Studios are trying to replace actors, artists and writers with AI right now. It’s a big part of why this strike is happening.
I don’t regret a single AI post because I was right. We were all right. They’re literally churning our work through machines to replace creative labourers, it’s a thing they’re trying to force into contracts. This tech is a dream come true for them.

They don’t care about the humans behind the work, just the work.

Breaking my AI retirement because this is important:
We need to prepare for the origin of nearly all digital imagery to be dubious.
Deceitful, even. This is going to be a really tough thread, and I don't blame anyone for wanting to exercise blissful ignorance. If you're worn out by the AI debacle, it may be entirely in your best interests to ignore what I'm about to say.

ArtStation's treatment of artwork supporting Ukraine is abysmal. Even's artwork wasn't antagonistic but was still removed entirely, as were many other pro-Ukrainian images since last year.
This is extreme moral bankruptcy from @TimSweeneyEpic and the ArtStation team.

https://twitter.com/EvenMAmundsen/status/1664303568025706500

So you're not cool with "stifling innovation" but stifling the artistic voices of a suffering populace is fair game?
It can't be over a few nasty comments, AI art receives plenty of direct hate but seems to remain on the site.
You'll make a filter for AI but not for this?

Image AI algorithms aren’t designed to create anything in their own right. They’re designed to take advantage of the work of other people.
Without artists’ work that code does nothing. They aren’t like other tools. They’re an innovation pursued exclusively to take advantage of the innovation of others.
3D renderers, image editors, cameras and pencils are discretely unlike this.

The attitude towards artists in the advent of AI is just sad. It's just really really sad.
I don't know how much better we can communicate that the only reason AI can do these things is because of our work, and that it's incredibly unfair. Before AI the art industry was simply skilled craftsmen providing a service. Companies found a way to compete directly with artists by utilizing their own work. Now they provide that service as software valued in the billions.

We can't compete with that and people are laughing.

The emergence of AI is creating a lot of uncertainty, anger and doubt.
If you feel overwhelmed, here's some points to help build a more constructive mindset as we enter the new year: This is much bigger than you. It affects every artist, musician, programmer and person on the planet. It's not your personal responsibility to solve one of the largest tech disruptions in modern history. Don't take the weight of the world on your shoulders like that.

Round two is a go! Artists are a generally underpaid, overworked, undervalued industry of skilled professionals. We're fed up, and have every reason to strike back against something we believe is exploitative of our work and platform. Thank you to everyone who contributes to this movement.

Here's a megathread of responses to the many ill-conceived arguments regarding AI. I hope it serves as a resource to skeptics and artists: "This is the democratization of art!"
It cannot be, since it occurred without existing artists' vote or input. The technology is built directly on the back of artists' work without permission or compensation, and its adverse effects on their livelihoods are left to run rampant.

AI is trained on datasets that scrape user-submitted content from sites like Pinterest, Artstation and Deviantart. They will all claim that data was scraped without their permission, but the onus is on them to take action and protect their user's content from exploitation. The only reason these AI tools are so capable is due to the use of billions of copyrighted images in their development without consent. Without that content, their quality is exponentially reduced.
These tools are defined by the direct use of data they don't own.

Ladies, gentlemen and everything in between. I present to you:
Hope. This right here is exactly why I haven’t given up on Twitter yet.
Organised action DOES THINGS. They can’t ignore this.

Arguing with AI users as an illustrator is a lot like arguing with gamers as a game dev:

It's demeaning. Most of us have spent our lives in professional roles at the intersection between art and technology. We know more than a thing or two about both.
Fielding arguments from people who fed a few words to a machine and decided they know what's up is getting pretty old.

Some of my earliest freelance gigs were card game illustrations, book covers and album art. It's heartbreaking to watch that space (especially the latter) fill up with AI-generated imagery and realize how much harder it just became for aspiring artists. It's crucial to acknowledge the very real impact of AI. Small-time commission work defines aspiring industry artists and is a vital market for professional artists who don't want to be tied down to studio work on big franchises.

Some people seem to believe AI can "learn" art. Like it learns the concepts of perspective, value, anatomy, colour etc. through images and then recreates art based on this knowledge.
This is a misconception. An AI doesn't "know" things. It has no concept for artistic fundamentals. It just learns associations based on the data it's given in a way that's completely, vastly different to the way a human brain does.
An AI can only recreate based on known image data. Those recreations...