I love to waste your time

There’s a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue! 

I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product. 

Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: “Because diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.” Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?

Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.

Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases. 

The history of corporate propaganda.

'Nobody wants to work' fails to mention the poverty wages and horrible workplaces.

all through the middle ages, nobles complained about their serfs not wanting to work in exchange for protection. craftmasters complained about their apprentices not wanting to work (and wanting to instead play ball games or sneak out to see girls).

we have records of ancient romans complaining that the goddamn poors spent all their time drinking and gambling and hanging out under theatre awnings instead of working

we have records of an ancient egyptian pharaoh complaining that no one wants to dig canals anymore.

none of these people existed within a capitalist system. capitalism didn't really exist until the late 1700s/early 1800s.

this is not a capitalism thing. this is a power thing.

in a capitalist society, having capital gives you power! you can conflate the two and it doesn't really make a difference in terms of what you need to do to stop the powerful from harming people! but it's important not to conflate the two in general because it muddies the problem

the powerful will never see their subordinates as being full people unless you make them do so. they will complain about you not working for them, and they will make your life hell if you don't work for them, unless you take your power back.

you need leverage- unions! democratic government interference! checks and balances on any form of societal power!- to make that happen.