📣 Clarification on AI generated work

[joseph]

@rawalanche

Well it’s just impractical. Because the rules essentially imply that what constitutes too much AI use is at the discretion of the moderators, and will be judged on per submission basis.

Yeah… that’s how everything, every rule, and every submission on this site works. That’s why there are moderators

[rawalanche]

The sad truth about rules is that they are binary. The moderators can either remove the artwork or not. They can’t just “partially sort of remove it”. So the line between true and false just has to be drawn somewhere, or offloaded to some judge persona who makes the choices individually on subjective opinions. Those are the options.

[rawalanche]

Finally This is the conclusion I am completely happy with. I’d just put it in writing in the OP so people are not confused. I’d just mention that what constitutes “fair AI use” will ultimately be decided based on moderator’s discretion, not some rigid rules.

[joseph]

Thank you for sharing what you would do. If you ever run a forum, I would encourage you to do so. Here, nothing is going to change in the initial post

[thorn (BA Staff)]

The rule is fine, as-is.

If someone has difficulty understanding it, perhaps they can ask ChatGPT for clarification.

[rawalanche]

Why is being more clear bad? Sorry but at this point this seems like emotional spite and bad faith rather than rationality. I am done here. Now I can clearly see it’s purely emotional debate, without any willingness to be rational.

[Okidoki]

It couldn’t be more simpler stated:

• for AI-generated images: look and post on other sides
• this site is for human artist to discuss some techniques and learn to get “better”
• any discusssion about this also is fine one some other “social media” where people have fun in (endless) discussions
• so any too much use of AI will be closed but nobody will be penalized for this…

[joseph]

I’ve put quite a lot of effort and time into trying to clarify for you, and I’ve done so with facts and logic exclusively, resisting the temptation to be annoyed even when difficult. There’s no need to lash out just because you don’t like the rule. Please communicate as the adult you are

[thorn (BA Staff)]

@rawalanche

Now I can clearly see it’s purely emotional debate, without any willingness to be rational.

If one chooses to believe the earth is flat, or murder is great, there comes as point in discussion where one party is simply going to refuse to debate the matter any longer.

Your point demands that we acknowledge that AI use - on some level - is acceptable for creating art.

Many have a complete and unyielding disagreement with that. We find your position to be irrational at the foundational level, and your image examples of “what about” are calculated attempts to turn the debate into one of splitting hairs to “win.”

[Ace_Dragon]

I would not be entirely surprised if, amid these new policies, the staff decide to just institute a zero-trust approach and mandate moderator screening for every post containing an image in the art forums.

I agree overall with the rule on making sure the forums are not filled up with heavily AI submissions, but considering the unknown nuances and the variety of opinions on what kind of AI operation is acceptable (more involved than denoising, but less than full generation) it would be a better option than everyone always having to guess whether their image will still be there the next day.

[joseph]

Thank you for your opinion. If you ever run a forum, you should do things as you describe. We will not be changing anything about this policy or the enforcement of it

[Ace_Dragon]

I do not get though why these announcement threads related to policy are even open for replies to begin with. If it was made clear from the beginning that user opinions do not have value, then why allow people to make them in the first place?

The same can be said for why the forum even has an open section where people can give feedback about the site, as it is clear by now that it is just a trashcan due to everything set in stone from the beginning (with almost all suggestions not related to bugs related on being ignored).

[thorn (BA Staff)]

@Ace_Dragon

If it was made clear from the beginning that user opinions do not have value, then why allow people to make them in the first place?

The thread didn’t imply this was up for a vote. Sharing an opinion doesn’t mean the opinion will change anything about a decision.

If you believe sharing your opinion is a waste of time and effort, you don’t have to spend the time and effort to post it.

[joseph]

The point of allowing replies was so people could ask questions and get clarification, which has happened. The clarification doesn’t seem to have had an effect so far, but it’s there and may be useful to someone at some point

[SGarnier (Sébastien Garnier)]

I’m glad to see that there’s some discernment in this approach. It’s the right thing to do, in my opinion, for a place like Blenderatists.

Not every site, forum or network is capable of doing this. It’s a sign of maturity and also of a healthy place.

I don’t have clarifications to ask, but I have noticed this: we’re all computer graphics artists here. CGI is for Computer Generated Images. AI pictures are also computer generated. It’s always a human using a computer program. The good threshlod for the rule, is keeping the human in charge, author of his work, and responsible for it.

Too much AI is like a more spohisticated copy-paste. It wasn’t good behaviour before, it’s not good now either.

[MartinZ (Martynas Žiemys)]

@joseph

Did an AI do 51% or more of the work? If so, it’s not allowed here

Who can measure work in percentages or any units?.. How many joules of work did you put into your last artwork?.. We are artists not physicists. The line is not clear. Anyway, not my problem. Announcement is great. It’s great AI slop is banned. I just thought to suggest it might be nice to somehow separate work involving AI so people can choose if they want to see that content easier. I am not talking about all the mindless AI garbage.

@thorn

People can post such things on other websites. Social media is filling up with that garbage; we don’t need it here.

Yeah, obviously block that all day long. I will report those myself if I see it. I am talking about “legit” AI usage as a tool whatever it might be. I thought it might be nice to separate it. I might be wrong. If there was a subcategory like that in Artwork category, it might just fill up with the garbage you are talking about.

[Ace_Dragon]

@MartinZ

I thought it might be nice to separate it. I might be wrong. If there was a subcategory like that in Artwork category, it might just fill up with the garbage you are talking about.

And destroy Bart’s bandwidth, I can imagine an AI bro who also happens to use Blender posting gigabytes of generic pig slop to his AI generation thread daily (since programs like Midjourney and Copilot can pump out dozens of variants of a single prompt within minutes).

You either figure out how to track each user’s bandwidth use or just conclude it is a bad idea.

[MartinZ (Martynas Žiemys)]

@MartinZ

…where this rule could still apply but maybe a bit less strictly…

I think we need a bit of healthy balance. I also hate AI nonsense. I am just trying to think logically and not be blinded by that hatred. It’s a tool. It’s here. Maybe it’s already usable in some cases, maybe it might become more usable in near future. My thoughts are not in any way against the policy. I think in addition to the existing policy it might be worth considering(just considering) separating the content that is allowed here but made with the help of AI where majority of work is still done by the human into it’s separate place. Might help with clarity. Might not I have no idea. Just a suggestion to consider.

[Luigi.exe]

Massive respect for not calling generated output “AI art.” It’s not art, it’s a machine output. There was no human involved for it to be considered art. Though “work” may also still be a stretch, given how little effort goes into generating the output, but that’s just my two cents.

To me, it’s pretty clear generative AI specifically means models like large language models and diffusion models that output media based on a prompt like an image, text, model, or video, which is clearly not the same as an algorithm designed to speed up render times or automate motion tracking. The former automate creativity and thinking, the latter do not. Not to mention generative AI also requires massive datasets of (often stolen) media to even remotely function.

It’s why clarification between an everything-nothing-word like “AI” and a more precise term like “generative AI” matters. AI can pretty much apply to any form of computer automation and just acts as a form of semantic obfuscation from the real issue. Generative AI hones in on more specific issues like spam, misinformation, environmental harm, etc.

I also need to specify that generative AI not a tool, given it’s technology literally designed to produce a finished output. People who use generative AI are like people commissioning an artist (not entirely, but just for the sake of example). The person is simply ordering while the machine is the “artist.” It’s like ordering a pizza and saying you used the chef as a tool to make it.

With how many Blender creators (especially youtubers) shill generative AI, I am so glad this site takes such a clear stance against it. Though I imagine it is a little frustrating that you’ve had to clarify it again.

[sozap]

@MartinZ

Who can measure work in percentages or any units?.. How many joules of work did you put into your last artwork?.. We are artists not physicists.

Obviously it’s not something that we can measure, it’s going to be subjective. In the other hand in many case it’s going to be easy to judge who is doing the work here between artist or AI…

In the same fashion it has always bothered me to see artwork where everything is based on assets, addons, forming an image with a not so bad but not amazing composition, next to people who struggled to model mostly everything on their own. In the same fashion I can buy a 3D scene, put a camera somewhere and call that work my own, which is probably legally the case since I bought the scene’s right. However what does that says about me as a craftsman in CG ?

Obviously moderating artwork like this is opening a door to mistakes, but in the other hand I’m sure moderators will be ok to discuss and correct things in case of mistakes.

For now I think it’s great to be able to differentiate people who spend some time improving their skills from people who just slap a bit of AI/Assets/Addons together without further work. Obviously it’s ok to do so especially in professional work but I don’t think this is something we should encourage here where it’s mostly about learning and personal work.