I just had a small epiphany why you might like other people’s art more than your own:
It’s the lack of suspension of disbelief.
When you see something someone else has drawn or painted, you take in the content faster than you take in the technical aspects. You experience it as pseudo-real, the same way you stop perceiving animated characters as drawn or book characters as written as you get into the story.
On the other hand, when you yourself have made something, all you see is the machine behind the theater, so to speak. You’re probably thinking about lines, shading, coloring in a “does this make sense? Is this the best decision I could have made?”-kind of way.
I think that’s also why sometimes, pictures you haven’t looked at for a long time starts looking nice to you again, à la: “Hey past-me was unto something! Why can’t I replicate it nowadays?”. It’s probably specifically because you’ve forgotten the process of making it that you are now seeing it with fresh eyes.
Art is an illusion, but a magician has a hard time tricking themself. So don’t be so hard on yourself: it’s probably just that you can’t see the magic right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
You just put something into words that I have been feeling for a while. This might actually get me to try digital painting again, thank you.
To reiterate: Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon and other such books, blocked me on Twitter for calling him out about his AI-generated cover.
Tor has admitted he approved this cover and they have been consulting him every step of the way. He is complicit.
It’s honestly so fucking frustrating that this is going to go forward. That the cover to Fractal Noise is gonna be published with AI art that has ripped off other artists. And neither the author nor the publisher give one flying fuck about it.
I don’t think a lot of people really understand what this means. Book cover art is already nearly universally shitty. You go look at fantasy art covers, and they’re all photomanipulations, generally a single girl on the cover doing magic or looking into the distance. There’s no variety. But at least people get paid for them.
With AI art, artists don’t get paid. You know who does? The people who made the dataset. The people who sold the “cover.” Even though it took less than 20 minutes to make.
If this isn’t infuriating you, I don’t know what the hell else to say. Machine learning is coming for everyone’s jobs, and corporate wallets don’t care if it’s safe or not. Certain areas are already experimenting with AI Amazon deliveries, and it’s been hinted that long-haul trucking is next.
This is unacceptable. PLEASE. I’m not going to guilt you into sharing this, but it is CRITICAL that we take a stand now and STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING. If you follow me, I am asking you as a friend to share this, and to find it in your heart to put pressure on people who publish AI art without paying artists.
Tor could change the cover. They’re not, because they’re using Fractal Noise as a test run to see if they can get away with it. Don’t let them. I don’t care how much you like Paolini’s work (although I think Eragon was a boring slog, so I had no qualms about calling him out), you HAVE to do your best to make this stop.
it is completely possible to understand that the criminalization of abortion is entirely rooted in the misogynistic desire to control and punish women… while also acknowledging that not everyone who gets pregnant is a woman.
true and also the oppression of LGBTQ+ people is intrinsically linked to misogyny because our lives are evidence against the idea that gender norms, roles, etc are socially forced onto people and not just How It Is. we defy the rigid roles assigned to us and for that reason we are a danger to the patriarchal order
not to be emotional on main but fanfiction is a gift and it’s so fundamentally human to tell each other stories and i am deeply grateful to have that in my life. thank you all for adding so much emotion and meaning to the world with your words
I genuinely feel sorry for the folks who don’t know about fanfiction or, worse, think it’s lesser. Oh my word, the magic of knowing people who love EXACTLY what you love and the whole bunch of you just constantly go and make more of it?
