Procreate's anti-AI pledge attracts praise from digital creatives

People aren't looking at this from a business perspective. Right now a decent subset of artists hate AI, so it makes sense to try and target that market if it's large enough.

If artists suddenly started loving AI tomorrow, this pledge would be out the window. It's just business and marketing - nothing more, nothing less.

> The announcement has already attracted widespread praise from creatives online

I love how the evidence for this is three tweets from Internet randos. I’m sure I can also find three tweets condemning this from “creatives online” in no time at all; if not I’ll just post it myself.

Why do we need these useless “‘many’ twitter users liked blah” news, again? Just tell me “blah happened” and stop there.

Good. If your customers vehemently don't want the feature in your product (with the exception of maybe security/privacy features), don't add it.

If you still really want to make that feature, make it a plugin or application that is completely separate so that people who want it can use and people who don't can pretend it does not exist and never even have to look at it or think about it.

The band Queen had a prominent note, "No Synthesizers!", on the sleeve of all of their albums from Queen II through A Day At The Races. Presumably it was good branding to emphasize that they were an authentic rock band. By the 80's, however, the initial synthesizer backlash had worn off, and the technology had improved to the point that they were a universal piece of studio equipment...and one that Queen used heavily in their later albums.

It seems likely that acceptance of AI technology will follow a similar pattern.

Interesting to contrast this with the attitude many photographers have to Topaz Labs. That thing makes out of whole cloth 90% of image data, and the model doing it is trained on who knows what, yet the result is "I sharpened my photos in post using topaz".

Similar with using gen AI inpainting for object removal. It's all "post" for many photographers.

Yet for artists using gen ai for background, detailing or something similar is a dark side.

That’s going to be incredibly painful to walk back.

I don’t think such a hard stance is wise given the general trend. Some level AI tech is actually useful even if you don’t go all in

I am definitely behind this.

Generative AI changed the market. It's impossible to find someone decent now among the generative AI users who churn out stuff which is absolutely objectively shite. I've got a small network of people who I know who don't use it fortunately and they are being screwed as well because they can't compete even though their work is at least two orders of magnitude better quality.

The worst bit is the generative AI users push the same perspective which is unique and bespoke service from individual designers. You don't know it's generative AI until the paid for samples turn up.

It's a disaster. A race to the bottom. Factory farmed content.

My wife’s a graphic designer and now creative director. She uses Dall-E for all sorts of stuff. Our wedding, interior design, logo for our other company, fixing up our photographs. Her work as an illustrator has been on the front of the NYSE, and on Muni buses, and up here in our home.

So, sure, there are lots of people who hate diffusion models but there are lots of people who enjoy working with them too. Online spaces attract the hate, but I have to say that the tools are good!

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41291082

Ah, looks like they're taking the whole "organic code" angle. Looks like a new meta on the menu, boys.

That's people's passive aggressive way to tell you "we want more from AI"

(This will lead nowhere..) but hearing someone claim theft, which is a well defined term, usually involving physically taking something from someone is so much of a statement like confused billionaires claiming a "woke mind virus".

Have we left the ability behind to make informed discussions?

It's not like it was ever going to even if it wanted.

Smart marketing move.

This is a very fuzzy line. When does math become "AI"?

Is anti-aliasing AI?

Is line smoothing AI?

Which filters are/aren't AI?

This is a PR stunt to differentiate against AI heavy art tools.

These people are so sure they occupy the moral high ground, but they do not. If the trend continues it will be possible for anyone to materialize their artistic vision with great fidelity. I’m sure there are countless people who would have contributed culturally significant works in the past but for a lack of time or money or peculiar talents requisite for the physical production of such works.

At the core of most objections to generative art is some combination of mercantile fear, distress at sunk costs, or the loss of one’s specialness. While all are understandable, a righteous person would weigh their own loss against society’s gain, and finding the balance so lopsidedly in favor of society, make of themselves a sacrifice.