This sort of thing is older than generative AI. For the last couple of decades it has been impossible to share an interesting photograph without someone claiming that it was Photoshopped.
I see the resemblance to what AI generates, and wow some of those works are painfully detailed. I don’t think it’s just training.
His work I is what I would describe as somewhat middle of the road Fantasy / SciFi Pop art. The deviant art of old, or even before, the art that would cover the scifi magazine. It’s an amalgam of styles and interests from the nerdy spectrum, obviously done with great care by the artist. Problem is with middle of the road is that that’s where the LLM averages out. Not flaming the artist at all, these are lovely works, but an average of lots of pop art / interests. I don’t think he will lose his livelihood - art by commission will stay a thing. For poster and promo work, that’s gone probably.
> Not flaming the artist at all, these are lovely works
With respect, you totally are. Call it what it is - your honest criticism/opinion. Calling their work “middle of the road” and then saying they can’t get certain jobs then trying to pretend you’re being nice is just dishonest.
I encountered some of his art a while back, and I too thought it might be AI, or in some way AI-assisted. The main thing that convinced me otherwise was his extensive "pre-AI" portfolio. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't have that!
i've been thinking about this a lot. working on a longer form piece on this idea:
i find it's actually easier to "discover" than it is to "create" using llms. discovery, especially in math, is mostly a question of throwing compute at a problem and trying different results. there's a verifiable answer at the end. but there's no way (afaik) to aim something you're training via RL at a creative problem and say "make the next lord of the rings". taste literally changes by the day, and so much of what makes art matter depends on cultural significance you can't specify in advance. if you were training a music model in 1915, it would never come up with rock and roll. it's so hard to know what's going to resonate. van gogh was making his work for essentially nobody and now it's worth millions. you can't pre-load a success criteria for that
i think this is important to call out in a world that seems to devalue creative work now. people think llm generated "artifacts" are creative but in reality it's garbage and based on pattern recognition
Besides the actual topic. The portfolio is fantastic! I particularly liked the yin and yang of world hunger. https://www.davidrevoy.com/article43/yin-and-yang-of-world-h.... I mean not something I want to look at on a wall for too long but it draws on my enjoyment of dark comic book illustrations while also pointing to something topical
I do AI assisted images for fun and browsing their art I can't see any tell of AI or even tracing on AI; people became paranoid and jump to conclusion without any substance and I find it sad that people who put a lot of time and effort into their craft are getting knee jerks comments like this.
This must be so disheartening. To take the time to create something complex and wonderful only to have a bunch of drive-by yahoos shout "LOL! AI!" out the car window.
Creative work is now so devalued the instinct when most people see something is to believe that nobody put the work in and it was generated, because that's suddenly the overwhelming majority of "art" we are seeing. It's horrifying.
But that's the entire purpose of AI: bring the value of the work of others down so that those at the top lessen the dependence of the economy on the masses. Of course, this will in turn eventually slow down the economy but if AI can take care of the majority of the needs of the rich, why do they need us?
They’re not “drive-by yahoos”, they’re people who appreciate art, and they are necessarily and justifiably skeptical. They’re doing nothing wrong. In another world, many of them would be dedicated fans of the artist.
In this world, however, AI companies have been permitted to cause this massive tragedy of the commons, and they are the ones we should reserve our epithets for.
That's not being skeptical. It's being cynical. Skepticism is a positive trait. Cynicism isn't and this hurtful mislabeling w/o any gain over skepticism is exactly why it isn't
It’s the internet. Whenever there’s a new category of accusation/put-down, there’s soon a thousandfold more “drive-by yahoos” throwing it around without actually understanding it, and definitely not caring about false positives or accuracy/precision in general; the appeal appears to be in the very act of flinging shit, and any pretense will do. Monkey behavior.
David Revoy isn't a random artist on social media. He's a featured artist on Krita and creator of various Krita brush packs and tutorials.
None of these accusers seem to have done the bare minimum of Googling the artist's name before starting making accusations. I don't know if it's laziness or just lack of tech literacy that pervades the modern world, but it's very sad to see it.
Don't let it get to you. They are all saying things without thinking.
And he art directed on Sintel, which you couldn't get away from anywhere there was any discussion of Blender, being one of the largest scale productions in Blender during that era.
I remember seeing his Yin and Yang piece especially trending on deviantart maybe 2010 to 2012, he was really well known and no doubt his was among the material scraped for training models.
Pre-AI I worked on a lot of (niche) open source; I've had several jaw-dropping moments when a friend or employee would tell me we should stop working on X because we're just making a copy of Y which is trending on some part of Twitter.
I was very surprised, so I'd look up Y and find it was just someone charging for a product based on my code. And people in the community would accuse me of stealing.
I've seen this scenario play out with several of my friends too.
This isn't a new phenomenon, AI just makes for a more efficient laundry. Nobody cares, and nobody does their research. The tech industry is full of psychopaths glad to piggy back on your work and find loopholes to get away with it.
It's one of the reasons I'm not so keen on open source anymore. I'm glad to do free work, but being accused of theft while people make money off it is not a great reward. Probably a lot of creatives are feeling the same right now.
Yes and looking at his portfolio I can see where those commenters are coming from. It's a kind of style for which tons of actually AI slop gets spammed in various places.
Creative content authors need to move up the ladder. Use AI fully and apply your talent to make it even better. No need to get recognition for your non-AI organic content.
When a machine weaves fabric, no point in sticking to handloom and sell it as handicraft. Use powerloom and add your artistry on top of it.
if your sole goal in life is the relentless pursuit of as much cash as you can possibly grab a hold of on your short time on this planet, then you are right.
If you have a soul and aren't an awful creature that sees the world as a series of zero sum interactions, other concerns play into this. Things like you actually enjoy the work or you feel proud of making the piece or you care that every last detail is as perfect as you are able to make it.
Now I won't say that it's never right to use AI (goodness knows I do). But its totally wrong to suggest there is "no point" in ever doing things a different way from the cheapest possible technology
This is myopic “Silicon Valley” rhetoric and lacks understanding of art or why it’s appreciated.
We have video cameras and movies, yet stage actors on Broadway are celebrated like movie stars. People still read books. We have cameras and photoshop, yet a huge market still exists for oil on canvas. We have synthesizers, drum kits, and all the tools we need to make music on a computer, yet live concerts with guitars and drums sell millions of tickets annually. We have the technology to deliver payloads on another continent with millimeter precision, yet every few years, the whole world gathers to watch people who have trained a lifetime to run, jump, and throw stones.
“The old way is dead” doesn’t hold up in the arts like it does in the sciences. Technology moves on, but humans are the same. You can inspire and awe us today using the same tools and methods that were used hundreds or thousands of years ago.
I have never seen an open source comic before, publishing the full res Krita files and all.
Mad respect for that. I've donated a couple of bucks.
To be honest it does feel AI generated for me. Most likely because AI was trained on such art styles. Props to the artist though.
This sort of thing is older than generative AI. For the last couple of decades it has been impossible to share an interesting photograph without someone claiming that it was Photoshopped.
I see the resemblance to what AI generates, and wow some of those works are painfully detailed. I don’t think it’s just training.
His work I is what I would describe as somewhat middle of the road Fantasy / SciFi Pop art. The deviant art of old, or even before, the art that would cover the scifi magazine. It’s an amalgam of styles and interests from the nerdy spectrum, obviously done with great care by the artist. Problem is with middle of the road is that that’s where the LLM averages out. Not flaming the artist at all, these are lovely works, but an average of lots of pop art / interests. I don’t think he will lose his livelihood - art by commission will stay a thing. For poster and promo work, that’s gone probably.
Show me an AI-generated work comparable to one of his.
Assembling all of those comments seems like a lot of work to me.
It probably won't look as good if you truly inspect it, but AI can certainly mimic the style.
> Not flaming the artist at all, these are lovely works
With respect, you totally are. Call it what it is - your honest criticism/opinion. Calling their work “middle of the road” and then saying they can’t get certain jobs then trying to pretend you’re being nice is just dishonest.
I encountered some of his art a while back, and I too thought it might be AI, or in some way AI-assisted. The main thing that convinced me otherwise was his extensive "pre-AI" portfolio. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't have that!
It probably looks like AI art because they were trained on his work
Enjoy their art b clicking the link in the first paragraph.
Watch a time lapse illustration video here: https://www.peppercarrot.com/0_sources/miniFantasyTheater/ma...
i've been thinking about this a lot. working on a longer form piece on this idea:
i find it's actually easier to "discover" than it is to "create" using llms. discovery, especially in math, is mostly a question of throwing compute at a problem and trying different results. there's a verifiable answer at the end. but there's no way (afaik) to aim something you're training via RL at a creative problem and say "make the next lord of the rings". taste literally changes by the day, and so much of what makes art matter depends on cultural significance you can't specify in advance. if you were training a music model in 1915, it would never come up with rock and roll. it's so hard to know what's going to resonate. van gogh was making his work for essentially nobody and now it's worth millions. you can't pre-load a success criteria for that
i think this is important to call out in a world that seems to devalue creative work now. people think llm generated "artifacts" are creative but in reality it's garbage and based on pattern recognition
Besides the actual topic. The portfolio is fantastic! I particularly liked the yin and yang of world hunger. https://www.davidrevoy.com/article43/yin-and-yang-of-world-h.... I mean not something I want to look at on a wall for too long but it draws on my enjoyment of dark comic book illustrations while also pointing to something topical
I do AI assisted images for fun and browsing their art I can't see any tell of AI or even tracing on AI; people became paranoid and jump to conclusion without any substance and I find it sad that people who put a lot of time and effort into their craft are getting knee jerks comments like this.
This must be so disheartening. To take the time to create something complex and wonderful only to have a bunch of drive-by yahoos shout "LOL! AI!" out the car window.
Creative work is now so devalued the instinct when most people see something is to believe that nobody put the work in and it was generated, because that's suddenly the overwhelming majority of "art" we are seeing. It's horrifying.
But that's the entire purpose of AI: bring the value of the work of others down so that those at the top lessen the dependence of the economy on the masses. Of course, this will in turn eventually slow down the economy but if AI can take care of the majority of the needs of the rich, why do they need us?
They’re not “drive-by yahoos”, they’re people who appreciate art, and they are necessarily and justifiably skeptical. They’re doing nothing wrong. In another world, many of them would be dedicated fans of the artist.
In this world, however, AI companies have been permitted to cause this massive tragedy of the commons, and they are the ones we should reserve our epithets for.
That's not being skeptical. It's being cynical. Skepticism is a positive trait. Cynicism isn't and this hurtful mislabeling w/o any gain over skepticism is exactly why it isn't
It’s the internet. Whenever there’s a new category of accusation/put-down, there’s soon a thousandfold more “drive-by yahoos” throwing it around without actually understanding it, and definitely not caring about false positives or accuracy/precision in general; the appeal appears to be in the very act of flinging shit, and any pretense will do. Monkey behavior.
I have plenty of epithets for people who accuse others of lying based on vibes alone. It is not necessary or justifiable.
Incorrect. This is no better than people who claim writing is AI just because the author uses emdashes
In both cases people are using the heuristics they have to deal with the onslaught of slop, nothing wrong with that.
The error rate is what’s wrong. A heuristic which has a high false positive rate is worse than nothing because it trains people to ignore all reports.
I think if you have that many false positives, you're doing something wrong, no matter whose fault you claim it is.
David Revoy isn't a random artist on social media. He's a featured artist on Krita and creator of various Krita brush packs and tutorials.
None of these accusers seem to have done the bare minimum of Googling the artist's name before starting making accusations. I don't know if it's laziness or just lack of tech literacy that pervades the modern world, but it's very sad to see it.
Don't let it get to you. They are all saying things without thinking.
And he art directed on Sintel, which you couldn't get away from anywhere there was any discussion of Blender, being one of the largest scale productions in Blender during that era.
I remember seeing his Yin and Yang piece especially trending on deviantart maybe 2010 to 2012, he was really well known and no doubt his was among the material scraped for training models.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
It's called reputation.
I take it you dont listen to your doctors.
Do you think people just spawn out of nowhere the instant you interact with them or did they have a life before you met them?
Pre-AI I worked on a lot of (niche) open source; I've had several jaw-dropping moments when a friend or employee would tell me we should stop working on X because we're just making a copy of Y which is trending on some part of Twitter.
I was very surprised, so I'd look up Y and find it was just someone charging for a product based on my code. And people in the community would accuse me of stealing.
I've seen this scenario play out with several of my friends too.
This isn't a new phenomenon, AI just makes for a more efficient laundry. Nobody cares, and nobody does their research. The tech industry is full of psychopaths glad to piggy back on your work and find loopholes to get away with it.
It's one of the reasons I'm not so keen on open source anymore. I'm glad to do free work, but being accused of theft while people make money off it is not a great reward. Probably a lot of creatives are feeling the same right now.
Internet commentators are dumbasses. Nothing new here.
Point and laugh at them, and move on. They don’t matter, they’re idiots.
Source: I’m a dumbass.
Cool art, I could totally imagine a Dixit deck with your stuff
Note that most of the complaints are his art looks like AI art. That's very different from it being AI-generated.
is not "very" different. to me, many of these read as hedged insinuations
Yes and looking at his portfolio I can see where those commenters are coming from. It's a kind of style for which tons of actually AI slop gets spammed in various places.
Creative content authors need to move up the ladder. Use AI fully and apply your talent to make it even better. No need to get recognition for your non-AI organic content.
When a machine weaves fabric, no point in sticking to handloom and sell it as handicraft. Use powerloom and add your artistry on top of it.
if your sole goal in life is the relentless pursuit of as much cash as you can possibly grab a hold of on your short time on this planet, then you are right.
If you have a soul and aren't an awful creature that sees the world as a series of zero sum interactions, other concerns play into this. Things like you actually enjoy the work or you feel proud of making the piece or you care that every last detail is as perfect as you are able to make it.
Now I won't say that it's never right to use AI (goodness knows I do). But its totally wrong to suggest there is "no point" in ever doing things a different way from the cheapest possible technology
This is myopic “Silicon Valley” rhetoric and lacks understanding of art or why it’s appreciated.
We have video cameras and movies, yet stage actors on Broadway are celebrated like movie stars. People still read books. We have cameras and photoshop, yet a huge market still exists for oil on canvas. We have synthesizers, drum kits, and all the tools we need to make music on a computer, yet live concerts with guitars and drums sell millions of tickets annually. We have the technology to deliver payloads on another continent with millimeter precision, yet every few years, the whole world gathers to watch people who have trained a lifetime to run, jump, and throw stones.
“The old way is dead” doesn’t hold up in the arts like it does in the sciences. Technology moves on, but humans are the same. You can inspire and awe us today using the same tools and methods that were used hundreds or thousands of years ago.