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JohnnyEnzyme @lemm.ee

"Oh, THAT lighthouse" by unknown German artist

I have a feeling this is AI-generated, to be honest. I first found it on a German site IIRC, but couldn't find any significant matches apart from that.

I'll try to avoid posting AI art in future, but I have to admit... some of it is pretty flippin' impressive!

EDIT: No, I guess I'll post more AI art in future, based on the positive response and discussion below. I'm frankly a little torn, but I'll abide.

12 comments

  • Would you avoid posting photography, too? Or photoshopped images that you have no way of knowing how many complex macros the originator used, much less how many artists had a hand in each creation from concept to the posted version?

    Regardless, I like this illustration quite a bit, in all honesty.

    • Good questions. sweating a bit*

      Our emphasis here is heavily pitched towards Euro comics, but I'd prefer to be easygoing about this stuff, and to welcome really anything with 'BD vibes,' so to speak.

      So yeah, I'd love to see some photography along those lines. Do you have anything particular in mind?

      • I appreciate your candor, and though I don't have anything in particular to offer as an example here, I do feel that it is a cultural imperative that artists do not turn away from advancing their tools, analog or otherwise — and AI is just that: an evolution of a tool set. To consider it anything more at this point is childishly naive, and to discount it as somehow disingenuous, fake, or cheating is laughably shortsighted if not moronically anachronistic. (Switch out "AI" for "abacus" and tell me you wouldn't roll your eyes at anyone whinging at normalizing its use, claiming unfairness.)

  • @Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world Actually I have to go back to disagreeing with you in a sense, matey.

    Scanning around a bit for new sources of ligne claire & BD news this morning, I happened upon my Pinterest feed (yes, the shame), and noticed a close approximation of the lighthouse art I posted above. Then another one, then another... then another one. I counted a dozen so far and decided to log out.

    My man-- these are GOOD pieces IMO. It's not that hard to spot the similarities, but man & boy, they're impressive.

    So yeah... I'm sorry, but I don't believe for a minute that the prompt generator is going through any significant pains to create all this new stuff. Rather, it seems pretty fluffing obvious that once a good prompt was created, it took ~1% additional effort to spawn out a mass of good-looking, completely derivative stuff.

    So... I have to let my "artist" side go in this case, and treat that shizzle with complete contempt in this particular case.

    Seriously-- as the next procedural step, you might as well have AI generating the prompts for AI to produce great art off of. No biological units necessary. But maybe that's for the best?

    • I'll respectfully remind you that you're essentially describing this tacky practice — one that has existed in some capacity since the very concept of qualitative judgement first occured to that prehistoric ancestor way back when. Mimicry is an elementary evolutionary trait, and yet plagiarism/piracy are petty propagandists' labels for it that the greedy and unimaginative bandy about from atop their growing piles of the same.

      Fun fact: Hollywood in its entirety was founded by the simple act of selecting a cheap AF stretch of land as far from European litigators as physically possible so that the "innovators" and cinematic "luminaries" of yore could blatantly rip off the artists from multiple nations with impunity for fuckloads of profit. Oh-so-ironically, that cash engine is loudly decrying this new technology on every front, stirring the public into a froth in every direction except historical ones.

      Now, I'll not say that AI isn't capable of astounding feats of mimicry, of course. Hell, even a basic abacus can do your math homework for you in much the same way. Do not get yanked around by the nose on this, fellow pleb; this is exactly what they want to plant in the cultural soil. Meanwhile, it's business as usual for the "innovators" and "luminaries": cheap (foreign or otherwise) labor to produce unique tools/products (if not outright stolen), then the manufactured threat of legal destruction to lock down "ownership", followed by selling "rights" licenses to the same populations that the original sprouted from.

      This fervor benefits only one demographic, and it's not us in the exploited majority. Write your own anthem, instead of riffing on the sheet music they hand you. 🤘🏼💀 Fuck the liars and lever pullers, friend.

      • Hmm. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that as a whole, but FWIW I can assure you that I'm certainly on board with viewing our greater society as being in 'late-stage capitalism.'

        That is-- I view the wealth divide as becoming ridiculous & toxic, with borderline-oligarchs in the spotlight like Bezos, Zuck and Musk all too willing to shamelessly ruin peoples lives (and the planet of course), heavily insulated as they are from reality. But of course, the problem is systemic and rampant, involving networks of many other individuals & exploiters.

        Btw, me dumb, but I'm not quite sure I follow your critique of printing posters of famous public domain (presumably) art for profit. You almost seem to attack it and defend it there, so... yeah, me dumb.

12 comments