We Shouldn't Keep Midjourney (AI image genereation bot) in Discord

[EffieFrog]

Like I said on Discord,

I am not blaming people who are just having fun. I know no one means any harm when they use these bots. That doesn't mean none is done tho. Most people make AI "art" because it's cool and fun but they don't know about the way these images are made.

AI "art" actively exploits artists by stealing their work. Artists are not being asked (or even just told) to give their consent for their hard work to be added to the databases AI "art" bots source from. Especially bots like Midjourney, which are locked behind paywalls. I find this disgusting. The art is stolen, manipulated and mashed together to look like something "new" (no, it's not the same as taking inspiration from), then generated to make profit for the people that stole it and for someone to call as their own creation, while the original artists remain uncredited.

If I can't copy paste (again, not use as an example to build my own, literally copy it) some houses from Minas Tirith, some houses from Pelargir, the palace of Dol Amroth and mash them all up to make a "new" town and call it Town of Frog, and upload it to Planet Minecraft, I really don't think it's acceptable for us to support this kind of theft.

The Midjourney bot is not even free to use, there's a trial of a few images you're able to generate, and then you have to pay the subscription fee.

Like Mershy shared in #off-topic, if someone wants to know the opinion of said artists I keep mentioning, all they have to do is check the trending page of ArtStation at the moment. I'll provide a screenshot of the page since it is the trending page so it changes.

Therefore, for all the reasons staed above, I request that we remove it from the Discord server.

 

[w0rldunder]

I am not blaming people who are just having fun. I know no one means any harm when they use these bots. That doesn't mean none is done tho. Most people make AI "art" because it's cool and fun but they don't know about the way these images are made.

Don't get me the wrong way, I admire your determination and support for the artists. I'm one of the people who subscribed to this service just for fun, and I love making images which I personally am not profiting from at all. But could you actually explain to me what harm is being done by people who use this type of technology for fun in their spare time? Let's say, I want to make myself a new desktop background. It would be wrong to use the AI that mashes several things together to my liking. But it wouldn't be wrong if I took an artist's actual work and put a purple filter over it? Or would that be wrong too and I have to go to an artist instead to commission something for me for like 150 euros, which probably will be put on a back burner for a while because of many commissions coming in, and being expensive to the point when you wonder, is it even economically feasible for people?

for example, starting price of 49,29 euros for any commission. (the more i look at this, the more I see the hypocrisy in fanart and stealing content)

Or is it just that their name has to be displayed on the piece of art even though it got changed in many ways, distorted to the point where one could call it a parody rather than the original creation? I'm okay with the bot being removed, I have my own private server to use it anyways. But that would get me to my next point; what is the difference between an individual using the same service in a private setting for non-profit fun compared to using it on the discord server in a hidden away thread for non-profit fun?

If I can't copy paste (again, not use as an example to build my own, literally copy it) some houses from Minas Tirith, some houses from Pelargir, the palace of Dol Amroth and mash them all up to make a "new" town and call it Town of Frog, and upload it to Planet Minecraft, I really don't think it's acceptable for us to support this kind of theft.

Coming to this point, if something is very easy to replicate because the style is simple to learn or to mimic, add different pieces together to make something new, (which to be honest is done quite a lot; for example, people following bob ross tutorials) what would be the difference between an individual doing this manually and an AI generating it for them based on the prompts, overhauls, upscaling and version selections that have been chosen by the individual?
Would the issue be conceived time investment, and if so how much time investment would it require for a work to become authentic enough to be something different? Or is the issue just that a computer made something for a person, rather than the person directly working on it by hand? And if a person would have to make it by hand, would we also consider the barrier to entry into making digital art into this process, may it be general artistic skill or even buying the proper physical products and digital product licensing to make art?

As you can see in this image, this person spent 6 hours onto perfecting his prompt usage and choosing variations, upscaling and pathing to get the images they wanted. Would this time investment be considered bad, or would it be considered good because they spent so much time on it that one could argue it to be authentic enough work? This person expressed their joy in using this and was very happy to be able to let their inner thoughts out to create something they were looking for.

The Midjourney bot is not even free to use, there's a trial of a few images you're able to generate, and then you have to pay the subscription fee.

Would it be better if we had an AI bot that was free to use? If yes, why would it have to be entirely free to use? How would this free AI bot support its processes? I mean, you can ask for anything to be non-profit but to run actual servers to have enough processing power to generate certain things would be costly and would result in the media disappearing due to it not being financially feasible to maintain. Is the issue how the funding is collected or how it is spent? Midjourney The midjourney team itself is a bunch of programmers trying to improve AI technology, which could be considered research development. Is it considered bad that one would want to fund technological improvement?

Or is it unrelated and people are afraid to lose their jobs to technology, which has constantly happened since the start of civilization and the progression of technological advancements since the dawn of time? A lot of people could argue they lost their jobs to this or will be losing their jobs to this in the future. I'm probably thinking this way more thoroughly than I should to a deeper level than is intended by your post.

Anyhow, I fail to see how harmful it would be for us to use an AI on our server. I could agree with your point that you want it to be freely accessible to people to use equally. I would find that a just and righteous cause too. I would also agree that except for some fun usage it has no added benefit to our server; at least to our current knowledge. If it would be removed, I personally wouldn't lose any sleep over it; I have the bot on a private server for my own use. Why I am replying to this post, is to better understand your viewpoint and to give some counterargument to a protest post; which this clearly is, and you are allowed to protest something like this. We cannot all agree on everything in life. But also to not let people with opposite opinions be unheard or be subdued into submission.
Added to this, don't take this as a personal attack or anything, it's not meant to be one. I'm just trying to understand your point of view, and hopefully you also understand mine.

 

[mapthor]

I'm probably thinking this way more thoroughly than I should to a deeper level than is intended by your post.

Ye

ill give my two sense here. The argument is that this ain’t isn’t the place for the bot when it should be the morality of using the bot tbh. While I’ve had my fun and ai is extremely neat in many regards, the way ai (midjourney specifically) is being used, especially in the past few month/weeks (it only just made a surge in the interwebs recently) is worrying. You take a look at twitter and you see people’s art being recreated using ai, people taking ownership of the generated images, and then selling it and who knows which price for it to get framed or something pointless. Is hurts the ”inspiration” financially and morally. It’s just not right, their work is getting stolen in more ways than one.

for example, starting price of 49,29 euros for any commission. (the more i look at this, the more I see the hypocrisy in fanart and stealing content)

Yes, because it takes time and passion to create. I edit for a YouTuber and get paid $75 a video because it takes time to create and I’m passionate about the work. I’d rather you pay however much for a commission that someone put their heart and soul into than hang a generated image on the wall and call it art. Ya, it’s pretty and colorful and shiny, but a computer churned that out for you using the hundreds of hours of passionate work someone put on a canvas. It’s blatant stealing.

I hate pulling the “as an artist“ card, but I gotta do it once here. As someone who puts way to much effort into creating video and other types of stuff, seeing parts of it recreated in mere seconds in heartbreaking. Anything a computer generates in an empty husk of a creation, lacking heart, soul, and love. I know this is beginning to sound like a monologue straight out of Kingdom Hearts, but it’s true. Miyazaki says it the best in this video. Art is something born out of emotions, out of life. A single painting call tell a story about the creator, their influences, their dreams, etc. AI is none of that. Not only should the bot get the boot out of MCME, but I don’t believe it should be used in general.

While I’m not the best at making arguments, I hope you can hear me out and understand where I’m coming from. If this just ended up being a word salad then, well shit

Use AI to type up your exam papers or something instead

 

[GingerlyGinger1]

While that was a fine read, Map, I have to disagree with that last sentence.

 

[barteldvn]

A couple of cents from someone you could call a tech-enthusiast:
Honestly this all quickly turns into a philosophical discussion. I will not go deep into that, as I simply am not well versed in philosophy. Nor will I go into copyright or any laws, for I am equally bad at those. Finally I will not go into the will AI destroy humanity argument.

AI "art" actively exploits artists by stealing their work.

I disagree with the fact that AI steals other people's work. I agree with the fact that any AI can not be trained to create "art", without given other people's art, but that is not the same as stealing it. That is learning what we understand to be art and creating things based on those parameters.

If I can't copy paste (again, not use as an example to build my own, literally copy it) some houses from Minas Tirith, some houses from Pelargir, the palace of Dol Amroth and mash them all up to make a "new" town and call it Town of Frog, and upload it to Planet Minecraft, I really don't think it's acceptable for us to support this kind of theft.

I agree that blatantly copy pasting another person's work and moving it around a bit is not okay. However there is a point at which things become acceptable, even from my POV on MCME. If someone would for example take a screenshot of our Minas Tirith and make a painting out of that, we'd all be fine with that I think and not call that copy pasting. The reason why we would not view that as a blatant copy is that it is their own take on our build and shows their creative interpretation of it. The argument then becomes can AI do this? I suspect following your argument that AI can only learn to recreate our art it could not reasonably give an own interpretation. In my honest opinion I do not know.

The Midjourney bot is not even free to use, there's a trial of a few images you're able to generate, and then you have to pay the subscription fee.

My argument for this is that simply this costs money to develop, to maintain, to host, to make available. Regardless of what you view it to provide, it is a service which costs the owner(s) money and as such they need to make some kind of money to maintain it. I'm all for open-source, but I understand that things cost money too.

Alright enough counterarguments, now a few more of my own points:

• Can AI create art?
  I will not attempt to define art, however I will list some criteria are hopefully not too controversial. Art is often so much more than the piece itself to us humans. The meaning, the story of when or how it was created, the creator, the emotions... these are things AI can not portray.
• Are artists in danger because of AI?
  There will be people who will try to exploit artists, for an AI could do what they want so much quicker and cheaper. However I'd argue again that "real art" can never be replaced by AI. Whether artists become obsolete is more depended on what humans value than on what AI creates.​
• Am I over optimistic about AI in general?
  Many sectors have already been changed a lot by AI, particularly anything directly to do with technology. This evolution will not slow down any time soon, especially as a lot of these developments simply make our life better. I can hardly complain about AI helping saving lives in the medical field by identifying health issues way quicker and more reliable than a human never could.
  
  There's plenty of good applications of AI. Yes there's also various bad applications of it, but in my opinion is this not one of those.​

EDIT:
Slight note on the no to AI movement based on ArtStation.com. I think it is unfair to say this entire movement is against the use of AI image generation. Some wish for it to not be allowed on the website, some wish to have it properly tagged, some wish to be able to opt out of their art being used to make these databases. None of these points apply to MCME, for a thread in #off-topic is not meant for art, it is obviously tagged and no art is being used to make AI. Hence why I discuss the ethics behind the AI.

 

[_Shen]

I think you're overcomplicating what I see as a simple issue and getting a bit lost in philosophy. Many people have a problem with this bot that provides nothing important or necessary for the Discord. As far as I know, it was just added on a whim by Q one night, so I don't think anyone would be bothered by its removal. In this case, there's almost no harm in removing it, but plenty harm in keeping it, perceived or actual. The right choice seems clear to me.

 

[EffieFrog]

I will take time to make proper replies to everyone, but I'll be travelling for more than 12 hours today so I'd rather do it when I've rested from that. However, I wanted to say that I feel like this conversation has strayed from my original argument. I never argued any philosophical questions about ai art bots or ai in general. Or even whether it's consdidered art or not. I only stated that ai like Midjourney takes artwork without the artists consent, no credit and makes money from it. Which is a fact and it's unethical.

But I will expand on it as soon as I can.

 

[w0rldunder]

This topic is a clash in world views. No matter how you twist it, it will get into subjective territories regarding opinions and philosophy.
Stating something is bad because of morals and ethics, which are vague and different per person, per country, per cultural background, etcetera would lead to many interpretations, viewpoints, and opinions regarding this topic. Whether or not it's your intention to get into the philosophical territory; considering the nature of the topic, you will end up in philosophical waters anyways. This topic when censored/blurred/broken down into its main components can be applied to many different topics and scenarios even outside of the "artsy" spectrum.

It is clearly shown by this discussion that the bot itself although arguably harmless or not depending on one's point of view, is creating a rift.
This topic, as mentioned before is a clash in world views, and has no proper place on MCME itself, I came to realize this shortly after my original post.
With this considered, I would also conclude that the Midjourney bot, unfortunately, does not have a place in MCME itself, but rather in people's private spheres to the extent that they wish and like to use it privately. The bot itself has no explored added benefit to our knowledge in its short lifespan on the server. It has barely seen use, and one would not miss it due to either not knowing of its existence, or not having explored it at all. It is easier to remove a feature when it's not known than when it is known.

I'll leave the final judgment of this up to Q(or any Valar who would care enough to go over this) since he added the AI to the discord.
This also means that I will not be replying anymore on this topic; because I believe this discussion has no place on MCME.

 

[TotiGonzales]

In order to add absolutely nothing to the discussion, I will say that as an artist: I better get close and comfy with AI. I don't fear it for the chance of it stealing my work but it should fear me for I will misuse the hell out of it. I know very well people can tell when something was created with passion so I don't really have a reason to worry about it's evolution as long as I make sure that whatever it ends up spitting out is manipulated or otherwise edited by me personally, which should make it no problem to compete with others using the same tools.

Soooo...
If someone decides to train an AI model on the MCME Resource Packs I will pay for it!