We are going to share our opinion regardless. We do not mean any offense to anyone but as much as everyone gets the chance to share their valid opinion we will oblige as well. We use AI for fan arts, cosplaying characters and we don't do anything with it except playing around with it for thumbnails of our gaming and content creation.
This article is compilation to all commentaries we came across. We have adjusted it to match all general arguments on deviant art.
Generally our opinion copyright is important if it is a local product non distributed to the internet as it remarks the crafts of the culture and country it resembles. This has been long argument ever since the existence of the internet and it is own creation. About copyright validation or invalidation. When the publisher goes their way to publish their arts, online games and software or whatsoever gets published generally on the internet, their property has been always blended, stolen, outsourced, reloaded, re-uploaded and re-variated into something else. Much like software creators who engineer them just to find their software has been cracked as well on the next day up.
The Japanese Anime had restrict copyright and law against publishing anime episodes without consent or ownership and much like playstation games being distributed as roms widely on the internet is illegal. Now anime industries are producing the anime show all for free on YouTube itself by themselves. Playstation games are being streamed from PS Store without the need for roms. AI creation is the same logic. Nothing has changed in addition of the collection of internet's mess and lawlessness.
When you are publishing something on the internet, you should consider THE FACT it is PUBLICIZED. That fact with no amount of begging, crying and hailing ideals or clouding propaganda will change it is own basis. The real error doesn't come from the internet but the publishers. When your property on the internet, It is cloned, it is copied, it is duplicated and you cannot change that very fact. Now the real catch who is the smartass will claim ownership of something they do not own? Nobody will do. If they recreate your art using AI and AI makes better version than your art then your art credit as source of AI's product belongs to you only! The AI art itself is superior to you in many different situations. In this case you should become better in art than any AI in order to not allow any AI to outsmart you.
Machines will not replace humans. Technology will only advance humans. If a combo of an artist and prompter emerge together under the same industry roof, the products they will make will definitely sell. Now your painting tools are not the only prerequisite to make an attractive art but AI is your own little helper as well. Your propaganda is much respected but the spam behind anti AI movement with whoever uses the same image as yours all over deviantart is intolerable and it is not appropriate way to revolt. There are better ways to display your frustration. You have to be considerate!
To answer quoted arguments which has been discussed or can be discussed:
"AI is theft. It steals away the real art work of real artists. Hold a pen and do not prompt!"
AI is not theft. Most of organizations said they are training their AI and they never addressed they are stealing your properties. Stealing your properties would have been penalized and international law would have jailed them all. AI is new. The implementation of Fair use with AI and Credibility to the original artist are still undergoing. The term of service on every platforms preserves the rights for every platform to use every submission and govern every account however they want. That means you should have never uploaded your art and kept it hidden if you are not going to let go of it or worried about it is theft. Most of AI game engines are using their own assets and their owned arts or paid arts from REAL ARTISTS to actually train their AI that means your logic is flawed and you are deceiving people into false hoods like anti protest so you can monetize a proclaimed anti protest movement which may fail in the end but all the donations you have on gofundme whatever website will be distributed to your account so you can scam people like unfortunate project failure which we have seen a lot on kickstarter. That means you are nothing now but a beggar. However you are worried that AI is going to be complete and opt out art that you cannot compete against so that you are worrying about your monetization issues because then the qualification rate by other employers or industries of your art will require you transcending to new realms or heights to achieve better quality that outdo the AI which you do not posses or old enough to posses or circumstances haven't tolerated you for it so you vent out your propaganda into the so called anti protest..
"Talking with industries didn't do much as money talked first. We can thank the greedy companies for it, We must protest!"
It doesn't change the fact it is desperation against greedy organization. If you don't like how they perform then create your own platform and revolt there with them so this is not your last option.
"Published doesn't mean freely usable and we need to enforce the law and to limit this abuse. We will take the action by our hands."
It doesn't change the fact it is being spread in every hand and that won't change the fact how they use it. When it goes to the internet, then it has served "shipment" much like shipment system for steam games when the developer decides to publish it. The game gets cracked right off bat within the same day. No law can protect intellectual property. Your popularity is your trademark and your copyright. Your watermark or signature is your protection seal for intellectual property. Your property can only get certified for protection under law or DMCA that if you have money and time + laywer. Imagine a T.V shows channel airs episodes on T.V for certain franchise so once people get to screenshot it or look at it and then they claim to be their own, anyone will believe them? No. Can copyright prevent the audience from looking at T.V screen? Can you demonize them for it? No. Then it is all futile as much as The internet is.
"Getting better than AI is not an Option. We cannot stand by when it's taking someone's job. We should always silent it."
Your concern is monetization based and it is not dedication to art. If you care for art, you will take your properties out and use some arsenal on the internet to guard you from AI scraping.
"AI generated Images are creepy, I hate them. They are like spits entangled together. My art is more beautiful just because"
We are not in Museum to ponder in the beauties and to address haves or have nots. What works will take a place above all. The artist can get better. You can train your skills learning from AI Art for free, you can improve your Art using AI's imagination that if the prompt is easy to get by and you can create Art with concept that AI is failing to make so definitely artist can still win against AI. To begin with, AI is using arts from the actual artists.
"Technology advances human when it doesn't alienate it. We can't achieve progress at the cost of human well-being. And right now, most of this tech is only there to profit the corpos."
Algorithm has been alienating small content creators ever since it is own implementation and you are chasing after what is smaller of issue? You want to protest something for human well-being? Then kill the algorithm. AI has little to do with the super control in how your content gets recommended even if they remove AI from existence you will still have something to complain about and that is the unfairness of the algorithm like on YouTube and the rest of platforms. If this platform doesn't favor the rich to have their art recommended and anchored yet, then they will eventually do like Facebook and YouTube. Reddit is already going in that direction. To protest, do it in real life. On the internet it is no use because you can get banned easily and because it is not recommended as it turns out messily mess.
"It is not desperation, just a way to raise awareness. it's normal we protest here too. Don't see where's the point of protesting on platforms that aren't part of the problem."
What you said right now is irrelevant, you are against AI as whole not just deviant. What you do is a protest for intellectual property for misuse by Deviantart but what you are mentioning is anti AI Movement. Now you are contradicting yourself. To fight for your arts, you should address it to lawsuit or report it to the authorities and other platforms too without spreading hate against AI universally because then that becomes salty and targeted hate against the tech in itself aside of the spam will not be likable because it is the behavior of primitives.
"it's not futile to protest, I don't know who made you think that nothing is achievable online, could be for this specific case, or for conflicts around the world, or about any other political or social topic. We use what we have and connect with people this way."
The way you are doing it is wrong and there are better ways to address your problems. Like protesting at change.org and like creating content the way content creators do. Aren't you artist? Why create dozens of alt accounts to spam Anti AI images when you can simply solve the matter by connecting as you addressed earlier? or Are you just venting out your inability to get monetized by your art?
"I cannot train with AI since it does the whole job, it just alienates the principle of trying and learning art. You just use a prompt and get an output. How is that going to teach me how to paint? Or how to draw perpective or anatomy? Or how to mix colors to get the one I want? I don't have a use for it."
We have school in our country running AI experiment and we are teaching kids in how they draw arts starting by geometry shapes created by AI. Yes it does serve education, it does serve training and I did try to draw a sketch generated by AI and did mimic after it in order to learn drawing better. It is valid option. Like you said you don't need it because you know how to draw art but there are those who don't and can get inspired to be artists when they see the unlimited abilities of AI in art imagination without paywall.
"We protest against everything that is AI just like the internet is part of people daily life afterall."
The Internet is mainly the vein for people now. However, we don't protest in everyday of our daily life. All other points you have mentioned are valid but remember there is always what is worse than just mere AI. You have addressed you don't side with any side but going to the extent to protest and everything you do will not change the fact you do.
"We are not spreading hate. We even indicated our intentions in our movement that we are not against AI per se"
The images you spread delivers the message differently than context. Humans intellect always process differently. An image is worth of a thousand word. That is why YouTube content creator will create thumbnail to deliver the message. That is why you are contradicting yourself and won't be taken seriously for as long as what you say in the context doesn't match what has been shown in the image.
"If you think it's wrong, what would be your own course of action? Considering not everyone has the means or time to go for a lawsuit against corpos. How would you raise awareness on the topic?"
Create a brand with proper name, promote a cause as petition, raise your private community and start petitioning at change.org then the game is over. Spreading awareness on a platform other than your own will never be practical.
"We don't really understand what AI brings there that is not available around. We are not a drawing expert and I still have things to learn"
Improving art using prompt and using AI as educational materials were the subjects we were referring to. Even if you are not an expert, you have the right to express your opinion. If you don't differentiate between AI users and other people, this will lead you to generalize and comment incoherently which is another down side of a blind and spammy protest full of chaotic arguments and irrational riots.
"I do not protest in everyday of my life, but an ongoing issue is an ongoing issue. It won't disappear because I decide it. If you engage in a cause, you have to dedicate time to it."
You have the right to protest it but in the suitable places for it. You can promote it but shouldn't spam it. Deviant art is a place full of AI generated Images. To protest your disapproval in a place which is practically uses what you disapprove is not wise and the very thing you disapprove of will bring only oppositions and conflict.
To summarize:
Slowly the trade and commissions over art will decline in sales and pricing completely. It will end up in a form of bus ticket price. When it is an AI generated image, the image will not be worth any but a dim which will secure the artist from AI generated images. The actual artists can still sell original art with full price at real life auctions but in virtual world, nope. There are things can get outdated just like your windows 10 which won't be used for steam sooner or later. Anything you say from hereafter won't change the reality no matter how you go on about it and how idealistic you wish to become. The internet Reality is already damned with algorithm. Your decisions and your actions have been predicted from the get go with possibility of them happening. Deviantart is aware about protest occurrence before it does and that is at the very beginning when they have planned to add DreamUp. It is just the algorithm of Damnation that brings people to their ruins. AI just plays a little part of that and it won't change the fact that Algorithm is still in the play cast. At this point there is no meaning of commenting here for me nor for you. You are against the algorithm that allowed AI to play it is own role but not the AI itself. Just create your platform free of Algorithm and done.
BEWARE ANTI PROTEST MONOPOLY. IT IS THE SAME AS MMO INDUSTRIES MONOPOLY WITH CONTENT CREATORS. A COMPLETE FRAUD TO STEAL MONEY FROM POCKETS AND DELUDE YOU INTO LOOP OF BAITING.
