whilst i kinda agree, i don’t think it was intentional on their part (as with most of these controversies)… i think they paid a 3rd party for an artwork, and then that 3rd party took shortcuts - whether whole cloth, or with things like content aware fill - and wacom didn’t ask questions (which they probably should have, because this image in particular is really obviously AI generated)
they should all probably update their contracts to ensure artwork is 100% done by a human with big penalties for infringement though - they just haven’t caught up because it’s a relatively new problem
People will buy the cheapest product that meets their needs. AI is unstoppable and we already saw something similar when Adobe was created in the 80s, there were artists that refused to use their products and they became irrelevant and lost their jobs. Today every artist uses Adobe products without question.
But how much will we accept? Every step of tech was only ever used to increase production while workers got zero benefits. Now, artists will be expected to churn out way, way more because they have AI. Their pay won’t go up. If anything it will probably try to go down—if that was possible for artists.
Just because these things seem inevitable and fighting them is like fighting the tides, the conversation needs to be about how can we spread out the benefit. Share the wealth of easing the workload. And when something like that is suggested, the initial reaction is one of hesitation and “well, that’s not gonna work.” Because we’ve been conditioned into this insane world of benefit going up and workload being shoved down the ladder.
It’s created an already unsustainable world where people are worked to death while profits, profitability, and productivity soar, quality goes down, worker standard of living goes down, buying power of our paychecks go down and prices for everything only go up, profits are hoarded, untaxed, inequality explodes and we are all meant to just take it.
And then there are plenty of workers among us that think, “eh, what are you gonna do? It’s inevitable.” We can’t think like that. The line needed to be drawn fuckin ages ago. Accepting more of the same should be out of the question.
This just show how ready and willing are many companies to replace human creativity with cheap AI. If anyone really thought that this wasn't the direction they were pointing to, he was just deluding himself. New creativity tools "my ass".
Maybe for companies that aren't selling tools for digital artists, but WACOM is literally trying to sell a product that humans use to create these images. To usurp the their customer base and buy an AI image (even unintentionally) shows at best a complete lack of understanding about what kind of art is being made with their tablets and at worst a disregard for a major concern of their customer base.
Right? There's so much talk about paying artists in exposure but how often do artists actually get exposed?
Don't think copyright should be an issue. We know for example that the soundtrack to the Disney film Encanto was composed by Lin Manuel Miranda, but Walt Disney still owns the copyright. Same could go for the rest of the entire film, they do give credits to people who contributed but Disney still owns the copyright.
Having a signature somewhere on an advert shouldn't be a big deal.
Several days later, and after this article was published, the company issued a contrite statement saying that the images in question had been purchased from a third-party vendor and had evaded being flagged by the online AI detection tools it used for vetting.
Despite this, the company shared a new marketing campaign for its Magic: The Gathering card game on January 4th that was quickly scrutinized for containing strangely deformed elements commonly associated with AI-generated imagery.
The company initially denied AI was involved, insisting that the image was made by a human artist, only to back down three days later and acknowledge that it did in fact contain AI-generated components.
AI detectors are notoriously unreliable and regularly flag false positives, and other methods like the Content Credentials metadata backed by Adobe can only provide information for images created using specific software or platforms.
Some creative professionals argue these are simply tools that artists can benefit from, but others believe any generative AI features are exploitive because they’re often trained on masses of content collected without creators’ knowledge or consent.
Wacom and WotC eventually provided similar responses to their respective situations: that the offending images had come from a third-party vendor, that the companies were unaware that AI had been used to make them, and that they promised to do better in the future.
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I'm surprised Wacom hasn't added ai to their tablet software like that google drawing program that guessed what you were trying to draw long ago and would make it for you
Many artists have already rallied against companies using generative AI. They fear it could impact job security across a wide range of creative professions like graphic design, illustration, animation, and voice acting.
I always get a little bit frustrated when this is the only complaint for generative AI. It kind of rubs off as petty.
If you become less productive than China then they get the market. You want to fix the problem by making US business owners to pay up, but capital has no nationality. If you succeed then you have to accept that there is no way for the US to have such a big military complex and it's time to let China be the world's super power.
I get why people are upset, but isn't it kinda futile? Everything that can be replaced with AI will be. From arts to dev and anything else they can think of. It's only a matter of time until the tech is good enough for any particular problem. Trying up legislate against it doesn't seem useful either. People will get around it eventually.
We're moving towards a world where lots of us won't have viable jobs in these fields. We'll either find different jobs or need some form of UBI
Doomerism - I don't think that word means what you think it means (or you just don't understand what UBI could be the start of, don't know anything about MLK, probably all of the above).
Considering MLK's understanding and support of Marxist ideas, he'd probably be fighting for technological progress as long as it came along with UBI, since that's literally the basis of a better world for everyone, unlike systemic racism and capitalism he was fighting against, which really aren't comparable at all (sure, both could be used to fuck up the prospect and potential of technological progress and UBI, but that's the fault of systemic racism and capitalism, not technological progress and UBI).
Yes and No. That Wacom Dragon legitimately looks awful; its tail a messed up, nonsensical mess. I think the problem isn't as much just "AI art" as it is "awful art", because if a human had made it, it would have been absolutely better; it would have made sense at the very least. Instead you have middle managers trying to cut corners and the end result is an insult to creative workers everywhere; and the managers and marketers who approved this said "meh, good enough" and didn't even try.
That's the most insidious part of AI Art used in marketing, a race to the bottom in terms of quality that leads to crap being thrown in consumers faces because creative, knowledgable people aren't being included in the conversation.
It is, this is the equivalent of protesting the printing press. It would be most useful to find a way to transition gracefully, but most people are still in the denial stage.
The printing press didn't change the text inside the books and made books widely available to the public. Art is already everywhere, we don't need AI to have enough of it and it fundamentally replaces what is actually good about art.
No-one. Training a neural network, natural or artificial, is not "stealing". Or no artist would be able to study the works of other artists to become a better artist themself.