Sigh, friend sent me a neat-looking anti-corporate literary magazine and I’m 96% sure the cover art is AI generated 🤦♀️ It bothers me when artists of one medium don’t value those in other media.
@tracydurnell ugh yeah. I've got some ideas and I've considered using AI generated art as part of the commentary but ultimately decided not to.
@tracydurnell What happens when it's closer to 50/50? Will we reach a point in the future where all physical art needs a performative element to be authentic and valued? Should we throw our clogs into the machines now?
@Alligator midlvl mag -- the hand and mysterious computer like object in the background are what make me think AI (plus I hunted for an artist credit and couldn't find one)
@jmp I'm not clear how my level of certainty about provenance impacts my point. In this instance, I think it's misalignment of purpose to use corporate-owned AI tools to generate art from ethically questionably sourced data if their intent is to criticize the corporate world.
@tracydurnell If the ideological purity of the argument is undercut because the editor probably didn't hire an artist/designer, would it still be damaged if you couldn't tell the art was AI generated?
@tracydurnell You were right. I asked, they answered. It was created in Midjourney.ai using prompts derived from one of the contributed works. I'm glad you pointed it out. It seems like an interesting publication.
@jmp I mean, if I can't tell I can't tell, and blah blah blah no ethical consumption under capitalism, and I understand everyone has to make their own choices and tradeoffs. I totally understand why they would choose to, it just makes me feel a little disappointed. To me, their choice to use AI art is a signal they're not acting in solidarity with other creators and workers. Others probably don't care 🤷♀️
I understand that many don't feel it's unethical to generate art that they weren't going to pay for anyway. I do think it's important not to, because it creates a culture of entitlement to free art, and further devalues an already underpaid craft.
(I question the validity of that argument for a literary magazine, which needs a cover. They wanted something better than they could create themselves from public domain material or typography.)
In this instance, the writers are unpaid as well, so that makes it less bad. But the writers chose to submit under those terms while visual artists have no control over whether their work was trained on in the model.
I think it is worthwhile for advocates to follow their values and demonstrate an alternative path to the corporate approach. If they act exactly the same, what differentiates their viewpoint or approach from the corporations? There's a difference in trash talking corporations because you want to be treated better, and trash talking them because you want everyone to be treated better.
The visual artists decrying AI have some legitimate arguments, so I want to support them in not using these tools. I played around with AI art a couple times last summer, but am not using them anymore now I better understand how they work and their implications.