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Comment by tsimionescu | Hacker News Reader

You're ignoring the biggest problem here: the concentration and extraction of wealth. The sum total of human artists were previously getting those billions of dollars, and now it's OpenAI (and Anthropic, and Google, and Microsoft, and maybe a handful of other players) getting it. Now, maybe it actually used to be hundreds of millions of dollars, and they've grown it to billions, and maybe they deserve some of that - but they're getting all of it. This is the huge issue with this technology, not so much the fact that it exists but that it is being sold by a tiny, tiny amount of people.

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I wonder what happened to actual artists though - they seem to be doing fine. I'm sure many people as consumers dabbled in AI art, and reached the conclusion after hours that what they made never looked quite right.

Then they found they could commission an actual artist to draw what they wanted for tens or hundreds of dollars, which is a very good price for getting exactly what you want without having to waste your time playing the token slot machine.

How'd you conclude that artists are doing fine? That doesn't match my experience or observations at all.

I know some pro artists (ppl doing work for big name companies, games, US film studios), either on a contract or employed basis.

They've always told me the same thing - the job is to hit the minimum acceptable level of quality (which to my untrained eye often looks high, but they reassure me, their work is in fact sloppy garbage), using whatever means necessary, even if that means AI.

They don't even hate AI mostly the way art Twitter does, they hate is because it gives unrealistic expectations to what costs how much, and its often not really possible to get useful results - at least that was the case a couple years ago, things might have evolved.

If AI were good enough, they would certainly use it.

As for Twitter people doing commissions, I dont have firsthand experience, but imo their biggest issue is that there are tons of artists from places like Latam or the Philippines who do high quality work and charge very little, and the people who commission don't care - this was the case well before AI.

That's also the wrong framing

AI Labs are getting a tiny cut of the hundreds saved by not hiring an artist.

So regular people save hundreds, the labs get a few dollars, and the artists get nothing.

The artists are still losing, but it's regular people, especially the least able, who are winning.

The coffee shop isn't cutting OAI a $300 check for doing their spring menu. They are pocketing $295 and paying OAI $5.

No. The coffee shop who isn’t paying an artist $300 is gonna get negative reviews and loose customers and money from their bad business decision[1]. I know I would think twice about ordering at a café which uses AI in their marketing, and I am not the only one.

The coffee shop who cannot afford the $300 for an artist and homebrews their design in Microsoft Word is still doing just as before, the coffee shop which can afford it and still pays an artist is still doing fine. The coffee shop which is paying openAI $5 for stolen art, gets to look as cheap as they are.

1: https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/santa-cruz-restaurant-ai...

So to save the idea of $300 (logo design with "local" talent is never $300, it is only that cheap if you offshore it), they tried to ruin a business that presumably employs multiple LOCAL people full time (way more than $300) with 1 star reviews to "punish it"

This is an internet mob at its worst. Not an example of anything to emulate, in my opinion.

People hate AI, and this is one of very few ways people have to punish AI. It is bound to happen.

And in either case, this example destroys the framing that coffee shop owners are the ones who benefit from the systemic art theft employed by AI companies.

Sure, just like every software company using AI is going to go under and every video game using AI will fail?

I am not sure what you mean. The AI backlash is real, and it has real and obvious effects in the real world, with written articles to prove it.

If you are attempting here to shift the focus away from coffee shops (may I remind you, you were the one who brought that as an example) and into video games or software companies, I simply reject that attempt.

That there exists a software company which uses AI in their product and is not failing has no bearing on the framing on how a coffee shop which is too cheap to pay an artist for their logo does indeed look cheap to it’s customers who will be inclined to give that café a negative review or otherwise avoid said café.

I'm shifting the focus to the reality that exists outside of internet mobs.

99% of people don't recognize AI generated content, and don't particularly care enough to pixel scan every image they see.

You can death grip articles of AI art backlash, but they are all these hyper-narrow one off events. But reality is the general population doesn't really see it or care.[1]

1.https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/04/17/the-no-1...

That's an entirely different problem to artists getting "shafted". Not saying it's not a worthwhile discussion, but it is a separate concern.

Having everyone pay phone/internet, office, streaming, music, etc., subscriptions to large tech companies that are effectively monopolies all do that. It's a bigger, pre-existing issue.

Yes, look at how many historical inventors (like the Blue LED, the guys struggling to convince Gates and Balmer to make the Xbox) etc get/got nothing for their efforts compared to the huge sums raked in by the very people actively trying to prevent them from building the idea that made all the money.

AI is hugely beneficial to our species. Our tribalism and "yeah well they earned it!" response to capitalism's rampant production of billionaires is the real problem, not technology.

Why are footballers and movie celebrities paid 50$m a year? There's the answer.

1) Is there a moat? Is there no moat? Are open models as good as the closed ones? I keep getting confused.

2) As one of these artists, I am entirely fine with my entire body of work being used for the purposes of model building. The tech is astonishing and fantastic, and I sincerely hope we will be better through it. As the parent suggested: The idea that people in general previously gave a fuck about compensating artists is hilarious. MS builds models with my work, random people bought, idk, another vacation in Thailand or a fourth pair of shoes with the money that they never spent on art. I know which one I would prefer.

But I do find it particularly juicy that people, who, on the whole, never thought too much about paying artists (which I am also fine with btw!), all of a sudden can't stop wringing their hands about the injustice of it all.

What art have you produced? I did a little googling, and I can't find anything of note in public.

The same issue applies to fastfood, coffee chains and taxi services. Capitalism.

Correct. The way it's being built is exactly all that the US mentality warns about socialism/communism (that giving away your hard work "for the greater good" is a lie and is actually a power grab).

Turns out, if it's American oligarchs profiting from everyone's work, they love the idea!

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