Well Iâm sick of being effectively silent on this issue.
For starters, I call it diffusion, not AI. Calling it AI mystifies the situation. Makes it seem uncountable by implying the machine âthinksâ on its own. Machines donât screw with the artistic eco system, the people who use/make them do. Secondly, I donât want to pretend that we donât live in a post-Adobe-and-its-free-alternatives world. Even considering that we donât live in a post-scarcity utopia, I still think the technology didnât have to be made and implemented the way it has been.
Iâve always been irked that in the face of artists being worried about companies replacing their jobs with diffusion technology, there has been an attitude of âyeah, you deserve to not be compensated.â I think it was more blatantly antagonistic early on, as for where we are now, well, the infamous Corridor Crew video. The part that seemed to push it over the edge for the âmaybe we were too harsh crowdâ was the âwe have finally democratized the animation processâ speech. How so? There is already tons of free animation software. People have been releasing animation independently on their own for years. Ebsynth has been around for quite a while. As for them listing skill as one of the gaps this tech bridges, but what was stopping yâall from learning to draw their own keyframes?...
That last question might sound really reductive to âthis tech is completely fineâ people (âif we did everything the ârightâ way, it would cost this this and this and take this amount of weeks/months/years/etcâ.) and counter productive to my fellow âthis tech is screwing me overâ people (âone more closed job opportunityâ). But thatâs ultimately the difference between someone who can draw something and someone who canât. Donât get me wrong, there is doing too much of something by yourself (https://forums.tapas.io/t/when-you-cant-afford-to-pay-for-help-how-do-you-manage-alone/75242/16). But I canât help but notice itâs very common for people who arenât very experienced in an artistic field to jump to âDiffusion technology/having someone else do x part for free is the only way for me to do thisâ. These people are mystifying whatever it is they donât know how to do. They donât consider that people they want to replace/freeload off of all had to start somewhere. Those of us who got something done had to scale something back. Many of them donât have that experience, they over estimate what the bare minimum looks like.
As for the future of the technology... one of the first defenses Iâve seen is that the images generated by diffusion arenât copyright infringement. Whether or not thatâs true, that defense doesnât seem to account the library of images that were already fed into the machines. The information is still there. As for how copyright law works, what some people think is fair use is actually a case of âthe copyright holder didnât think it was worth going to court over.â My attempt at explaining what that means.
Anyone familiar with the Five Nights at Freddyâs fan game scene? The way copyright lawâs written, hypothetically, 30 years after its creator death (assuming he isnât immortal), whoever inherits his estate snaps their fingers and says âall unauthorized FNAF art, games, gameplay footage, animations, etc, itâs all gotta go.â Legally speaking, if it didnât file off the serial numbers correctly (or itâs a review, or itâs educational), itâs gotta go, and (assuming Disney doesnât do itâs thing,) itâll have to stay gone for another 40 years. (Also, said inheritor canât just canât go around republishing said work without the fan artistâs consent. If they still made it, they still own part of it unless otherwise signed away.)
Considering a lot of diffusion stuff threw cautions to the wind in this regard, and the fact that theyâre being taken to court in the first place, I donât think itâll be an easy victory for them. (Again, they didnât have to do it this way. The public domain exist.)
(I also low key just think diffusion technology will never âjust workâ the way people want it to. Aside from it not being actual AI, Iâm just unimpressed with most diffusion results. Itâs not a ironclad argument, itâs just a honest opinion that colors my view on the subject.)
TLDR: Most pro-diffusion people are just kinda ignorant about the process of actually making the art that was âonce only accessible to the elite: âtalentedâ people.â
Also, people seem to forget this video exists:
Which, the TLDW is: people have tried to outright replace animators before with technology. The technology needed them for it to actually be effective.
Now history has come full circle yet again, expecting a different result.
(Speaking of the âprocessâ, I spent 3 hours writing this... oof.)