Greg Rutkowski Was Removed from Stable Diffusion but AI Artists Brought Him Back
decrypt.co
decrypt.co
Just like gunpowder, a simple enough chemical compound that was never containable changed warfare and wiped out entire professions, we ain’t ready for it, we’ll wail and gnash for what is lost but it’s done.
Copyright was not made to apply here - it explicitly does not protect style and it’s funny to see the industry trying to get there now (see adobe congressional suggestions) in order to be able to colonize plots in latent space and rent seek them.
Copyright exists to make art work with capitalism - the bigger issue at this point being extraction by rent seeking platforms and monopolies - the technology is not the issue, neither the random schmucks on the internet that use it - the issue can be perfectly seen at Hollywood level now: If consumer products involving art can be made without artists, publishers will do it. Legislate that.
> “If he contacts me asking for removal, I'll remove this.” Lykon said. “At the moment I believe that having an accurate immortal depiction of his style is in everyone's best interest.”
No dude, the scarcity and the mortality is the point. He spent decades developing this style and it’s obviously counter to his goals to have it “immortalized” under the name of anyone with an internet connection and a keyboard. If that wasn’t obvious prior to his opting out, it sure is obvious after that, isn’t it?
Gee wiz I hope people still choose to spend their lives developing novel art forms and styles, knowing full well they’ll be “immortalized” and mass-produced as soon as they reach noteworthiness. Art is a profession for Christ’s sake, not a charity project.
Anyway this was inevitable and I called it as soon as artists started demanding their removal from AI image sets, you can't stop some rando with a little money and time from fine tuning existing models on whatever images they want.
When art patronage disappears or where it doesn’t exist, the craft doesn’t develop.
Sure, anyone can make art. That’s not what’s being discussed here. This is a guy trying to feed his family and a bunch of assholes working to destroy his living under the guise of “art exists outside of capitalism.”
Sure art does — but grocery bills don’t.
Sure, anyone can (and should!) express themselves creatively and yes, that is art. But that’s clearly not what’s going on here, regardless of how dumb anyone wants to play.
Yeah, Van Gogh was a real celebrity.
edited to add what I was actually responding to
Van Gogh's choice to turn his hobby into a career wasn't their first choice? That's a hint. Cavemen weren't scrawling on walls to pay off their 401ks, there's more to art than commerce.
It takes one click for me to do what Rutkowski spent decades creating, so he can just...make like an artist and go die now or something. We don't need him anymore. Enjoy endless uninspired pieces of corporate motel art fashioned in his style.
It's demoralizing. At this point, every one of us exists to be exploited. Create anything original and instead of being appreciated, it will be taken from you as you're spit on and told to eat shit.
I can confirm that least in my circle, creativity has never been this high. We are going to see some art that you can’t even fathom come out in the next few years and it’s all going to be due to this generative AI push we’ve seen the last few months. Art will change, artists aren’t going anywhere.
It’s like saying we shouldn’t use these fancy new washing machines because the people who hand washed them for years would be left with nothing to do.