this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 months ago (4 children)

AI artist Jason Allen

Absolute degenerate.

I have also spent some time screwing around with AI art generators. No way I'm addressing my self as an artist for it. AI art can be useful in certain situations such as whipping together a stupid meme to share between some friends. It's not any talent involved, and it's not something you should consider as copyright worthy.

Creating nice art is available to anyone. It just require some creativity and talent if you want to love of it. Being an artist is not some basic human right. As plenty of "artists" believe.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

@Crampon

AI artists are just the new version of "fractal artists" who for the most part just pick a color palette and run a Mandelbrot generator until they find an appealing image.

It's not nothing but it's not going to get you very far.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Some AI artists actually take the time to touch up the image in something like phtoshop once they get the idea they want but there are still problems with the image.

As the images get better though that might stop

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

@dgerard

I had a bit making an exception for the value of "fine art" because that can get weird, like “unmade bed with a bunch of trash around it” or a signed urinal.

But I seem to have left that part on the cutting room floor.

If a piece of purely prompt-generated AI art hits a price like a shark in formaldehyde I strongly suspect it'll be some kind of inorganic AI industry insider self-dealing to hype up the AI art market, similar to the big Beeple NFT sale.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Okay but the shark in formaldehyde is fucking awesome to see in person.

It's a shark! In formaldehyde!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

yeah, Hirst can be a bit of a hack and the names of the pieces are super cheugy but he's definitely made some really evocative stuff

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

@V0ldek

Yeah I'm not dismissing that. It's a big ass shark in a tank.

Or the guy who made a cast of his own head using his own frozen blood, that's kept in a special refrigerated display case.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think it might be worth reflecting on exactly why Fountain seems to "get weird;" it had a context and complaints about it are part of that context. I liked this recent video which explores the politics of Fountain.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

@corbin

I just mean "weird" in terms of “valued far higher than the average person might expect” but I'm not implying that that value isn't merited. I'm not one to dismiss a Rothko.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Right? I used to think Kinkade was the pompous narcissist. That anyone would consider themselves an AI "artist" is absolutely wild.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

"All Allen could copyright was what he did to the image himself" - so if he trained the model himself, would that make the work copyrightable? Does that mean midjourney has the copyright of all the images created with it?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The image gatcha does not create a new copyright. There might be a copyright in the text of a complex prompt (do you feel lucky in court?) Mere "sweat of the brow" does not generate a new copyright in the US, so e.g. retouching work on a photo does not generate a new copyright and photos of a public domain artwork do not create a new copyright.

This doesn't touch on the old copyrights of the stuff Midjourney trained on to make its computer-mediated collages. Those copyrights still exist.

Does the computer-mediated collage launder the previous copyrights? The answer is "do you feel lucky in court?"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's Tornado Cash, but for pictures of Garfield with a machete.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

North Korea: "AUGH MY EYES"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

so if he trained the model himself, would that make the work copyrightable?

I think if he "trained" the model on art he himself created you might have an argument.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Not in the US, there art can only be created by a human.
If it's created by an algorithm or animal supernatural being it's public domain.

Interesting facts:

  • when photography was invented there was a debate whether photos can be copyrighted
  • if you claim to have written down something revealed to you by a supernatural entity, it's public domain
  • the following image is public domain because it was taken by a monkey