SHINAN'S PROFILE

I guess I could werewolf

And even back then I think the people using it disparagingly were in the minority. I just don't have a sense that it has ever been a negatively charged word outside of... you know... people like me.

author=RedMask
I noticed a few people in this discussion bad mouthed tracing. You guys don't know art very well. I happen to have a bachelors degree in art illustration. For one assignment our teacher had us replicate a master illustrator's painting as perfectly as possible and although you can't trace a painting, we were encouraged by our professor to trace the masterpiece art and then paint on top of it. I remember my professor clearly saying, "How you make art doesn't matter, the end result is what matters." This statement was from a highly respected art teacher. Having said all that, I don't know how he or my other teachers would react to AI art. I haven't fully formed my opinion on the AI subject yet.

My original comment about it being as unethical as tracing was not meant to be disparaging of tracing. Instead it was supposed to be a literal comparison to how ethical it is.

I used tracing instead of copying because in my mind the difference between copying and tracing is it there will be imperfections and in some cases even a slight personal touch. Thus making the work somewhat but not completely transformative.

And in that way tracing can create a new piece of work that is its own thing while also being a copy of a different work. The ethicalness of that is the same as the point we've all made in this thread over and over. Is that the ethicalness of it all is depending on why you do it and what you will do with the result.

The sidetracking that seems to happen is in the idea that unethical=bad and ethical=good. When it doesn't really matter if the art is good or bad (or even art) or whatever. The unethicalness of AI art comes in the procedure of stealing other people's art without crediting them. Shamelessly opening pandora's box to teach algorithms to create new images without the consent of the people who have been wronged.

That's why AI art is currently unethical it was made through a shitty procedure by people who didn't give a shit about artists.

This doesn't mean that ethical AI art can't exist. By willing participants, teaching algorithms to generate new stuff by using... "ethically sourced" art.

It's not an either/or. AI art can be both ethical and unethical and it's all about how it's produced and why.