Messages

Should be okay now?

Sure is! Thanks.

@AGA Editing games doesn't work at the moment. I get an error message when I press the save button.

Happening now too.

Two Hollywood Giants Sue AI Image Engine Midjourney Calling It A 'Bottomless Pit Of Plagiarism'

I think you've got that the wrong way around. Someone using AI image generators probably does so because they only care about what they are creating, and much less about the other issues you and Limpingfish bring up (learning a skill, collaboration, providing an artist with an income, and all the ethical issues that have been mentioned).

Sure, none of my opinions will have any impact on those people to whom "art" is irrelevant, in the sense that it wouldn't even cross their mind. We can't assume they'll think about AI as anything more than another option on their phone.

But, if a person wants to work in the medium of illustration, and sees AI as a springboard to clear the "talent" obstacle, then I would alter the text "what they are creating" to "how they are benefiting." These are the people I would challenge, on the off chance it's simply a case of not knowing, rather than not caring, about any potential downfalls to using AI.

But I really do believe that within probably a single-digit number of years, practically all professional/commercial illustrators will use generative AI as part of their toolbox, much the same way practically every film made today uses CG - Complete rejection will be marginalized to "arts & crafts" hobbyist work on the one side, and "fine art" for a niche, luxury clientele on the other.

I disagree, not on any moral grounds, but simply looking at how Generative AI operates. The argument about what Generative AI can do, and how it will inevitably improve, is, at best, misguidedly optimistic. At worst, it's plain misguided. If anything, Generative AI will likely get worse, as data becomes more and more infected by Generative AI output, as less and less "clean" data is fed to it, and as algorithmic biases inevitably emerge. This isn't even taking into account that leaps in AI computational abilities are outpacing memory, network, and power technology advancements, resulting in a very real bottleneck in AI effectiveness.

But if you mean that, say, Photoshop will use AI in everything from the Magic Wand tool to color-correction, then yes, I would agree. I wouldn't even object to such a future. Using AI in lieu of "traditional" computing is potentially one of the more positive ways in which such technology could be implemented.

But, to go back to your earlier point, I can see mass adoption to be far more likely among the general public, simply due to it being forced into every type of product. If everyone buys an IPhone, and every IPhone is "powered" by AI, then by default you end up with (arguably involuntary) mass adoption. Whether this would lead to mass acceptance depends entirely on the product being offered. I suppose the same could be said about professional creatives, but while the general public may be happy with an AI chatbot, and something to fiddle with their photos and such, I'm not so sure about artists.

I also don't disagree that "traditionalist" cliques may form, much like how streaming has replaced mass-consumption of physical media, but a number of people still opt to purchase physical products. In fact, I'd point to the continued "enshittification" of digital media services as a cause in increasing numbers of people earning a new found respect for physical media. One might consider a similar response to AI in the future, as the same capitalistic forces chip away at any potential in the name of profit. But I would argue about just how niche such movements might prove to be.

I mean, I'm not simply pulling opinions out of the air; AI, in it's current form, is already showing it's limits, and tech companies are fully aware that to not address them is leaving themselves open to potential legal trouble. Look at Google's Gemini, and the small print that accompanies it's advertisements. You'll see terms such as "All results for illustrative purposes" or "Check responses for accuracy". Thanks, Gemini! Instead of just googling something, I ask a chatbot, and then google it anyway, because the chatbot isn't really intelligent at all and may be telling me to eat rocks. Never mind that algorithmic abuse has rendered Google as a search tool almost unusable. Or look at the ChatGPT update fiasco. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

This article, by Cory Doctorow, though eighteen months old (a lifetime in tech), is worth a read, as it highlights just how unsustainable large AI models might prove to be, while also addressing the potentially positive outcome for the technology should the AI bubble burst.

Yet, presently I mostly use generative AI to help me build my backgrounds. Not just by writing a clever prompt. But mostly by using a photograph I made and ask the AI to create a background based on it in a certain pixel art style. And then use that as a basis to further edit it into something that fits in my game. Or I ask generative AI to make a nighttime version of a daytime background. So far I've managed to get a consistent enough style. And enough of myself in it to not make it feel as 'soulless' as Generative AI art often feels.

I would argue, looking at your examples, that AI is almost superfluous to your needs, though it may be saving you time. It seems like a case of removing a splinter with a samurai sword. The sword is sharp, and will likely remove your finger along with it, but it's quicker than poking at the splinter with a needle!

I'm not going to shout "No AI! Bad man!", though. If a quick result is the driving force behind your use of AI, as you've detailed your workflow, and despite Grok being trained on similarly questionable large datasets as Stable Diffusion or Midjourney, I'm not going to harangue you into not using it.

I will say that to achieve a similar style in a graphics package would likely require minimal extra work (a posterize filter, a little blurring, maybe a pixelize filter, some minor paint-overs, though maybe not even that), and provide a lot more control over the outcome, while removing the threat of inconsistency. If I was using Photoshop, say, I would create an automated action (run filter x, run blur, run filter y, etc), and simply apply the action to my photos, one by one. Fairly instant results, that cost an initial (minor?) expenditure of effort. But as I said, I'm not going to personally condemn you for doing otherwise.

I've not used it with having a picture as input, but I feel it'd be faster for me to just shrink down a photograph and pixel over it.

And this is the problem with a lot of AI; a false sense of time-saving. I think I've previously referenced (a number of times!) the case of the film editor who attempted to use Generative AI video in an experiment to judge just how it would measure up to a traditional editing pipeline. What they found was that, though AI could do some cool things, they needed to produce so many iterations (literally hundreds!) just to get something that was passably close to what they were trying to do, that any time gained over traditional time-sinks, was ultimately lost to new time-sinks inherent to AI. And this was just to get something passable!

Yeah, that's the point - just imagine a conversation people are having about junk food. They are discussing what chains they like, their favourite burgers, etc. and everytime someone says that they tried the a new burger someone will answer "Junkfood is bad for your health. It is made from meat that animals have to suffer for. Fuck junkfood." Is this a nice conversation to have?

So, to run with your analogy, someone wants to benefit from Generative AI without having to think about the negative impact, as long as it doesn't affect them, and without having someone point them out as being complicit in the damage it can cause, because that ruins their fun and makes them feel bad. What you're basically describing is plain old human selfishness.

Which is fine. There's some things I do that maybe I shouldn't, and I understand that I'm ignoring their impact on me because I enjoy them, which overrides any concern for the side-effects that I may be contributing to. I understand that X and Y are bad things, but, due to being a human being, flaws and all, I have the capacity to engage in willful ignorance, and gag that niggling voice that says "This isn't good!". Quiet, you! You're harshing my buzz!

What bugs me is the hoops people will jump through to justify their selfishness; something I find just as annoying as someone offering me their unrequested opinion over and over.

If a person wants to benefit from Generative AI, benefit from the grift, then by all means they are free to do so, as long as they have no qualms about admitting their reasoning for doing so.

Why do you think it is that so many AI "artists" hate being called out? It's almost like they know what they're doing is wrong, but they just don't care, and that having it pointed out to them is ruining their fun and making them feel ba-...Hey!

Basically, in my option, if you're using A.I. image generators and filters you are effectively telling me you don't care about what you're creating. And if you - as the creator - don't care, then I will care even less. And if you do care...then I see no excuse for you not learning at least basic drawing skills. Even if only to share your ideas so you can collaborate with an actual artist to bring your vision to life.

Ps. Grab a piece of paper. Take out a pencil. And create something only you could have created. That's all I'm asking. Create something. Draw anything.

Or this. 

I'm working on a pixel-art game at the moment, despite my almost complete lack of talent in that medium. But it's my art, warts and all, and nothing beats the feeling of creating something from almost nothing.

In the end, people are free to use Generative AI, but, despite how nice they go about discussing it, I don't have to like it.

This is probably derailing this thread a bit, but IMHO this would still be a copyright infringement (depending on license yada yada). I'm sure that books with reference pics for artists have a small print somewhere that tells you what you are allowed to do with the pictures.

Yes, but it's usually understood that a reference book will be used to create transformative works, so most publishers of such products will focus on "derivative" works when putting limits on how their product is used. If I created drawings of all the photos from a reference book, technically transformative works, I wouldn't be able to present them as a competing reference product; the same book, just using drawings instead of photos. That would be a derivative work and would fall under copyright infringement, as it legally threatens the ability of the publisher of the original book to profit from their product.

The Midjourney lawsuit plaintiffs are making a similar argument; Generative AI impacts their ability to make a living because it takes their work and creates derivative, competing works.

I think the main problem is, that AI was so suddenly there, that we couldn't ask all those questions and find good answers, yet.

Yes, I totally agree. We weren't given time to ask those important questions; so much so, that such questions were, and continue to be, hand-waved away as luddite ravings. So we're really left with no other option than to judge AI interests by the actions of AI companies (and those who would benefit by a mass adoption of AI), to whom profit greatly outweighs all other concerns.

But you are not a robot, and comparing how humans learn to how an AI "learns" is, as @Misj' pointed out, not the answer.

An AI is presented with a image of an object along with a caption telling the AI what the object in the image is. Let's say the object is a tree. Noise is gradually introduced to the image until the original image is completely replaced by noise. The adding of noise is to introduce variability in the information the AI is receiving. Next the AI is presented with new image, except this time the image begins as noise, and the AI is told to "draw" a tree. The initial process is reversed, the AI gradually rebuilding a facsimile of what it "thinks" best represents the instruction it was given, using the information it received during the initial process. It works it's way back from noise to a tree and we are left with a "new" image that looks a lot like the first image, but, thanks to the variables introduced, won't be an a exact copy of the original image.

Now imagine this process repeated with images of every type of tree known to humankind, and the AI has a dataset of latent images linked to the word "tree" which can be combined for an near infinite number of possible variations. But this also leads to an inherent problem with AI images, and highlights one of the major problems with machine image learning.

People often complain it's difficult to get AI to recreate an image with additional subtle edits, because that's not how AI "creates". It always starts the process with noise, and goes from there. And because of so many variables, it will rarely, if ever, arrive at the exact same image twice in a row. This is why, in AI generated video, faces will change from one scene to the next (or even mid-scene!), because the AI only "knows" that each frame should contain, say, a woman of a certain age, with a certain hair style and color, wearing a certain outfit. It doesn't have the ability to maintain consistency across each frame, never mind each scene, because, to it, each frame is a brand new process that starts, as always, with random noise.

So the answer to the question "How is this different from how a human learns?", or how a human processes information, is, to me, fairly obvious. It's very different.

In fact, it's so different, that to even attempt to compare the two, we have reduce the argument to such a degree that we actively ignore everything that makes us human in the first place; Human sees thing=Learning accomplished. AI sees thing=Learning accomplished. Difference=None.

Now, if you asked me to make a more realistic drawing, I'd probably do a Google search for pyramids and use the pictures I find there as reference. Is this plagiarism? Most likely, but I dare to say that most people who do graphics have looked up reference pictures before without giving credit. So is this better than AI?

You're being very general with the definition of plagiarism. Plagiarism is not "If I attempt to recreate anything I, as a human being, see, I am a plagiarist" and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. Plagiarism in art is the taking of an existing piece of art and presenting it, without transformative intent, as you're own; either by copying the art to an exact degree, or simply stealing the original art.

In looking up reference photos, and then drawing your interpretation of those photos, you are creating a transformative work, regardless of how much your drawing closely resembles those original photos. It's why we have things like reference books, libraries of images for artists to use. You are not taking those images, re-uploading them, and saying "Look at these great photos I took!": that's plagiarism. Some libraries of photo reference materials will not only let you use their images to create artworks based on them, but will also let you use the photos themselves (in, for instance, works of photo collage; a transformative work), providing you are not taking those images and presenting them, unchanged, as a competing product of reference. Artistic intent is key.

Another example: Imagine an app to look up birds. You take a photo of a bird, upload it, and the app will tell you that the bird is most likely a European robin. This also has to be trained with lots of data of questionable sources. Would you claim here as well that this is all plagiarism and how can people use such a thing? The data is the same, just the output is different.

Would I claim that an app that took copyrighted information, in the form of photos or text, to train an AI to help users determine what kind of bird is in their photo, is stealing? Yes. If the app designers could prove that every single piece of training data was ethically sourced, would that change my opinion? Yes. But...

...we inexorably arrive back at the point I made in my earlier post: "Ethical" generative AI is a redundant concept, because to attempt to create one without access to a Laion-type dataset, would cripple the product to such an extent as to render it useless. AI only works if it has all the data.

Which is why the AI industry has now changed it's tune; it somewhat admits that it stole billions of pieces of art, but now claims that latent images do not fall under copyright, seeing as no part of the original image is actually contained in their datasets, and that AI art is in itself a transformative work and doesn't fall under copyright either. How very convenient...

Also, if you made it this far in a very long post, thank you for your time and attention.

And, as always...

Spoiler

Fuck AI

[close]

ps. I don't think this is the thread for this discussion.

Threads merged! 

Anyhoo...

Y'know, we also have a term for people who steal art and pass it off as their own. We call them plagiarists. We don't excuse their behavior, because we fundamentally understand the purpose of stealing artwork; to profit, or gain kudos, for someone else's work. Even if the plagiarist isn't sued, we acknowledge that an artistic violation has occurred and that any art presented by the plagiarist going forward might be tainted, regardless of it's validity. As such, no artist wants to be called a plagiarist.

Prompt writing is not art. There may be a talent to effective prompt writing, but that in no way validates the resulting work as art. And if someone has only starting claiming they're an artist since they discovered AI allowed them to generate content without any discernible talent, they are not an artist. This is not gatekeeping, they are just delusional.

Even if an "ethical" AI could be trained on, say, a single consenting artist's work, it would be essentially worthless without access to a large dataset. And as we've seen, all large datasets are inherently tainted, not only from the point of copyright but morally, as they exploit the work of hundreds/thousands/millions of actual artists.

Generative AI is a grift, which is why it's most vocal proponents are usually grifters.

...but it still is interesting that they chose not to do the only thing that would give them a degree of credibility.

Most peddlers of AI services will tell you it's down to industry secrets, but it's really a shell game of digital Corpus delicti; "How can we be thieves if you can't point to who we stole from?"

When the Midjourney style list surfaced online, showing that they know exactly who their victims are, there was much scrambling of lawyers and the offending documents were eventually taken down (though they're still available here).

Of course, in the current US political climate, we may be approaching a world where tech companies can openly flaunt their thievery.

As an aside, because now I'm curious...

As a non-pixel artist (or a least a very rudimentary one), does supposedly "good" AI pixel art still look weird to pro pixel artists? I mean, apart from the usual extra fingers and melting hair, AI pixel art looks somewhat...off to me. Is it because of AI's weakness with shadows and contrast (that flat 50-50 light/dark style inherent to AI), or is it something else? Palette choices? Pixel placement?

[with their consent]

I wonder if the below is true, then:
The best part is, this model has been trained on licensed assets from Astropulse and other pixel artists with their consent.

Well, as far as I can tell, the only "proof" that it is true is from the dev themselves stating little more than that. I've browsed a couple of threads in various communities, and when the question inevitably pops up, they never go into more detail beyond "I trained it on my own art, and some licensed art from other artists...with their permission."

Even here, in a pro-AI fluff piece, where he goes into great detail about how he created his product, he doesn't say more that "my artist friends" or "over 30 other artists gave permission". Also, notice the statement from Aesprite, disavowing themselves from his product. I can't find a list of consenting artists anywhere, not even on his own website. He name-drops some AI "wranglers" whose work he drew from, though...

Regardless, Retro Diffusion is an offshoot of Stable Diffusion, which uses Laion datasets, so even if the pixel-art learning was somehow accomplished using "ethical" means, it's still using "unethical" data at it's core.

So...

Spoiler

fuck it.

[close]

Since when has Aseprite AI support?

Not officially, but...

https://astropulse.itch.io/retrodiffusion

Ugh.

Reading the comments, it seems like it basically runs this inside Aseprite.

Also, from Aseprite devs:

"We are completely against AI "art" trained without consent of artists. And now there is a third party extension floating around for Aseprite, we are not involved with that, and just replying tweets will make it more visible. We are in tough years for artists. The level of greed, stealing, and abusing of creative works in these years is astonishing."

Ah, the weird, wild world of AI slop...

It's in "Triple-A" games now, because of course it is. Generative AI, the great artistic leveler, freeing ART itself from cruel, unfair gatekeeping, providing "the little guy" with the tools to...oh, never mind...it's mostly of benefit to disgustingly wealthy publishers, desperate to find new avenues of easily exploitable profit. Who knew?

Also, this is quite funny.

AI in general is in a weirder place currently than it has been over the last year or so.

When I floss, the dental floss often used to fray, and I would get fibers stuck between my teeth. Finally I found a brand where the floss wasn't made like thread, but instead a continuous strip of plastic that wouldn't fray.

I just bought a new roll of the same brand. They've changed it to the thread type. 

The bane of my life!* Waxed or non-waxed, makes no difference, they all shred. Now, to be fair, they usually shred between teeth where there isn't much leeway, but still... 

*Hyperbole

I must say that I'm very disappointed that you've removed your games from the database, especially since your argument keeps refocusing on whatever straw is closest to grasp. First, it was the fact that your game wasn't held to judgement against your previous game, then it was the wording of my panel comment, now it's the very meaning of the word "panel".

People have largely been more than gracious in their responses to you, yet you continue to claim you have been wronged and repeatedly belittle both the community and those behind the scenes. Perhaps we do have a language barrier, yet I'd only accept that as an excuse if you showed any sign of cooperation or willingness to correct yourself. You haven't, and instead you've removed your games from the database and continue to argue that everyone except you is in the wrong.

Frankly, I believe it's simply a case of your ego being hurt and you're either unwilling or incapable of owning up to that fact, and instead you're determined to find fault, not with yourself, but with a community that's been gracious and largely supportive of your work.

That being the case, I won't be replying to this thread any further, and my last contribution will be to urge you to rethink your position, and to consider returning your games to the database.

I just very confused by your anger. This is not an exact science. I've explained how I personally rate games, not because I feel it needs defending, but because you seem determined to find fault with the process.

The Order was rated be me. I liked it. I found it strong in some areas and lacking in others. The art style (your painting) initially struck me as somewhat rudimentary, but it grew on me the further I played, despite it's simplicity. I admire the fact that you painted the entire game, but how you achieved said art, or how long it may have took you, bore no impact on my rating, nor should it. And while rudimentary, it was consistent, which is a plus.

You seem to take umbrage with me expressing my opinion, when it is simply just my opinion. And I don't see how I could have addressed your art without forming an opinion. The panel comment, which you angrily posted about, reflects this:

"And while the art isn't strictly of the highest quality, the artist must be commended for their dedication to painting it all by hand."

Like I said in my earlier post, if you decide your next game has better art, does that mean I was actually right in my opinion?

I didn't rate your first game, but the person who did obviously found something worthwhile contained in it, and did so without having your second game to compare it against. You seem determined to have your art judged according to how much value you, the artist, confer on it, and in doing so, you may be setting yourself up for constant disappointment.

And even if I had rated your first game, I can assure you the quality of that first game would not have effected my rating of the second. I may have noted in the panel comment that your second game was an improvement on your first, but I wouldn't have increased my rating, or retroactively reduced the rating of your first game.

But rating my first game the same as the second game just makes me wonder if they have any clue how they are reviewing the games. If they gave the first game 1 cup and the second game 3 cups it would make sense. But this is ridiculous.

Why? Do all artists inherently make better art as time progresses? And by "better", do we mean more polished? Is polished art better than unpolished art?

Maybe I don't have a clue what I'm making, and the crap that I made to learn how AGS works is as valuable as something I put more than two years of my life in it.

If your first game was crap, why did you release it? Did you know it was crap when you released it, or are you saying that you now consider it crap? Did you want people to play your crap, and call it crap, just so you could release a second game to earn kudos for how much better the second game is compared to the first? Will you retroactively announce this second game is crap as soon as you release a third one? Do I you see why some are saying this is a bad look for you, or do I have to elaborate on this dumb excuse for a gag any further?

I do think there is a bit of a problem with the Panel ratings

Fair enough, but some of your points raise their own problems. Such as, what is the acceptable granulation level for ratings? Half cups? Quarter cups? Ratings comprised of .1 increments? Just what would be the differences between a 3.4 and a 3.6 cup game? I'll go further, and ask what the difference between a 3 and 3.5 cup game is? To me, all that half tells me is that the game is good, but wasn't good enough to be a four? Maybe that's just me, though.

As to MAGS or commercial games, are we talking about handicaps or demerits? Should we be harsher on commercial games, or more forgiving of MAGS games?

Personally, if a game is worth playing, I don't feel the need to examine how it came into being. Factors such as development time, or the number of people involved shouldn't, to me anyway, bear any influence on the most important factor: enjoyment.

As to panel transparency, the panel was always intended to be anonymous, but I've long since waved my own anonymity. And while we do have guidelines, and we do occasionally discuss ratings as a whole, we also trust the abilities of each other to be fair and knowledgeable on the subject.

I think people should remember that 3 cups = Good. Numbers before 3 are less good. Numbers after 3 are...more good.

If your game gets 3 cups, you made a good game.

[There's]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned before, or is connected to an existing bug, but using an apostrophe results in a bonus backslash appearing:

There's

vs

There\'s

Not the most egregious of bugs, I'll admit...

Nice!

I grew up with this music. I mean, wait, some history needs explaining. Halas and Bachelor, a British animation company, made a short animation using Kraftwerk's Autobahn as inspiration... Christ, it's burned into my memory! You have no idea how much it influenced both my taste in music and...well, just watch it! Anyhoo, it was a staple on Irish TV station RTE during the '80s, usually shown as part of what they called "Cartoon Time", a five to ten minute fill-in broadcast between programs. In fact, it was either Autobahn or...

...this! Ronnie James Dio singing Love is All from Roger Glover's (ex Deep Purple) concept album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast. I can't even begin to guess at how many times this was broadcast in Ireland!

Both tracks are indelibly scored into my brain. So much so, that I often forget just how many years have passed since I first heard them!

In fact, if a music video contained animation it was likely that it would stick in my mind. Like this...

...Rondò Veneziano's La Serenissima which, if memory serves, was broadcast once or twice at the time it as released, and, up until the dawn of Youtube and such, haunted me; I mean, look at it! Imagine seeing it at age eight or nine and not knowing who or what it was, faceless androids, spaceships and all!

Didn't expect to hear him here.

It's all thanks to TV5 (or TV5Monde, as it's now known), which my mother was a big fan of (the music and arts programs, anyway). She was a fan of french artists in general; Jaques Brel, Charles Aznavour, lot's of French jazz, etc. But watching French TV, and lots of music programs (particularly those nostalgia-heavy ones hosted by Patrick Sébastien), meant we were exposed to dozens of unfamiliar singers and musicians; huge artists in their home country, of course, but not so well known in, for instance, Ireland.

Is this in replies to messages from users with a space in their user name?

No, no spaces or fancy usernames.

This may be a reply to me, as I asked LimpingFish a question the other day via PM.

Indeed it was. I thought perhaps some blocking function or some such had been mistakenly triggered, but...

If you just write the new message this doesn't happen, like only when replying?

Actually, new messages seem to work. I sent @heltenjon a test PM just now, and it was successful.

EDIT: And the reply is also working now.

For the record, the error was constant over the weekend (or at least Saturday night and all of Sunday), and I was also getting the odd forum error here and there during that period. I don't think it was a cache problem with my browser, since I cleared the refreshed multiple times, but who knows?

Thanks anyway.