“No to AI” floods Artstation Trending, users dissatisfied at platform’s stance on AI art

ArtStation updated the platform’s FAQ regarding their stance on AI art, which hasn’t gone down well with its users. “ArtStation’s content guidelines do not prohibit the use of AI in the process of artwork being posted,” it reads, calling the site a portfolio platform “designed to elevate and celebrate originality powered by a community of artists.” Under the ArtStation tweet, we have Artfol declaring it would outright ban any AI / AI-generated content.

In ArtStation’s case, you can find “pieces” from users in both the Trending and Latest tabs simply saying “No to AI Generated Images” and related works with the same message, broken up occasionally by artists who continue to upload their art.

Even Vance Kovacs, whose statement is comparatively amicable to the idea of AI generated works, has emptied out his portfolio until ArtStation can provide a “clear way to opt-in or opt-out of such data-“lifting” image generator programs.”

I don’t have a fundamental issue with “AI” art generators. The tech is remarkable as it can sift through billions of images to generate a new image.

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However, even though there exists enough images to use in the public domain, represented in thousands of years of human art, current generators, like Midjourney, have decided to scrape popular portfolio sites regardless of copyright, privacy or permission to build their commercial art generator products that they sell subscriptions to.

So, though I don’t agree with the absolute statement in the above image, and it’s moot at this point, I’ll remove my portfolio from ARTSTATION till they can create a clear way to opt-in or opt-out of such data-“lifting” image generator programs. Till then, this portfolio will remain empty.

I’ll move all my work to my own personal site some time in the future.

Vance Kovac

Now, you may have seen an image where this flood of “No AI” has apparently disrupted these generators:

However, these “ruined” images are not a result of the ArtStation flood, and have been purposely made that way, as a few comments point out. The generators are trained on clean data set every few months and the “No AI” posts will simply be retagged, as explained here. Nonetheless, the flood can be considered an effective protest against at least ArtStation.

In essence, artists just really don’t want AI art to be given a platform, but it looks like they’ll have to keep showing their displeasure until companies take hard stances against it.

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