"Why AI Images Suck" (Art by Flu Hartberg)

Hot mess of anti-"AI" slop...
First and foremost, "AI" doesn't exist.
Secondly people complaining about "IP" are missing the point. We shouldn't be fighting to maintain a capitalist system of oppression. We should be fighting for a world where artists don't need to sell themselves in order to survive.
Complaints about the environment are legit.
You don't have to embrace all new technology, but you don't have to hate it either. The value of technology is determined by its use. The problem is that R&D is entirely driven by profits and the violent enforcement of privilege.
Worries about "skynet" are just phony hype that promotes the "AI" bubble.
The idea that "AI" art is somehow inherently worse than "human" art is extremely suspect, not to mention it being a false dichotomy. People who make "objective" statements about the extremely subjective quality of art are epistemologically fucked. TBH I think lots of generated art is pretty cool.
Apart from this guy, nobody actually cares if people use "AI" art in the right context. People won't think you're unoriginal, unsympathetic, etc. They'll just think that you needed an image quick and aren't an artist.
- First and foremost, "AI" doesn't exist.
  Generative models are known as AI colloquially, if you're trying to communicate something to a wider audience, it's better to use a known term for the sake of communication.
  Secondly people complaining about "IP" are missing the point. We shouldn't be fighting to maintain a capitalist system of oppression. We should be fighting for a world where artists don't need to sell themselves in order to survive.
  You need to start somewhere, and smaller scale advocacy like this can be used to push for further change.
  Yes, I don't like capitalism but we're living under it for the foreseeable future. Ceding any protections for smaller artists because capitalists also benefit from it sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
  You don't have to embrace all new technology, but you don't have to hate it either. The value of technology is determined by its use. The problem is that R&D is entirely driven by profits and the violent enforcement of privilege.
  Can I hate some new technology? As a treat? 🥺
  Generative models generally suck at what they do. They suck for the users, they suck for people who have to then read and see the shitty outputs, they suck for the environment, etc.
  Worries about "skynet" are just phony hype that promotes the "AI" bubble.
  It's pretty clear that that part is an exaggeration for comedic value. The impact on jobs is real, and again bad for everyone except capitalists.
  The idea that "AI" art is somehow inherently worse than "human" art is extremely suspect
  Generative models by definition cannot make art, as art is by definition made by humans.
  You don't go look at a sunset and think about how great art is, or what the sunset might mean. In the same way, there is nothing behind a generated image.
  Apart from this guy, nobody actually cares if people use "AI" art in the right context.
  I care, it's fucking ugly, and it makes me think you're at the very least lazy and don't care about the thing you're putting out.
- First and foremost, "AI" doesn't exist.
  You watch too many movies.

Consumers don't decide the future. Labor does. And if labor doesn't organize then capitalist profits decide.
I hate this "change through consumption" crap. That is literally playing into the hands of capital.
Referring to the middle image in the comic.

i am in this community and an ai image community.

Okay so, ai has many issues, but there's a lot of redundancy here.

I agree with this comic whole-heartedly but I find it delightfully ironic that one of the complaints is AI generated images look “ugly and nonhuman” while the comic is stylistically in the same vein as garbage pail kids

I find it weird that people seem to argue almost exclusively over the economics of generative AI. I'd say around half of these panels are just variations of the same "it promotes economic trends which I find unacceptable" thesis.
My personal opinion on the matter, which is that any art is made meaningful by the person behind it, is basically only touched upon in the last two frames. I mean be honest, why on earth would we need some ugly piece of crap failing at imitating something aesthetically pleasing, when we could have unique styles shaped by personal experience and art that's actually thought over to look coherent in some way even if it may lack that detail that AI is obsessed with for some reason.

Copyright can be a problem but they showed The Scream which isn't copyrighted.
The rest is wrong. I'm not paying an illustrator to make a meme. I used Gimp for my last shitpost. I didn't pay a professional oil painter.
The pollution claim is way off. You can run Stable Diffusion at home on your GPU for the same energy as playing a game.
No you do not have to embrace everything new. That's not a counterpoint.
Jobs. See Gimp comment above. Photography put millions of hard working portrait painters out of business. The world ended in 1865, you just didn't notice.
Using AI doesn't need to be done on corporate hosts. You can run AI on a home built server.
My hand made art looks ugly. My Photoshopping is garbage.
Using AI is lazy. As is Photoshop. As is photography. You want human touch, hire an actual artist. Don't digitize art because that uses electricity, is lazy, and puts artists out of work. Definitely don't use lithography or other photo mechanical copying methods like printing presses. Hand draw each and every comic you distribute.
- The argument AI fanboys make that it's the same creative effort as directing or photography is absolutely insane and falls flat with even a tiny bit of critical thinking. Anyone can plug in a prompt. People study and work hard their entire lives to become good photographers and directors. Being able to take a decent picture is not the same AT ALL as a professional photographer, especially one of the successful ones, like all art. It takes incredible patience, timing, creativity, and technical knowledge. It's an accessible art form, like most forms of art, but doing it at the highest level takes a lot of skill. You need to select and know a great deal about your subject in order to capture it well, and timing is often incredibly important. There are people that spend their entire professional lives pursuing one shot, and when they finally get it, the photo is priceless and nearly impossible to replicate. The idea that an art form people get degrees and spend years pursuing is the same as typing a prompt is crazy. Just because anyone can pick up a camera (or a pen, or a paintbrush, etc) does not make the art form that simple.
  Directing is an art form too, and there's a very good reason the art of great directors is immediately attributable to them on viewing, even with no context. Anyone making that argument has no idea what it means to direct. Just because some directors might be lazy or uncreative doesn't mean the artform doesn't exist. AI could never replace it.
  
  Like I said I tried AI art once to see what it was about. I did not get anything good but I've seen AI art that looks good so I know it is possible with experience in prompting.
  Getting the right prompts can be done by anyone in the same way anyone can take a photo. I expect people will spend time learning how to prompt in the same way people learn the knobs and lenses on their camera. Anyone can take a photo. It takes skill to take a good one. Anyone can generate an AI image but it takes skill (less skill but skill nonetheless) to create a good one.
  The skill and knowledge to create an oil painting is several orders of magnitude greater than taking a photo. The only reason photography is defended is because everyone grew up with photography slop. Today phone cameras make it even more automated with their automated bokeh and red eye removal.
- Using AI is lazy. [...] As is photography.
  As somebody learning photography, take my goddamn hobby out of your mouth. I am so sick of you AI freaks pretending that chatgpt and photography are the same thing.
  My hand made art looks ugly.
  Practice, then. It's good for you. All that brain activity from actually doing something with your life might stop the dementia from getting you in your 50s.
  
  take my goddamn hobby out of your mouth.
  Have you painted landscapes and portraits? Take your goddamn machine generated hobby out of your mouth.
  I've (attempted) painting (badly). I've done photography (successfully). I'm sick of photographers pretending it's the same thing as oil on canvas.
  The gap of effort and time between photography and painting is greater than AI and photography. I select a lens and turn some knobs on my camera that I know from experience work based on the subject (lighting conditions, motion, distance, effects) and press a button. No amount of skill with oil on canvas can produce art as quickly as using a camera.
  I tried AI art once to see what it was about and it took a lot of time with prompts to get anything useful out.
  
  Practice, then. It's good for you.
  Exactly. Don't cheat and use a machine like a camera.
  
  They (tge one you responded to) also think painting and photographing is the same thing it seems.

Everything about this is wrong and just reactionary garbage.
There is plenty to hate about AI and how it is being implemented, but "stealing" is not what is going on.
Particularly hollow are comments about low quality as shitty artists getting paid for less over competent artists has been going on forever.
This is definitely hate the players and not the game scenario. There is no reason for a company to let go of an artist because of AI. This is a shitty decision made by garbage players.
The reason they do this has almost nothing to do with the technology itself. As I commented before companies have always raced to the bottom when it comes to paying artists. This is clearly a cultural problem.
- A lot of images ingested while training AI have been taken without permission. Most obvious is the recent flux of studio ghibli style art, which openAI has admitted to using without permission.
  
  Art is iterative so the concept that you need permission to use a style is ridiculous. Certainly Studio Ghibli did not invent that art style.
  As I was saying "stealing" is bullshit because you are not depriving the originator of anything. What you are talking about is copyright infringement.
  Personally I detest the whole concept of imaginary property. So your not going to convince me AI is bad because of it.