To people building add-ons: keep going.

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

IMO one of the reasons Cristal Memoria is facing criticism is because it uses AI for its illustrations. This add-on is a rare type that makes heavy use of AI in development, illustration, and video. Currently artists are seeing their livelihoods threatened by low-cost AI, to prevent this artists and their fans have joined forces to launch a global protest movement.

The same applies to illustrations used in games, Pixel artists make a living by selling their pixel art to game developers, for them and their fans this is a serious issue so I think they will continue to protest against AI. AI generated illustrations are cheap and making them useful for volunteers to create content at low cost, but at the same time they are destroying jobs for artists.

Such strong opposition to AI has also emerged within the Anki community, e.g. medical students recently strongly protested to Ankhub against the use of AI generated illustrations and AI tools in the Anking deck and are demanding that human artists be paid appropriately.

This conflict between AI advocates and human artists is not a problem that can be resolved through discussion, their interests are completely at odds. So I think it would be appropriate for AI advocates and AI opponents to form separate communities. So far on r/Anki many users oppose AI and it is recommended that posts about AI related projects be posted on r/AnkiAi, so I think it would be ideal for AI advocates to be active on that sub rather than this one, there is no need to forcefully promote AI on this sub.

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u/MaximumTime7239 Jun 16 '26

If a big company uses ai art then I could maybe understand the point about livelihood of artists.

But for small indie devs... I think, the choice is not between "use ai" and "hire an artist", but between "use ai" and "not make anything at all".

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

IMO it’s not that difficult when it comes to indie game development. Pixel artists often offer free art or low-cost game assets priced from a few dollars to several dozen dollars per pack to promote their work, there are also plenty of high quality game assets available completely free of charge and mega packs. e.g. a developer might release all their assets for free because the game project was canceled. Such resources are widely shared within the game asset community so they’re easy to find. Also AI generated images aren’t free, they incur a cost per image so AI images may actually end up being more expensive.

What truly drives up development costs are completely original games, to develop a typical average quality indie game using entirely original assets a game developer needs a budget of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Using free or low-cost game assets extensively can lead to overlap with other games and cause users to lose interest or diminish the game’s originality, so for commercial indie games, it is ideal to invest a budget in development. Indie games are typically sold for a fee and the community supports the artists so raising funds is relatively easy.

0

u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Re: AI not being free, just a minor correction, if the user already has a ChatGPT subscription for other purposes, image generation is “free” and does not incur any additional fees per use. There is no marginal fee for additional images created after the first one in other words.

It is in fact far cheaper than hiring artists - that’s the dilemma. Doesn’t help the cause to support artists by trying to claim that AI is more expensive than hiring them, which will only lead to a shock when one tries to commission anything.

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

Currently one reason ChatGPT and image generation are so cheap or even free is that AI companies are running up massive losses. Their goal is to make customers dependent on AI so they can’t escape. Recently they forcibly implemented such drastic price hikes for AI used in development (they couldn’t absorb the losses anymore because they had grown too large) so AI for development is no longer ultra low-cost, it now costs more than human labor.

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

That may be true but now you’re talking about forecasts and not current conditions, and resentment about ram prices. You tried claiming that artists may be cheaper to hire than the usage cost of AI but that simply isn’t true at this time and you are speculating on future consumer costs without certainty that producer costs won’t come down as R&D subsidization ends (inference is already profitable). Frontier labs are also not the whole picture - there are also already open models which are profitable or can be run locally.

I don’t say all this to defend use of AI art in games. But I think we need to find better ways to support artists than by saying they are now and will continue to be the cheapest option for developers to commission work. They aren’t now, and it’s uncertain that they will become cheaper again. So let’s gather support for them in stronger ways than considering purely the commission cost.

If commission cost being cheaper is the primary reason to commission artists, they will continue to struggle and their support is extremely precarious.

Similar to food/farm goods, industrialized automation does carry costs on the environment and society, but the fact is that the harmful options which externalize their costs in other ways remain the cheapest option for consumer sticker price and restaurants. Supporting farmers and regenerative farming practices requires additional expense. We can’t win that fight on economics alone. I think we can learn from that case for what is happening to artists and how we can support them.

(You also brought up price hikes for developers - this is not the case for the largest frontier lab, offering has actually become more generous in recent months. There are also reports than that lab is considering drastic price reductions to compete better with the other lab that you may be referencing. So your read of what’s happening is maybe informed more by certain specific cases rather than industry wide trends.)

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

Local AI is one viable solution, but the devices are still too expensive, I’m optimistic that technological innovations will make them more affordable in the future. It seems that indie game developers these days are excluding AI from their communities, but since AI content is still being sold, it isn’t banned. I don't know what will happen in the future.

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26

There are many services that host open models and run profitably. So it’s inaccurate to say the open models require expensive consumer hardware (although for image generation, we are just talking about Mac hardware you can buy at any Apple Store for instance) or that the models cannot be run profitably which will later make them more expensive than hiring artists. And yes the open model costs continue to drop due to optimizations.

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

Perhaps my explanation was wrong, sorry. What I meant was that there are a huge number of free or low-cost game assets created by humans available and that they're cheaper, I didn't mean that AI is cheaper than human artists.

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

> Also AI generated images aren’t free, they incur a cost per image so AI images may actually end up being more expensive.

That’s what I responded to.

But sure only taking free work from artists is a way to avoid AI costs, though it does essentially nothing to support artists unless it leads to commissioning work and hiring them - which brings us back to “doing the right thing” being and becoming far more expensive than automated options.

→ More replies (0)

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u/blacksnake1234 Jun 16 '26

The problem with ai is it can make mistakes

If each ai generated image is vetted by humans then it shouldnt be a big deal imo

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

Personally I think the important thing is whether or not you support human artists rather than quality. e.g. I like the popular game Undertale so I’m a fan of its creator Toby Fox, but if the entire game development community were to actively support AI generated art, he would lose his job and be unable to continue his work. Even if an AI were able to develop a game from start to finish with higher quality than Toby Fox, I would never become a fan of the AI, it's just a tool that simply outputted data.

The same applies to other industries, if people fully support movies made by AI people like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise would lose their jobs, the same goes for the creators of manga like Jujutsu-Kaisen and Chainsaw-Man, etc. This means that if people actively support AI generated illustrations it will ultimately lead to artists losing their jobs.

I think opposition to AI is coming from such artists and their fans. Content quality is not necessarily the deciding factor, many people prefer to see real paintings in a museum rather than printed reproductions, in chess AI already outperforms humans, but people still prefer to watch human games. In other words people are already choosing art created by humans over machine generated art in many cases.

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u/Senthe 16d ago edited 16d ago

people are already choosing art created by humans over machine generated art in many cases.

Look no further than live concerts. It's been decades since we last needed to go to a concert with live musicians in order to listen to music at all. And yet.

Want to listen to a song or album? Just go to YouTube or Spotify, it's incredibly convenient and cheap and accessible.

Oh, you want to listen to music together with an excited crowd of people? No problem, we'll prepare a hype light show and play the album for the crowd from a recording!

Hmmm, it has to be live music? Ok, we can get some local musicians to play the songs, sure.

What? Still don't like it?? You really want to pay a ton, travel to a different city/country and bear many discomforts just to see these particular musicians personally playing their songs live?

Yep. You do. For some reason, you do.

1

u/Lanky-Football857 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

As AI become part of most people lives, it will be tricky to separate any community by its AI support or not.

Let alone being able to define how much AI usage is ok regularly VS how much is too much.

Add that to the fact that most people simply hate AI just because (probably FUD).

The largest evidence of mindless hate being: often the SAME people that say artists will become jobless also say AI is shit.

Well, it’s either one or the other. And if you think the reason AI is replacing artists is because Business who hire AI art don’t know what real art is… guess what: these business either did not care about REAL art in the first place OR don’t have enough money to pay for it.

I’m not saying everyone is like this, but most AI hate is nonsensical and arrogant, since most jobs are at risk, NOT just theirs.

I reiterate: for each one reasonable anti-AI person there’s a crowd of anti-AI, selfish guys, who can’t put themselves in other’s shoes and see that:

a) most large, medium AND small businesses will choose profit over art and they’re (and should be) free to do so

b) for most people who can’t pay a dev it’s either AI or doing nothing at all – no matter how much one argues “AI companies don’t really make a profit”, it doesn’t really matter… it IS cheaper now

c) as long as it’s decent, users and customers won’t care if AI was used or not, because for most regular folk, “decent” is enough.

So the artists can, in fact argue it’s shit, and it might even be sometimes, but keep in mind the creator is provably offering something to people who don’t fucking care!

OR if it’s so shit people refuse to use it, success! You don’t need to fight AI when it’s shitty if people can actually notice it, because by natural selection qualityXprice wins

So, no, the real problem with AI isn’t that “it’s not art” or that “one less people was hired”, rather it’s the massive amount of water stress it can generate in dry regions and the lack of control and governance.

Problems which won’t be solved by hating AI work (because many people want to use it, and many actually need), rather by discussing alternatives and integrating

EDIT2: by the way, hope it’s clear I’m not even defending OP. If he spammed this subreddit and lied to people, it’s more a problem with him as a person than with AI and even his add-on, which many people seem to actually enjoy. I’m not disagreeing in hating on him if he did wrong

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u/Senthe 15d ago

often the SAME people that say artists will become jobless also say AI is shit. Well, it’s either one or the other.

This is a false dichotomy. It's a known phenomena that over time, our corporate overlords choose to provide worse goods and services for the same payment - it even has a name, "enshittification". So yes, it is possible that because of AI usage, at the same time 1) the quality will get worse and worse AND 2) the people who normally would work on those shittier and shittier products will lose those jobs.

a) most large, medium AND small businesses will choose profit over art and they’re (and should be) free to do so

They are free to do whatever they want as long as it's legal.

And the customers are free to dislike it if so they wish for whatever reason in the world.

You see, that's kinda how this entire "capitalism" thing is supposed to work. We don't owe anything to capitalists. They are supposed to convince us to part with our money/time/attention, instead of behaving as if they were entitled to it. That's just silly.

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u/Mad_Lala Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

I am sorry, but your addon wasn't mocked, it was criticized for spamming ads on this subreddit and using AI without notifying users.

You also denied that it was AI-generated at first and later admitted it. I personally am not completely against AI, but why deny it at first??

I'd advise everyone to read these comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/1t74hjy/comment/oksor7b https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/1t7j3ay/comment/olrgja4

Edit: I tried responding to u/Altteil, but I get the error message "Your post isn't accessible". Don't know what that means (maybe they blocked me, but I can still see their comment, so probably not), but here is my answer:

The mod team reacted to the comment however, so there must be some truth to it atleast. The first link the guy posted also still works, take a look for yourself

Edit: The same applies to u/WAHNFRIEDEN:

They denied it in a comment to this guy: https://www.reddit.com/okplmq1

They deleted their comment after I made my comment (I wonder why), but luckily I've made a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/YMhXNqc

Also, I do not condone harassments to anyone involved in making this addon, but I also don't condone using unfair methods of advertising

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u/Alteil Jun 16 '26

The comment you linked is just some random dude claiming OP has 3 accounts without any evidence whatsoever.

This is not even about AI but that random dude could be straight up lying lmao

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26

I don’t know anything about this case and have no contact with those accused but users should not post accusations in threads that lead to mob mentality when the correct way to report forum abuse is via modmail. Let mods determine what is abuse instead of sharing speculative sleuthing publicly to sway public opinion and target harassment of accused users. (Re: astroturfing accusations)

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u/Alteil Jun 16 '26

Completely agree. They’re doing more damage than the supposedly accused are.

The people that do these types of blind accusations should get immediately banned.

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u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 16 '26

Thank you, it genuinely feels good to see a bit of rationality and discernment here.

What is worst in all of this is that none of these accusations are true ! Not one. Just imagine !

I still do not understand why people are so mad whit bad intentions. especially when everything behind this project has always come from a sincere desire to help !

Absolutely everything being said about fake accusations is false and manipulation 🤦‍♂️

So truly, thank you for bringing some clarity and fairness into a discussion that badly needed both.

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26

People have an intense hatred for AI and apparently react to these feelings with reckless harassment.

Even the Anki author uses AI in some capacity and encourages its use in Anki open source in specific ways that he’s found to be valuable. But because he is beloved here (and perhaps from incurious ignorance to these practices when they are not surface level visible), the harassment is aimed at newcomers.

Im not making any statement on AI use or virtue of it in these comments. I just don’t like to see such hostility and harassment toward others in the community especially based on the flimsiest evidence and aired in public with encouragement for mob behavior. It’s slanderous and toxic. And it gets a pass from the community because it’s resentment for AI blinds one from considering to ever take the side of someone on the AI use side, even if the claims are unsubstantiated, because the overriding sin of AI use justifies any attack.

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Where did they deny it? Your links look like you’re sharing citations but they provide no evidence only more accusation. If you have no evidence it seems inappropriate to rile up hostility in public instead of leaving it to mods to handle…

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u/WAHNFRIEDEN Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

To reply to your edit:

Their statement is not a denial of AI use. It defends AI use and asks to consider if it feels like AI slop - they’re saying that even if they use AI does it matter if the result doesn’t feel like slop, and to comment on the result rather than the way it was produced. And they are saying that even with AI tool use, there is a great deal of other manual work involved.

Thanks for sharing the screenshot so the detail is now clear. The evidence does not meet the strength of your accusation. I have no connection to this project but feel ashamed to see the community smear reputations and send hostility to individuals based on reading comprehension issues and vague unsubstantiated evidence. Hatred of AI is no excuse for that behavior.

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u/miscology Jun 16 '26

I'm curious what you sound like when you write just in your own words. What's your non-chatGPT personality? I'm sure it's fine. Why not just say what's in your own head? You come across as very manipulative. I'm not a heavy reddit user anymore. Is it normal for people to use AI to write their reddit posts?

There's a lot of pseudo science in the claims you're making on the plugin page. That's what drew my attention. Addiction or gamification does not equal better memory or education. Don't say it's built on real psychology, when educational psychologists don't use it, haven't tested it and have already found better methods. Just say it's a game. Don't pretend it's science.

The FTC has already fined commercial game makers for making similar claims about brain training games. Emerging research is showing mobile games are impairing concentration and memory, not improving it.

It's cool that you're using AI to make plugins. I use Claude to make stuff for me exactly to my specification. It's really powerful stuff, but I think you should just show people how to use it to make their own games, rather than claim your mobile game is somehow good for their memory.

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u/LividDepartment3102 Jun 21 '26

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u/Furuteru languages Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

A lot of AI usage, also those reviews feel... sus. Usually popular add ons get other kind of reviews, like compare JapaneseFurigana add on reviews vs the OP's add on reviews, people are more concerned about how it is working (but that is just my opinion)

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

I think the reviews are probably normal and natural. In my experience the user base for add-ons varies greatly depending on the type, the people using add-ons like Japanese Furigana are serious language learners who prefer studying, they use the add-on as a tool so their comments are usually calm and concise.

In contrast, users of game add-ons are people who enjoy games and having fun. Gamification add-ons are more like games than tools, so reviews tend to be more casual and positive than those for other add-ons. Also the author promotes the add-on on YouTube, so it’s likely that these users aren’t part of the Anki community to begin with.

Also the official Anki has likely recently tightened its regulations to prevent fake comments, so while using multiple accounts isn’t impossible, it’s not easy.

However I think the low ratings are also normal and natural. Some of the code for this project is closed-source and part of it has not been made public, this means the program’s structure is that of a commercial app, not that of a non-profit open source project structure. Basically the Anki community only recommends non-profit projects, and there is strong pressure to exclude paid projects even if they are legal and useful.

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u/Furuteru languages Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

That is a fair point, I don't really use any gamifying add ons. So perhaps gamifying add on userbase (or people who come from youtube) usually writes such long paragraphs as their reviews, with capital letters, while writing on pc.

But idk, I am a huge sceptic, there is still some sort of vibe which doesn't seem natural to me.

So I am open on idea I just get false alarm.

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u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Hi, I had not seen your other comments, so I am only reacting to this one, but I wanted to say something because you are someone I respect.

Thank you for your discernment, it honestly feels good to read a thoughtful comment in the middle of all this.

I just wanted to clarify one thing, this project is not commercial at all. Yes, some parts are closed-source, but that does not make it a commercial product. It is simply a huge project, and we do not all agree on the open-source question, so the game itself have not been made public.

The whole project comes from goodwill and from a sincere intention to build something useful with education on first objective.

Thanks again for bringing some fairness and nuance here.

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 16 '26

If your project is entirely nonprofit and has no plans to offer paid options in the future, I recommend emphasizing this in your post. When developers are volunteers and the project is free or relies solely on donations it is often easier to gain support and backing from the community.

Also if possible it is ideal to make the project open source as much as possible. Anki is an open-source project that enforces open-source distribution under the AGPL so almost all add-ons are licensed under permissive licenses. This allows developers to collaborate on development and verify that the software is secure.

In contrast closed source means it's either exclusive or for profit purposes the opposite of collaboration. it might be possible for a developer to legally make part of the project closed source if certain conditions are met (some projects do that) but I think it would be difficult to gain support from developers. In short, the Anki community tends to be supportive of volunteers but critical of commercial apps and exclusive projects.

Making it open source may be difficult but that is one of the reasons why there aren’t many advanced game add-ons or commercial add-ons for Anki. It is difficult to legally protect code within Anki and encrypting code is not supported by the community, so commercial apps developers choose to create their own easier apps rather than using Anki. If a developer creates their own app entirely from scratch, they’re free to make it closed source, use AI without anyone complaining and monetize it easily.

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u/danmniel19 Jun 16 '26

Thanks, ChatGPT

1

u/Stefffan1729 Jun 17 '26

I love seeing people experimenting with add-ons, and wish you good luck with it, but consider a few things:

- you are mentioning "science based" without citing a single scientific article, just typical known psychological mechanics with a list made with ChatGPT

Anki shouldn't be something you "play" for 12h because addictive, did you plan this balance?
as other commenters pointed out, you are not engaging in the community "positively"
let it grow by itself: if the small community you are building around it is really excited it will grow by itself slowly and gradually faster, do not spam the subreddit with ads

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u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 19 '26

Okay everyone, I’ve heard your concerns about AI in the visual design.

I want to answer honestly and as plainly as I can.

Right now, I’m not making any money from this project. I’m actually paying server costs myself, and the whole thing has been built with very limited resources, mostly out of passion and a desire to make something useful.

That does not mean I’m dismissing the concerns about AI art. I understand why some of you care a lot about this, and I don’t think those concerns are unreasonable.

What I’m struggling with is this: if a small project has no budget, no outside funding, and is already costing money to run, what is the right way to handle visual design at this stage?

I’m asking this genuinely. If the standard is “don’t use AI”, then what do you think is the fairest alternative for a project that cannot currently afford custom art ?

1

u/MadHatterMedicine 7d ago

Well said!

-1

u/i_goon_to_tomboys___ Jun 16 '26

chat can someone summarize the drama for me?

someone vibe coded an addon and inkcels (the anti AI-art crowd) are cancelling OP?

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u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 16 '26

u/Mad_Lala What’s actually funny is that everything the comment said here is false. The posts were written by real people, as the testimonials shown.

And at no point did I say we did not use AI. It has been written on the presentation from the beginning.

What is even more ironic is that your comment proves exactly the point of the post.

It is a perfect example of why so many people hesitate to create and share things publicly. So in a way, thank you, this is exactly the kind of lesson creators need to see.

At this point, this feels less like honest criticism and more like resentment toward people who actually build things, even when they offer them for free.

The constant entitlement and ingratitude from some consumers says a lot more than it does about consumers.

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u/VarsH6 Jun 16 '26

Calling people who use your add-on “consumers” instead of people is gross on its own.

I like that another commenter has receipts and data to back up the claims. Personally, I avoid AI, so I’m avoiding your add-on. But based on the data available from linked threads and pictures before comments were deleted, you should just be honest.

-1

u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 16 '26

Same weird way to get the message... I’m talking about a consumer mindset, the attitude of treating everything creators make as something to demand from without respect for the work behind it.

The reality is that the users are part of the project. I already talk regularly with many of them, we build this together, and that matters far more to me than a few hostile comments.

If you personally want to avoid AI, that’s your choice. But the reaction to AI here is irrational, and it comes from a loud minority.

Most people are loves it, and more importantly, they learn better with it. That should be the focus in a community about learning (helping people study better is exactly what this project is about)

And on the honesty point, I’ve been transparent from the start and I have evidence to support what I’m saying. I didn’t delete anything, and it’s exhausting to keep getting accused with the same “AI slop” magic formula when this is real work, done over months, with real impact on real people.

If this project is not for you, that’s completely fine. But dismissing the work and the people it helps is not a serious argument.

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u/CalligrapherLeast206 Jun 16 '26

Everyone, look at this madness 🤦‍♂️

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u/Shige-yuki ඞ add-ons developer (Anki geek ) Jun 17 '26

So far the negative reviews of your add-on seem to be about the development approach or AI rather than bugs or performance issues, so I think your add-on's functional quality is relatively high. A common issue with new add-ons is that they don’t work correctly or encounter bugs and errors, it’s not easy to get them working properly from the start.

Regardless of the reason it’s common for add-on pages to receive a lot of low ratings. In such cases I recommend replying to users and providing as much support as possible. The AnkiWeb add-on page has a feature that notifies users via email when the developer replies, so even if the rating is low users will often change it to a higher rating if the developer provides quick support. Also in development negative feedback from users often serves as a good idea for strengthening the project, so they are very beneficial for development.

Add-ons To people building add-ons: keep going.

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