David Ano's Art Blog

Ano, David. “WIP Squirrel" last worked on in May 2023, pencils on paper.

Ano, David. “WIP Dog" last worked on in Aug 2023, oil pastels.

A̲l̲l̲ ̲A̲I̲ ̲i̲s̲ ̲b̲a̲s̲e̲d̲ ̲o̲n̲ ̲t̲h̲e̲f̲t̲!̲ What we have right now is not "real" Artificial Intelligence. Programs like Chat GBT are "Large Language Models". What they do is feed these programs with massive amount of text, pretty much every piece of text the company can get it's hands on. Basically, large language models uses other people written texts to train themselves. The same is true with AI art. I do not think they have EVER made an AI that has used permission from the writer or artist.

Furthermore, it uses mathematical models to predict which word precedes and proceeds each word. I should point out that AI that use large language models do NOT know what the words actually mean, or whether what they are saying is right or not. It is similar to how AI art cannot draw hands. Since it was feed text from fiction, non-fiction, and opinions posted online, it does not differentiate, and has no program to fact-check itself. Think the Dunning Kruger effect, but with a computer program.

There were some red flags, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Like I asked which of my illustrations drew their attention, and they did not say which one. In addition, they kept pushing to make payment even after I said I deal with payment at completion. All of the photos were front views of the dog, and I asked for additional photos that show the midsection, hind legs and tail, but after multiple times requesting more photos, they never sent anything.

Finally today, they said they made a payment and asked me to confirm it. Not seeing anything in my email, I looked directly at my PayPal account and there was still no activity. I told them I did not get it and asked to confirm the email they sent it to. They said look in my spam folder ... and it was there, marked as a phishing scam. The email came from [email protected]. PayPal will NOT send you an email from a gmail address.

And there it is ... I did have a bad feeling and I was right. Scamming amateur artists is a low blow!!!

Ano, David. “Editorial Cartoon: Kevin McCarthy Holding America Hostage” 5/10/23, charcoals and graphite on heavy paper.

I have not drawn a Political Cartoon in over ten years. This is about U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy saying that President Joe Biden is holding the country hostage over the debt ceiling crisis, while McCarthy is the one threatening to let our country go default and go into economic disaster if he does not get the spending cuts he wants.

It should be known that Congress ALREADY passed the Federal Budget and decided how much to fund each program. The debt ceiling is NOT a time to decide on spending cuts! This is a matter of paying the country's bills we already agreed on. If he wants to propose spending cuts, then he should bring them up in October when the National Budget comes up again in Congress.

Speaker McCarthy is throwing a tantrum & is willing to let the U.S. go default & send the country into a economic disaster if he doesn't get his way. So what is in McCarthy "Limit, Save, Grow Act" plan? • an overall cut to all non-defense spending • blocking Biden's college loan forgiveness program • repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and green energy tax credits • cutting $80 billion from the IRS • cuts food and nutrition programs to seniors, pregnant mothers, babies, and poor people (including SNAP, WIC, etc) • adding work requirements to social welfare programs, and raising the age of "able bodied adults" from 18-50 to 18-56 • cuts to education, public schools, and Pell Grants • ending Head Start and child care programs • rescinding Covid-19 relief funds • eliminating affordable housing assistance • closing air traffic control towers • and more

If the debt ceiling is not raised and the U.S. goes default, it would be a disaster for the U.S. economy. Immediate effects include: • The stock market will rapidly crash and lose about a third of its value (an estimate of $12 trillion loss) • Standard & Poor would downgrade the US credit rating. Interest rates would rise sharply. Families and businesses would also have a tougher time getting approved for loans. • Delayed Social Security payments to 66 million retirees. • More than 2 million federal civilian workers and around 1.4 million active-duty military members could see their paychecks delayed. • It could trigger an economic downturn, which would prompt a spike in unemployment. • It could start a domino effect and create a global wide recession.

Speaker McCarthy is throwing a tantrum & is willing to let the U.S. go default & send the country into a economic disaster if he doesn't get his way. So what is in McCarthy "Limit, Save, Grow Act" plan? • an overall cut to all non-defense spending • blocking Biden's college loan forgiveness program • repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and green energy tax credits • cutting $80 billion from the IRS • cuts food and nutrition programs to seniors, pregnant mothers, babies, and poor people (including SNAP, WIC, etc) • adding work requirements to social welfare programs, and raising the age of "able bodied adults" from 18-50 to 18-56 • cuts to education, public schools, and Pell Grants • ending Head Start and child care programs • rescinding Covid-19 relief funds • eliminating affordable housing assistance • closing air traffic control towers • and more

Ano, David. “sketch practice: cat” 1/4/23, oil pastels.

Some how I forgot to post this on Tumblr four months ago

Ano, David. "Practice Portraits 4" 7/4/22, charcoal pencils on pastel paper.

Ano, David. "Practice Portraits 3" 7/2/22, oil pastels on matte paper.

Ano, David. “woman in field” 5/11/22, oil pastel on heavy texture pastel paper.Photo reference from Oleksandr Pidvalnyi