\u201cIt\u2019s art theft\u201d: AI art is taking over VTubing, but murky ethics worry artists YouTube: Gawr Gura \/ NovelAI: GreyfoxdeltaArtificial intelligence and machine learning now has the art realm in its grasp. While the technology is getting more advanced with photogenic creations, the VTubing world is grasping with a new reality where AI art overruns the medium full of human artists. While AI image creation programs have existed for a number of years, only in 2022 has it been truly classified as \u2018art\u2019. NovelAI, Midjourney, and DALL-E are just some of the big names floating around in the space; AI that can take one line prompts and transform them into intricate pieces, which users can then tinker with to get what they are looking for. It\u2019s very easy to get your hands on one of these programs as a non-artist and type in a prompt to feel like one of the best. Want to replicate a Van Gogh piece, or put accessories on the Mona Lisa? These programs can do that and more. Whether it\u2019s AI or just machine learning is another debate, but the programs are quickly reaching photogenic quality as it\u2019s fed millions of prompts a day, scraping billions of images on the internet \u2014 mostly without explicit artist permission. In any space this is a threat to human artists, but the effects are being felt well and truly in the VTubing industry. Twitter trends are full of pieces of top VTubers and fan prompts generating AI art. Hololive, NIJISANJI, independent stars are all being fed into the machine, and their art tags are bombarded with computer-made pieces that\u2019s becoming harder to distinguish from someone\u2019s hand-drawn work. To give fans the benefit of the doubt, most are doing it to create fan art of their favorite virtual stars. However the gray area AI art lives in could lead to legal troubles at all ends, and it presents a moral and ethical dilemma in a space that hasn\u2019t just relied on the human hand to thrive, but wouldn\u2019t exist without it. Some VTubers are already making their stance known. Hololive stars Gawr Gura, Takanashi Kiara, and Mori Calliope haven\u2019t necessarily condemned the practice entirely, but have asked fans to not use their dedicated hashtags to promote AI art. Independent VTubers like Bao have followed in their lead. \u201cAs there is a rise in popularity for AI created art, I want to request everyone who makes use of these functions to not post their AI created art in my art hashtag as it might be hard to differentiate in certain cases and I would only like originally created art there,\u201d Kiara told fans. \u201cAs I scroll through my art hashtag now, one of these days I\u2019m going to accidentally like something from an AI art and I feel like you guys are going to light me ablaze and flame me,\u201d Gura added on stream. \u201cI understand the AI art is a little bit eh, but it\u2019s gotten so realistic looking I have a hard time differentiating.\u201d There is also a consensus artificial intelligence has been exploiting existing art pieces to \u2018learn\u2019 styles and become more realistic, often without the artists\u2019 knowing. This has led to some conflict. \u201cAre you saying a human using my character design as a reference to draw something from scratch with the skill they acquired over years by practice versus a computer throwing together random existing unrelated art without the artist\u2019s permission is the same,\u201d Kiara told one fan. From the artist\u2019s side, there\u2019s a genuine fear of what this could mean for the future of VTubing. It\u2019s not just fan art that\u2019s an issue. AI art could become the norm for someone looking for a cheap VTuber model, taking work away from artists who have honed their craft for years. Why commission pieces when you can subscribe to a service for much cheaper? It\u2019s in a legal, moral, and ethical gray zone. However, in the words of \u2018Lucks\u2019, an adult VArtist who has been doing art for a decade, the way these AI programs work is purely \u201cart theft\u201d. \u201cIn the broader scope, I see this as outsiders with bad intentions trying to force themselves into the art community just like with NFTs last year,\u201d they told Dexerto. \u201cThey want to put in no effort, but reap all of the rewards. \u201cThe main problem with AI art as it\u2019s being used now is the copyright infringement and dubious legality of stealing someone\u2019s work and using it commercially without any license, no payment to the artists, not even a mention of the artists in the database.\u201d There is a lot of doom and gloom around the subject, with many echoing a sentiment of AI art potentially replacing the human hand, especially in the VTuber space. Artists themselves, however, know the importance of their work \u2014 and it\u2019s more than just how it looks. \u201cAI art is essentially human-drawn art that\u2019s been ripped to pieces and stitched together by a robot with no idea what intent or creativity is,\u201d Lucks continued. \u201cIt\u2019ll always have flaws and mistakes people can almost immediately notice, like extra toes, random shadows where they shouldn\u2019t be, things human artists would know about.\u201d However, all of this can be framed in a discussion about how AI has helped artists in the past. \u2018Zenith\u2019, a VArtist who focuses on creating assets for the community, highlighted a number of tools being added to programs to assist artists rather than exploit their work for material gain. \u201cI think the best example I can provide are the features in the art program Clip Studio Paint,\u201d they told Dexerto. \u201cThere are options for you to \u2018auto-color\u2019 your artwork which is helpful to speed up the process. This is more of the kind of thing that artists would like to see: tools made to assist, not exploit.\u201d What is happening right now though isn\u2019t helping artists in the VTuber space. They don\u2019t materially benefit the VTuber, who has their image thrown through these programs and adds a copyright issue to using the art in thumbnails. It definitely doesn\u2019t help artists, whose work is helping feed these machines without consent. All it does is benefit developers behind the AI art programs, who put subscription fees and licenses on their code to profit off the creation. It can also benefit the users: Midjourney shares in its Terms of Service the creator \u201cowns all Assets you create with the Services\u201d with some exceptions, even if it ostensibly mashes together art without license from others. NovelAI\u2019s Diffusion model, which promotes itself as an anime-style image generator, also gives ownership rights to those making the prompts. This could be in direct conflict with some VTuber agency policies. Hololive\u2019s Derivative Works Guidelines requests fans \u201climit your creation of derivative works to a fan or hobby level\u201d and to not use models \u201cfor purposes that can be deemed as for-profit\u201d. NIJISANJI has a similar policy. Both have turned a blind eye to paid human artist commissions, but the AI space is yet to be explored. Art is more than just something to look at and admire. For thousands in the VTubing space, it\u2019s how they make a living. Having programs steal their work to then profit off of it \u2014 even if they release it for free, like in Zenith\u2019s case \u2014 is demoralizing. \u201cWhat seems to be happening is advancement that profits off of the hard work of thousands without consent,\u201d they continued. \u201cThis kind of technology is made specifically to circumvent having to use creativity and imagination and of course, to circumvent having to pay real artists. \u201cIt is a common artist experience to have to deal with people telling us that \u2018art is not a real job\u2019 so it is definitely discouraging when exploitative tech like this comes out, which further cements the idea that we weren\u2019t ever valued to begin with, because the same people who are taking our work are now telling us to get a real job, you know? \u201cThe frustration that I personally feel has to do with the fact that there is no way that I as a human being can possibly compete with AI technology to create high quality work at such a fast pace. All of us got into art because we truly love it, but it\u2019s hard to keep the passion alive when the world is progressing beyond their need of us.\u201d Is there a world where AI art could be done in an ethical manner with explicit artist permission and paid licenses and royalties to those who have helped these machines train? One that avoids legal loopholes around copyright? Artists believe there is a potential for it but developers have already shown their hand \u2014 and the artists are in a losing position. \u201cAI art could be useful through in-house training, like using image databases that you pay the original artists for,\u201d Lucks said. \u201cBut now that they\u2019ve decided to just rip from the internet, it\u2019d be hard to trust them to use it ethically and responsibly. Now that they\u2019ve shown they\u2019re willing to steal, it\u2019s doubtful they\u2019ll do anything with good intentions.\u201d For now all VTubers and artists can do is spread the word, request fans don\u2019t flood hashtags with computer-generated creations, and support human artists. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we can just stop posting our artworks online,\u201d Lucks stated. \u201cI\u2019m just hoping it gets better and stops stealing art made by human beings without any credit to the artists.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIt\u2019s art theft\u201d: AI art is taking over VTubing, but murky ethics worry artists YouTube: Gawr Gura \/ NovelAI: GreyfoxdeltaArtificial intelligence and machine learning now has the art realm in its grasp. While the technology is getting more advanced with photogenic creations, the VTubing world is grasping with a new reality where AI art overruns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}