DeviantArt is a site that’s been around for generations of the Internet because it does one thing well: it allows artists to upload and share their work. That’s it! So it’s both funny and a bit tragic to see the site try something new last week, just because it was the worst thing imaginable, done in the dumbest way possible.
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Of course, that thing is AI-generated art, something that sounds great in theory but in practice has a little bit more than an opportunity for techies and vandals to steal artwork, make them think they’re artists, and/or deprive working artists of their work.
While it’s common for the type of person to talk to you unwittingly about how now is the best time to buy crypto, actual artists in general are appalled by this practice. So the artists, the actual users and the whole point of view of the site, were really disappointed last week when DeviantArt published a blog post with “Introducing DreamUp, an image generator powered by your reminders that lets you visualize almost anything you can DreamUp!“
That blog postostensibly an introduction to a service that allows users to “create” their own AI artwork on DeviantArt, having to spend most of the time saying “actually this is fine, this is not bad” , because it anticipates a large number of users will look at the legal and ethical complications involved and say “this sucks!”
But anyway, they went and did it. And, just one day after opening, was forced to change it after artists protested that AI art systems could easily discard their own works without recognition or even their positive consent. The most egregious example is that every piece of art across the site has been flagged to feed AI systems to learn, and users will have to manually go into their accounts and opt out of all images. image.
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Also controversial is the way that featured artists had to opt out Style stolen (people entering a prompt into the AI art use a bunch of keywords like “fantasy,” but also the artist’s name to mimic their style), but to do so must submit a form takes days to process:
Although the mass opt-out system was quickly changed (too late for many, because the damage is already done!), the whole idea is still lousy (they can’t even guarantee it works!), and deep inside DeviantArt knows it, because they published an update that mostly still addresses user concerns you know, it might suggest that there are fundamental problems with the whole point of the exercise, not just individual examples of its implementation.
Artificial intelligence art comes from the same kind of crushing, dehumanizing wheel as crypto and NFT, and you can see that at work in DeviantArt’s system, which isn’t here for the user. present enjoy casual which is a way to make money. DreamUp allows certain free “reminders” before users are locked out…unless they are a paid DeviantArt member. And if you decide to pay, what will you get in return, other than the satisfaction you get from destroying the very community you’re supposed to be a member of? DeviantArt was kind enough to provide some examples of llamas:
These look like shit. Like something a bot account will try to sell me as NFT in 2021. Throw all this in the trash.
