One thing I noticed since adding puzzles to my product lineup on Etsy is how the puzzle world of that marketplace really is the wild west.
On Print-On-Demand platforms like Redbubble, Society6 and FineArtAmerica, there are at least some built-in checks (even if they are on the honor system) where uploaders must affirm they created the work they're uploading and that they are the intellectual owner of that work.
On Etsy, no such honor system checks exist, as flimsy as they may be as it is. Thousands and thousands of MidJourney, Dall-e and SD images clog the puzzle results, and I know some print providers even encourage uploaders to use "AI" art in their marketplaces.
Etsy is ubiquitous; even non tech-savvy people use it for gift buying this time of year. It brings in a demographic of folks who don't even know about "AI art" and its impact, or how it's created. People from that group can purchase art from machines and not even know it.
There are thousands of AI products out there, mass created and uploaded without a real human ever putting a hand to the work, just to fit a genre or aesthetic.
I've spent thousands of hours on my craft to create the handful of work on my puzzle listings. But they can't hold a candle to the multitude of AI generated listings a person can put up in a matter of hours, not the thousands I spent to make it *for real*.
Support human-powered art.
That is all.
#MastoArt #aiart #noAIart