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Does AI-generated art posted on lemmy bother you?

I find that i can spot AI Images fairly easily these days, especially the sort of fantastical tableaus that get posted to the various AI communities around lemmy. I'm tired of seeing them; it all looks the same to me. Was wondering if im being too sensitive, or if other people are similarly bored of the constant unimaginative AI spam...

For the record, I block any explicit AI Art communities that pop up in the feed, but there are more every day...

204 comments
  • If it is posted as AI art, I don't have an issue. As others have commented, there are many valid use cases for it, and like any form of art, it's not inherently good or bad.

    The problem I have is when it gets mixed in with real images and there is no differentiation.

    I do the bulk of posting at !superbowl@lemmy.world, and one thing I do is promote raptor rescue operations, so I'm subbed to 60ish Facebook feeds for the various shelters I get news and photos from. As a result, I get recommended near every owl photo posted to Facebook.

    Now, getting real image groups recommended to me is great. I just got a bunch of great images I'd never seen from a photography group it recommended. But I get so many obvious fakes posted as real images, and another larger group where it's hard to tell.

    I'm just someone that wanted to keep a Lemmy community going after the original buzz died down. I'm not an animal expert or a photographer, so I can't always pick out what is a really good photo vs post processing, vs downright fake. I want to keep the legitimacy of what I do post intact, because I work hard to keep content factual. I pass on what could be some really great photos because I can't always say they're real.

    Plus it would be nice to have them separate from real images in general. Sometimes I would like to see some AI owl pics, but once random groups or repost bots start mixing things in randomly, it makes people question things.

  • If it's presented as such, then I've no issue at all. Art can be cool, AI or otherwise, and I like looking at cool things.

  • Reading through the comments, I think OP's question is skipping the root of the controversy here, which is whether or not that content even is art.

    As a child of the 90s, a good example that comes to mind would be something like the Windows Media Visualizer - colorful and fun to look at, but it's just an algorithm interpreting a sound.

    If I sneezed into a microphone, ran that recording through Windows Media Player, then posted a screenshot of the swirly colors here exclaiming "Hey Lemmy - Do you like this art I made?" ...would that even be an honest question? It'd probably just get downvoted cuz folks would take one look at it and conclude "You didn't make that, and it's not art."

    If I posted that same picture but instead with the title "Lol I sneezed into Windows Media Player, and the visualizer went nuts!" I'd probably get a more positive response - it'd still be a shitpost, but readers wouldn't feel like they're being lied to.

    So... is an algorithm even capable of producing art?

    And if no, is it the end product we have an issue with, or just the perception of being misled? ...cuz even if something isn't "art" doesn't mean it can't have beauty or some other feature worthy of our attention. Another poster mentioned sunsets - those aren't art, but we still admire the hell out of them.

    My take on all of the above:

    • Don't give a fuck if it's technically art or not
    • If it's presented in a dishonest way, I don't like the post, and will downvote regardless of the content.
    • If the content looks cool, I can appreciate that in-and-of-itself; so, as long as the presentation isn't misleading, I don't mind it at all.
  • I've blocked the AI art communities and tend to downvote the art when it shows up as it feels soulless most of the time.

  • I think it's important to keep the ai art inside the communities made specially for it.

    Outside of a specific community, label, label, watermark, and label again.

    I do enjoy messing with ideas in ai generators, it's most of what I've engaged with here. I just don't want it shoved into everyone's feed if it's not something you're into. Kinda defeats the purpose of a fediverse.

  • It honestly depends on a community. On Ten Forward, where I'm a mod, we have banned AI posts because, at least this was my reasoning, they never do Star Trek right. I also mod on Lemmy Shitpost and, in general, I'm pretty lenient with them there as long as it isn't so lazy that someone practically typed in 'funny meme.'

    That said, I'm also on another forum where an AI art thread that began with the first Dall-E has become mostly us finding ways to put Godzilla in ridiculous situations. Now that is a fun use of AI.

  • I don't enjoy it. And I see issue with many of the big AI companies but I don't object to people posting AI art if that brings them pleasure in this world of ours. I just block the dedicated AI art communities, and let them continue as they were.

  • I don't mind AI art at all as long as it's not posted in any art of photo based communities (besides ones intended for AI art.)

    When it comes to memes, I don't even care if those are labeled as containing AI art. Memes are naturally derivative, so labeling it as AI art would be like linking the exact stock photo you used. Wouldn't be mad if we did label them though. Just don't want there to be a double standard.

    Encountering AI art in photo communities is super annoying though. It's increasingly common for people to submit obviously AI photos and that's super annoying.

  • I don’t consider it art. The only “creative” part is the prompt itself. Even then, it’s really just users trying to be as fanciful (or perverted) as possible. Once the prompt is ingested, the code takes its cues to remix the turgid crap that’s called the internet today.

    Yes, once in a while it produces something “interesting” but this is an accident and not the desired outcome. Ask any artist about this - I’ve never met any that consider all their work as “good” (Ahem, Damien Hirst) and purposefully filter their own output. Ask AI to do that. It can’t. It will literally continue to shit things out until you ask it to stop. Again, like Damien Hirst…

    The downside is it’s cheap and requires literally no skill. This means that soon, it will be pretty much everywhere, and thus we’ll continue the inexorable slide into abject mediocrity.

    I’m not scared of the AI uprising. I’m scared it’s going to bore us all to death.

    • I think you're being unfairly dismissive of the amount of work and creativity that goes into using an AI art generator well. Sure, you can just slam down a prompt and post whatever comes up. But if you really want to generate something specific it can be a ton of work. It can also involve plenty of fiddling with traditional art tools (funny that Photoshop and such are considered "traditional" now, once upon a time it was Photoshop's turn on the "not real art!" Firing line). Some of the most egregious moral panics lately have come from work where 90% of the effort was traditional tooling, with just a dab of AI in the mix.

      But it all gets lumped together under "LOL bad fingers!" And demonized.

  • I think you can use AI for creative things that convey a message. Isn't that what it's all about? For example with memes: stock photos are often used for these, which in themselves probably don't have much to do with art or creativity. However, if you put them in a different context by adding something to the stock material, interesting, creative and funny things can emerge. This also seems possible to me with an AI-generated image instead of a stock photo.

  • Yes. It all seems too similar. Despite different subjects, they all feel so familiar and boring.

  • Not in the slightest. What bothers me are the communities that ban it even when the art in question is exactly what that community is for. What bothers me even more are the communities that ban it secretly, so you never even know there's an AI art ban unless you step on that landmine yourself.

  • So long as it's not spammed in the All section post after post after post, I'm okay with it being here since I can just easily scroll past it and ignore it.

  • Not at all. I think it's fascinating. The technology behind it is incredible and getting better every day. While I don't consider any AI-generated images to be "masterpieces" by any stretch of the imagination, they're interesting to study.

204 comments