Watch now | They don't actually care about protecting "real art." They care about gatekeeping the medium. Here is the legal nuke we are using to fight back.
I have not been a fan of AI due to what it does to our planet but when it comes to only the art, I can only imagine how long it takes you because it’s awesome. There are only a few people’s articles that I would read with a defense of AI and I get your point. I believe it is like money; money itself can be used for good but it has been hoarded by the greedy. AI can be used for amazing things but it should not come at the expense of our health or the health of the planet. There are ways for free energy and cooling but that doesn’t pay the greedy.. Thank you for the reminder that not all AI is “bad”.
This means a lot to me..seriously!! I completely understand and respect your concerns about the environmental impact and the corporate hoarding. You are exactly right about the greedy monopolies at the top. The fact that you were willing to keep an open mind, look past the corporate sludge, and see the hundreds of hours of human effort I put into synthesizing this art... AHHH it makes me so happy!! This is exactly why I wrote the article. Thank you for giving it a chance.
I’m so glad!! You are one of my faves and I know if you are going to argue something, there will be a good point 😉 Again, thanks for continuing to open my mind more and more ❤️🔥
To be completely honest, while I do sympathize with your own desire to create here in spite of all of hardships, the "anti-AI" side ironically has a lot in common with Tong Tong Sahor's creator: People who've watched their own hard work taken by some corporate entity for their own profit, who gives them nothing in return for creative labour that was considered valuable... but not valuable enough to compensate the original creator in any meaningful way. That's not gatekeeping, it's about ensuring that even as technology marches forward, there is still an equitable market that is mutually beneficial to all levels of creators/workers; and not defined by a vicious cycle of extraction and rentseeking.
I may disagree a lot when you frame all sentiment against generative AI in the arts as "gatekeeping", but I can agree on this with my whole heart: It would be dismal for all creators if they were at the complete mercy of large media conglomerates. It's already difficult enough to make a living in these type of fields, especially with AI being used by said company to layoff workers and not augment them; it would be even worse if IP law yet again upheld big business's interests at the expense of the people who work(ed) for them and built up their businesses in the first place.
I appreciate the response, but let's address the framing right up front: I don't need sympathy for my 'desire to create in spite of hardships.' That opening is a subtle way of trying to make independent creators feel guilty-- as if using these tools is some unfortunate moral compromise we are making just to survive. It isn't. I'm so happy I have access to an elaborative engine. My loud, inner monolog can finally explore the broad spectrum of curiosity inside my mind.
And this is exactly where the broad 'anti-AI' movement sets a trap: they intentionally conflate valid economic critiques with baseless aesthetic 'purity' ideologies. They take a legitimate fear of corporate rent-seeking and use it as a psychological weapon to induce guilt and justify traditionalist gatekeeping. We have to surgically separate the two.
The call for real economic legitimacy is undeniable: these models were built off the collective data and labor of real people. I agree with you completely on that. But because it was built off our backs, that is the exact reason we must fight for the AI to belong to the people, rather than allowing corporations to monopolize it. If the value was extracted from the human commons, the solution isn't to destroy the engine; it's to reclaim it. We aren't defending corporate theft by using open-source models; we are taking the extracted value back to make our own content.
Finally, because the movement relies on this guilt-tripping and conflation, they completely fail to draw a hard line between how a corporation uses this technology and how an independent creator uses it. You mentioned the very real fear of companies using AI to lay off workers. That is a valid critique of corporate greed… they are using the tool to cut costs and hoard available capital by subtracting human labor.
But an independent creator is not operating with corporate capital; we are operating on sweat equity. I am not firing anyone, because I do not have millions of dollars to hire an animation studio or an illustration team. Instead, I am trading hundreds of hours of my own grueling, iterative labor to build my own localized ecosystem. For the corporate monopoly, AI is a tool to eliminate the worker. But for the independent architect, it is the Exoskeleton that allows us to bypass the monopoly entirely. Treat it as an extension, not a replacement.
We had our server in a closet until 2007, and now I wonder if we are able to do that once again, or if it is much more expensive. Even an intellectual property business had the same set up in 2016.
Strongest move here is the sword and shield point.. . Copyright isn't truly pro-artist or anti-artist, though. It's always has been and always will be a lever, and the only real question is who has the hands to pull it.
The anti-AI side loses the MOMENT they argue about the brush instead of the extraction engine. A very interesting piece... I love hearing about this stuff and I don't know why it's not covered mainstream... But.
... if authorship hinges on producing the receipts... that's a standard the platforms with compliance teams clear in their sleep and a solo creator can't... Plain and simple. Same instrument, same asymmetry. Not a flaw in the argument, just its next paragraph.... Terms and conditions , and if you've ever clicked the degree before reading them.. that illustrates my point
I have not been a fan of AI due to what it does to our planet but when it comes to only the art, I can only imagine how long it takes you because it’s awesome. There are only a few people’s articles that I would read with a defense of AI and I get your point. I believe it is like money; money itself can be used for good but it has been hoarded by the greedy. AI can be used for amazing things but it should not come at the expense of our health or the health of the planet. There are ways for free energy and cooling but that doesn’t pay the greedy.. Thank you for the reminder that not all AI is “bad”.
This means a lot to me..seriously!! I completely understand and respect your concerns about the environmental impact and the corporate hoarding. You are exactly right about the greedy monopolies at the top. The fact that you were willing to keep an open mind, look past the corporate sludge, and see the hundreds of hours of human effort I put into synthesizing this art... AHHH it makes me so happy!! This is exactly why I wrote the article. Thank you for giving it a chance.
I’m so glad!! You are one of my faves and I know if you are going to argue something, there will be a good point 😉 Again, thanks for continuing to open my mind more and more ❤️🔥
To be completely honest, while I do sympathize with your own desire to create here in spite of all of hardships, the "anti-AI" side ironically has a lot in common with Tong Tong Sahor's creator: People who've watched their own hard work taken by some corporate entity for their own profit, who gives them nothing in return for creative labour that was considered valuable... but not valuable enough to compensate the original creator in any meaningful way. That's not gatekeeping, it's about ensuring that even as technology marches forward, there is still an equitable market that is mutually beneficial to all levels of creators/workers; and not defined by a vicious cycle of extraction and rentseeking.
I may disagree a lot when you frame all sentiment against generative AI in the arts as "gatekeeping", but I can agree on this with my whole heart: It would be dismal for all creators if they were at the complete mercy of large media conglomerates. It's already difficult enough to make a living in these type of fields, especially with AI being used by said company to layoff workers and not augment them; it would be even worse if IP law yet again upheld big business's interests at the expense of the people who work(ed) for them and built up their businesses in the first place.
I appreciate the response, but let's address the framing right up front: I don't need sympathy for my 'desire to create in spite of hardships.' That opening is a subtle way of trying to make independent creators feel guilty-- as if using these tools is some unfortunate moral compromise we are making just to survive. It isn't. I'm so happy I have access to an elaborative engine. My loud, inner monolog can finally explore the broad spectrum of curiosity inside my mind.
And this is exactly where the broad 'anti-AI' movement sets a trap: they intentionally conflate valid economic critiques with baseless aesthetic 'purity' ideologies. They take a legitimate fear of corporate rent-seeking and use it as a psychological weapon to induce guilt and justify traditionalist gatekeeping. We have to surgically separate the two.
The call for real economic legitimacy is undeniable: these models were built off the collective data and labor of real people. I agree with you completely on that. But because it was built off our backs, that is the exact reason we must fight for the AI to belong to the people, rather than allowing corporations to monopolize it. If the value was extracted from the human commons, the solution isn't to destroy the engine; it's to reclaim it. We aren't defending corporate theft by using open-source models; we are taking the extracted value back to make our own content.
Finally, because the movement relies on this guilt-tripping and conflation, they completely fail to draw a hard line between how a corporation uses this technology and how an independent creator uses it. You mentioned the very real fear of companies using AI to lay off workers. That is a valid critique of corporate greed… they are using the tool to cut costs and hoard available capital by subtracting human labor.
But an independent creator is not operating with corporate capital; we are operating on sweat equity. I am not firing anyone, because I do not have millions of dollars to hire an animation studio or an illustration team. Instead, I am trading hundreds of hours of my own grueling, iterative labor to build my own localized ecosystem. For the corporate monopoly, AI is a tool to eliminate the worker. But for the independent architect, it is the Exoskeleton that allows us to bypass the monopoly entirely. Treat it as an extension, not a replacement.
We had our server in a closet until 2007, and now I wonder if we are able to do that once again, or if it is much more expensive. Even an intellectual property business had the same set up in 2016.
I appreciate your stance.
In many ways, the AI is just a human that answers faster. And always has output.
Always.
People are not aware how it works. AI is nothing more than a tool though.
It will ALWAYS, work best to the humans who best use it.
Yes, the modern problem is two fold.
Strongest move here is the sword and shield point.. . Copyright isn't truly pro-artist or anti-artist, though. It's always has been and always will be a lever, and the only real question is who has the hands to pull it.
The anti-AI side loses the MOMENT they argue about the brush instead of the extraction engine. A very interesting piece... I love hearing about this stuff and I don't know why it's not covered mainstream... But.
... if authorship hinges on producing the receipts... that's a standard the platforms with compliance teams clear in their sleep and a solo creator can't... Plain and simple. Same instrument, same asymmetry. Not a flaw in the argument, just its next paragraph.... Terms and conditions , and if you've ever clicked the degree before reading them.. that illustrates my point