Adobe deletes Bluesky posts after backlash

Anyway I don't really think they deserve a lot of the hate they get, but I do hope this encourages development of viable alternatives to their products. Photoshop is still pretty much peerless. Illustrator has a ton of competitors catching up. After Effects and Premiere for video editing are getting overtaken by Davinci Resolve -- though for motion graphics it is still hard to beat After Effects. Though I do love that Adobe simply uses JavaScript for its expression and scripting language.

It's because nobody actually wants that.

Artists don't like AI image generators because they have to compete with them, not because of how they were trained. How they were trained is just the the most plausible claim they can make against them if they want to sue OpenAI et al over it, or to make a moral argument that some kind of misappropriation is occurring.

From the perspective of an artist, a corporation training an AI image generator in a way that isn't susceptible to moral or legal assault is worse, because then it exists and they have to compete with it and there is no visible path for them to make it go away.

You cannot find any group, where "all" is true in such context. There's always an element of outlier.

That said, you're not really an artist if you direct someone else to paint. Imagine a scenario where you sit back, and ask someone to paint an oil painting for you. During the event, you sit in an easy chair, watch them with easel and brush, and provide direction "I want clouds", "I want a dark background". The person does so.

You're not the artist.

All this AI blather is the same. At best, you're a fashion designer. Arranging things in a pleasant way.

Photographers do manipulate cameras, and rework afterwise the images to develop.

Digital artists do manipulate digital tools.

Their output is a large function of their informed input, experience, taste, knowledge, practice and intention, using their own specific tools in their own way.

Same with developers: the result is a function of their input (architecture, code, etc.). Garbage in, garbage out.

With AI prompters, the output is part function of the (very small) prompt, part function of the (huuuuuuuge) training set, part randomness.

If you're the director of a movie, or of a photo shoot, you're the director. Not the photographer, not the set painter, not the carpenter, not the light, etc.

If you're the producer, you're not the artist (unless you _also_ act as an artist in the production).

Do you feel the difference?

That comparison would be fair if the generative AI you use is trained exclusively on your own (rightfully acquired) data and work.

Existing generative AIs are feeding on the work of millions of people who did not consent.

That’s a violation of their work and of their rights.

And that should also alert those that expect to use/benefit of their own production out of these generators: why would it be 1/ protectable, 2/ protected at all.

It is no coincidence that these generators makers’ philosophy aligns with an autocrat political project, and some inhuman « masculinity » promoters. It’s all about power and nothing about playing by the rules of a society.

The other objections, in the economic range (replacing/displacing artists work for financial gain, from the producers point of view) are totally valid too, but don't rely on the same argument.

And my point above is not really an objection, it's a reminder: of what are AI generators, and what they are not (and that AI generators promoters pretend they are, without any piece of evidence or real argument).

Of what their output is (a rough, industrial barely specified and mastered product), and what it is not (art).

And this is why I've stopped arguing with people from this crowd. Beyond the classic gatekeeping of what art is, I'm sick of the constant moving of the goalposts. Even if a company provides proof, I'm sure you'd find another issue with them

Underlying all of it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI tools are used for art, and a subtle implication that it's really the amount of effort that defines what "art" really is.

And what crowd? I am stating my viewpoint, from an education in humanities AND tech, and from 25 years of career in software tech, and 30 years of musician and painter practice.

Sorry but who is moving the goalpost here? Who is coming with their tech saying « hi, but we don’t care about how your laws make sense and we don’t care that we don’t know what art is because we never studied about it, neither do we have any artistic practice, we just want to have what you guys do by pressing a button. Oh and all of your stuff is free for us to forage thru, don’t care about what you say about your own work. »

Typical entitled behavior. Don’t act surprised that this is met with counter arguments and reality.