AI Generated Imagery

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Unagi
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Unagi »

We have an original McArtface hanging in the study.
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Max Peck
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Max Peck »

There are many Artie McArtface originals taped to refrigerator doors all across America and beyond.

Anyway, I'm sympathetic to artists who are unhappy that their copyrighted material is being scraped off the internet and used without their consent and without compensation, but that's a separate issue than claiming that the model is simply copying that work. I can also see how some of them may see it as competition, as I know at least one person who has started using AI generated art to illustrate their own work, when they previously would have been commissioning an artist (on the cheap via Fiverr, but still). I haven't talked to them since the backlash against AI art picked up steam, so I don't know if they've had a change of heart in that regard.
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Sudy
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Sudy »

There don't seem to be a lot of rational positions on this issue. E.g. Kotaku and the other Gizmodo sites take every opportunity they get to barf on AI image generation. (Not that they're a neutral, quality publication now if they ever were, but they're one many people read so their voice is notable.)

Is it unethical that AI trains on copywritten content without permission or remuneration? I understand the view that it is. But what exactly would remuneration look like, and would it even be possible to administrate? And is limiting AI to learning from copyright-free images crippling to the evolution of a technology that may benefit mankind? I don't have answers to these questions.

I think the biggest issues are A) how capitalism will abuse and exploit this technology, and B) how AI in general will eventually impact all forms of artistic expression once it's close to indistinguishable from human-produced works, or at least human-produced beyond a certain quality threshold. And it may take a long time to get there, but through remixing and partial incorporation it's already being implemented in high-level works. I don't think human-produced works will ever lose all value, but if AI limits inspiration and expression on a grand scale, I think it's problematic. Or at least that the issue is worthy of exploration.

Auto assembly-line workers and cashiers aren't upset they don't have to perform certain tasks anymore; they're upset every time it becomes harder to get paid, and that the gains from automation go into the pockets of the wealthy. But is that a viable reason to stand in the way of technological progress? These aren't new considerations. But I think it's the first time they've been applied to art production on this level. It reaches far beyond the advent of the printing press, or Photoshop, or whatever. Though those debates may have seemed just as monumental in their time, the issue was more one of labour than of inspiration.

While it's the dream of many artists to be paid (and paid well) for their art, in some ways the result of their efforts is its own reward. It must be; otherwise we wouldn't have unpaid artists. In the case of manufacturing and customer service that's much less often the case. While automation and mass-production have created niche artisan industries, there's no question the process cost many their livelihoods. But for the most part, we adapted. Of course we did. I don't think many families fell into multi-generational ruin because their industry became mechanized or automated. But for those who have persisted as artisans, there's often a discernible difference in terms of the quality of the goods they produce. (Will that always be the case though?) Or at least, it's usually provable that the goods were produced with a different set of standards. Regardless, the skill barrier has gone way up for those who wish to make a career in these industries. So it's hard not to see our economic and social systems as the problem in these discussions, especially when many of their issues are worsening and/or becoming more apparent. But we can't just put the world on pause and transition into a utopia at will.

As someone with an interest in creative writing, I'm definitely concerned that AI will devalue human-produced writing from an external perspective. Both in terms of its income potential, and whether it has the potential to hold artistic value to anyone else. Someone might say they prefer human-produced novels, but at a certain point won't they become indistinguishable from AI-produced works, or at least close enough that it won't matter? But I realize I'm muddling two separate conversations.

In terms of employing AI art generation as a prospective writer, I'm selfishly concerned about losing access to this technology (even in its current state) for creating concept art and cover art, things that I currently couldn't afford to pay a professional to create. Especially when there's usually a price tag attached to each iteration of human-produced art. As there should be when labour is involved. But there's little discernible direct labour involved in generating iteration after iteration from an AI prompt until I find the image that suits my needs. (Not until you consider the artists the AI's creators allegedly ripped off to train the AI.)

But at what level of wealth and resources does it become unethical to benefit from AI-generated art? Is it fine for me as an unsupported novice, but wrong for a major publisher? There's already been a case of a publisher augmenting AI art for use on a book cover, and then, once discovered, having to backtrack and apologize. On one hand, I think it's ridiculous that they'd have to apologize. But our value systems are (obviously) skewed by presently established systems of production. Not only is there a question of money being directly taken out of artists' pockets in terms of commissioned works, but also of whether AI-produced works are unfairly derivative of works that have come before. Artists may boycott adjacent industries as a result. But what if all mainstream publishers decided they didn't care? AI art may not be advanced enough for this to be a consideration now, but it will happen. And consumers will have to decide what they value more. Ultimately, I think most of us will choose to shop at IKEA.

I realize wiser and better educated minds are already discussing this topic more coherently, but perhaps there's a parallel in that processing these things myself still holds value. (I doubt you'd pay me to do it though!) It's such a weird time to be alive.

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Jaymann
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Jaymann »

I have an artist who does book covers for me, no way AI can match him. I would consider using it to generate a draft of an idea, then submit it to him to do it right.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Sudy wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 3:43 am Is it unethical that AI trains on copywritten content without permission or remuneration? I understand the view that it is. But what exactly would remuneration look like, and would it even be possible to administrate? And is limiting AI to learning from copyright-free images crippling to the evolution of a technology that may benefit mankind? I don't have answers to these questions.
My thoughts are reasonably close to yours. Automation will always disrupt the economic landscape and raise the talent bar for competing against the automated, industrialized, commodified, material goods. But I'm still unsure about how artists feel that they can copyright a style. As a thought experiment I decide that I am going to spend some time viewing as many of Mondrian's paintings as I can find online or in person. Being a mathy/sciency guy I figure out some rules to make a Mondrian. Then I go paint "in the style of Mondrian" without ever claiming to be authentic. Certainly I can be considered a mere copiest not worthy of treatment as a serious artist but can I be sued? Note that I used Mondrian because he has, in some of his works, a distinct style and I'm not that up on modern artists. He's old and dead so perhaps it would be treated differently but don't focus on that.

I know that artists make the statement that real art is not produced by training themselves on already existing art. It needs emotion, the artist's experiences, personality and suffering. On the other hand perhaps that means the AI is merely making images and certainly there is a market for blandly acceptable images.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Max Peck »

As always, the best thing to do with an AI is to tell it to do something profoundly stupid.

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It seems the AI is on to me -- it is both sad (top right) and annoyed (bottom left) that I've inflicted this on it.
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Max Peck
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Max Peck »

A fun fact that I stumbled onto today: the Stable Diffusion 2.1 demo cannot produce an image of Richard Nixon. It doesn't generate an error, and appears to process the prompt, but it does not produce any output images. The AI has cancelled Tricky Dick!

Or perhaps it is simply prevented from generating tricky dick pix... :think:
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Unagi
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Max Peck wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 9:21 pm A fun fact that I stumbled onto today: the Stable Diffusion 2.1 demo cannot produce an image of Richard Nixon. It doesn't generate an error, and appears to process the prompt, but it does not produce any output images. The AI has cancelled Tricky Dick!

Or perhaps it is simply prevented from generating tricky dick pix... :think:
You should ask ChatGPT to speculate on why Stable Diffusion would do this.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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I'm pretty sure that Stable Diffusion does it because some coder thought that suppressing Tricky Dick pics was funny. Making the jump from Richard Nixon to Tricky Dick to dick pic doesn't seem like something an image-generating AI would do on its own, so an inadvertant bug in the code that is supposed to block inappropropriate images doesn't seem likely, but it's a plausible easter egg.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Is the way the AI learns art really all that different from how humans do? We look at thousands of other artists' images to understand how art works, and we usually have a couple of favorite artists whose work inspires us, leading us to imitate portions of their style.

It's the same for prose, poetry, music, and film. We don't create in an inspirational vacuum, we combine elements that we like from what others have done, always have, and always will.

There are issues to work out when it comes to AI art, but they aren't the issues some people think they are. It's a little like the way some people refuse to use self checkout on the basis that it deprives human cashiers of jobs. I get it, and objecting by abstaining is a good solution to the real issue, but I'm not sure there is something there that needs to be legislated.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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I know some artists who claim that the AI learning is very different from an artist learning. One specific claim is that no real artist learns from another artist beyond the most basic of techniques and in fact trying to copy a style or a something from another artist is the mark of not being creative. I don't agree with it but the one I know best does get paid for his art and I've never even attempted to get paid for art I have created.
Last edited by Madmarcus on Wed Jan 18, 2023 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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I think the thing about AI art is that it can end up being very derivative. Some results end up being great examples, others you can tell it's been cribbed with little more than a style filter applied to it.

In general, the more AI we have searching for things, the worse it's going to get. But I think one way to solve it is by baking in an AI identifyer, into the search engine, the AI itself, and the websites serve up the art, that would lock it out of searching. Something like this is already done to prevent search engines from searching and archiving websites.
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Max Peck
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Callback!
Max Peck wrote: Tue Jul 19, 2022 11:30 am Enlarge Image
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Max Peck
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Max Peck »

Midjourney v5 has crossed the uncanny valley.

AI-imager Midjourney v5 stuns with photorealistic images—and 5-fingered hands
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On Wednesday, Midjourney announced version 5 of its commercial AI image-synthesis service, which can produce photorealistic images at a quality level that some AI art fans are calling creepy and "too perfect." Midjourney v5 is available now as an alpha test for customers who subscribe to the Midjourney service, which is available through Discord.

"MJ v5 currently feels to me like finally getting glasses after ignoring bad eyesight for a little bit too long," said Julie Wieland, a graphic designer who often shares her Midjourney creations on Twitter. "Suddenly you see everything in 4k, it feels weirdly overwhelming but also amazing."

Wieland shared some of her Midjourney v5 generations with Ars Technica (seen below in a gallery and in the main image above), and they certainly show a progression in image detail since Midjourney first arrived in March 2022. Version 3 debuted in August, and version 4 debuted in November. Each iteration added more detail to the generated results, as our experiments show:
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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Version 5 is blowing my fragile mind.
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Max Peck
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

Post by Max Peck »

I need an AI that generates a backstory for AI generated images like this:

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This character has seen things, done things, and I want to know more...
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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And will be played by Burgess Meredith.
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Re: AI Generated Imagery

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I laughed way too hard at this video.

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