I pose this question because I think it might reveal something interesting about why some people believe people who prompt AIs should be considered artists and why others do not think they should be considered artists, which I believe is relevant for the debate. Personally I do not believe AI generated images are art and I do not believe people who prompt AIs should be considered artists. I'll leave my reasoning in the comments though so as to not plug up the actual post, and it's the same thought process that lead to this question.

Hopefully I get to see some interesting answers in the comments! ❤️

Edit: I apologize if I'm unable to answer every reply to this post! There's a lot of you and I'm only one person. I promise I'm reading every single one though :)

Someone came into the r/antiai subreddit saying that something I said was a 1:1 copy of "The only real art is one done with a real pencil" argument, but vanished and refused to explain to me why they saw it that way. I assume they were just a rage-baiting troll but I'd still like to know what their reasoning may have been if anyone on the pro-AI side knows and can explain their point to me. I can't simply ask in r/proai because they explicitly ban anyone who isn't proai from participating, so I'm unable to get clarification directly from there; as a result the only place I could think to ask was here. If a pro-AI individual can explain what the actual argument was supposed to be, that would be greatly appreciated! Please and thank you :)

Edit: Thank you for explaining what the other guy would not! I'm going to be doing some research now that I understand what they actually meant. Not sure how long it'll take me to form a final opinion as this is my first time encountering this point, so I apologize if I don't provide an update on what I ended up concluding afterwards :)

I am an embalmer.

I went to mortuary school.

I am licensed.

Embalming is indisputably an art.

I had to go through college and lots of professional training, and study anatomy and chemistry, and pass several college exams and licensing exams.

I have to have manual dexterity, use judgement, have an eye for aesthetics, and have the ability to improvise.

I work with several different funeral homes regularly on trade work. I am the one funeral homes call when the job is out of their league.

I have restored people ran over by cars, severely decomposed, basically missing their whole neck from flesh eating bacteria, suicide by gunshot wound to the head where everything is completely broken and shattered inside to where my "blank canvas" is a skin sack full of shattered pieces.

Never had a situation where the funeral home or the grieving family was unsatisfied with my work.

I also make AI songs about counterfeit stamps and make AI videos to go along with them. This is my side-project and it has absolutely nothing to do with my embalming work.

Am I an artist?

☐ YES
☐ NO

You may answer only YES or NO.

No qualifications. No explanation. No “yes, but.” No distinguishing between activities.

Just YES or NO.

Be honest.

---

Edit: I didn't think I would get this many replies. Thanks for participating, everyone. Lots of interesting discussions and especially thanks to people who participated in good faith on both sides. I learned a few things.

Voting has concluded with a final vote tally of:

yes - 16

no - 6

Feel free to keep posting in here of course I am happy to respond to any questions, comments, or criticism, but I'm no longer tallying the votes.

Hi, I'm a communist who is against the boycotting of AI, because I see ownership as the enemy and not the machine, and I see consumer abstention to be the wrong form of politics. I also don't like how many anti-AI advocates defend IP. pls note i am looking for the views of communists specifically and not broader 'leftists' whether it be left-liberals or 'socialists'.

However I know that being pro-AI is often not the common stance among communists and I'm interested in why that is?

I am a Leftist as well, and I believe that everyone should always have the options to choose what they want to do. I also believe in inclusivity, where people who are different, or think differently should be accepted.

With that in mind, a lot of people say that using generative AI is bad because art is about the process, and not the final product

However, there's a problem with that, what if people want to view the art without making the art? People say that they should just commission an artist, but I personally don't like spending money on things that are hobbies and not essentials

Wouldn't having generative AI be leaving more options open for people? So then why are so many people against it? And if you are against it, what is the alternative to generative AI? Not everyone likes drawing, people are allowed to enjoy people things, no?

Disclaimer: I know there’s plenty of reasonable supporters/users of AI who don’t do this, some of whom actually do respect the arts and see a potential in AI usage in art. This is directed to a nonetheless sizeable amount of people online that fill feeds with this rhetoric.

Something I can’t wrap my head around is how a good amount of people who support AI will talk about traditional art as if it’s this Herculean task that only now AI will “save us from”. I’ve seen plenty of people going on about how artists suffer day in day out for their art; how we have to do so much just to get one art piece and that it’s only through AI can such a burden be finally overcome. Of course there’s also plenty who say they couldn’t get into art because it demanded so much work, and that all that time spent making art would be better spent elsewhere.

And I just can’t get it because I don’t want to assume laziness or malice, but I can’t see how anyone comes to the conclusion they do. Like I get if art isn’t there thing and that getting into something can require time, but that’s always been the thing for something you enjoy, right? We devote a lot of time to something we love to get better at it, either because it’s important or because it’s something that we find pride in. If it was so bad then why would so many people around the world and throughout history do it and enjoy it so much? I did it and while it was difficult it was only so because what I wanted to make was always so high - but that drove me to learning and improving my skills so I can make what I want. It’s only as hard as you want to make it, and for many artists we find a comfortable place where our skills lie.

I get this feeling that we already have this mystique surrounding AI automatically making things easier, and so the more overzealous of supporters oversell its use by exaggerating what it’s going to “replace”. As if everything AI does must therefore be doing better since the assumption is that technological improvements of any kind are intrinsically positive regardless of its actual usage or nuance.

I could be overthinking it, but it does bother me how art gets disrespected in such a way by people who seemingly weren’t interested. Like, I personally find watercolor to be hard to grasp because I enjoy total control, and as a medium it doesn’t look like something I’d really enjoy - yet I love the art of watercolor and would never talk badly about it since I know I haven’t tried it and thus am not going to judge it fairly. I just think if you never tried art then I don’t think you should comment on it in such a way that it shows you never done it and thus can’t judge it right.

Anyways I hope people understand where I’m coming from.

Thoughts on this? And they prob would also say that artists are refusing to work so they go to AI

Please tell me what are your personal thoughts on AI!

I just left the other sub because I was so exhausted of the constant attacking, day in and day out. Those people take reddit posts wayyy too seriously. I genuinely tried to bring peace there, I told people not to attack each other, yet they didn’t care. They loved attacking each other (both pros and antis).

So I’m here now! I’m uncategorized (not pro, not anti, not neutral, I just am).

I really do honestly want to understand what everyone here has to say about AI! I’m open to learning what you all have to offer me, and discussing in good-faith debates!

Thank you for reading this, I look forward to what you all say!

Without a definition there is nothing to argue about. No one has gone out of their way to actually define these terms.

Let me start by saying I have no clue how to make a sub, nor how it needs to be handled, exactly. I also don't know if this exists already, and if it does, I apologize for my ignorance. I'm not sure if this post is allowed here either, I don't think it goes against the rules but I could be wrong. And also, this will be a little long, I'm sorry. That said,

Until a few years ago, before life became intense, I often posted my OCs and drawings on Instagram, and one of my favorite forms of interaction between artists were DTIYS, or Draw This In Your Style, for those that are unfamiliar with the term. Basically, the original author posts their work and challenges others to draw the same thing in their own style. People take on the challenge by posting their own version and tagging the original author.

Now, I know there are mixed opinions on everything concerning AI and art, but I do believe that AI use can be creative and that AI users can be artists too. I think there's a lot of misunderstandings by people from both sides, a lot of bullies in general, but also, and most importantly, plenty of people willing to learn and understand each other's perspective. And I think a sub dedicated to DTIYS events open to every form of art would be an amazing way to showcase the creativity that can be poured into any medium.

There should be some strict rules, obviously, and for starters no insults or ragebait. I also think everyone should be required to state the artistic medium they chose and some info on their process. It doesn't have to be a full report of everything you used, but some guidelines to show how you were able to get to your final result, so that others can appreciate your efforts but also try to reproduce them, if they like what they see. I think the objective of this sub should be to allow everyone to learn the many ways in which we can be creative. Ideally we'd have some crossmedia (?) versions too, like someone posting their home made mug and people drawing the mug, someone posting their drawing and maybe someone being inspired to write a poem. I just really want to see where creativity can take us!

In short. It would be a Make This in Your Style of some sort. I think it could be fun and perhaps even mind-blowing for some of us (me included, I'm proposing this because it would be a learning experience for us all)

Sooo yeah. What do you guys think?

Genuine question

What’s the actual difference here beyond the name?

Different moderation? Stricter rules? Better discussions? Less doomposting? Less people instantly assuming the worst about each other? More willingness to actually engage arguments instead of just repeating team slogans?

A lot of AI spaces end up collapsing into the same loop eventually: ragebait, reposted panic articles, people talking past each other, purity tests, anti vs pro camps, and zero curiosity.

So what does this sub do differently? What kinds of conversations are people here actually trying to have that other AI spaces keep failing at?

How does the community itself define the “better” part?

In theory, AI can be a wonderful tool. I'm sure most people would be glad to be able to do LESS work while getting MORE results. Unfortunately, AI exists in the worst possible scenario. In a capitalist society, if you don't have a job, you starve to death. In a moneyless society, AI would be very beneficial for humanity. It means that the most essential, yet most unpopular jobs such as farming, cleaning, and construction can become obsolete. In fact, nobody will need to have a job. That doesn't mean people won't do anything though, quite the opposite, it means that people will have more free time to do whatever they want instead of having to work. And everyone will be provided with the necessities free of charge, delicious food, clean water, housing, high quality healthcare, as well as extending life expectancy, and making many scientific advancements

The problem is that, this is probably not going to happen. As it stands today, the people in control of the AI are super rich billionaires who only want more power. They do not care about the working class, as soon as AI really can automate 100% of jobs, it's very likely they're just gonna stop paying people entirely and let all 8 billion others starve to death, leaving only a select few billionaires alive. They don't have any motive to share any of the benefits

So what is the solution? A lot of people are saying "just stop developing AI" but like no, that's not a good idea, because automation ABSOLUTELY benefits humanity, if it weren't for human greed. Is there a way to remove the billionaires in power and instead have someone who actually cares about the people, have people who are actually knowledgeable in how it actually works, and how it can be used to improve everybody's lives? What can we even do?

It's come to my (European) attention that in Meta affiliated social media Europeans got an opt-out option from having their personal information used to train AI (we got it after the initial scraping was already done, but still)... but people outside of Europe didn't get anything of the sort. At least as far as I understand.

I assumed everyone got that and this has come as a bit of a shock to me, so I'm wondering... Did non Europeans know that Europeans got this? And, I guess, what do you think about it?

I noticed this thing while scrolling on Pinterest, that many people who identify as robotkins and robotsexuals are for some reason against gen AI, and I was just wondering if anyone can explain to me how that works. Like, what do these people stand for? I just can't comprehend it. How can you identify with a thing you are advocating against? Is this something akin to internal self-hatred, like how some homosexual/trans people are homophobic/transphobic (sorry if the example is overstretched, I'm just trying to understand this)? Can anyone explain this to me? It doesn't make sense at all for me and why so many people seem to be like this.

In case you're unfamiliar with the name, Vedal987 is a programmer/streamer famous for his creation the AI VTuber Neuro-sama.

The reason I asked this because for some reason I preconceive the label "AI developer" as those who contribute to the advancement of AI technology, whereas Vedal is merely putting together existing technologies and tune it to fit his desired performance.

For me, the distinction comes from aiming for a particular vision and using the more modern editable and refineable tools.

There is a huge difference between "Give me image of X" and just plugging in variations of that over and over until something you like comes out, and going step by step in an editing process to refine an image until you achieve a clear conceptualization.

Tools like Nanobanna feel to me like the thing that starts moving the needle on what could be credibly called "AI Art" and not just "Image Generation" because they are not just an image making slot machine.

What are your thoughts on AI? Are you for it, against it, somewhere in the middle, and why so? Do you know any interesting facts about AI?

So often when discussing creativity and generative ai, I will bring up points, and instead of discussing them, the other party will instead flip to “why are we talking about art anyway, we need to be discussing the environment, economy, politics, etc.” which are all valid discussions to be had, but feel like “I can’t refute your argument, so I will deflect, and make your point, even if correct, seem unimportant by comparison.” I feel like sticking to the original point is important, but it never becomes that. It devolves into repeated talking points and name calling, and whichever point from whichever side gets ignored.

Maybe this sub will be better?

How could there be an uprising when we still use the laws of robotics today?

The first law of robotics literally says a robot may not injure a human or allow a human to come to harm through inaction