Discussion about A.I.

[DavidTX]

I don't care what you think of AI

Yes, you had made that quite clear even before we started this discussion. You don't care what anybody thinks about AI unless it supports your views. Which in my experience is true for most AI users and a problem with AI in general. If AI companies cared about the people whose work they require for their systems to function, there'd be far less hate directed at them.

:: does a spit-take with a mouthful of tea ::

Holy shit I did not just read that...

Sorry, didn't mean to spill your tea, but compared to most traditional techniques, DAZ really doesn't require that much skill. And I'm not trying to insult DAZ users or their work here in any way, after all, I am one myself. I enjoy using DAZ, but I see it as more of a toy, not unlike a video game in some ways. Of course knowledge of things like lighting, movement, composition, etc, helps greatly, but none of this is knowledge specific to DAZ. I think many people underestimate the work that was put into the models by actual 3D artists using tools like Blender. Some take it completely for granted.
Afair, before DAZ there was only Poser. "Pose" accurately describes what most people do with DAZ. They download and pose figures and other assets. Unless you create your own models, using DAZ is mainly about rearranging and manipulating what others created for you. The biggest improvements in the quality of renders have come with jumps from one model generation to another and the use of new rendering engines, not with users improving their skills.
Learning DAZ doesn't require years and years of practice. I usually spend hours upon hours creating my digital or traditional paintings from scratch. My painting skills developed over a long period of time. Creating something with DAZ usually takes me a fraction of that time and would go even faster if I had a better graphics card. DAZ is more of a strain on my wallet than my wrists.

 

[fallenmystic]

Yes, you had made that quite clear even before we started this discussion. You don't care what anybody thinks about AI unless it supports your views. Which in my experience is true for most AI users and a problem with AI in general. If AI companies cared about the people whose work they require for their systems to function, there'd be far less hate directed at them.

In fact, I've argued with quite a few of those who were critical of AI in this very thread, including @Nyghtfall3D, and such debates remained civil for the most part.

The main difference is that they either didn't categorically accuse every AI creator of being immoral or without skills like you did with every single post of yours, or at least were open-minded enough to change their views when they saw AI art isn't all about playing some image slot machine.

Anyway, I'll move on and refrain from replying further because it seems clear that you are either incapable or unwilling to engage in any civil conversation about the subject.

 

[Wragg]

What I do care about, however, is how you repeatedly attacked members of this community like, quote, "people who use it can go fuck themselves", just because they don't share your prejudice against the technology.

No, he hasn't really helped himself with remarks like that.

AI is just another tool. In my real life I write poetry, and I have long been told that I must read other people's poetry in order to improve mine. So I have. But I use it to work out what I like, what kind of rhythms and rhymes.

For a while I felt just like DavidTx about chat GPT. AI can come up with some reasonably presentable poems, and I guess if I wrote poetry for a living rather than a hobby I too, might have wished a plague upon AI and all its users. Who's going to employ a poet to write poems to sell tonic water? (Those in the UK might have heard the Fevertree Christmas advert. )

But then I came to realise that the way I look at the world and the way I express myself is uniquely mine. I am not a robot and I don't write like a robot. And nobody or nothing can draw like Montycrusto, his style is uniquely and exhilaratingly his. Yes, some of his images might have dropped into the AI ocean but I can't get a computer to spit out an image that anyone would think for one millisecond had been created by Monty.

I can't draw like him but nonetheless sometimes I want to use pictures as well as words to express myself. So, yes, I am sorry, but I have tried to use AI elements like ingredients to be combined together into a whole which I have discovered a computer cannot produce, and which I think is nonetheless uniquely mine.

Therefore it seems that I had better go and fuck myself.

 

[Davec5299]

Therefore it seems that I had better go and fuck myself.

Oh no. Please don't.

 

[DavidTX]

In fact, I've argued with quite a few of those who were critical of AI in this very thread, including @Nyghtfall3D, and such debates remained civil for the most part.

Allow me one last question. You don't even need to answer it, but at least think about it: Is there anything I (or anybody else) could do or say to make you stop using (current) AI systems? Because if there isn't, and your "sympathy" with those negatively affected by AI shows itself merely in you acting "civil" during discussions, then what's the point of discussing anything at all?

AI is just another tool.

No, it most certainly isn't. It can be used as tool, but that's up to every individual user. Generally speaking, it's a service. You ask it to do something and it'll do it.

Yes, some of his images might have dropped into the AI ocean but I can't get a computer to spit out an image that anyone would think for one millisecond had been created by Monty.

Style-Reference is already a thing. Midjourney for example is quite good at it. All you need is a single of his images. Their AI just won't give you NSFW content. Yet.
And if you ask nicely, fallenmystic could probably make a LoRA for you.

 

[fallenmystic]

But then I came to realise that the way I look at the world and the way I express myself is uniquely mine. I am not a robot and I don't write like a robot. And nobody or nothing can draw like Montycrusto, his style is uniquely and exhilaratingly his. Yes, some of his images might have dropped into the AI ocean but I can't get a computer to spit out an image that anyone would think for one millisecond had been created by Monty.

I can't draw like him but nonetheless sometimes I want to use pictures as well as words to express myself. So, yes, I am sorry, but I have tried to use AI elements like ingredients to be combined together into a whole which I have discovered a computer cannot produce, and which I think is nonetheless uniquely mine.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that note. Believe it or not, I was writing something quite similar as a reply before I decided it'd be futile and deleted it.

CF is a community of people who love to discuss and share their fantasies about certain subjects. As such, the main reason why we talk about things like Daz3D or AI here is because they are tools that allow us to express our fantasies and share them with others of similar taste.

We do not choose this or that tool as a means of artistic expression because we want to boast about how skilled we are at using it or how many years we have spent learning it. Instead, we choose a tool that is best at expressing our fantasies as each of us imagined them to be in our own ways.

Some may find pencil drawing best suited for their style, while others may like Daz3D for its convenience in quickly turning what they imagine into a convincingly realistic image.

I don't consider myself an artist, but I've long learned and used Daz3D, Blender, and various AI-based tools. Although my style has changed over the years, often influenced or limited by the medium I used at each stage, what I wanted to express using such tools and share with others remained the same.

I don't post my work to showcase my skills in those tools. Instead, I do it because I believe I have a few niche kinks that I love to fancy about, and I'd like to show them to others as I imagine them so I could hopefully enjoy them together with people with similar tastes.

If that's not the essence of art, it's at least the main reason why most people in a kinky art community like CF are interested in discussing such tools of creative expression like Daz3D or Flux.

As such, I wish this thread could be a place where people exchange ideas and tips about how best to utilise AI to express our fantasies as each of us imagine them to be in our own styles rather than arguing who is a "genuine" or "fake" artist for using this or that method of artistic expression.

 

[Fantasmo]

I suppose most of them by now see that AI hasn't driven off artists (except for a few, like Montycrusto, of course), as many suspected, but it has allowed more people to express their creativity in a different way.

That statement simply is not true. How many new "classic art style creations" have you seen in the past year? I am not talking about this site necessary, but about the whole picture.
Nyghtfall3D and DavidTX postet well thought out messages about the problem. It now is only about "wanting to see it" or "not wanting to see it".

But, leaving ethical questions aside and also leaving aside what art and creativity will become if we hand this all over to machines, it has to be acknowledged that AI enables people with zero artistic skills to now "visualize" their own world of imagination.
This is not necessarily bad as such.
But that flood of "low effort" creations (and I do NOT say that all AI stuff is low effort, some artists use it very skillfully to "augment" their own creations) simply drowns the fewer and fewer real art.
I for one have quit doing complete drawings, as I deem it as a waste of time. The only fuel I would have to spend a day on such a drawing would be viewer appreciation.
This has dwindled to practically zero, in this flood, so why bother?!

Its a matter of fact that most just look for "jerk-off material" and don't care about artistic value, fair enough.
A little more like the "fuzzyness" of hand made art, that puts it a bit more into "fantasy realm" that photorealism. I am one of them. But I still enjoy a well made "AI enhanced" creation.

What I hate though is when I recognize what image somebody used and fed into an AI to create "his" "art".
Thats double theft: Fist the whole AI relies on theft and secondly and much worse, 99% of the effort to create the AI output was stolen as well.
If somebody feeds their own rendered scene or hand drawing into an AI, I have a much different view.

 

[Fantasmo]

You may feel that it’s unfair when many of those AI creators lack the skills you have for Daz3D. But that is exactly what you’ve been doing to those “real artists” who have created every asset in tools like Blender, Maya, or 3D Max before Daz3D and Poser opened up the world of 3D art to the general masses.

The failure in your logic: If I create a prop for Poser etc, I SELL it, so my work gets honored. AI simply steals it.

 

[Fantasmo]

:: flashes back to years spent studying photography... scene composition... lighting techniques... shader editing... geometry editing... dForce... ::

Hardly any skills... smh...

I am sure David is aware of all this. How many spent years on studying all that? Not many, I bet! I am quite knowledgeable in 3D, I create props. I KNOW very well that good 3D art is in fact an art. But that's not the majority. The majority poses a scene from bought assets, puts some light sources and maybe reflection planes, that's it. Weeks needed to get there, not years.

 

[Fantasmo]

As such, I wish this thread could be a place where people exchange ideas and tips about how best to utilise AI to express our fantasies as each of us imagine them to be in our own styles rather than arguing who is a "genuine" or "fake" artist for using this or that method of artistic expression.

I suggest to make an own thread for this. I for one would welcome it. I do follow the technology with interest, as a matter of fact I was already programming "AI" (neuronal networks) decades ago.
Its amazing what it can do, regardless of ethical concerns and of concerns where HUMAN creativity still has a place, post-AI.

 

[Fantasmo]

Anyway, I'll move on and refrain from replying further because it seems clear that you are either incapable or unwilling to engage in any civil conversation about the subject.

Why is it that all threads get hostile when the "AI fanboys" loose in technical argumentation?
DavidTX has clearly demonstrated that he knows what he is talking about, technically and in therms of devastating impact on HUMAN creators. He made some very sound claims... that could not be countered.
So he clearly is winning this argument on a facts side.
We all know that generative AI will not go away, as much as it will hurt human creativity. But plainly denying the associated problems is... (I'll end the phrase here, I don't think it is fitting to write it out what I really think)

 

[Wragg]

Why is it that all threads get hostile when the "AI fanboys" loose in technical argumentation?

Pardon me, good sir, but this conversation got hostile when anyone who dared to touch AI was told to go and fuck themselves, and that had nothing to do with @fallenmystic

 

[fallenmystic]

How many new "classic art style creations" have you seen in the past year? I am not talking about this site necessary, but about the whole picture.
...
But that flood of "low effort" creations (and I do NOT say that all AI stuff is low effort, some artists use it very skillfully to "augment" their own creations) simply drowns the fewer and fewer real art.

I feel the main issue here arises from how you define things like "classic art style creations" or "real art" as you wrote them. What do you mean by them, really? Does a Daz3D render count as a "classic art style creation"? And do you consider my works, for example, as "real art" or mere "fakes"?

To clarify, I'm less interested in your answers to those questions than in your reasons behind them. I wouldn't mind if you consider my AI renders "fake art", for example. But if you simply argue it's because I use AI instead of a program like "Daz3D", it wouldn't be a valid argument but a mere statement of how you feel.

I'm always open to debate on this subject, but you'll need to give me actual arguments rather than simply repeating things like "AI isn't real art" or "it used to be better when AI wans't around".

As for the "low effort" creations, I think at least a part of the issue is that the technology is pretty new. As you noted yourself, we now have several artists with enough skills to use AI to enhance their art effectively. But they only started to appear recently when posting AI images wasn't even allowed until last year.

The failure in your logic: If I create a prop for Poser etc, I SELL it, so my work gets honored. AI simply steals it.

It wasn't even an argument about copyright or license but about confusing proficiency in skills with artistic merit. If you want to talk about logic, maybe you better actually read what you are arguing against.

Why is it that all threads get hostile when the "AI fanboys" loose in technical argumentation?
DavidTX has clearly demonstrated that he knows what he is talking about, technically and in therms of devastating impact on HUMAN creators. He made some very sound claims... that could not be countered.
So he clearly is winning this argument on a facts side.

Let me guess... maybe it's because he said ALL AI users to "go fuck themselves" while you just insulted them as "AI fanboys"?

Yeah, you guys are clearly winning this argument on "a facts" side.



In such debates, it's almost always those who hate AI who attack those who use it, not the other way around. AI creators don't usually say things like, "AI art is the only real art," or "You don't use AI tools only because you lack skills," etc.

I don't urge people to stop drawing by hand or using a traditional tool like Daz3D.
I don't dismiss what they create using conventional methods as obsolete or low-quality.

I only argue back when people like you literally attack me for what I do and feel passionate about, which is expressing my fantasies and sharing them with others using whatever tool I'm proficient with.

Maybe I should refrain from replying to your posts also if you're going to keep to this line of "arguments".

 

[Wragg]

Okay, now, I am mindful of the season, and whatever your views are on AI or whatever, I wish you a very merry Christmas, and I'd like to give a two hour warning that I intend to lock this thread at 5pm UK time (it is now nearly 3), and I will then unlock it again on the 26th.

 

[Nyghtfall3D]

before DAZ there was only Poser. "Pose" accurately describes what most people do with DAZ. They download and pose figures and other assets. Unless you create your own models, using DAZ is mainly about rearranging and manipulating what others created for you.

Fair points. Even new users today need only load pe-arranged content and click Render to get their feet in the water and see what Daz and Poser are like.

I'm 53 and have been around computers since the 5th grade - I was teaching myself Basic while my classmates were at recess. Much to my chagrin, Daz threw me for a loop when I first installed it in 2006, and I spent the next three years just coming to grips with how to organize content between it and Poser. I didn't create my first image until 2009 because I want to first ensure I knew how to organize and locate items in my content library.

That said, I agree that, at their core, they're all about posing prefabricated assets.

 

[GeorgeL]

Okay, now, I am mindful of the season, and whatever your views are on AI or whatever, I wish you a very merry Christmas, and I'd like to give a two hour warning that I intend to lock this thread at 5pm UK time (it is now nearly 3), and I will then unlock it again on the 26th.

Yes!

Let's embrace the Christmas spirit!

 

[Eulalia]

how do you know that Monty is making art?

I know that Monty is, or was while he was here, a serious artist in RL, and I hope he's continuing that work and getting pleasure and fulfilment from it.

 

[Fantasmo]

I think we can continue to debate and consider what role AI plays in creating artwork. I think most of us would be on a continuum somewhere between doing all our own work and just telling an AI generator to paint a picture. Some might use it more than others. Wragg just finished an illustrated story where he did the drawings for the illustrations and used AI to make the images come to life and for consistency. In other words, he got AI to do some of the dog work that otherwise would have made the illustrations take forever to finish.

Why should a real artist (= one who is able to generate a piece of art just out of his own capability and not just based on a piece of software that generates more or less random output based on stolen art for a good part) then bother to spend "for ever" to finish his art pieces, if everybody seems to be satisfied with what AI puts out, although it all looks the same, more or less?

That's the statement for an "amateur community" like this, where nobody earns money.

Now, to be fair, yes, its unlikely that Wragg would have found somebody to illustrate a whole story, and nobody lost income or anything, so "why not"! This use of AI will not go away and if it is non-commercial, its OK imho.
Wragg put considerable effort in his story, so he uses AI to just "enhance" his OWN story.

But, away from huge projects like such a story, why should he spend hours (and years of learning his craft) on a single drawing, if he can get the same "praise" for a few mins of prompting?
It seems like a waste of time.
And thats why we are currently exchanging unique artistic style against an "uniform AI output broth".

I am NOT talking about those few artists who generate their AI stuff from the ground up, but about the huge majority that use an image or two (made by somebody else!) as "input" and a couple of prompt attempts to generate what they distribute as "their art".

Besides that, some of the "kinky artists" we know, also have a real life artist job. This job and their future is seriously being jeopardized by AI. It has been outlined by others how and why, I'll not boil that soup again.
Many may not miss "art" or "artists typical style" and will be satisfied with the "jerking" value of AI output. Nothing wrong with that, each their own.
But it is like with photography: At the time when an image cost money for development, care was taken about composition etc.
Nowadays people just click away and generate a flood, where maybe 5% of the images are even remotely good.

The lower the hurdle to creation, the less effort is put into concept and planning.

But as said, maybe only a few will miss that.

Let me not close with this, but with an example of AI applications I like:

Enhjorning does amazing hanging renders.
Lately he used AI on HIS OWN creations to generate more realistic, life-like variants.
He posted the results alongside the original renders and I have to admit that the results are spectacular.

Do I think the AI output is better? No!
Do I like to see it anyways, as a variant: By all means!
Do I think it is a legitimate use of AI: Yes I do, for various reasons:
- Enjhorning is one of those few 3D makers who have developed an own, recognizable style.
- He spent considerable effort to get there (skills!)
- The composition is his, not stolen from somebody

 

[thehangingtree]

Why should a real artist (= one who is able to generate a piece of art just out of his own capability and not just based on a piece of software that generates more or less random output based on stolen art for a good part) then bother to spend "for ever" to finish his art pieces, if everybody seems to be satisfied with what AI puts out, although it all looks the same, more or less?

That's the statement for an "amateur community" like this, where nobody earns money.

Now, to be fair, yes, its unlikely that Wragg would have found somebody to illustrate a whole story, and nobody lost income or anything, so "why not"! This use of AI will not go away and if it is non-commercial, its OK imho.
Wragg put considerable effort in his story, so he uses AI to just "enhance" his OWN story.

But, away from huge projects like such a story, why should he spend hours (and years of learning his craft) on a single drawing, if he can get the same "praise" for a few mins of prompting?
It seems like a waste of time.
And thats why we are currently exchanging unique artistic style against an "uniform AI output broth".

I am NOT talking about those few artists who generate their AI stuff from the ground up, but about the huge majority that use an image or two (made by somebody else!) as "input" and a couple of prompt attempts to generate what they distribute as "their art".

Besides that, some of the "kinky artists" we know, also have a real life artist job. This job and their future is seriously being jeopardized by AI. It has been outlined by others how and why, I'll not boil that soup again.
Many may not miss "art" or "artists typical style" and will be satisfied with the "jerking" value of AI output. Nothing wrong with that, each their own.
But it is like with photography: At the time when an image cost money for development, care was taken about composition etc.
Nowadays people just click away and generate a flood, where maybe 5% of the images are even remotely good.

The lower the hurdle to creation, the less effort is put into concept and planning.

But as said, maybe only a few will miss that.

Let me not close with this, but with an example of AI applications I like:

Enhjorning does amazing hanging renders.
Lately he used AI on HIS OWN creations to generate more realistic, life-like variants.
He posted the results alongside the original renders and I have to admit that the results are spectacular.

Do I think the AI output is better? No!
Do I like to see it anyways, as a variant: By all means!
Do I think it is a legitimate use of AI: Yes I do, for various reasons:
- Enjhorning is one of those few 3D makers who have developed an own, recognizable style.
- He spent considerable effort to get there (skills!)
- The composition is his, not stolen from somebody

Not everybody has the skills or resources of artists you mention. I suppose you don't like manips either but with my older age the fingers don't work like they used to. I did more than a bit of original art but I can't do it anymore. So you have made your point. People can agree or disagree.

 

[DavidTX]

How does that make sense? You and perhaps Montycrusto may object to the application of AI tools to his artwork, but that does not make his artwork less good. If he is not publishing his work because other artists are using AI tools (and so far that seems to be only your speculation) that would be like a person who writes by hand refusing to write anymore because some people are using word processors. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Makes no sense to me at all. I certainly hope Montycrusto isn't part of that sort of petty and short sighted thinking. It's like a suicide saying "this will make them sorry".

What the heck are you talking about? Suicide?
You seem to assume that people like Montycrusto or myself get something from posting our work online. I can't speak for Montycrusto, but I enjoy using DAZ and creating renders. Simply put, I do it because it's fun. There's no other incentive. I started sharing my NSFW work online merely because I figured others might enjoy seeing it. Considering the nature of my renders and their very specific target audience, the feedback I get is limited. If I stop posting them online, why would that be like suicide? I'd still enjoy creating them as much as I did before. Others would just not see them anymore.

All that being said, my disdain for genAI systems has nothing to do with my NSFW content. That's just something I do on the side every now and then. I make my living from art/design and I've said this in the AI thread: My RL name is being used as a prompt. Every time I google myself, there are more and more AI images displacing my actual work. It's not that much of a problem for me (yet), because my artistic career started decades ago. I've already made a name for myself and am not really threatened by AI, but I sympathize with any artist who isn't this priviledged, and I have absolutely zero interest in huge corporations (or some asswipes on CivitAI or similar pages) training their systems on even more of my work to get better at imitating my style. Apart from my DAZ renders that have very little in common with my other stuff, I am not uploading any of my new pictures anywhere and I urge my clients not to do so either. Why the hell would I do anything at all to support systems that are quite actively trying to displace me?

But the answer is not for some artists to give up and never draw or paint again just because someone else is doing something nice with AI. Everyone keep doing your art the way you like to work.

People doing something nice with AI are not a problem. The problem is all the bastards (including billion-dollar corporations) doing tons of extremely shitty stuff with AI.