ZigguratAug 1, 2023

How much did photography "stole" painter jobs ?

https://sh.itjust.works/post/2036821

How much did photography "stole" painter jobs ? - sh.itjust.works

With all the fuzz about IA image “stealing” illustrator job, I am curious about how much photography changed the art world in the 19th century. There was a time where getting a portrait done was a relatively big thing, requiring several days of work for a painter, while you had to stand still for a while so the painter knew what you looked like, and then with photography, all you had to do was to stand still for a few minutes, and you’ll get a picture of you printed on paper the next day. How did it impact the average painter who was getting paid to paint people once in their lifetime.

Show threadNotAnonymousAtAllAug 1, 2023

It sure did have a big impact, comparable to what some people expect to happen soon with AI.

However, I think your framing misses the main point of why many artists today are wary about AI: They are not just being replaced, their own work is used as a building block for the tools that will replace them; and they were not asked for permission and don’t even get any compensation for that.

Show threadVlynAug 1, 2023

If you have a basic understanding how AI works then this argument doesn’t hold much water.

Let’s take the human approach: I’m going to look at all the works of popular painters to learn their styles. Then I grab my painting tools and create similar works.

No credit there, I still used all those other works as input and created by own based on them.

With AI it’s the same, just in a much bigger capacity. If you ask AI to redraw the Mona Lisa you won’t get a 1:1 copy out, because the original doesn’t exist in the trained model, it’s just statistics.

Same as if you tell a human to recreate the painting, no matter how good they are, they’ll never be able to perfectly reproduce the original work.

Show threadekky43Aug 1, 2023
But it does hold water. The original image might not be contained within the model, but the fact that it was trained on stolen data makes it problematic. Even if humans do the same, an AI model is not a human, and therefore needs to adhere to different rules.
Show threadRightHandOfIkarosAug 1, 2023
If a painter looks at another artisis painting, then decided to paint something similar, is that stealing?
Show threadRyanHeffronPhoto
@RightHandOfIkaros If they are just painting for themselves to learn new techniques or styles, no. If they are purposely trying to copy it to sell or pass off as the original artist, yes. A for-profit corperation taking works that have not been authorized for commercial use in order to develop their for-profit software is indeed staeling.
Aug 1, 2023 at 12:34pmWeb