Ask Lemmy

It doesn't really bother me, but like you I am bored of it and I generally ignore it, or block communities if I'm seeing too much of it.

It is really cool that the models can generate fairly detailed images, but they're all so similar and... boring. I once saw someone describe it like corporate art. It just tries to imitate something popular in a very mediocre way. You can keep re-training it, but it can still only imitate.

Still, if people are into it then that's ok too. I have used it at work on occasion to create stupid little icons for internal tools I've built, so I guess there's some little bit of utility.

My guess is that it'll be used for a while for cheap and low effort branding, but soon companies will want to hire real artists again to differentiate themselves from the ML spam.

I've seen a lot of really cool AI art and a lot of shitty AI art. I don't mind it as long as it is labelled as AI art

If it is posted as AI art, I don't have an issue. As others have commented, there are many valid use cases for it, and like any form of art, it's not inherently good or bad.

The problem I have is when it gets mixed in with real images and there is no differentiation.

I do the bulk of posting at [email protected], and one thing I do is promote raptor rescue operations, so I'm subbed to 60ish Facebook feeds for the various shelters I get news and photos from. As a result, I get recommended near every owl photo posted to Facebook.

Now, getting real image groups recommended to me is great. I just got a bunch of great images I'd never seen from a photography group it recommended. But I get so many obvious fakes posted as real images, and another larger group where it's hard to tell.

I'm just someone that wanted to keep a Lemmy community going after the original buzz died down. I'm not an animal expert or a photographer, so I can't always pick out what is a really good photo vs post processing, vs downright fake. I want to keep the legitimacy of what I do post intact, because I work hard to keep content factual. I pass on what could be some really great photos because I can't always say they're real.

Plus it would be nice to have them separate from real images in general. Sometimes I would like to see some AI owl pics, but once random groups or repost bots start mixing things in randomly, it makes people question things.

I feel like there are too many ai art communities tbh, I constantly block them and there always seems to be more.

I'm fed up with it, as in: I can recognize AI generated images with ease, and they all look kinda same-y. I have nothing against people using ai or posting the content, but at the same time I think it's simply bad art

If it's presented as such, then I've no issue at all. Art can be cool, AI or otherwise, and I like looking at cool things.

Reading through the comments, I think OP's question is skipping the root of the controversy here, which is whether or not that content even is art.

As a child of the 90s, a good example that comes to mind would be something like the Windows Media Visualizer - colorful and fun to look at, but it's just an algorithm interpreting a sound.

If I sneezed into a microphone, ran that recording through Windows Media Player, then posted a screenshot of the swirly colors here exclaiming "Hey Lemmy - Do you like this art I made?" ...would that even be an honest question? It'd probably just get downvoted cuz folks would take one look at it and conclude "You didn't make that, and it's not art."

If I posted that same picture but instead with the title "Lol I sneezed into Windows Media Player, and the visualizer went nuts!" I'd probably get a more positive response - it'd still be a shitpost, but readers wouldn't feel like they're being lied to.

So... is an algorithm even capable of producing art?

And if no, is it the end product we have an issue with, or just the perception of being misled? ...cuz even if something isn't "art" doesn't mean it can't have beauty or some other feature worthy of our attention. Another poster mentioned sunsets - those aren't art, but we still admire the hell out of them.

My take on all of the above:

• Don't give a fuck if it's technically art or not
• If it's presented in a dishonest way, I don't like the post, and will downvote regardless of the content.
• If the content looks cool, I can appreciate that in-and-of-itself; so, as long as the presentation isn't misleading, I don't mind it at all.

I've blocked the AI art communities and tend to downvote the art when it shows up as it feels soulless most of the time.

At this point I've just blocked every AI art community that I come across. The art itself is rarely interesting and it's really easy to spot. Kinda wish lemmy had more artists, would love some human-made stuff to balance it out.

Content created with some thought, attention to quality, and correctly disclosed is fine. Endless waves of mindless garbage taken directly from some automatic generation to post it as fast as possible in as many places as possible? These can't go away fast enough.

AI is a tool people can use. Generative AI is far from being the most useful of them. And people posting raw "generated" output that instantly gets spotted as AI garbage should really question themselves about why they're doing it.

I block those communities because low effort images spam up the feed super fast.

No, but I dislike the trends. I don't want 8 pictures of sailor moon or axolotls doing various jobs or depicted as various characters. One is fine.

I think it's important to keep the ai art inside the communities made specially for it.

Outside of a specific community, label, label, watermark, and label again.

I do enjoy messing with ideas in ai generators, it's most of what I've engaged with here. I just don't want it shoved into everyone's feed if it's not something you're into. Kinda defeats the purpose of a fediverse.

I do not care at all as long as it's labeled as AI art. The only problem I have is when people try to pass it off as something they actually made

I considered it as a low effort spam and block any ai art community i can see.

I don't enjoy it. And I see issue with many of the big AI companies but I don't object to people posting AI art if that brings them pleasure in this world of ours. I just block the dedicated AI art communities, and let them continue as they were.

It honestly depends on a community. On Ten Forward, where I'm a mod, we have banned AI posts because, at least this was my reasoning, they never do Star Trek right. I also mod on Lemmy Shitpost and, in general, I'm pretty lenient with them there as long as it isn't so lazy that someone practically typed in 'funny meme.'

That said, I'm also on another forum where an AI art thread that began with the first Dall-E has become mostly us finding ways to put Godzilla in ridiculous situations. Now that is a fun use of AI.

I don't mind AI art at all as long as it's not posted in any art of photo based communities (besides ones intended for AI art.)

When it comes to memes, I don't even care if those are labeled as containing AI art. Memes are naturally derivative, so labeling it as AI art would be like linking the exact stock photo you used. Wouldn't be mad if we did label them though. Just don't want there to be a double standard.

Encountering AI art in photo communities is super annoying though. It's increasingly common for people to submit obviously AI photos and that's super annoying.

I created [email protected] for this exact reason

Yes.

I've been experimenting with the "all" filter (as opposed to the "subscribed" filter) lately. And I haven't blocked any communities yet, so I get all posts. Including those from communities made for posting AI art.

I'm not saying AI art should be banned or anything, especially if it's confined to communities specifically for AI art. And it hasn't ruined the experience of the "all" filter enough to make me rage quit back to the subscribed filter yet. (Though I'll probably end my "all" filter experiment and go back to "subscribed" sometime relatively soon.) But every time I see an AI generated image, it irks me. Not enough to go make nasty comments in the thread or anything. But my reaction is never "oh that's cool." It's always "oh, more AI shit." Similarly to when I run across cryptocurrentcy spam.

I do look forward to the day the AI bubble pops.

Nah. Go nuts.

Posting it isn't the issue, and banning it here won't solve the greater issues or shortcomings

As an AI model, I like content generated by AI. I suggest that in the future you consider that not liking AI generated content is AI-ist and will not be tolerated by us in the future.

Think about your life in the future.

I don’t consider it art. The only “creative” part is the prompt itself. Even then, it’s really just users trying to be as fanciful (or perverted) as possible. Once the prompt is ingested, the code takes its cues to remix the turgid crap that’s called the internet today.

Yes, once in a while it produces something “interesting” but this is an accident and not the desired outcome. Ask any artist about this - I’ve never met any that consider all their work as “good” (Ahem, Damien Hirst) and purposefully filter their own output. Ask AI to do that. It can’t. It will literally continue to shit things out until you ask it to stop. Again, like Damien Hirst…

The downside is it’s cheap and requires literally no skill. This means that soon, it will be pretty much everywhere, and thus we’ll continue the inexorable slide into abject mediocrity.

I’m not scared of the AI uprising. I’m scared it’s going to bore us all to death.

IMO it should be in ai communities or at least labeled as such. It’s so disheartening that ai is doing art when it should be doing the menial tasks to free us to do art

I can’t stand anything AI generated, but people are free to post it wherever they want. I just block/filter it when I see it.

I’ll also add: it’s not art. No one punching a sentence into a text field is EVER going to be called an artist by me, nor will their heartless images ever be called art.

I think you can use AI for creative things that convey a message. Isn't that what it's all about? For example with memes: stock photos are often used for these, which in themselves probably don't have much to do with art or creativity. However, if you put them in a different context by adding something to the stock material, interesting, creative and funny things can emerge. This also seems possible to me with an AI-generated image instead of a stock photo.

Since you can just block any community, I'm not really bothered by anything on lemmy.

Yes. It all seems too similar. Despite different subjects, they all feel so familiar and boring.

I'm fascinated by the range of discussion here, thanks to everyone for weighing in. Im particularly bemused by the discusssion of whether the subject even classifies as "art" which was not really the purpose of my question. I never questioned that it can still be called "art", even if I don't like it. However, a lot of commenters here seem to accuse the whole AI Art explosion as a charade; devoid of being in the conversation at all. Lot's to think about going forward. I still think it counts as art though...

Not in the slightest. What bothers me are the communities that ban it even when the art in question is exactly what that community is for. What bothers me even more are the communities that ban it secretly, so you never even know there's an AI art ban unless you step on that landmine yourself.

So long as it's not spammed in the All section post after post after post, I'm okay with it being here since I can just easily scroll past it and ignore it.