this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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chapotraphouse
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i really hate this reasoning. when people say "i can't draw" they mean "i can't draw what I set out to draw" not that they can't make marks on a paper. People want to make what they have in their head, likely to a level of competence that would be appreciated by an audience beyond their mom, not some other thing that they physically can that will look bad to them and anyone else.
I also dispute OP's assumption that we can all learn to draw competently, i've tried on and off for years with various tutorials and programmes and my brain and hands just do not work that way.
Ask any artist if they are satisfied with their art. They won't be. That is the nature of the beast. Doesn't matter how good they are at it.
I have done art on and off for years as well. I would estimate I did maybe a few thousand hours of art in my life. Other people have done literally 10 to 100 times that and they are better because of it. You hone your skills over time. Anyone like me dabbling in art has to accept that there are countless people who put in more time, who are better and who will stay being better because they will keep putting more time in then us.
Using AI, you steal those hours from those people, for a product that doesn't show what's in your head. It's stilly to pretend AI can do that and you know it. If that were true, all the art prompters wouldn't include the names of existing artists in their prompts.
So yea, put in the fucking time, or get off the field. Don't be fucking selfish and then try to defend it in flimsy ways.
What's being stolen when someone uses genAI to make a picture for personal use? In what way is it selfish?
It's weird if someone acts like they're 'making art', but it's also harmless.
All of the art that was used to train generative AI was used without its creator's permission, meaning they weren't compensated for all of the years of work and study that went into creating it. Then all of that labour was repackaged into a product that corporations are selling at a premium, with none of the money going back to the people who made the creation of it possible. These companies have well admitted that they wouldn't be able to make a profit if they had to actually pay all these artists for their work. Now obviously, that isn't technically stealing, but neither is it harmless. I personally know several artists who've told me that work has dried up in the years since generative AI became popular, and who are upset that their own work was used to train the machines that are replacing them.
I feel like you can level these same arguments against piracy. I "steal" art without permission all the time; the sum of hours and hours of work and expertise, and I consume it all for free.
AI is going to fuck commercial artists and I'm opposed to that (though it's a capitalism problem more than it's an technology problem), but I'll stand by the fact that an individual making goofy pictures for personal use that they'd never ever had paid for pre-ai is harmless and by no means "stealing", because nothing is being stole. Same as why I don't feel guilty downloading a movie that I probably wouldn't have paid for and watched otherwise.
I mean, yeah, piracy is stealing. I thought most people were okay with it because it's mostly done with games and movies made by huge corporations who've already paid their developers and actors, and thus you're not actually stealing from artists. I've personally never understood the "I never would have bought and watched/played this anyway" argument, because here you are, watching/playing it. But also, I really don't care if other people pirate stuff, people must have their reasons.
Maybe I'm just going hard on the whole anti generative AI thing because of my personal connection to and harm I see it causing to people I know. But on the whole, considering the environmental impact, the corporatization of the technology, the exploitation of artists, the killing of creativity/critical thought, and the absolutely gross techbro culture that's spwaned out of it, I just thought more people on this site would be against generative AI in general.
piracy is not stealing, stealing deprives someone of something.
I’m opposed to how AI is going to interact with our economy, and hurt artists, but as I’ve said that’s an issue with capitalism far more than it’s an issue with the technology.
I understand the kneejerk reaction against it, but in my mind the tech is out the bag now and not going back in, so it feels meaningless to argue against its existence, especially along lines we as socialists otherwise don’t agree with, like on “stealing IP” or the “soul of art” or whatever.
As always we should advocate for the rights of workers. In a fairer economy, AI would just be a harmless toy if not a useful and productive tool.
"Hey man I need to see all your text and all your images you ever made."
""Why?"
"So I can make bad collage-copies of them and write shitty listicles."
"I don't want you to do that."
"Too bad, you put your stuff somewhere I could see it so I already did it and you have no recourse now because the powerful people that made me are above copyright law."
There is no personal use with this, because the AI was trained on everyone's stolen information. That is the problem, not the fact that it can make a bad picture because that was done. If the AIs could actually make anything from whole cloth, then we'd be having a different debate, but that's not what's going on.
Nothing is being stolen. Copying isn’t stealing. I’m a communist, I don’t believe in IP.
Steal from corporations, not form people's pantries you sick, disgusting fuck.
For real, do you not understand that the corpos are taking everyone's...EVERYONE'S things and making them theirs, for these garbage bots? That there is a difference between stealing from an individual as opposed to a company? You are gleefully saying that theft of personal property is okay, so long as it's the big boys in silicon valley doing it.
Sterling fucking socialist theory there, bucko!
And since you clearly need this explained more clearly: stealing from individual artists that honed a skill to the point they can make a living from it is bad, because you are stealing the livelihood from a fellow worker. Stealing form any individual is bad, actually. It really should not be hard to understand this, yet somehow...
Again, nothing is being stolen when an individual uses genAI for personal use.
Artists aren't losing anything. Their stuff is being copied and regurgitated but they've lost nothing.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm absolutely also concerned with how AI is going to impact workers in the commercial art, but the argument that AI is 'stealing' is just nonsense for the same reason piracy isn't stealing. We're in agreement on the conclusion I think, I just think the argument is poor.
duh. but "good enough" or "ok this is fine i need to work on something else" are out of reach too.
lmfao
idk lots of musicians try to copy the guitar tone or whatever else of their influences. what's in your head might be a copy of styles you've seen until you develop your own style... idk what "your own style" maps to in generative "ai", i'm not here to defend ai or say that the people using it are doing art per se, my whole thing is that I can't get even remotely close to an acceptable level of competence and it ticks me the fuck off when someone goes "aNy OnE cAn mAkE aRt" or upholds capitalist framings of intellectual property.
In that regard, I do think there’s a distinct difference between sampling (whether a still image, moving pictures, or sound) and using the AI treat generator. There’s plenty of people who can’t play a musical instrument worth a damn, but give them some loops, one shot samples, and sequencers and they can transform the samples material into something new and fascinating. Likewise with visual media.
12tone on YouTube had this interesting argument that samples, rather than being “cheating,” are turning a particular performance in time into an instrument unto itself. Whereas AI is a smudging of all past art into an average. So while sampling celebrates the greatness of a performance, AI reduces it to a Borg-like state.
It's always sad when I gotta actually block someone from hexbear, but since you are just a larper who doesn't care about others as soon as you can have the slightest whiff of a treat for yourself, I am not really sad about it.
??? comrade if you see this while logged out, i don't use gen ai to make visual "art".
this is only about the misunderstanding that people want to make stuff and can't because what they want to make is more specific than the head up ass maximum position that anything is art regardless of quality.
i am a professional artist (and maybe this makes me a bit out of touch,) assuming that it's for personal use and not for profit at all, i would rather have someone take my work into photoshop/gimp/krita/whatever and trace it near directly or make edits to it to fit their vision than have that person go spend money to further refine The Slop Machine. other artists may have differing opinions on this but since generative AI has gotten popular i just simply do not care anymore as long as my work isn't being fed to train image models. hell, if you're tracing someone else's work using tools on paper, that's still building muscle memory and linework skill and while not the ideal scenario it's doing more for you than you might think. with generative AI you are paying to generate an image based off countless images that already existed from artists that were not paid for their work to be included in the model. is that...not capitalistic or not at the very least exploitative?
Also a professional artist, and I agree with you. Someone making a collage or a trace from my art, or even just photoshopping it is still practicing creativity. Someone typing a prompt into the art slot machine has no creative process, they aren't learning anything, experiencing anything, struggling with anything, it's just empty output. It's just a "pretty picture" there's no sense of accomplishment or understanding. One of the most rewarding things in my life is when I draw something and recognise that I flat out wasn't skilled enough to do that 6-12 months ago.
And this can apply to any hobby or skill, are people so alienated from themselves that even the most basic concepts of satisfaction at self-improvement are seen as outright insults to them?
end-users aren't necessarily paying into anything other than their own electricity bill. We universally have a problem with the companies profiting at your expense of course, and that might be the more common case.
Those parts of "ai" discourse are tangent to someone's aptitude or ability to have something that looks how they want it to look and i'm trying to limit myself here to being mad about the position that art is accessible already because everybody can make shitty art that isn't what they want to make.
Stable diffusion works and learns on a conceptual level. If an AI model even understands artist tags, bias was trained into the model with a LoRA.
You looked at other people's art when you learned to draw you thief? Hand over the pencil and come out with your hands on your head
So you are seriously saying that AI has the ability to understand concepts? Waow.
Please educate yourself and don't spout bullshit, thanks.
Not concepts as we humans operate on, but concepts in the feature extraction sense. You have a gross misunderstanding of how these models work.
Imagine it as how an image detection model learns how to detect images. It extracts features (that are vectors of data that are completely meaningless to humans). Image generation can be somewhat imagines as the inverse of a feature detector, it creates features from noise.
These models are not plagiarizing your work. You teach it the shape a dog is expected to have, and you teach it the color black. Without such thing existing in the training set, it can generate a black dog.
This is fundamental to stable diffusion otherwise it could never work at all.
I mean, yeah this true not everyone can make art up to their desired standards. But everyone can still make art, there's tons of different genres and styles of art, all humans are gonna have the ability to engage with some of them. Maybe not to the level they'll become famous for it but they can do it.
Edit: to provide a personal example, I suck at drawing and painting but I used to do actual paper collage art, which doesn't require you make any images yourself but is instead about the composition of other premade images. With pretty good results.
top one is giving 1990s magic the gathering. sick.
Aw that's so kool <3 thanks for uploading
but i don't want to cure cancer, i want to turn people into dinosaurs.
art is in some ways a uselessly broad category, people don't want to make things generically, they want to make something more specific than that, it does no good to tell me to go make a sandcastle because i can actually physically do that to some extent when my creative desire is for something else.
Okay, but then their frustration isn't that "art is inaccessible" it's that they can't visually represent images in their head to a level they'd deem impressive.
Which is frustrating I guess when you want to make a nice looking avatar for your discord DND game, but you aren't being denied access to anything. Also there's millions of fantasy concept art pics for free out there you can probs find something nice looking for you kitsune rogue.
i disagree, based on what people have called "inaccessible" for the last decade+, this is a perfectly fine usage of inaccessible.
Both of those images are great
So you want an audience to adore you but for work you didn't put in?
Also what's competent? Have you ever seen avant garde paintings? Impressionist? Surrealism? Heck you could make your own style based on how your hands do work? There are people that paint with their mouth or feet because they want to put the effort in.
Wanting the reward first is backwards.
what? no, i'm not really looking for an audience for the thing i'm not doing at all. if any of my attempts at developing a skill had resulted in developing that skill maybe i'd be art posting instead of simply not making 2D visual art because i can't make what i want to.
output matching intent. I can imagine a much higher fidelity image than i have the ability (or neurological patience, probably. drugs pls) to produce which, quoting myself:
and that goes for whatever else. I'm not actually good enough at blender to make what i aspire to make either, but i've found something i can make to a level i'm satisfied with and is worth my time, unlike the literal garbage i'd get trying to do it on paper or canvas.
but spider-man i do not want to cure cancer, i want to turn people into dinosaurs. I made marble paintings as a kid, i've seen art that doesn't look anything like what it's meant to depict. these things are profoundly uninteresting to me and not what i'd be interested in making. so it's incredibly fucking rude to tell me to go make garbage i don't want to make and be happy about it.
what "reward" lmao. i just want to look at a thing, and since I can't make something i want to look at I want people to not claim art is accessible to everyone because that claim is a fundamental misunderstanding of people who can't make the kind of art they would like to make, and it is literally not accessible to me and a few other people in here who have mentioned repeated attempts at trying to develop the skill and being neurologically unable to.
You said for more than your mother would appreciate which means you are sharing it and/or care what other people think about it. If it's for yourself than you are only as critical as you need be.
And I can imagine a remote space base on an asteroid but I'm not gonna be upset with myself that I can't build it. It's normal to have stuff you can't do. And then you work towards it little by little aware that you might not get it in your lifetime and you leave it for the next people to do.
So instead of it being about being for recognition from others this is some sort of instant gratification need? Cause I am still not getting what the issue is other than a stubborn need to get exactly what you want and in as little effort as possible. And you calling it rude to try at something else instead of get what you want is entitled and not something I support.
if i cant make a thing look like i want it to look then I can't make the thing i want to make. no shit.
an asteroid base is something that would take multiple people many years to accomplish. a cool drawing is something one person could reasonably expect to do on their own.... the fact that some of us can't is exactly my point that art isn't fucking accessible just because anyone can make garbage because some dorks have a uselessly broad definition of art that is useless to normal people who just want to transfer the image in their head to paper.
it's not about instant gratification or no effort either, the inaccessibility is in that we have tried to learn and were unable to. I take this condition and dispute the notion that art is accessible.. i'd be happy to put in time and get a result, but i put in time and effort years ago and never got anywhere because brain differences.
You are mistaking art with being a skilled craftsman. And your expectations are too high on yourself.
Art is accessible in that you can express yourself and find a medium to do that but it doesnt mean you are just gonna be great at painting or line drawing. Thise are skillsand most people are lucky enough to have a couple things they are truly skilled at in life. It doesnt mean we can do everything. We work together as humans. A person born without lega can provide skills to the world but cant just build their own wheelchair and all the medications for themselves.
You can not draw exactly what is in your head, boohoo. Im sorry but im not gonna have sympathy for you being human and not getting to do everything you ever want to do but you can work together with others to help make that possible. I have an incredible tattoo that looks exactly how i imagined it in my head but couldnt possibly draw it myself or tattoo it on my own body. But i went to an artist and showed them my shitty drawings and they turned it unto something amazing and someone else put that ink to skin.
Its my art. I am expressing myself through it but i dodnt expect to do it all myself.
Stop expecting yourself to be able to do everything and stop making it so that you dont feel you can work with others and accept limitations. Thats how life is. Full of limitations and disappointment but there is less when you work together instead of thiniing you are gonna be superman doing it all on your own.
no, I can't. i've tried. If i say "me sad" that's technically words but it's not adequately communicating my interiority.
jesus christ for the tenth time i'm not expecting to be michelangelo. I'm worse than every highschool baseball player in the world but i can throw baseball-sized objects well enough for when that cop car across the street needs a broken window.
apparently you can read about as well as i can draw because you have constantly ignored my expressed desire for competence in this matter.
You are the one stuck on it being that you draw the things you want to see. It is not my reading comprehension but just that you are completely insistent that this is the method to express yourself.
People can express they are sad poorly with words but well with flower arrangements or sculpture or hair styling. Art is absolutely accessible but you insist it isnt since you cant do what you desire to do.
There is a guy in the comics community that literally just has the wordt looking doodles but they get their point across. I have seen lego comics and cyanide and Happiness used clip art of a circle, a square, and some drawn lines. Who the fuck needs to be Michelangelo? Thats a craftsman you seem to be comparing yourself to again.
Im saying that you wont find competency in something just because you want it and you won't find artistic expression of yourself in a knockoff image generator. I would ignore your issues with saying you want to fly but still suggest that you get a pilots license. You are insistent you preent in a way that might not be possible and it will not make you more competent just make you reliant on being sold a tool to pretend you are. Its ok to not be good at something you just dont like that as an answer.
i don't want to cure cancer, i want to turn people into dinosaurs
And yet you think comparing yourself to a dumb comic book villain is a good thing?
Does the lizard seem happy? Dont be shocked when someone tries to stop you then.
I’m curious if you’ve tried https://drawabox.com/
It’s set up to be very rote and effort in = results out. If you like studying and practicing that way, it works a lot differently than the typical advice.
drawabox is one of the worst programs for learning something from scratch i have ever tried. That shit is horrible. I am capable of imagining its good for people who already draw a bit and want to get better, but from scratch its horrible.
i've heard of that and it looks reasonable but i'm busy with blender things and the feedback loop is more compatible with where my head is at.
I'm not categorically against generative AI tools and believe they can be fun and useful. I just don't think you can call their output art. I would compare them to character creators and similar creative tools in video games
You wouldn't call yourself a character designer after making a cool custom fighter in SoulCalibur or an interior designer after making a house in the Sims, but that doesn't take away the fact that both are valid creative outlets
tbh create a soul have enough going on that you could do character design in it, if we just mean visuals. i remember when mario maker was new a bunch of actual game devs were like "holy shit i wish our tools were as good as this level editor"
yeah i think there's some ADHD thing that short circuits the connection between my mind image and my fingies
and i doodled and drew for years up until my late teens. also took tons of classes, including drawing classes in college.
luckily I read a lot and apparently could write well (back then at least) and did that instead. but I was always envious of people that can just do the whole "my hand is a printer connected to my brain".