Why AI is not Art theft, answering the basics

 

Ok, so guys. You ever just get so mad inside because you keep bumping into people saying dumb things all the time? I don't mean just, wow that was dumb, but I mean people that just say anything they want without understanding the basics?

Well, I've had it. Here are some of the most insane common questions I see happen again.....and again....and again. I will add more points if I see more dumb and common questions.

in the meantime, why not read the other 2 blog posts I already made in more length:

Why AI is not Art theft, answering the basics

Digital Art vs Physical Art (And why both matter)

 

1. AI IS TRAINED ON STOLEN ART

Why AI art is not stolen in one word: Reference.

People often assume if AI uses a database, then the output generations will all resemble PLAGIARISM, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, or simply THEFT.

None of which are the case. Why? Because AI does not generate 1:1 replicas in terms of plagiarizing something someone else already drew. Not unless it's deliberate by the USER, the person responsible for their own prompts and motives.

Simply saying AI is copy pasting other people's work, is NOT taking into account that the AI has to be told what to do with the references in its database. 

So, if someone WANTED to plagiarize using AI, they would simply need to steer the prompt output into something close to someone else's work. But, let's just remember AI is not built for this and the entire base of AI denoise is ironically not built to simply be a copy machine to print out duplicates. The denoise of AI is made for reconstruction, with millions and millions of palettes and examples to combine together. The very core strings of AI is a transformative code, not a duplicate code.

Thus if someone WANTED to use AI for nefarious use such as plagiarism, they can only attempt, but never perfect without using external plugins such as control net methods. But this is already not an issue about the AI's fault as it is an example of how people alter technology in order to commit a crime, by deliberately and willingly using AI tools as a means to produce plagiarized content. User accountability is something that is largely ignored in today's conversations when directing the blame onto the AI tools.

When people understand that what AI does is in the realm of reference, then more will begin to correct their accusations of AI being theft.  

Everything on the internet is a copy.

Okay, so first of all stolen is the wrong word to use.
Stolen means you lost your original from your own files.

Stolen means someone took your car.

Stolen means someone took your money.

Stolen means someone took something they can't give back or you don't have anymore.

AI uses references, copies, screenshots, whatever you want to call it.

AI does not scrape the internet taking billions of photos from our human society and lock them up into their own thieving storage. If they did, then the internet would be as dry as an ocean without water. Google would be an empty search engine. And billions of people would be wondering where their photos disappeared to. But that's not our reality. That's not how theft works. That's not how the internet functions at all when it comes to uploading and downloading files.

Can we stop making drama accusations using the words STOLEN and THEFT already when it's clearly not true.

We should rather be talking about "consent" rather than theft. The "consent" that some egotistical artists feel the need to bring up because they were never asked for their "permission."

I mentioned this in the longer blog post, but your permission does not exist in the public and private spaces, only in your own private space like your home, your car, your bedroom, etc. Why? Because we as a social race leave a footprint on the world. No one needs your "permission" to see your face when you're in public. No one needs your "consent" to whether you like what someone else says. This egotistical permission drama only weakens our actual privacy the more and more we become offended that EVERYTHING is violating our consent.

But either way, most consent is already given when we CHOOSE to upload on adobe, facebook, and other forms of social media.
We should ONLY be upset if we saw someone copy a 1 to 1 of our art. Same case as in fan art. 

This means, as artists, NOBODY has legal holds of copyright in brush "styles" or colors, ONLY in what we originally make, including our registered IPs. 

That means in lame terms, we are ONLY holding power on our EXACT work, not a rip off or a derivative unless someone else has ALSO copied over your registered IP traits. 

So, no. I'm not sorry to all those baby artists crying that a random AI image of a blue frog with wings is violating some no-name artist on pintrest that just drew a picture of a dog wearing a sombrero. 

An example where you ARE allowed to be offended that your copyright was infringed is if the AI image WAS a dog wearing a sombrero. Doesn't matter if the dog is now yellow or the sombrero is now blue. THAT would be an example of copyright plagiarism.

Otherwise, shut up and learn these terms "stolen," "copies," "originals," "public," "copyrights," "trademarks" and "intellectual properties."

2. AI attempts to reproduce someone else's art. AI in it's core is UNETHICAL!!!!!!

Ah, yes. The unethical high ground. This is further showcasing that most AI critics are simply using LIES and moral manipulation to justify their ignorant politics.

This goes back to the whole idea that AI is built on "stolen" data. Which I just clarified that this "stolen" data is nothing more than references used in it's training core. 

No, the real UNETHICAL issue mentioned over and over again is based on people's ignorance of HOW Ai systems actually work. See. When you don't understand something, it's far easier just to fear and hate it. 

AI systems work through 1 main philosophy in it's code: denoise.  

In it's very core, AI works in 2 simple ways. 

1. Using all those "stolen" pictures as a reference sheet aka:

same as any human that has to think back on what a dog looks like.

2. Being able to produce a NEW picture based on whatever X was ordered for it to do aka

this "x" being you the human being behind the computer.

See, so many ignorant people attach themselves to thinking AI is only the 1st case, that it's a machine that is built to simply "print out" someone's dumb copyright drawing of a dog.

Most don't even know that in case 2 the majority purpose for the entire code of AI is built upon generating a completely NEW image according to whatever was prompted.

This means, if you REALLY wanted to use AI for nefarious reasons, you could use this tool to simply prompt something similar to what you want such as prompting Mickey Mouse or using AI to reproduce David Hockney's swimming pool artwork, etc.

People using technology for bad reasons: if I attempted to reproduce this exact painting using AI.

Bonus.

From my last blog I mentioned this article. An AI critic says AI is bad....by LITERALLY DOING THIS EXACT THING AND ATTEMPTING TO RECREATE COPYRIGHT PHOTOS.

https://petapixel.com/2024/03/07/recreating-iconic-photos-with-ai-image-generators/

So, what is the point of this? Simple! Don't use technology for plagiarism means! You don't even need to bring up AI for this discussion. It's common sense.

Especially if you're like me that supports the Open Source community, you know its IMPORTANT to keep yourself at check because you alone are responsible for your own copyright responsibilities i.e. not selling pictures of Spiderman AI, or making deep fakes of celebrities, etc.

Overall, this is just common sense among the internet.

LASTLY.

To wrap up case 2 from above. The huge problem that so many fail to observe when sobbing over UNETHICAL drama cries, is that in case 2 the AI and You the prompter are both creating a NEW image despite what case 1 has on memory reference. 

That means if a photo of a dog is in the training data, who cares, in case 2 the AI and the person is attempting to make an image of a dog driving a car and smoking a cigarette.

Case 2 of how AI works is ENTIRELY dependent on a majority of what it is being tasked to prompt into the generation, and what other technical code is being added by samplers, metrics, anything that wants to be included in this NEW image.

That's how AI works. Not by re-producing the same image, but creating a NEW image according to what settings are being added AND most importantly.......are you guys reading....ready...

WHAT THE HUMAN ON THE COMPUTER IS WANTING TO CREATE. This is where the creativity part comes in.  

So many dismiss AI by saying "AI IS DOING ALL THE WORK! HUR HUR HUR"

What about the human at the computer!? Did I not exist to create an image of a Dog driving a car smoking a cig? Did the AI decide to wake up this morning and do this of its own free will? DID THE HUMAN NOT EXIST ANYMORE? 

AI art is Human-made art. AI and people. Both are the ones responsible for case 2 in this new generative image.

So whether that image is just a rip off of mickey mouse, is entirely a different issue concerning attempted plagiarism BY the prompter like using Mickey Mouse Loras, wanting to print out Mickey Mouse, wanting to sell AI art of Mickey Mouse, etc.

3. AI is using copyright training, therefore copyright says you can't make profit!!!

I have to again remind that people that make this argument have NO clue about copyright and how AI works or the important steps that happen between "training data" and "output."

Okay, just because I can use AI does not mean all of a sudden my picture of a frog on stilts is violating copyright from some random artist in India that uploaded a drawing of a goth girl.

Copyright violation is NOT automatically resulting into guilty users. Let's just accept this first logic before we move on.

JUST BECAUSE YOU USE AI, DOES NOT MEAN YOU AUTOMATICALLY ARE GUILTY OF VIOLATING SOMEONE ELSE'S COPYRIGHT CLAIM. That's an insane rule.

So, because using AI does not magically make people guilty of violation to x artist, that means that copyright violation has to be case-by-case to determine when an actual violation occurred.

Again, I'll point back to my long example about Mickey Mouse. If I made an AI image of Tommy Mouse, who is a dog, I am not plagiarizing Mickey Mouse! But if I make an AI image of Mickey Mouse, I am 100% violating copyright on an existing IP in which case 

a. I won't be able to make profit in any means

b. violation has to be determined between me and the disney corporation (since I mentioned in my last blog that in Japan not all companies witch hunt people that make fan art)

--

But, to just say "AI has my drawing, therefore you can't make profit!" 

is just IGNORING everything I mentioned in case 2 about how AI creates a NEW image. AI is not built to simply print out your dumb little image doodle. 

AI in it's very core is a TRANSFORMATIVE tool which makes it okay to earn profit from whatever you decide to create. 

I won't say you'll get rich. But you DO have the right to try to make money on your AI images that you made in collaboration with the AI tool. 

To simply DENY people's ability to make their own profit from their own NEW creations is ABSOLUTELY and sometimes deliberately ignoring the difference between the base "training data" and "EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT HOW AI WORKS."

It's 100% a tunnel vision rant that people just cry about when they think about AI that people can't separate their understanding between "training data" and "generation." 

If profits were REALLY unethical and a copyright violation, then AI would not be the AI tool we have today. AI would simply be a printer. Because that's the only way you can combine "training data" to "output" and have a copyright violation.

But that's not the reality, is it? No.

4. AI ART IS REPLACING JOBS FROM ARTISTS!

Oh man, here we go again with more hollywood fear-tactics. I don't know if this is against AI tools, AI artists, or bad companies. But it seems there's no difference to activists.

When it comes to tools, no, artist adapt to new tools. The modern computer does not make a sketch artist go extinct. These are now two different ways of making art.

When it comes to artists, there's no reason a traditional sketch artist CAN'T use a digital tablet or even dabble with photoshop and, dare I say it, learn some new skills.

When it comes to bad companies, I don't know, take it up against them, not AI. Even outside of AI, there are numerous ways companies short staff their workplaces, switch to cheap labor, exploit scummy practices, etc.

i.e.

Just because a movie company makes cheap adult flicks and oversaturates the market, does not mean movie companies as an industry is about making cheap adult films.

In baby speech, if I giive yous a candy, but mommy gives you peas, that doesn't mean parents are all neglectful.

So why is it when it comes to AI that suddenly ALL artist are about to get their job taken as an industry? 

This is how anti-ai activist have spun the truth into their social lies.

Sure people stopped riding horse carriages, but they moved over to steam and electricity. the same people that use to go to school for traditional painting jobs moved over to textile jobs. When computers switched from analog to digital it merely moved the technicians around. When animation began it didn't replace artists, rather animators were the artists. When the typewriter came out it didn't replace the scribe, it simply created the stenographer which were already scribes. Technology doesn't exactly replace, it adapts based on the demand. A painter still has job withing illustrating fields as much as a coder has computer-related job. Ai is such a social bandwagon buzzword lead by hollywood-fantasy tangents spewed by ignorant people that are acting in the lowest braincell because AI = dur that's terminator! News flash, the people that make the pretty media are still going to be working in the pretty media. That's how tools work. Artists work in illustrative jobs using illustrative tools. People that have transportation jobs will keep on working in the transportation field. Please don't justify "look at this company, they laid off everybody and now 10 people are left doing all the work." That's not reality, that's just an individual example of what japan calls "a black company." 

Can a company lay everyone one else and only use AI with a group of workers? Yes. Is it a solution for the entire industry to follow? No. History teaches us that you always get what you pay for. If a company only has 10 employees on AI, that will be their outcome. Compare that to a company that has 20 employees and use AI. That is another outcome. What about 30 employees and the artist or writer still there and they use AI? That will be another outcome. Compare those 3 examples and you will notice it's not about AI, it's about how you use AI. Would you rather have the janitor writing your companies transcripts using AI, or would you rather have your Writers making those transcripts? You get what you paid for. Now if those same writers, with the knowledge in their field, had access to AI tools, how much better do you think that outcome will be compared to just a janitor using AI. 

Point is, people work with tools. The old school painter is now in the modern illustrative demand. The traditional music graduate is still going to be in the music industry demand. The old school milkman is still in the milk transport industry. Etc, etc. 

AI is here as a tool, not a replacement. If you want to use the tool, that's cool. If you don't, that's cool too. Life goes on, nobody cares. 

AI is a HUGE help to artist, and yet, its ironic that so many have taken their own technological advancements as a threat. Like a caveman throwing away their brushes because they think a pencil is evil.

AI ART is separate from ALL OTHER ART FORMS. AI art is what people create when they work together with AI tools. An AI image is different than any other physical media. AI art is part of the digital media. Can we agree there?! Are people sane enough to admit this?

Then why are people saying AI art is going to replace traditional painted works, art made on acrylic, press art, and so forth? 

Can people not separate between Art genres?!

It's photography fear all over again.

Oh! Look at the people with cameras! It's going to take my job as a painter! Painters are going to go extinct! WAH WAH WAH IM GOING TO CRY IN A CORNER AT MY DOOM EXISTENCE!

No. Photography did not replace the painter. They are two different means to create art. But isn't it funny its always the snobby painters that cry the victim whenever they feel threaten or jealous?

In 2024 we now have AI and painters AGAIN are crying for media attention. Nobody cares about your jobs. AI is busy growing as it's own industry and market demand. 

If you were replaced by an AI image, you probably sucked at your art in the first place OR someone else simply decided not to use your service for whatever reason. 

Are you as an artist going to hate a cheap company that outsources their artists jobs to only AI? Sure you can, but not being hired by that sort of company is a blessing if you didn't see the red flags. 

RATHER, if you were a real artist you would stand confident to what you bring to the table regardless of what is out in the market. 

If you were in a room between a photographer, a graffiti artist, a photoshop expert, or an AI expert, why should you be worried? Wouldn't your skills and expertise in your own field give you the same opportunities? If they hired the photoshop expert that has a bigger resume and more in their portfolio than your 6months of drawing, why should you demand to be the victim? 

All this COMPLETELY FORGETTING that AI is a tool that artists can use to their advantage.

Compared to someone that has no use for AI, such as a tech programmer, in the hands on an artist, Ai can be used for your storyboards, your concept arts, your sketches, your ideas, and so much more that can benefit your actual job field.

That's why I HATE people that just cry about "being replaced" as if its impossible for an artist to also utilize AI as a tool.

I seriously don't know. This could last FOR DECADES after I write this. Maybe in 20 years there will still be people saying "AI is hurting artist" when the next generation of artist would already be using AI in their day to day lives. 

And we're the ones that make fun of boomers. LOL.

"I would be okay with AI art if it wasn't using stolen data"

-well, today's you're lucky day. because its not stolen at all.

5. AI can't be copyrighted!!

Wrong. Ai is a tool, artists uses tools. We are living in the digital age. People are so behind how technically works that AI drama is missing the fundamentals of how a human can use a computer to create art. It's like society forgot the decades of our pixel art movements and jumped straight into "its on a computer, its not real art"

People create art, often with the help of tools. Artists in today's age use digital tools. It's almost like humans are intervening with computer outputs.

But, when it comes to the drama of legal "copyrights," let's all just remember that copyright is a societal standard, not a factual one. Society chooses what is considered law. 

If 10,000 people argue driving is wrong, and 5,000 argue driving was not wrong, 

would the law be just if those 10,000 won through democracy or violent means? 

No. 

Therefore we can't assert even AI copyright law is unjust because the right has been blocked or pending approval by society.

Put simply, what a person creates, whether by hand, by stone, by pen, by digital pen or by mouse and keyboard, that is what should count as a creation. 

A computer bot alone can't claim copyright, but a person attached to a digital work CAN and should. 

Elitist will argue that because the tool was "AI" that it automatically can not receive any form of copyright. Which is not only the definition of gatekeeping what is art, but actively violating other people's right to their digital authorship just because they don't like the tools that were used.

We live in a contemporary age of new technological ignorance. More people have smart phones, but few understand how much progress digital technology has been made to produce their devices.

But, here's the big reason this whole anti-copyright argument fails from a legal standpoint.

Copyright does not change, even with technology. What you make, you own. 

If I drew an image of a cat, I do not get to sue someone that has an image of a spaceship, simply because they used AI tools.

It is laughable that such basic common sense has to be acknowledge again.

Elitist have done a very good job at politicizing their fake tears because they want to be a victim against the rise of AI tools.

Why is copyright common sense being altered just to fit into the anti-ai activists?

If an artist takes another artist to court to claim "theft," the basis should ask :  "is x artwork similar to y artwork?" 

It doesn't matter what tools were used in the digital process. Is the artwork being sued a direct infringement to the one being claimed?

If we're talking about serious theft here, I want to see some exacts! Otherwise, if you can't even defend on the basic one to one, then you have no case to followed up on claims.

If a person used AI to design a teddy bear, they should deserve the same copyright of their artwork. We are after all not talking about the copyright on teddy bears, or the animal, we're talking about the artwork. 

It's outlandish that some people are so against a person having copyright protection simply because they chose to work with AI tools. It's their artwork, leave them alone. Go touch some grass. 

This is why I personally love to be an artist in today's age. Because I can lead by example that yes, I can hand draw an image, but no I will not use my image to take a random online person to court because they used AI and I thus I "should feel like my image was stolen."

If someone's image does not look like my own original, I have no basis in wanting victim-hood.

If someone's image looks close to my original, then that's another topic of IP, not of AI.

 

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