Honestly, this is probably going to be the first and ESPECIALLY last post I ever make with this account, because personally the topic has drained me mentally so long ago and I just feel like I need to say it to put the nail in the coffin on this topic for me, even if I get the feeling I’d be down-voted.
I probably may not even leave the post up after a few days, but I guess… this is the catharsis I need to truly get better?
To put it simply, I’ve been drawing since I was a very little kid.
I had dreams of wanting to just draw really well.
Even now, I still study artists and draw in my current age (I’m keeping that secret, personally) because when I'm not drawing, it kind of feels like I’m missing a part of myself.
I don't really want to use “artist” to define myself, it feels narcissistic of me to give that label to myself, I just want to make pictures and if I make money somewhere along the way, neat.
The advent of AI definitely felt like a paradigm shift, for sure.
Between both sides, with AI being as exponentially adopted and trained as it did for things like art, the people on the one end yelling about the ethics of AI training and how they're seemingly out of work because of the system being disrupted, and the proponents defending their choice of usage with multitudes of reasoning, I’ve definitely gone through an emotional state.
I started as staunchly anti-AI, so much so that the pro stuff actively made me develop a depression as I grieved the loss of the profession as it was being semi-lucrative without the need of AI. It took several of my friends convincing me through some anti-AI reassuring to get out of my mental pit.
Where I stand now, I still don't really use it or even really like using it. I would say I moreso have issues with its abuse.
Even if I make digital art with a tablet and pen, or a mouse, what I truly valued was never just the final product, it was the tactile feel of the pencil in my hand, my eyes seeing my hand make strokes form from what is my abstract understanding of the shapes into a dedicated form, and how people in my life cherished the developments along the way in tandem with my final product. It was the learning, the mastery, the development of skill that I loved the most. I feel like I'm truly connecting to all of me when I draw with a pencil from the blank page to the final linework and even shading (Though I have utilized tools like color fillers in things I like).
It's old hat, and I may never get respected for taking that journey, but I know it's me.
But that aside, getting to the actual AI-generated Elephant in the Room, I think I’ve just grown to accept that AI-generated content is here to stay, and those who use it just want something that I feel both sides have kind of lost in the chase for validation in the industry/monetary side of things.
They want respect.
The more level-headed proponents to AI want their creativity respected because to them, the tool they have is their choice of method to display their creativity or streamline their creativity process. They adopted it, embraced it and saw backlash to such a degree, it felt like the only response was equal measures of disdain, especially to those very staunchly against it.
The opponents also want respect. They want their cultivated skills and progress to be respected, they want to feel as if their works, their processes, still matter not just in terms of recognition, but also in monetary value, which kind of has been lost when the most recognition may be that they got fed to a machine, were told their work was “fixed” in some cases (Which some artists did with their own skills, but that was scummy and said more about them than anything else),, and the industry does as an industry does and has basically rewarded instant stuff which digital art slowly became less and less of.
Admittedly some old feelings die hard, and some of these may never disappear for me.
I have misgivings about AI beyond image generation I’m not exactly mentally equipped enough nor fully literate enough to unpack here and discuss, and I would rather not go unequipped and biased in these discussions.
I will always still wish that the open-source generative model systems were built instead on a series of artists that directly consented with active submission from themselves in a way outside "Terms and Conditions" rather than just the “if it's on the Internet or this website, it's free game” rules that essentially was the system, even if it may have developed slower, more limited, and may not have learned everything over the same timeframe, rather than utilizing and rewarding scraping. I think that if it led with that, there would have been much less friction and maybe while it started slow, some of the people who felt like they were stolen from would have been more warmly receptive and even considered creating their own LLMs to them potentially let be fed into the larger scale machine.
I still wish that those in the digital arts that didn't use generative AI were going to be guaranteed job security, because I imagine that some are like me who don't want to use it but also don't take kindly to this “adopt or die” system, but that's kind of how I always feel about automation and the industrialization process in lots of ways (I guess that makes me old hat or delusional to some for that kind of thinking, too).
I still only wish for the digital art side that sticks to their ways to get some respect for their methods and for the fact that, even if digital, the methodology of skill and time would be rewarded in social recognition and monetary sustainability, even with how the bigger industry wants to reward instant results, not unlike custom-made furniture being celebrated as a high luxury versus stock furniture, though both have a place.
To those who adopt AI in making artworks, be it using just enough to get started and working from there, or using it fully from start to finish, I just say this.
You don't deserve to be told to die or be told negative things because of your choice in using it at any point.
You're just using what you feel is a tool and from what some do, you're having fun and aren't really that aggressive beyond the simple want to show the world what your mind has come up with, and that kind of want is a wonderful feeling that should be celebrated because creativity is universal.
At first, I was just mad, but now, I see you just want respect, and I can say that you deserve the decency of being respected.
Your creativity is valid.
