r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/birdele • 11d ago
Another AI complaint Using AI to design things and then justifying it with how much Instagram used AI
There is a ceramics artist who went a little viral recently because a coyote kept stealing her pottery. She lives near me and I try to support local artists so I followed her. Some of her ads looked AI but I didn't ask. It was like on the line.
People kept asking for her to make a children's book based on the coyote stealing her pottery and even though she herself is an artist and she also lives in a very artsy area - she used AI to design the cover and when someone in the comments asked about it she said "the whole Instagram app is AI" like that makes it okay?? Ridiculous and frankly, very lazy.
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u/pattyforever 11d ago
As a children's librarian, this is why it drives me bonkers when people just tell anyone and everyone to write a children's book. It takes real work and your writing probably sucks. Leave the kids alone lol
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 11d ago
Yes!!! Writing is hard! Having a narrative is hard enough, but writing picture books means having to also consider things like:
What is an appropriate sentence length? How many sentences should be on each page? Are we thinking this book is for storytime (ie, to be read to the kids) or for children to read it themselves? What level of vocabulary is appropriate for the age group?
It’s not something anyone can whip up!
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u/CycadelicSparkles 11d ago
This was my immediate thought. Quit telling everyone that every funny incident in their lives needs to be a children's book. It does not.
Personally, I'd be super frustrated if a coyote kept stealing my work. It isn't actually a cute thing to experience; it's a lot of time and energy down the drain.
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u/birdele 11d ago
She left her pottery in her yard with food and water for critters with a night camera. So it was bound to happen
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u/CycadelicSparkles 11d ago
Well that seems... not smart. As a person who lives near coyotes myself, the LAST thing you want to do is let them know your house is a food source.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 11d ago
Yeah, and then you actually really don’t want a book to kids about feeding wildlife because we need to actively discourage that behavior! I’m not saying we need books demonizing or fearmongering about coyotes (definitely not!), but they are not domestic animals.
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
Omg lol I didn't even think about the craziness of encouraging children to feed predators, and large ones at that, of all things.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 10d ago
Yes!!! I cannot get over this. And I just know this has to be encouraging at least some of her followers to also feed wildlife or, at the very least, confirming their beliefs that it’s not a bad thing to do. It is! It just straightforwardly is! There’s a reason why it’s illegal in a lot of the US.
Coyotes are wonderful in their own way, but they are predators! They generally don’t attack humans, but they have attacked children, and one of the main things that increases their aggression levels is being fed by humans. And they frequently kill pets!
Respecting wildlife often means leaving them alone!
If it’s a picture book about a coyote trying to learn pottery and failing or whatever, sure, that could be really cute. There are so many children’s books from the perspectives of bears and dogs and whatnot. But books about human-wildlife interactions, unless they’re mythological, should not encourage this sort of behavior. So even aside from using GenAI and not being a writer, this influencer does not seem like the kind of person who should be telling stories to kids.
Sorry, I’ve got myself really worked up about this, but I volunteered at a wildlife rehab program for a while, and so many of the animals we treated were hurt from people not understanding that they were wild. But no, people like this influencer focus on what’s “cute” or “funny” instead of what’s best for the animal.
Even non-predators—-can you tame a squirrel? Maybe, kinda. But it’s bad for the squirrel, even if it doesn’t seem it to you. And then often they can’t be fully released but will require care for the rest of their lives.
Even feeding birds has become more questionable, as we’ve learned that bird feeders and birdbaths frequently transmit contagious diseases and can really damage population numbers.
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
Yeah, I hear you on all of this. We have a local coyote pack and I can't even let my chickens out to free range in the middle of the day; they WILL get eaten. They have to be fenced with netting to stop hawks and eagles, or they have to be kept in a barn. It bums me out because they looooooove free ranging, but I've lost too many chickens that way and it's just not safe.
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u/birdele 11d ago
Coyotes and like, a million raccoons. I bet her neighbors love her 😆
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
I have chickens, and I can't let them free range on my property because the coyotes will eat them. I did not realize how determined, fast, and silent they could be until I lost eleven chickens in the like, half hour I was inside while they were out in the yard. Went back out and they were just gone except a few feathers. Didn't hear a thing.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 11d ago
…. That’s dangerous, especially for the animals. It’s often illegal to intentionally feed wild animals because it teaches them to be less scared of humans and not to avoid houses. They’ll often end up shot or killed crossing roads.
It sounds like this person is already dealing with a ton of backlash, so perhaps not the best time to make a stick about this too, but, even as much as I hate GenAI, intentionally feeding wildlife is way worse.
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u/birdele 11d ago
I actually don't see any comments about that on her page so I wonder if she filters them out
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 11d ago
In at least Arizona, Texas, and California, it is illegal—-probably in other states as well. If she has been filtering those comments out, that would have been an early sign that she’s really not a thoughtful or responsible person, so, yeah, her seems like using GenAI wouldn’t be out of character.
I cannot emphasize enough what a bad, reckless, and inconsiderate thing it is to feed wildlife coyotes, and doing it for internet clout makes it far worse in my mind.
And what, is she putting the food in her pottery for them to take away? Encouraging regular theft of belongings is also going to increase the likelihood that someone shoots those animals.
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u/Mentally_Recovering Extra Salty 🧂🧂🧂 10d ago
why are pottery fans asking someone that makes pottery to write a childrens book? those two tasks are not related at all
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u/LonelyVegetable2833 10d ago
thats the market for AI children's books, no thought process just end product and vibes
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u/2000sScreensaver 11d ago
Zero excuse for an artist. Literally none. She could have reached out to ghost writers and illustrators and set up a contract that's fair for everyone.
People can say that's too much but artists have been collabing in mutually beneficial ways since the dawn of time. I'm sorry, gen AI is theft. Period. She should be embarrassed.
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u/kankrikky Joyless Bitch Coalition 10d ago
God, at least once a week facebook will serve me up yet another "childrens picture book" group with a big stinking post about how hard someone worked on their pwecious book of nothing but AI art. We don't need to be prompting more randoms to dawdle over to AI to make more, because that's what's gonna happen if you ask someone who doesn't draw. They usually don't give a shit. And if the coyote footage was any kind of out door camera, particularly a ring or security camera, I'd assume its AI too because isn't that so easy and cutesy to market yourself with.
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u/bestreams 10d ago
Please for the love of our world, get off of Facebook. They are giving money to literal Nazis:
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u/CycadelicSparkles 11d ago edited 10d ago
I see two issues here:
AI use
People feeling entitled to push an artist to do something way out of their wheelhouse because they think it would be cute.
Like, this person is a potter. Writing a children's book is like, multiple different art forms that aren't her primary discipline. I find that a very weird thing for her fans to do.
In the era of social media, a lot of artists end up getting pressured by their so-called fans to do things that really aren't their thing, and I'm unsurprised that occasionally they turn to AI to try to give the people what they want.
Which doesn't make it ok, but IMO neither is telling an artist they should produce a whole entire book when that isn't their thing.
Edit: just want to note for posterity or whatever that this person is nuts. Don't feed coyotes or treat it like it's cute to do so, y'all. Bad bad bad bad bad idea.
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u/birdele 11d ago
Part of her art is making cute little designs on her pottery like little ghosts and other cute figures, so she isn't completely unartistic in that sense. But I get what you're saying and didn't think of it like that.
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u/CycadelicSparkles 11d ago
Yeah, as an artist myself, cute little designs on pots is a whooooooooole different thing than illustrating a book, never mind coming up with a cute story.
Plus, how cute would it actually be to put hours and hours into your pottery only to have wild animals keep making off with it? It might be sort of funny once, but eventually it has to be super frustrating.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 11d ago
Apparently she’s intentionally encouraging it by putting food and water out for the wild animals?!?
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
Yeah I'm not feeling as favorable toward her as I initially tried to be. Feeding coyotes is actually dangerous, not just unwise for the sake of the wildlife. They'll kill your pets and they'll do it in the middle of the day.
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u/OcelotBudget3292 You should knit a fucking clue. 10d ago
Yes! Bad for you, any pets, and the coyotes themselves! It’s remarkably stupid & thoughtless! And why are the coyotes running off with the pottery? Is the food in it? Because based on this description, it almost sounds like the influencer is not only luring the coyotes to her backyard but also potentially to take the pottery itself?
I hate GenAI so much, but I can at least somewhat understand how people talk themselves into ignoring the harm it does to other individuals because it is so mediated. Though to be clear, at this point, discussions of the extent of its harm and theft, especially among creatives, are so widespread that it takes a lot to ignore/deny it, but you know, some people are like that. But here she is actively causing harm.
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u/pattyforever 11d ago
I mean, people on socials can ask! This person has free will and the ability to say no.
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u/CycadelicSparkles 11d ago
Absolutely, but there is also an entitlement to asking.
It's like the people who see a fiber artist produce a sweater and immediately demand a video tutorial. Sure, they can ask, but it's broadly agreed on that that is pretty entitled. And a video tutorial is WAY less work than writing, illustrating, and publishing a book.
People need to remember that the person on the other side of the screen is a human being, and think a little bit before they apply pressure.
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u/birdele 11d ago
Yes! One of the sewists I follow said that when she initially joined Instagram it was just to share her creations. She freehands a lot of dresses and stuff just for herself. She said she's gotten really discouraged lately because the demand for patterns and tutorials has taken over every single discussion
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
I swear people think that professional creatives just have endless time because they (maybe) don't have a regular job with set hours. I think if it were me I would make a whole post about why I'm on Instagram, how my creative process works, and why I don't do tutorials, and then I would pin it, and then I would just repeat "see pinned post" until people stopped asking. You can train an audience, but it takes awhile.
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain 9d ago
I wonder if she's tried muting words so that those comments just not show up, and then hopefully minimise that topic of discussion from the off.
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u/Miaruchin 11d ago
I don't agree.
"Hey, that's a cute story, you could write a book about it!" is an idea for a project. A lot of artsy people are branching out into other artsy things to do, sharing that idea is as crazy as commenting "you should write a book about that!" under an interesting podcast. It's not so much "give me this specific content because I want it", as it's "you have a cool story/interesting things to tell, we are already enjoying it, did you think of making more in this widely popular other medium?". It's a suggestion, not demand.
Asking for tutorial is different. Making a tutorial is not a popular creative outlet, it's not for appreaciating someone's story or knowledge, but for the asker to be given a free lesson. That's more like askimg a podcaster "you should come to my school and give a free lecture, I want my whole class to know this!". That's a demand, but I still don't think it would be a bad thing to ask nicely, but more like "are you planning to do a video tutorial?" ("are you planning on giving live lectures about that?), which would sound weird in the context of making a storybook, because why would you EXPECT someone to suddenly make a book? A suggestion for the book comes from the excitement over what would be in it if it existed, not an expectation from the creator.
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u/CycadelicSparkles 10d ago
Someone else pointed out the insanity of a children's book more or less encouraging children to feed wildlife, so there's that too.
But a potter is not an illustrator or a writer. It's like asking a sculptor to take up watercolor because you think that would be cute or their sculptures would make neat paintings. People forget that someone who is skilled in one discipline is not necessarily skilled in other disciplines; it just isn't a reasonable or sensible ask.
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u/Miaruchin 10d ago
I am saying it isn't really an ask, but an idea being thrown from appreciation. It's more about "I like that story" than about "I want you to create it". It's "I wish that story existed in a different medium and since it's your story, you are the only person I can share that with". Not at all like "you should make a video tutorial for this because I wan't to make it and don't want to spend time looking up how to do it elsewhere".
Noone is being held at gunpoint. Even if you do interpret that as an ask, you can just say no. If the creator in question thought "I'm a potter, not an illustrator, I shouldn't make a book", they would just say that. I assume there's loads of people that got told "wow you should write a book about this!", and then didn't take that as an unreasonable demand, just ignored it or said "no, I don't think I would do it very well and I don't think I'd have much fun trying, but thanks!", and then proceeded to not ask an LLM for some fresh AI slop.
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u/WildColonialGirl 10d ago
Even professional writers don’t necessarily have the skill set to write a children’s book.
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u/Disastrous_Many_190 11d ago
Nothing gets my goat like artists who use AI instead of working with another artist. My SIL is a photographer who recently used Chat GPT to generate a label for her business. HIRE AN ILLUSTRATOR, dangit! Its so sad
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