Selling 'art' from Midjourney in SL and intellectual honesty

[Anaryane]

I'm not entirely sure where to post this, and I suppose this thread isn't as important, being more related to my musings/reflections, so I'll still drop it here. So here it goes,

I found myself facing a dilemma while visiting certain exhibitions, particularly due to the use of photorealistic images generated via Midjourney (the style and details never deceive). While I don't mind this when they only accompany an idea, a theme, or a storyline not for sale just for illustration. The issue arises when these images are sold for 500 L$, at the same price as few pics created by the person in Second Life. I can't consider the individuals who created the exhibition as intellectually honest. You might say that the expense is only up to the buyers, but I have an ethical problem regarding creation, and I find it challenging to grasp that something is being sold in this manner when nothing has been strictly created or modified.

And I don't know what stance to take on this. I might be nitpicking and overthinking it for nothing, while probably already having the appropriate answers, but I don't know, I just felt the need to talk about it.

[ValKalAstra]

Yah, this is a thorny subject for sure. A while back I decided I'd rather ride the wave than be crushed by it and took the time to familiarize myself with AI image generation. This has given me a perspective that I personally consider more healthy for my frame of reference. First I think there's a notable difference between snapshot AI art and deliberate AI art. Let me explain the difference to me:

• Snapshot AI Art is basically just feeding a prompt to midjourney and getting back a fancy image. You might reroll a few times but that's it.
• Deliberate AI Art is using something like Stable Diffusion, training LORAs, feeding it a basic prompt, inpainting aspects, adjusting CFG values, clipskip, samplers, controlling poses and lighting with Controlnets, learning additional extensions for specialised purposes - it very quickly gets very elaborate.

At that point I felt reminded of a debate I had seen a few times in my life, that of what real art is and isn't and how some new technology will always kill it. I've seen it with image editing, I've seen it with digital cameras. I've seen it with mobile cameras and easy filters (which by the way, machine learned!). It's a scary new technology, there is a lot of FUD floating around about it but at the end of a day it's a tool that will change how we approach media yet again.

There's already an interesting cultural change happening now in that the typical midjourney style is rather notable, as is the generic AI Girl Face. If you follow the AI communities closely, you'll see them find even more issues, such as repeating patterns, perspective troubles or shadows that are wrong, clothing lines that make no sense, even buttons that are off. While yes, it's very easy to create something pleasing, people are quickly adapting to it.

As are professional artists - there are more and more works generated in a blend between traditional art and generative art together. Ultimately, tastes will change because of this but I've got no doubt that talented people will create much better works than someone just putting in prompts. Then, as for selling things in Second Life - honestly, the only thing I mind about that is the marketplace becoming even less usable as generative spam will drown it out. Perhaps that will light a fire under LLs bum to get that fixed? A girl can dream!

As for myself, I'll probably chuckle about people selling their quick AI prompt image but if it looks like actual work went into it - I really don't mind, as the additional work and effort put into it is precisely the human element detractors claim is missing. Right now I also find it easy to tell whether something was just a prompt or actual effort. That might change, sure - but culture changes constantly.

 

[Arine96]

The moral thing to do is: To be honest.

Selling anything in SL is always a struggle for me. I mean i found stores selling Original Branded Shirts. Iconic Armours and Weapons from games, Nike Shoes etc.
For me from the day i did my first dive in SL it felt like the wild west. It was back than and it still now crazy to me how much of that exists.

AI Art often is a moral dilemma as many claim its, art theft as the art of people was used to train the AI. As someone that made little AI models of my and a friend SL Avatar. That's now even more complicated. My Avatar? Is that me ? Is that the representation of the maker of the clothes, the body, the head, the skin etc. Phew

For me personally, i don't sell any of that. For me its purely for my own expression. And because i know the heated debate about it, i don't even feel comfortable sharing it public, At the same time. I don't put my AI pictures on flickr even because i know the cultural backlash it faces fast.

I saw even early last year, AI photos be sold on Etsy. People payed real money for AI photos. Maybe not a lot but enough for people to make a few thousand bucks. It was clearly all labelled as AI. And i guess the value for the buyers was, they got exactly what they wanted.

I seen in SL at this Point, AI Art everywhere. In stores to advertise, on clothes and logos or just as photos.

In the real world you now have the same issue. Since stock photo markets are flushed with AI Pictures. Even Wacom, The maker of the Cintiq Drawing Tablets. The Tablets many proffesional Artists use. Had AI Pictures in their advertising because they bought it of a stock photo site.

There were book covers where the author was cancelled almost because of the same thing. As their book cover had a AI picture and they didnt even knew it was ai since bought of a stock photo site... and it got to the point the book was pulled from the market.

It can literally even harm artist. The entire emotional debate around it is very toxic.

In the end we value labour and skill in art. With AI, often the labour can fall away. And the percieved value with it. Even if the product itself is something awe inspiring people percieve it as worthless.

So this leaves us at the end at the point. What do we do about it ?
I can't tell you, i understand all sites. And i feel very emotional about it myself.
I have artists friends and i made silly AI pictures that made others laugh.

As Customer, you have to make the decision who to trust. And what is worth your money.
And as seller, its simply. Be honest or not. You have to live with that.

I was a while ago be flirtet at. And the other person send me out of the blue in SL a photo realistic AI Picture. It wasnt even well made as someone being around AI i saw it immediately.
So yes there are dishonest actors out there. Has been before AI as well.

Maybe the real way is to get to know the creator of what ever art. Learn about them, what and how they do things and judge yourself as customer if asked price is worth it for you.

 

 

[sandi Mexicola]

3 hours ago, ValKalAstra said:

clothing lines that make no sense

no, no, that's really me!  lol

[ValKalAstra]

6 minutes ago, sandi Mexicola said:

no, no, that's really me!  lol

Or my broken english

Sorry, I meant seams (probably).

[Istelathis]

If people are willing to spend the money,  then all the power to them.  Our own ethics, should not take precedence in such trivial ordeals such as transactions of machine generated art, the more we push our own morality on others, the less free we all become.  I mean, unless we all want to have our lives dictated to us, just don't expect that your own set of ethics will always be at the helm.

 

 

[PekeNL]

Ohboy. AI and art in the same sentence. I'm getting some popcorn for this.

[Anaryane]

13 hours ago, PekeNL said:

Oh mec. IA et art dans la même phrase. Je vais chercher du pop-corn pour ça.

Hence the quotation marks.

[Katherine Heartsong]

As an artist of 40+ years, I have mixed feelings about the OPs question.

Aside > It's not AI it's Machine Learning (ML) btw, there's no more intelligence to it than a mote of dust has intelligence. I despise that term, anyway ...

I'm okay with "art" generated by things like Midjourney, DALL-E etc because I have yet to see anything produced by those algorithms that has moved me emotionally from a simple "meh". That's how I define "art", btw ... if a visual thing like a painting or sculpture or photograph moves me emotionally it becomes art, and the further it moves me from a neutral "meh" the better. Doesn't matter if it moves me towards tears of bliss or an angry rage, the more emotional the response the better the art because, as an artist, I can then engage a viewer and ask "Why?" Those art generating MLs don't have that affect on me. They can be well composed, mimicking, decent colours, sometimes even quite nice to look at etc, but they do not affect me emotionally.

Furthermore, as artist Ai Weiwei recently said in an article, if your art is easily reproduced by a machine, it's not good art to begin with. (Remember, that most art is given economic values by a small clique of insiders who tell you what is great art. A pile of silver pins on a gallery floor may not seem like it's worth $150,000, but they think it is, and someone will buy it. Welcome to Art Basel Miami Beach!!!)

One last aside > If there is a moral issue around these MLs, it's the fault of the companies that actually have gathered all the art up and store it in data sets for those MLs to analyze and reduce to simple mathematical algorithms. That's what most people fail to know about Midjourney et al ... they do not scrape and store the art themselves, they simply use datasets of art gathered by others to reduce an artist's oeuvre to a series of math formulas that in essence, mimic a style (and style can not be copyrighted, btw = problem).

Back to the OP. (Yes, finally.)

As an artist, I'm okay with ML generated art, as long as it's labeled as such. I like attribution. Once you are informed as a buyer about that, then you can make a better buying decision weighing pros and cons and the hidden costs of the associated externalities.

In my own gallery I clearly state that while I do all of my abstract works exactly as if I was in my studio, I do use Pixelmator Pro in the end to sometimes adjust colours, heighten textures, or modify the saturation levels of my work. I don't use filters to create the pieces, it's all custom digital brushes laid down by hand one stroke at a time, but I fiddle with colour after the work is "done".

Photographs will ruin art, digital art programs like Painter aren't really art (confusing the tool with the end product), digital photos will ruin film, 8K digital film making will kill 35mm and 70mm film cinema, etc. heard it all before. Art and how we create it changes, and that's good. But is "AI" art art? Not that I've seen yet. It mimicks and vaguely reproduces styles, but lacks emotion (so far).

 

Edited March 6 by Katherine Heartsong

[Katherine Heartsong]

20 hours ago, Arine96 said:

In the end we value labour and skill in art.

As an artist, I wish this were true.

Once you move into the "art world" and galleries etc, labour and skill have very very little to with how art is valued, or how an artist is perceived.

The art world is a very insane, small clique of insular, paranoid, egotistical insiders and gatekeepers who believe they are the only ones who can "value" art. Anyone who has ever read a small piece of wall text/label explaining a piece on the wall beside a work of art is already in those people's snares. That's their interpretation they are selling you. Don't read it. Look at a work yourself and think your own thoughts.

[Devilgrey]

personally don't like generative-ai, bc of the unethical data sourcing the companies committed to create their ai tools and these companies. I also don't really like the idea of off-loading creativity to machines. however even if AI companies went through ethical routes of data training, i wouldn't touch it bc i'd rather learn and improve skills. i just like the process of creating.

NGL i dislike coming across sellers and creators in SL on mp or inworld using ai, but not disclosing it. It's dishonest to costumers, especially when using ai on product photos so they look ultra-realistic (in the gen-ai type of way). the least someone could do is disclose it bc it somewhat comes off as scammerish to not do it. not everyone wants to buy generative-ai stuff.

[Unca Avro]

On 3/5/2024 at 9:32 AM, Anaryane said:

And I don't know what stance to take on this. I might be nitpicking and overthinking it for nothing, while probably already having the appropriate answers, but I don't know, I just felt the need to talk about it.

Respectfully, I think you, and everyone else is overthinking this. If the seller is miss-representing their work as anything but Ai, generated, then they are committing fraud. If they are honest about it, so what? Don't buy it. I speak as an Artist/Animator who uses SL Machinima and MedJourney openly and freely. They are merely a higher level of tools than paintbrushes and steel nib pens, but only tools non-theless.

[sandi Mexicola]

On 5/2/2024 at 11:14 AM, Unca Avro said:

MedJourney

sounds like an interesting app  😁