kukuruyo

Through the years navigating this whole AI art discussion i’ve often found myself unable to support opinions i’m moderate or even supportive about because the people making those arguments are; simply put; retarded. At one point you come to realize that the topic of AI art and the topic of AI bros and AI haters are completely different beasts that should be taken separately, and they’re often not, rather mixing them into something that turns the discussion difficult to navigate.

When it comes to AI art i find myself in kind of a middle ground. I’m an artist who lives of making drawings, so obviously i’m not happy about an app taking my income away, and i’m not fond of people calling themselves artists for just writing a prompt and let the machine do everything. However i don’t think that every AI use is some kind of evil, some uses are valid and inoffensive, like making memes and funny pictures and so and so, and i think AI can have validity for an artist if it’s used to get ideas or references to then do the drawing themselves. I wrote a lengthy article about my opinions years ago here, and years later i did a video revising a couple of things, in case that you wanna go that rabbit hole. Tho to summarize i could say my issues with AI stem from the cases in which people use AI when they should hire an artist, like commercial jobs, crowdfunding projects, videogames, and anything in general that would require actual skill and knowledge for which you should pay someone. And i also dislike many bad arguments that come from the AI bro crowd. But i also don’t care that you used it to do some funny dumb stuff, and that’s were i also get into conflict with the other side on the AI haters.

And that’s how you have people like Shadiversity who bragged about their “artistic knowledge” when doing AI drawings, only to then create a drawing in which the sun was behind the character but the light came from the front of the character, the head was huge and a ton of other problems that he could never discern because he had tried to bypass the process of learning. That’s why most AI “creators” on the internet only pass comics that real artists have made or memes through the AI as if it was their own but the result is something that has not a 10th of the impact or humor of the original. You never understand the concept of AI “stripping the soul” of something until you see a funny meme passed through the AI. And yet these people never realize that there’s something wrong with the product. They substituted the simple cartoon drawing the artist made for some hyperrealistic baroque anime image; or Ghibli style; and because it looks pretty then that means it’s better, isn’t it? But the result has 0 expressiveness or humor.

Even in something like book writing i can spot this. I’m not a book writer but i studied storytelling in my career, and obviously as a comic artist i’ve done my many share of storytelling. And whenever i talk with an AI bro who does books i can tell how they don’t know the basics of storytelling. Not only they don’t know but they even disregard proper storytelling conventions if you point them out, because they know better, they’re the IDEA GUY, they only needed the magical hand to be able to create masterpieces.

Then there’s that concept of artists being “naturally talented”. Reality is nobody just simply draws great when they start. There are people with talent but that talent makes them way faster at learning something they still have to learn, and most artists don’t have talent; we just practice like mad, and study all of the theory. I can tell you that i have no natural talent whatsoever for drawing; i would actually even say the opposite, i’m kind of naturally handicapped for drawing. Everything i know to do is because i’ve spent a lot of years drawing every single day and learning theory and techniques and knowledge, and now i have a lot of technical knowledge that my hand is not able to keep up with :p.

Nobody is gatekeeping you from picking up a pencil and learn, and if you actually learned the theory you would understand that you don’t really need an AI level of drawing to create. Knowing how to create compelling characters and story, portrayed with a good composition, tempo, development, paneling, etc, is more important than the drawing looking like the Mona Lisa. There are people doing ultra successful comics that are just sticks. The majority of my most popular works are shit i spawned in half an hour for the lols, but because i have the knowledge i can make comics and characters that people love despite being drawn like ass. Then my best drawings that i’ve spent days doing get 2 likes and nobody remembers them. Yes i’m salty. Almost 20 Wholesome series comics and you still ask for more you bitches.

This isn’t even anything new, most artists have had an initial phase like that in which they though they knew everything and they designed edgy cringy OCs with a dozen belts that they hated once they got older and more knowledgeable, or had to deal with some “writer” who did stuff of the short and asked them to collaborate. Artists then keep learning until they know how to do stuff correctly and stop that bullshit. AIbros instead seem to be in that perpetual state of superiority in something they really don’t know much about and you can’t have a conversation with them because; as i said; how you converse with someone who doesn’t understand that they don’t understand?

There’s honestly a lot of shitty arguments AI bros make, like when they accuse me of “wanting to make money with my art” as if it’s some kind of gotcha (?), because they think it’s somehow an hypocrisy to earn money from something you like to do. Or the “just learn to prompt and use the AI yourself instead of drawing!”, a comment that really can only be made by someone who isn’t an artist and is only interested in the result. The artist is an artist because we like to do art. We like to draw, or make movies, or music, etc. Pushing a button and getting something done without the process is precisely what someone un-interested in art would do, which is again another reason why we get frustrated with AI bros as yet another show that they’re really not interested in art at all. Also with the AI we would not be able to do all of those things that i previously mentioned that we know to do. Writing prompts does not allow for that level of control. It’s again something that only a non-artist would say because they don’t know all of the things the artist know how to do manually.  Also i’m going to bet if somebody pays me is because they want ME to do the drawing. The AI they can use themselves they wouldn’t need to pay me to write the prompt.

There’s also a big section of the AI bros who are just traditional puritan right wingers who hate artists in general because they see what we do as degeneracy, especially if it’s anime, so they want us to cease to exist thanks to AI, and also right wingers who are trying to turn the debate into a partisan issue, presenting AI as right wing and anti AI as left wing. This is one of the things that is doompiling me the most about the topic because the moment something catches traction as a partisan issue there’s no way back. If it catches on that being pro AI is a right wing thing, in a matter of time we’ll have the entirety of the right wing supporting AI for absolutely everything just because it’s what they’re supposed to do as right wingers. If that happens AI will be unstoppable as they’ll vote to have AI educate our kids just to own the libs. And the left will want even the rational uses of AI like medicine erased just because it’s the left wing to do.

But if i keep with the AI bros i’m gonna be here forever, let’s give some love to the other side

Artists in general are nowhere near the level of retarded on the Ai topic as AI bros, but there are big sections that completely over-react to anything AI. They see any use of AI no matter what it is as an immoral evil that cannot even be redeemed, so they chase and harass anyone who even does a meme with it, to very ridiculous levels. This is a completely stupid thing to do as you’re only alienating people and turning them against artists. We have just had a decade exemplifying what happens when you create a purity spiral and pester people with it non-stop. You don’t become the soul of the party, and the pendulum effect is gonna fuck you up. And me as well in the process.

This alienation gets even worse when you start doing shit like denying people service for disagreeing with their personal politics that affect nothing on your work. It would be a thing if you reject to draw something political or uncomfortable that goes against your principles; that’s understandable, as the difference of opinion is the topic itself of the drawing. But to go around looking for the politics of your potential clients to reject them because they think different than you on abortion or immigration is fucking insane. And you often make sport of it giving them a bad answer and then posting it online for virtue signal. Mentally unstable behavior.

Even if i agreed with you on these topics, it’s such a tactically unsound thing to do. A machine pops up that threatens to take away your source of income. Maybe it has already taken away a part of it, as it has done for me (because yes i can testify i know it has made me lose clients). You should be wary of this and try to adapt and compensate so you can keep making money. And instead what you choose to do is kick away another big chunk of your possible clients? are you dumb? Or have you been so deep into an echo chamber that treats virtue signal as currency that you do not realize that virtue signal does not pay the bills? Have you become the mythical artist who indeed works for *Exposure*? Maybe you’re the kind so balls deep into moral superiority that you don’t mind getting your career fucked over if in exchange you earn internet points. But you’re dragging me with you, so shut the fuck up. Or maybe you’re one of those so naive that you think there are so SOOOO many clients lining up for you that it doesn’t matter if you actively alienate them? one of those who think that AI is no threat at all so why would you try to be nice?

And that takes me to another anti-ai stupidity (although honestly and weirdly some AI bros do this too), as is brutally underestimating AI. Yes, AI bros don’t know about art, and they don’t know all of the things that are wrong with their drawings. But neither do regular people. And for most people “looks pretty” is enough. And it does look pretty.

There’s this widespread idea even among AI bros that “you can always tell it’s AI”,  and “AI always looks bad” and it simply not true. There are a couple styles that people kind of know as “AI styles”, and that’s why people believe they can tell. But reality is AI can be trained with whatever style. Those typical styles are just styles AI’s have trained a lot with because they’re common drawing styles. But you can feed AI drawings of other styles, and some people do. Those drawings are wayyy harder to tell, especially without artistic knowledge, and they DO look good even if they fail at things that a real artist probably wouldn’t.