I log on every few months contemplating whether or not to do an art backlog update. When the AI announcement went up about everyone consenting to usage in the algorithm by default or whatever, I drummed up a "well this is my last journal post ever!" entry in my head. But I thought, no this is absurd. There are people paying for this site; they HAVE to do some sort of backpedal else this site is going to implode on itself anyway.
And uh, looks like they did? So that's nice. Still stupid they even thought a significant chunk wanted to donate all their intellectual property once held dear by this site.
I think that's what this whole debacle boils down to. It's always so interesting to watch divides between artists and programmers, as someone who dabbles in both. I've seen AI recognition algorithms in their earlier (maybe not earliest) stages, and most of the uses are all the same: you feed it zillions of examples and eventually it figures out what's what. Art AI has to be similar, but because the "answer" it's looking for is a bit more abstract, I'm curious what people do to tune it. Y'know, people using their own algorithms that aren't just searching Google and cooking up the results in one go. Maybe I'd know more if I toyed with dA's generator but uh... it still feels so dirty to even experiment with.
I don't think AI is going away, like... ever? Animation has already seen a shift that benefits programmers, in the form of 3D and motion capture, more recently improved cel shading. Movies are just getting stronger, probably both because we still have artists working on it as well as because programmers are out there making the physics and graphics generators smarter. And I think, if we treat art the same way we treat code, AI art wouldn't be that bad. The problem on everyone's mind is that most people *don't* treat the two entities with respect for the creators, for some naive reason like "well it's on the internet, so it's free."
Like, again, the shift to AI art reminds me a lot of the more specific shift from traditional animation to modern animation. And I still sort of hate that shift sometimes. I do think we're ages off from AI being capable of generating both the wild and oddly specific wants that artists can make, but I also think people want to get to a place where programmers are able to code their way around art. It may not happen in my lifetime, but it's something I think people will have to adapt to.
Ah, but anyway, I'm not really leaving or deleting anything for the time being. Frankly, I was looking forward to my old, lopsided art shattering their algorithm. But now that they've revoked the forced consent thing, I don't have it in me to manually spite them with the images I genuinely think are awful. But if the site does implode, remember I do have my own site in my profile. With this dumpster fire, Twitter's chaotic implosion, and the nearly forgotten tumblr exodus, it feels like my site is the only thing I can rely on anymore. I uh... do need to actually update it, though... I still plan to implement a "comic" feature where one entry is linked to multiple images, but coding is hard!
I have a personal site for my art! No social media accounts required to enjoy!
I will still post to my other accounts since... I mean there's a 0% chance anyone will find the site otherwise. If I keep posting, maybe I can boost it to 5%. The site will have my "good" art; maybe deviantArt will remain my archive for uh... ancient relics.
I say that, but it looks like I came across one or two other "art goals" I had. They're silly goals not really based on skill or work, really more based on social media. 1) I got hate mail on tumblr the other week and 2) someone put my art on Zerochan, haha. Frankly, I was hoping both would happen and don't mind either; thanks, anonymous slices of cheese bread for the ego boost. Less thanks to the hate mail dude (though I don't know, maybe they were actually asking if I was immortal and phrased it weird! can't clarify, person was anonymous, oh well.) As for other indications I "made it big" on social media, still waiting on "stolen for youtube/ various other sites," "stolen for eneff teas"... and some that would be way more troublesome than those, so I'd rather not jinx myself.
All the more proof social media has just turned into a toxic mess, sometimes. 😓and the reason I started building my site. But I was also inspired by some old fan art sites back in the day, where a lot of my pre-2010 saved hoard comes from. They were simple, to the point, *algorithm-free*, and a treasure to find. I guess all that said, maybe making my first personal site is an accomplishment. Even if I needed Picano to build half of it... maybe most of it. But I'm in control of all the content now! It's a good feeling in the end.
Have I done that title already?
Ah. Well, all I know is, there hasn't been another site where I... just put up art. Other social media has been fun for a while but always becomes a clogged mess, even in my own blogs. You can't search everything or scroll through art easily because it's a bunch of memes and things. I think even though I barely log in here anymore, I like just having my stuff up portfolio style.
WI'm at the point in life where it doesn't feel like a lot changes except my age and health. Yippee. I mean there's that whole pandemic thing but that's affecting eeeeverybody, I don't have more to add (which is fortunate in a sense; haven't personally got covid). If you got any low-cholesterol recipes, I'll take them. Especially vegetables. Internet recipes that are just like cottage cheese every day just get depressing.
What was it, Reddit of all random places marginally improved my poor commenting skills, or rather reassured me that there are other people just as lacking in words as I am, yet they're nice enough to thank people anyway. Maybe I just need to get over sounding repetitive.
Here's to more years of art. and forgetting to comment