cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/35230638

I love drawing so much and it’s taken years to get to a point where I’m satisfied enough to share my drawings. Only thing is now there’s AI and I’m disturbed by the fact there’s so many people who prefer AI generated art and will feel no remorse using it since it is basically an art theft machine. This whole thing has absolutely demolished my mental health over the last few years since AI generators went mainstream. I’m paranoid as fuck and want to get rid of all my current devices but, I still rely on the ipad heavily for drawing and I did the research and there’s literally no work around to avoid my art being stolen in some way by spyware or keyloggers or whatever, the US government…the whatever other governments. Hide your data, hide your art. They stealin everybody’s art out here. I just want to be able to live my life and enjoy doing what I do without this ugly, uncanny valley shadow following me. There’s like a million communities on lemmy I had to block that are dedicated to posting ai generated art, and feels almost like an act of spite like they made the accounts just to hurt real artists, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe they really do think it’s real art and anyone hurt by it is just too sensitive.

I’m not alright with AI art. It’s digital r*pe, it steals people’s livelihood (and money) and most sacred, intimate details, and hard work without their consent. But we are all behind screens so people don’t understand how it wrecks people who’ve gone to school or self taught themselves to draw for ten or more years. I’ve had periods where I had to rebuild my drawing skills because I lost them during bouts of illness. That is a hard thing to do. I know there are people who never do it.
I feel kind of hopeless at this time. My depression is telling me there’s no point, because I will never be able to earn a penny off my drawings. But I heard someone say, so what. Do the thing anyway. Birds aren’t paid to sing. They just do it anyway, because it feels good. Drawing makes me feel good. And it’s really all I can do as a disabled, severely mentally ill and chronically ill person. I can barely contribute to society and it crushes my self worth. Drawing helps make up for it. People don’t need art though so they don’t really care as long as at the end of the day they have something to jack off to.

Jesse Gender did a good video essay on why AI art is fcked up titled “How AI is Destroying Our Dreams.” The people that need to hear this message the most (the ones that love and regularly use AI art generators) are the ones who would reject it with a whataboutism, which isn’t a real argument but a shutdown to the simple fact that AI should be used to help people, like you know, cure cancer and be a prosthetic arm for someone in need, that sort of thing. This is a sick trend…it would be amazing for there to be some kind of digital human rights law set in place that prohibits the use of it. Hard to implement something like that in these times. If you use and support AI art generators, you are not much better than Elon and Trump and need to self reflect, you don’t have to live like this. If you want to make art, you can. I cherish human made art even more now than I ever did in the past. The art community is welcoming to anyone with the audacity to put a pen to a blank page.

I don’t really believe in talent. “Talent” is a combination of factors including persistence, a genuine love of doing it even though it’s hard, curiosity and desire to learn, and privilege–I was very lucky to be given the supplies to make art and improve my skills more quickly. My education was paid for, my family supported my desire to draw at an early age. And there was a period in my life where I had space to explore this hobby.

I know there’s nothing I can say to change people’s minds. But that is what I feel anyway and might as well say it. I have no animosity for people who studied to work with AI for other reasons like exactly what I mentioned–curing diseases and working for the good of humanity. It’s likely they didn’t sign up for this to happen down the road. AI art generating is blatant lack of empathy. It costs nothing to get AI to generate art. It costs nothing to be kind either.