant meaning that comes from the peculiarities of its medium. When prints first appeared in the fifteenth century, they had such a different “look” that they were segregated from more traditional media.

          -James Elkins, Art Institute of Chicago, 1993

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Freaken crazy. I admit I was being a bit cheeky, I didn’t think anyone ever wrote something like that and published it. It just feels so obvious, of course photography and computer generated art is art. Thanks for doing the homework!

    • raldone01@lemmy.world
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      I don’t want to defend current ai art but writing sentences falls under art for me even if they get adapted on their way to the final product.

      Though I also think programmers, knitters… can create art.

      An AI use case I think is OK and is art. Is using your own sketches and ideas and taking them to the finish by filling in the background or coloring/shading it.

      Edit: On another note. Let’s look at it from the perspective of an indie game developer using Godot. He programs his game logic finishes his sketches with ai. Generates materials with ai and maybe even 3d models in the future.

      He won’t hire artists. So they don’t get paid. However he also uses insane amounts of open source libraries written by thousands of programmers. They don’t get anything either. If he is kind they get attribution maybe some will even get donations. The indie dev could create something he would not have been able to create without these technologies.

      A big corporation creating AAA games can also cut costs massivly. Absuing the work of artists by using their data without paying. These companies also take from open source and give nothing back.

      I think the abuse of artists that is starting to happen, is very similar to the abuse open source has been suffering for a long time.

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      it’s not art

      Oooh, a chance to ask my favourite question!

      Why not?

      See, I have never really gotten what most would call “art”. I’ve been to museums across the world, big and small; I can appreciate skill in creating a complex piece. But I’m not “good” with art. Most of what I saw in the MoMA I wouldn’t call art. Two solid black circles on a white page, I wouldn’t call art; nor “found art” like an unmade bed or a broken toilet; nor the seizure that is Pollock’s work. But others do, and I accept that they find something in it even though I don’t understand how someone can pick up a bucket with a hole in it from the curb and put it on a stool under a spotlight, and call it “art”.

      So yeah, what makes AI art not art? And who made you the arbitrator?

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Why isn’t it up for debate? Pretty sure every idea can be challenged. Maybe it isn’t up for debate because you don’t want to exert the effort to defend your viewpoint and want us to take you on faith

          • GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            Punching a short sentence into a text field and expecting to be called an artists is the same as asking a computer to write a song for you and saying you’re a musician.

            It’s an affront to art, and cringey as fuck when these AI “artists” think they’ve accomplished something.

            • Limpopop@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              I hope all those traditional artists are paying royalties to the people who invented their instruments and brushes and pencils. I hope they are paying royalties to Monet for being inspired by his work, and to Neaderthal Tregg the first to sharpen a stick, et al.

        • voracitude@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, reasonable people have reasons for believing the things they do, so I think I’ll just label you unreasonable and move on with my day, random internet stranger.

          • GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca
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            That’s fine. I can be unreasonable to you. Just like you accusing me of being unreasonable, while seemingly not accepting that I can have an opinion is both ironic and hypocritical.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      It’s very much art, it’s just not very good art if it’s not well-directed, but you can certainly get there. I don’t understand this gatekeeping like it takes anything away from human-generated art. It is, after all, still based on works made by people.

      That said, I’ve met a couple of artists who could learn a thing or two from the AI stuff. 😅

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      'its not art." But here it is making you talk about it and feel emotions.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think there can never be a standard definition of art - and that’s the beauty of it. Perhaps some broad characteristics, namely that art conveys emotions. Nevertheless, I think it is unfortunately true that creativity has never been accorded the status it deserve in most societies, at least if monetary remuneration is the measure of appreciation, as is the consensus in most societies. Unfortunately, this seems to me to be a persistent social grievance - not the result of a particular technology. For me, technology is first of all value-free - it is not the technical capability that is bad in itself, it is what we make of it.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          For me, technology is first of all value-free -

          North Korea has artillery canisters loaded with bioweapons. If it is all a question of what we make of things what positive thing would you make out of a canister full of anthrax designed to be fit in an artillery gun?

      • treadful@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        It’s also initiated and selected by a human. Just because they aren’t placing every pixel or wiping a brush on a medium doesn’t mean it’s not expression.

            • GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca
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              9 months ago

              It’s still not art. Sorry, but not everyone thinks that you punching a sentence into a text field makes you an artist.

              • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                It’s very much art, and I’m here to tell you that just because you can punch a sentence into a Lemmy comment, you won’t convince everyone to deny reality with you.

                And for some reason you’re arguing that prompt engineers are artists when they’re not engineers either. I’m not sure why you’d ever being this up but ok.

                • GilgameshCatBeard@lemmy.ca
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                  9 months ago

                  It’s not art. I don’t care what how you chose to present it. It’s not art. I hope you can be okay with this.

  • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    IMO it should be in ai communities or at least labeled as such. It’s so disheartening that ai is doing art when it should be doing the menial tasks to free us to do art

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    So long as it’s not spammed in the All section post after post after post, I’m okay with it being here since I can just easily scroll past it and ignore it.

  • Toneswirly@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 months ago

    I’m fascinated by the range of discussion here, thanks to everyone for weighing in. Im particularly bemused by the discusssion of whether the subject even classifies as “art” which was not really the purpose of my question. I never questioned that it can still be called “art”, even if I don’t like it. However, a lot of commenters here seem to accuse the whole AI Art explosion as a charade; devoid of being in the conversation at all. Lot’s to think about going forward. I still think it counts as art though…

    • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Thank you for raising this interesting topic. It is nice to discuss this matter together - even if our insights will have no influence at all on future developments. It is certainly a complex issue. If only because AI is not just image generation, or text generation. Not that I want to start a fundamental discussion here, but I think that one way or another this technology is in the world. So Pandora’s box has already been opened; there will be no turning back. I think the most sensible thing Lemmy can do is find a workable way to deal with all the consequences. This is extremely difficult, as evidenced by the fact that even a multi-billion corporation like Google doesn’t have the right answers (because of Google’s business model, this company has to be interested in making its search results as useful as possible, because only market leadership promises the highest profits - and that’s only possible if the usebility is somewhat right). Back on topic: I don’t think that all the things that someone does with an AI image generator can pass as art at all, simply because a lot of it is nothing more than an attempt to create low-efford and therefore cost-effective reach. I hope and am reasonably convinced that this model won’t work because it’s completely transparent - little amount of time invested still results in poor quality content (or even just staight up plagiarism). On the other hand, I have the impression that many Lemmy users (and not only them) have a completely wrong impression: It is simply not possible to generate high-quality content within a few minutes using generative AI - well, it is but the result would just be plagiarism in most cases. These attempts are quite rightly rejected here. On the other hand, it is quite possible to create high-quality content with AI support that cannot even be recognized as such (and is not a plagiat in any known sence). However, this is not done in a matter of a few minutes, but requires considerable effort. Certainly less than designing/writing/whatever yourself from scratch; but still far more effort than copy/paste or the usual low-effort shitpost. So overall, I think the question should be less about whether content is AI-generated or not. The question should rather be whether it’s good/helpful/informative/funny/… content or not - if it is, you won’t recognize that AI is in play anyway. I think everyone should be aware of that. Not because I think this is in any way fair or desirable, but because I think generative-AI-created or supportet content will dominate the internet in the future. I think the key question is how to make it at least somewhat fair for all those not compensated till day.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The printed book is made of paper and, like paper, will quickly disappear. The handwritten book is made to last and made by hand.

  • Cheers@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    I feel like ai art is getting better and better. I’m not necessarily interested in it, but when art/food/pet pics pop up on my feed, I was never looking for them either.

    I think it’s normal to hide them, but to feel bothered seems a bit drastic.

    • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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      It is getting better and better. It’s to the point that if you are mocking it for bad hands, then you are actually out of touch with where it is now. Bad hands is almost a dead meme.

      It’s weird how “old” earlier Midjourney stuff looks to me now.