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[Matheld]

Maybe I just expect too much from people, expect that they carry themselves with dignity and honour. Maybe I'm a fool for thinking so. Maybe I'm just a stupid idealist. But is it really that much to ask people to credit their work, to make sure they are using the least controversial option available, the least shady? One such option has already been suggested, and it's already proven to be good enough for modding, at least for Starsector.

Why do we have to automatically assume that people will intentionally be *** about it and try to get away with as much trash as they can? Why is it okay to do it, even if there is no explicit rule about it? You want to foster a modding community without toxicity? Well so far the toxicity I've seen comes from the people who defend the generators vehemently, complaining and trashing and acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum. And some of these people I assume already know about the potential ethical and legal issues, they just don't care.


Why is being informed and being critical a bad thing? Why is it a bad idea to go looking for other options when they exist? And hope that others would feel the same thing?
I get it, you want cool art for the mods you (Editors Note: You as in anyone who wants to make a mod) create. But why does it HAVE to be a generator with dubious ethical and legal issues? Why not one that doesn't have it?
Why does it have to be a generator, when it could be art you've gotten permission to use?
Why does it have to be a generator, when it could be art with the CC licensing that would let you use it?
Why does it have to be a generator, when it could be art you drew yourself? No matter how badly it would be?
Why does it have to be a generator, when it could be art you've commissioned, or been gifted? I get it, not everyone has money to spend on passion projects.


But that doesn't mean you automatically have to go steal the tools you need to make a tree house, or steal the material you need to make it. Even if the people you stole it from won't be missing it. You can ask to use, you can ask to borrow, you can ask for permission.

Most of the times... people will say yes, as long as they are credited, a lot of people would be happy to have their art reach a wider audience.
Sometimes you might get a no but.. I don't know.

I don't think putting restrictions on AI Generators will have that much of an affect in the grand scheme of things, people will just replace it with something else. But I would like to see it remain in place anyway. and for the moderators to figure out a good way to.. well.. moderate it.

Edit: If I were to make a public mod, I know I would at least try to make sure to credit everything I use and get permission to use stuff. But that's me I guess, but it shouldn't be that hard.

[Grievous69]

Why do we have to automatically assume that people will intentionally be *** about it and try to get away with as much trash as they can?

I get what you're trying to say in general, but this specific question. Don't you know how people usually behave? Maybe you live in a totally different place on the planet, and spend way less time online than most here, but in my experience, if there is room for people to be ***, they will be ***. Obviously not all of them, but a noticeable part.

[Matheld]

Why do we have to automatically assume that people will intentionally be *** about it and try to get away with as much trash as they can?

I get what you're trying to say in general, but this specific question. Don't you know how people usually behave? Maybe you live in a totally different place on the planet, and spend way less time online than most here, but in my experience, if there is room for people to be ***, they will be ***. Obviously not all of them, but a noticeable part.

Oh I know exactly what the internet is capable of and how. It's why I'm a staunch believer in doing the right thing. Even if "The right thing" is a heavily subjective term.

The Golden Rule: Do to others what you wish they did to you... Or however it went.

In this matter, I fully believe the right thing is to credit the works you use, and I won't budge on it, I'm afraid.

No matter how small their work is, no matter how small your own work is. I feel that you must always do your best, as best as you can. And in this subject it's.. crediting. Cause it's just.. simply about respect? Respect for the people who's work you use, and respect for yourself.

[iguanaman]

I am a bit confused about the current ruling, is it currently in effect?  It seems to be given it's in the "Forum Rules and Guidelines" already.

Is it in effect, but not being enforced?  If so that seems only to hurt those with honest intentions, while enabling unscrupulous authors to purposely ignore the rules.

It also brushes the issue under the rug - as the big modders can keep their mods up, while potential new mods are silently dropped.

[Alex]

Let's just say it's in abeyance for the moment. I should be able to provide more clarity in the next couple of days.

[Ontheheavens]

game with such a rich modding scene is trying to shoot itself in the foot.

This is more or less my impression as to what happens here.

I'm not using AI to generate graphics, I don't play with mods that have AI graphics; don't have a horse in this race.

However, I think it would be prudent for whoever is in charge to think twice before introducing any restriction that has a reasonable prospect of deterring content creators from the community, or fracturing the community itself. Don't kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Spoiler

So, frankly, I reject this argument. I've been spending my entire life automating things to improve my workflow, because I'm lazy and I want the whole world to be able to afford to be lazy, too. Generations of very smart people figuring out to do it better, faster, cheaper- sometimes even all three- are why we're able to feed, clothe and care for more people than ever before. I get that dumb people think "progress" is just some tech-bro way to say, "you'll own nothing, and you'll love it", etc., but that's short-sighted. When we can create more value with fewer resources, it's the opposite of zero-sum.

This tech, applied to visual art, really just frees up people to get on with things and make work happen more quickly. For commercial artists, it's more of a boon than a disaster; the next generation of visual artists will be training their own AIs on their own stylistic approaches to improve their output and quit wasting time on, "this is how I like to light edges" or other small details, except when they wish to (and then they'll push said edits back into the AI models to improve its ability to save them time on their next works).

That will allow artists to focus on the big picture- what is their style, what are they composing, how do they want the viewer to feel, think or approach their work. That's not Big Tech Tyranny, it's freedom.

Yes, that means artists who don't develop a style and are basically just executing stuff that's already around... are hosed. That's fine; we don't need more mediocre copy-pasta art from humans. Let the AIs do that, because they're good for that. But they don't create new ideas, conceptual approaches, visual styles or methods. For actual artists, who create new things and push boundaries and explore conceptually and teach us about ourselves... this is an almost entirely good tech. None of this stuff can replace David's continual growth as a painter or designer. The coder versions of these tools can't replace Alex as a game designer. But both of them can be empowered by these tools.

[close]

Very well put!

[iguanaman]

Let's just say it's in abeyance for the moment. I should be able to provide more clarity in the next couple of days.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Btw I don't envy you having to make these decisions.  Must be tricky with the technology so new, and the law on it still up in the air.  Plus it's a fairly polarising topic, with strong opinions on both sides.

[Alex]

Btw I don't envy you having to make these decisions.  Must be tricky with the technology so new, and the law on it still up in the air.  Plus it's a fairly polarising topic, with strong opinions on both sides.

Thank you, I appreciate that!

[xenoargh]

@Alex: It was a while back. Then it metastasized. When I showed, "can make OK ships" we crossed the Rubicon, unfortunately. Sorry?

I tried being nice about it, and gave out information on how to do it as best as I could, which looks more and more woefully ignorant the further I go. Now I'm starting to do neat stuff with multi-LORA techniques, etc., and I'm having a blast, when I have time to mess with this tech (IRL has not been cooperating much).

Simplest solution I can think of in terms of moderation, is to make sure that everyone is crediting each and every piece of their art, and where it come from. Preferably with direct links if possible.

<snip>

I would almost go so far as to say that the only generated art that should be allowed, would have to come from the adobe firefly one. Watermarks and all.

Sigh. So, the court rulings that say that this "ethical" argument is largely wrong don't move you? Actual adults, who've looked at the tech?

Fine. Let's examine your ideal workflow here.

1. Use tools you think are ethical.
2. Produce absolute proof you've used nothing else.
3. Do the laborious work of providing said proof, ad nauseum.

It's... a position? I don't think it's defensible at all, given the facts.

[Matheld]

I am not going to entertain your childish remarks. Or even pretend to have an actual argument with you since you only seem to care to enrage and be angry about tech that hasn't been proven to be either ethical or fully legal (But heavy proof that it is neither ethical or fully legal), which future is still up in the air whether or not it will be outlawed in places like the EU.

If you cannot argue your case without devolving into another childish temper tantrum, then we have no more reason to interact.

[xenoargh]

I think your position is untenable, unworkable, impractical and unethical. Simple enough?

[Alex]

When I showed, "can make OK ships" we crossed the Rubicon, unfortunately. Sorry?

I'm confused; what does any of this have to do with this thread? I think you have the idea that something you did had some causal effect in relation to this thread? Maybe I'm missing some prior interactions that happened, but on the face of it, that seems ... unlikely.

[HEAVY SARCASM DETECTED INCOMING]
[DO NOT READ IF TRIGGERED BY REALITY]

I realize this discussion can get a bit heated, but: putting stuff in spoilers (or claiming sarcasm) is not an excuse to circumvent the forum rules about treating other forum users with respect.

[xenoargh]

Fair enough. Sarcasm is deleted.

I stand by my statements, if not the tone. I think that this is chasing a chimera. AI hasn't been ruled as directly infringing anything. I don't think it will, even in the EU; there's simply too much obvious value here. What level of greasy compromise is eventually reached is largely a political decision. My prediction? It's the Wild West for the next decade, at least in the U.S., except for very-obviously-infringing-under-copyright-guidelines materials are produced.

Like, if you make a cartoon of Mickey Mouse fighting it out with Donald Duck, and they're clearly infringing depictions... you'll get sued. Stuff like my ships or portrait packs and so forth? No, because it's so far removed from any one work in particular. People wanting to be ethical merely have to use the tools to produce works in a reasonable, ethical way, for the most part, like my workflow demonstrated.

[Matheld]

Cause I can't help myself, and out of simple curiosity, I checked the second link your posted a bit closer (Your whataboutism is immaculate by the way). The arstechnica one?

I have a hard time understanding how a courts ruling that the AI art work in the AI assisted comic cannot be copyright protected is in any form supporting what you tried to put down in text?
Since you deleted it, I cannot double check what you said. But, quote from article

the Office concludes that the images generated by Midjourney contained within the Work are not original works of authorship protected by copyright

Despite precedents for earlier algorithmically generated artwork receiving copyright protection, this ruling means that AI-generated imagery, without human-authored elements, cannot currently be copyrighted in the United States.

So, AI Generated artwork cannot be copyright protected... How does this have anything to do with crediting, permissions and making sure that the program you use hasn't been trained on illegitimately collected data?

As for the workflow, Yeah that is about right for anything someone create that they don't themselves own, laborious crediting and sourcing. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, but it's necessary.

Edit, Cause I keep coming up with more stuff to say after hitting post, ADHD brain be like: Because that is what all this will come down to eventually in regards to the legal stuff. Tech moves too fast for legislation sometimes, and courts have a hard time catching up. But it will come down to "Is it okay for AI Generators to take and use data like this?". And given how copyright and CC licenses work at the moment.. I don't think AI will come out on top of this, short of there being a new addition in the CC line up that artists and others can flag their project with.

IE, same as how someone can flag their work as "You can use it however you want", they will probably make it something like. "This work can/cannot be used in AI training".
Now whether companies will get away with doing it anyway is another thing entirely and not the point of this discussion or this thread, I'd argue.

[xenoargh]

So, AI Generated artwork cannot be copyright protected... How does this have anything to do with crediting, permissions and making sure that the program you use hasn't been trained on illegitimately collected data?

Whew, that's a lot of things to unpack.

1. "AI Generated artwork cannot be copyright protected". You misread the case, lol. It went deeper than that. Basically, their conclusion was that the author couldn't claim ownership, for the same reason why artists can't arbitrarily sue the AI companies- specific authorship cannot be reliably determined.
2. "How does this have anything to do with crediting, permissions" How do you credit things that are literally collages of possibly millions of sources put together by an algorithm?
3. What is "illegitimately collected data"? Scraping's 100% legal, you know.

As for the workflow, Yeah that is about right for anything someone create that they don't themselves own, laborious crediting and sourcing. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, but it's necessary.

This is a specious argument. It's like saying you can't post a Photoshop-edited image unless always posting the name of every coder who ever worked on the software, as well as citing all of the papers they consulted while constructed their software, and so forth.

Obviously, no, we don't bother IRL, because it's silly. Your argument is reductio ad absurdum. IRL, if we want to make a nod to the unlikely legal perils of work that emerged from sheer chance, fine... "made this with AI" is sufficient.


But look, let's try a more-sympathetic edit.

1. I'm not OK with somebody making a LORA of your work in particular, should they make things that are very nearly like your work. IDK exactly where the line should be drawn, but there's somewhere that's "too far". I don't see any evidence anybody's crossed that.
2. I understand that this freaks you out. But you need to be on the train, rather than complaining the tracks are here.