Artists are making creative companies apologize for using AI

Wacom of all companies promoting their drawing tablets with AI got to be one of the most tone deaf marketing campaigns done with AI yet.

whilst i kinda agree, i don’t think it was intentional on their part (as with most of these controversies)… i think they paid a 3rd party for an artwork, and then that 3rd party took shortcuts - whether whole cloth, or with things like content aware fill - and wacom didn’t ask questions (which they probably should have, because this image in particular is really obviously AI generated)

they should all probably update their contracts to ensure artwork is 100% done by a human with big penalties for infringement though - they just haven’t caught up because it’s a relatively new problem

This just show how ready and willing are many companies to replace human creativity with cheap AI. If anyone really thought that this wasn't the direction they were pointing to, he was just deluding himself. New creativity tools "my ass".

You're jumping to conclusions. The image was a mislabeled stock image they bought. This is just a case of poor quality control.
People will buy the cheapest product that meets their needs. A business not using AI as much as possible is in a disadvantage.
- Maybe for companies that aren't selling tools for digital artists, but WACOM is literally trying to sell a product that humans use to create these images. To usurp the their customer base and buy an AI image (even unintentionally) shows at best a complete lack of understanding about what kind of art is being made with their tablets and at worst a disregard for a major concern of their customer base.

Wow. Such a blatantly AI generated image as well. The nerve.

Maybe the go-to way of avoiding this would be for companies to actually divulge who the artist is; credit them!

Edit: Feels like "count the AI giveaways on this image" could become a good drinking game.

Bizarre teeth arrangement
Some teeth are gum coloured
There are spontaneous toes in arbitrary places
The spine tuft migrates to the shoulder
There's some odd scaly and hairy shrimp-looking appendage next to the dragon
- Suppose it's the tail, but it's not attached
- Tail tuft is a different colour from the rest of the fur
Random third horn sprouting from the back of the neck

You know, that's a good idea anyway.

I wonder though what that would mean for the copyright?
- Right? There's so much talk about paying artists in exposure but how often do artists actually get exposed?
  
  Don't think copyright should be an issue. We know for example that the soundtrack to the Disney film Encanto was composed by Lin Manuel Miranda, but Walt Disney still owns the copyright. Same could go for the rest of the entire film, they do give credits to people who contributed but Disney still owns the copyright.
  
  Having a signature somewhere on an advert shouldn't be a big deal.
how'd you miss the tail? i don't think it's attached...
- You mean the hairy shrimp? I didn't.

We’re soooooorry rubs nipples

Easier to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission...

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Several days later, and after this article was published, the company issued a contrite statement saying that the images in question had been purchased from a third-party vendor and had evaded being flagged by the online AI detection tools it used for vetting.

Despite this, the company shared a new marketing campaign for its Magic: The Gathering card game on January 4th that was quickly scrutinized for containing strangely deformed elements commonly associated with AI-generated imagery.

The company initially denied AI was involved, insisting that the image was made by a human artist, only to back down three days later and acknowledge that it did in fact contain AI-generated components.

AI detectors are notoriously unreliable and regularly flag false positives, and other methods like the Content Credentials metadata backed by Adobe can only provide information for images created using specific software or platforms.

Some creative professionals argue these are simply tools that artists can benefit from, but others believe any generative AI features are exploitive because they’re often trained on masses of content collected without creators’ knowledge or consent.

Wacom and WotC eventually provided similar responses to their respective situations: that the offending images had come from a third-party vendor, that the companies were unaware that AI had been used to make them, and that they promised to do better in the future.

The original article contains 1,181 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I'm surprised Wacom hasn't added ai to their tablet software like that google drawing program that guessed what you were trying to draw long ago and would make it for you

https://blog.google/technology/ai/fast-drawing-everyone/

If you become less productive than China then they get the market. You want to fix the problem by making US business owners to pay up, but capital has no nationality. If you succeed then you have to accept that there is no way for the US to have such a big military complex and it's time to let China be the world's super power.

I get why people are upset, but isn't it kinda futile? Everything that can be replaced with AI will be. From arts to dev and anything else they can think of. It's only a matter of time until the tech is good enough for any particular problem. Trying up legislate against it doesn't seem useful either. People will get around it eventually.

We're moving towards a world where lots of us won't have viable jobs in these fields. We'll either find different jobs or need some form of UBI

Ah, yes, doomerism, inspirational. I think MLK said it best "I have a dream, but it's hard, so let's all give up instead"
- Doomerism - I don't think that word means what you think it means (or you just don't understand what UBI could be the start of, don't know anything about MLK, probably all of the above).
  
  Considering MLK's understanding and support of Marxist ideas, he'd probably be fighting for technological progress as long as it came along with UBI, since that's literally the basis of a better world for everyone, unlike systemic racism and capitalism he was fighting against, which really aren't comparable at all (sure, both could be used to fuck up the prospect and potential of technological progress and UBI, but that's the fault of systemic racism and capitalism, not technological progress and UBI).
- BTW do you know anyone who's hiring buggy whip makers?
- Optimism about the future of AI capabilities is not doomerism. It's going to expand humanity's capabilities, not limit or reduce them.
Yes and No. That Wacom Dragon legitimately looks awful; its tail a messed up, nonsensical mess. I think the problem isn't as much just "AI art" as it is "awful art", because if a human had made it, it would have been absolutely better; it would have made sense at the very least. Instead you have middle managers trying to cut corners and the end result is an insult to creative workers everywhere; and the managers and marketers who approved this said "meh, good enough" and didn't even try.

That's the most insidious part of AI Art used in marketing, a race to the bottom in terms of quality that leads to crap being thrown in consumers faces because creative, knowledgable people aren't being included in the conversation.
It is, this is the equivalent of protesting the printing press. It would be most useful to find a way to transition gracefully, but most people are still in the denial stage.
- The printing press didn't change the text inside the books and made books widely available to the public. Art is already everywhere, we don't need AI to have enough of it and it fundamentally replaces what is actually good about art.

I feel like anymore, artists just look through companies work just to go point out AI art and whine about it

If artists aren't producing work and just complaining about AI art, who is AI stealing the work of?

Your argument literally defeats itself.
- You should check out this article by Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the EFF. The EFF is a digital rights group who recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone.
- No-one. Training a neural network, natural or artificial, is not "stealing". Or no artist would be able to study the works of other artists to become a better artist themself.
wacom is a company that produces drawing tablets. you know, hardware tools for artists. it is their job to market specifically to artists.