He made a children’s book using AI. Then came the rage.

By Kelly Kasulis Cho
January 19, 2023 at 4:35 a.m. EST

Ammaar Reshi with his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” written and illustrated using the AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney. (Courtesy of Ammaar Reshi)

Ammaar Reshi thought of it as just a fun, creative idea: Use artificial intelligence tools to write and illustrate a children’s book that he had always wanted to make for a friend’s daughter. He gave himself only a weekend to do it.

But after finishing his project, the 28-year-old design manager at a California fintech company found himself caught in the crossfire of an escalating public debate: Are artificial intelligence tools a grim reaper for the arts?

Using ChatGPT and Midjourney, Reshi generated drafts of text and illustrations that would stitch together a story that would show the magic of AI to children, as he put it. Both programs, free for at least a trial period, require the user to type prompts that then refine them by regenerating images or text.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies — in Reshi’s case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers — and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was “hit a button.”

He has sold more than 900 copies since he put his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” on Amazon in early December. But a look at the reviews — 60 percent 5 stars and 40 percent 1 star — as well as his Twitter mentions suggest a growing divide over these tools as the public considers whether they’ll starve the starving artist, or if they’re ethical at all.

“The man who made isn’t an ‘author,’ nor is he an ‘illustrator,’ yet in his bio above he claims that he ‘writes,’” one Amazon reviewer wrote. “Our world is turning into a joke.”

Reshi doesn’t hate the technology, but he understands why some would be worried.

“With any kind of new tech that is incredibly powerful, it’s somewhat threatening to people,” he said, adding: “You see people wondering, ‘Will this replace my job?’ … That concern — we shouldn’t pretend like it isn’t a serious one.”

One of the main complaints about AI art, for instance, is that some tools appear to have learned from data sets of art created by real people — with real copyright protections — to provide the fodder for its computer-generated creations.

Reshi doesn’t have an answer for that: “People say, ‘Well, if this model is trained on my artwork, and my artwork is copyrighted, is this exactly fair or legal?’ But then I think you’re going to get into this philosophical debate, which is, how is this different than a human learning their favorite artist or someone drawing Batman fan art? One could argue that the computer is doing the same thing here.” He adds, “I don’t have a very concrete stance here yet.”

Already, AI has made its way into the creative world. Last summer, a Colorado man won the state fair’s art competition with an image generated on Midjourney. In November, the Lensa app debuted a new feature that sent AI selfies flooding into social media feeds. A comedy robot created by an Oregon State University professor has begun learning how to gauge the crowd in how it times and tells its pre-written jokes. Shudu, the “world’s first digital supermodel,” was created through artificial intelligence and has been used in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Some high-profile creators have made their disdain for this technology clear. The Australian singer Nick Cave recently called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty” — and a song it wrote in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” During a presentation on artificial intelligence, the famed animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki referred to the technology as “an insult to life itself.”

Online, artists have also banded together to stage a digital protest of AI-generated art. Last month, many railed against the platform ArtStation after AI-generated images appeared on its site. One protest image implored AI users to “pick up a crayon like the rest of us did.”

Earlier this week, a U.S. law firm announced a class-action lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, alleging that “billions of copyright images” were used in a data set “without compensation or consent from the artists.”

“AI image products are not just an infringement of artists’ rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate ‘artist’ as a viable career path,” a release from the Joseph Saveri law firm stated. It added, “If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products.” The law firm did not respond to interview requests from The Washington Post.

Nik Thompson, an expert in human-computer interaction at Curtin University in Australia, said that he has heard of cases where a real artist’s signature has appeared in an AI-generated images, and that creators “are quite rightly upset about this.”

“The thing is: The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back, so I don’t think litigation is going to stop these platforms from continuously developing and gathering up as much data as they can,” he said. “It’s going to keep happening.”

Thompson believes that many are overestimating the present level of sophistication in AI programs like ChatGPT or Midjourney, both of which were released in the past year. Artificial intelligence is actually just “a simulation of intelligence,” he said — it cannot think like a real human.

“Over time, we’re going to realize it’s not as fantastic as it might seem,” he said. He added: “I would like to believe that the discerning consumer who appreciates art and creation will still be able to notice the difference and gravitate toward the work of creators.”

After an explosive backlash on Twitter, Reshi “braced himself” before sharing his latest personal project with the public — a fictional, animated Batman video he put together using an edited version of a script he generated on ChatGPT. He generated images on Midjourney, scaled them to larger resolutions using AI functions in Pixelmator, and then recorded himself doing a voice-over that he edited using an Adobe AI tool. He edited the video on the phone app Motionleap.

“I saw claims that this is going to replace storyboard artists,” he said. “I actually don’t agree with that take.”

Though he acknowledges he may be too optimistic, he said he hopes professional creators can also find a use for these tools. Storyboarding artists or illustrators could test their ideas by generating them with AI and then use their hard-earned skills to create a more refined product, he said. Amateur creators might also use these AI tools to help their visions come to fruition, as he did with his Batman video, he said.

As it stands, some amateur video game developers have begun looking to Midjourney to generate game assets and graphics, while others have used the program to brainstorm visuals for an indie board game.

“A lot of people see this as empowering a new set of creators — the kids who couldn’t illustrate or write as good of a story. Now they might get a head start or a jump on this,” he said. “I view this as an equalizer in many ways.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/19/ai-childrens-book-controversy-chatgpt-midjourney/?

Witty Rejoinder said:

He made a children’s book using AI. Then came the rage.

By Kelly Kasulis Cho
January 19, 2023 at 4:35 a.m. EST

Ammaar Reshi with his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” written and illustrated using the AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney. (Courtesy of Ammaar Reshi)

Ammaar Reshi thought of it as just a fun, creative idea: Use artificial intelligence tools to write and illustrate a children’s book that he had always wanted to make for a friend’s daughter. He gave himself only a weekend to do it.

But after finishing his project, the 28-year-old design manager at a California fintech company found himself caught in the crossfire of an escalating public debate: Are artificial intelligence tools a grim reaper for the arts?

Using ChatGPT and Midjourney, Reshi generated drafts of text and illustrations that would stitch together a story that would show the magic of AI to children, as he put it. Both programs, free for at least a trial period, require the user to type prompts that then refine them by regenerating images or text.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies — in Reshi’s case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers — and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was “hit a button.”

He has sold more than 900 copies since he put his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” on Amazon in early December. But a look at the reviews — 60 percent 5 stars and 40 percent 1 star — as well as his Twitter mentions suggest a growing divide over these tools as the public considers whether they’ll starve the starving artist, or if they’re ethical at all.

“The man who made isn’t an ‘author,’ nor is he an ‘illustrator,’ yet in his bio above he claims that he ‘writes,’” one Amazon reviewer wrote. “Our world is turning into a joke.”

Reshi doesn’t hate the technology, but he understands why some would be worried.

“With any kind of new tech that is incredibly powerful, it’s somewhat threatening to people,” he said, adding: “You see people wondering, ‘Will this replace my job?’ … That concern — we shouldn’t pretend like it isn’t a serious one.”

One of the main complaints about AI art, for instance, is that some tools appear to have learned from data sets of art created by real people — with real copyright protections — to provide the fodder for its computer-generated creations.

Reshi doesn’t have an answer for that: “People say, ‘Well, if this model is trained on my artwork, and my artwork is copyrighted, is this exactly fair or legal?’ But then I think you’re going to get into this philosophical debate, which is, how is this different than a human learning their favorite artist or someone drawing Batman fan art? One could argue that the computer is doing the same thing here.” He adds, “I don’t have a very concrete stance here yet.”

Already, AI has made its way into the creative world. Last summer, a Colorado man won the state fair’s art competition with an image generated on Midjourney. In November, the Lensa app debuted a new feature that sent AI selfies flooding into social media feeds. A comedy robot created by an Oregon State University professor has begun learning how to gauge the crowd in how it times and tells its pre-written jokes. Shudu, the “world’s first digital supermodel,” was created through artificial intelligence and has been used in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Some high-profile creators have made their disdain for this technology clear. The Australian singer Nick Cave recently called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty” — and a song it wrote in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” During a presentation on artificial intelligence, the famed animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki referred to the technology as “an insult to life itself.”

Online, artists have also banded together to stage a digital protest of AI-generated art. Last month, many railed against the platform ArtStation after AI-generated images appeared on its site. One protest image implored AI users to “pick up a crayon like the rest of us did.”

Earlier this week, a U.S. law firm announced a class-action lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, alleging that “billions of copyright images” were used in a data set “without compensation or consent from the artists.”

“AI image products are not just an infringement of artists’ rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate ‘artist’ as a viable career path,” a release from the Joseph Saveri law firm stated. It added, “If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products.” The law firm did not respond to interview requests from The Washington Post.

Nik Thompson, an expert in human-computer interaction at Curtin University in Australia, said that he has heard of cases where a real artist’s signature has appeared in an AI-generated images, and that creators “are quite rightly upset about this.”

“The thing is: The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back, so I don’t think litigation is going to stop these platforms from continuously developing and gathering up as much data as they can,” he said. “It’s going to keep happening.”

Thompson believes that many are overestimating the present level of sophistication in AI programs like ChatGPT or Midjourney, both of which were released in the past year. Artificial intelligence is actually just “a simulation of intelligence,” he said — it cannot think like a real human.

“Over time, we’re going to realize it’s not as fantastic as it might seem,” he said. He added: “I would like to believe that the discerning consumer who appreciates art and creation will still be able to notice the difference and gravitate toward the work of creators.”

After an explosive backlash on Twitter, Reshi “braced himself” before sharing his latest personal project with the public — a fictional, animated Batman video he put together using an edited version of a script he generated on ChatGPT. He generated images on Midjourney, scaled them to larger resolutions using AI functions in Pixelmator, and then recorded himself doing a voice-over that he edited using an Adobe AI tool. He edited the video on the phone app Motionleap.

“I saw claims that this is going to replace storyboard artists,” he said. “I actually don’t agree with that take.”

Though he acknowledges he may be too optimistic, he said he hopes professional creators can also find a use for these tools. Storyboarding artists or illustrators could test their ideas by generating them with AI and then use their hard-earned skills to create a more refined product, he said. Amateur creators might also use these AI tools to help their visions come to fruition, as he did with his Batman video, he said.

As it stands, some amateur video game developers have begun looking to Midjourney to generate game assets and graphics, while others have used the program to brainstorm visuals for an indie board game.

“A lot of people see this as empowering a new set of creators — the kids who couldn’t illustrate or write as good of a story. Now they might get a head start or a jump on this,” he said. “I view this as an equalizer in many ways.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/19/ai-childrens-book-controversy-chatgpt-midjourney/?

the whole utopian idea of automating all our jobs is so we humans can spend our days on the beach and at brunches drinking mimosas and simply enjoying down time… which will become regular time, or normal time.. so we will lose the concept of down time and just be living, aimlessly, with no pursuit of happiness, since we’ll be in happiness… so we have that going for us…

Witty Rejoinder said:

He made a children’s book using AI. Then came the rage.

By Kelly Kasulis Cho
January 19, 2023 at 4:35 a.m. EST

Ammaar Reshi with his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” written and illustrated using the AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney. (Courtesy of Ammaar Reshi)

Ammaar Reshi thought of it as just a fun, creative idea: Use artificial intelligence tools to write and illustrate a children’s book that he had always wanted to make for a friend’s daughter. He gave himself only a weekend to do it.

But after finishing his project, the 28-year-old design manager at a California fintech company found himself caught in the crossfire of an escalating public debate: Are artificial intelligence tools a grim reaper for the arts?

Using ChatGPT and Midjourney, Reshi generated drafts of text and illustrations that would stitch together a story that would show the magic of AI to children, as he put it. Both programs, free for at least a trial period, require the user to type prompts that then refine them by regenerating images or text.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies — in Reshi’s case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers — and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was “hit a button.”

He has sold more than 900 copies since he put his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” on Amazon in early December. But a look at the reviews — 60 percent 5 stars and 40 percent 1 star — as well as his Twitter mentions suggest a growing divide over these tools as the public considers whether they’ll starve the starving artist, or if they’re ethical at all.

“The man who made isn’t an ‘author,’ nor is he an ‘illustrator,’ yet in his bio above he claims that he ‘writes,’” one Amazon reviewer wrote. “Our world is turning into a joke.”

Reshi doesn’t hate the technology, but he understands why some would be worried.

“With any kind of new tech that is incredibly powerful, it’s somewhat threatening to people,” he said, adding: “You see people wondering, ‘Will this replace my job?’ … That concern — we shouldn’t pretend like it isn’t a serious one.”

One of the main complaints about AI art, for instance, is that some tools appear to have learned from data sets of art created by real people — with real copyright protections — to provide the fodder for its computer-generated creations.

Reshi doesn’t have an answer for that: “People say, ‘Well, if this model is trained on my artwork, and my artwork is copyrighted, is this exactly fair or legal?’ But then I think you’re going to get into this philosophical debate, which is, how is this different than a human learning their favorite artist or someone drawing Batman fan art? One could argue that the computer is doing the same thing here.” He adds, “I don’t have a very concrete stance here yet.”

Already, AI has made its way into the creative world. Last summer, a Colorado man won the state fair’s art competition with an image generated on Midjourney. In November, the Lensa app debuted a new feature that sent AI selfies flooding into social media feeds. A comedy robot created by an Oregon State University professor has begun learning how to gauge the crowd in how it times and tells its pre-written jokes. Shudu, the “world’s first digital supermodel,” was created through artificial intelligence and has been used in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Some high-profile creators have made their disdain for this technology clear. The Australian singer Nick Cave recently called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty” — and a song it wrote in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” During a presentation on artificial intelligence, the famed animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki referred to the technology as “an insult to life itself.”

Online, artists have also banded together to stage a digital protest of AI-generated art. Last month, many railed against the platform ArtStation after AI-generated images appeared on its site. One protest image implored AI users to “pick up a crayon like the rest of us did.”

Earlier this week, a U.S. law firm announced a class-action lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, alleging that “billions of copyright images” were used in a data set “without compensation or consent from the artists.”

“AI image products are not just an infringement of artists’ rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate ‘artist’ as a viable career path,” a release from the Joseph Saveri law firm stated. It added, “If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products.” The law firm did not respond to interview requests from The Washington Post.

Nik Thompson, an expert in human-computer interaction at Curtin University in Australia, said that he has heard of cases where a real artist’s signature has appeared in an AI-generated images, and that creators “are quite rightly upset about this.”

“The thing is: The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back, so I don’t think litigation is going to stop these platforms from continuously developing and gathering up as much data as they can,” he said. “It’s going to keep happening.”

Thompson believes that many are overestimating the present level of sophistication in AI programs like ChatGPT or Midjourney, both of which were released in the past year. Artificial intelligence is actually just “a simulation of intelligence,” he said — it cannot think like a real human.

“Over time, we’re going to realize it’s not as fantastic as it might seem,” he said. He added: “I would like to believe that the discerning consumer who appreciates art and creation will still be able to notice the difference and gravitate toward the work of creators.”

After an explosive backlash on Twitter, Reshi “braced himself” before sharing his latest personal project with the public — a fictional, animated Batman video he put together using an edited version of a script he generated on ChatGPT. He generated images on Midjourney, scaled them to larger resolutions using AI functions in Pixelmator, and then recorded himself doing a voice-over that he edited using an Adobe AI tool. He edited the video on the phone app Motionleap.

“I saw claims that this is going to replace storyboard artists,” he said. “I actually don’t agree with that take.”

Though he acknowledges he may be too optimistic, he said he hopes professional creators can also find a use for these tools. Storyboarding artists or illustrators could test their ideas by generating them with AI and then use their hard-earned skills to create a more refined product, he said. Amateur creators might also use these AI tools to help their visions come to fruition, as he did with his Batman video, he said.

As it stands, some amateur video game developers have begun looking to Midjourney to generate game assets and graphics, while others have used the program to brainstorm visuals for an indie board game.

“A lot of people see this as empowering a new set of creators — the kids who couldn’t illustrate or write as good of a story. Now they might get a head start or a jump on this,” he said. “I view this as an equalizer in many ways.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/19/ai-childrens-book-controversy-chatgpt-midjourney/?

Genie is out of the bottle now with AI created content & art, too late, some compromise regarding payment is required

Cymek said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

He made a children’s book using AI. Then came the rage.

By Kelly Kasulis Cho
January 19, 2023 at 4:35 a.m. EST

Ammaar Reshi with his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” written and illustrated using the AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney. (Courtesy of Ammaar Reshi)

Ammaar Reshi thought of it as just a fun, creative idea: Use artificial intelligence tools to write and illustrate a children’s book that he had always wanted to make for a friend’s daughter. He gave himself only a weekend to do it.

But after finishing his project, the 28-year-old design manager at a California fintech company found himself caught in the crossfire of an escalating public debate: Are artificial intelligence tools a grim reaper for the arts?

Using ChatGPT and Midjourney, Reshi generated drafts of text and illustrations that would stitch together a story that would show the magic of AI to children, as he put it. Both programs, free for at least a trial period, require the user to type prompts that then refine them by regenerating images or text.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies — in Reshi’s case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers — and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was “hit a button.”

He has sold more than 900 copies since he put his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” on Amazon in early December. But a look at the reviews — 60 percent 5 stars and 40 percent 1 star — as well as his Twitter mentions suggest a growing divide over these tools as the public considers whether they’ll starve the starving artist, or if they’re ethical at all.

“The man who made isn’t an ‘author,’ nor is he an ‘illustrator,’ yet in his bio above he claims that he ‘writes,’” one Amazon reviewer wrote. “Our world is turning into a joke.”

Reshi doesn’t hate the technology, but he understands why some would be worried.

“With any kind of new tech that is incredibly powerful, it’s somewhat threatening to people,” he said, adding: “You see people wondering, ‘Will this replace my job?’ … That concern — we shouldn’t pretend like it isn’t a serious one.”

One of the main complaints about AI art, for instance, is that some tools appear to have learned from data sets of art created by real people — with real copyright protections — to provide the fodder for its computer-generated creations.

Reshi doesn’t have an answer for that: “People say, ‘Well, if this model is trained on my artwork, and my artwork is copyrighted, is this exactly fair or legal?’ But then I think you’re going to get into this philosophical debate, which is, how is this different than a human learning their favorite artist or someone drawing Batman fan art? One could argue that the computer is doing the same thing here.” He adds, “I don’t have a very concrete stance here yet.”

Already, AI has made its way into the creative world. Last summer, a Colorado man won the state fair’s art competition with an image generated on Midjourney. In November, the Lensa app debuted a new feature that sent AI selfies flooding into social media feeds. A comedy robot created by an Oregon State University professor has begun learning how to gauge the crowd in how it times and tells its pre-written jokes. Shudu, the “world’s first digital supermodel,” was created through artificial intelligence and has been used in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Some high-profile creators have made their disdain for this technology clear. The Australian singer Nick Cave recently called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty” — and a song it wrote in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” During a presentation on artificial intelligence, the famed animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki referred to the technology as “an insult to life itself.”

Online, artists have also banded together to stage a digital protest of AI-generated art. Last month, many railed against the platform ArtStation after AI-generated images appeared on its site. One protest image implored AI users to “pick up a crayon like the rest of us did.”

Earlier this week, a U.S. law firm announced a class-action lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, alleging that “billions of copyright images” were used in a data set “without compensation or consent from the artists.”

“AI image products are not just an infringement of artists’ rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate ‘artist’ as a viable career path,” a release from the Joseph Saveri law firm stated. It added, “If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products.” The law firm did not respond to interview requests from The Washington Post.

Nik Thompson, an expert in human-computer interaction at Curtin University in Australia, said that he has heard of cases where a real artist’s signature has appeared in an AI-generated images, and that creators “are quite rightly upset about this.”

“The thing is: The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back, so I don’t think litigation is going to stop these platforms from continuously developing and gathering up as much data as they can,” he said. “It’s going to keep happening.”

Thompson believes that many are overestimating the present level of sophistication in AI programs like ChatGPT or Midjourney, both of which were released in the past year. Artificial intelligence is actually just “a simulation of intelligence,” he said — it cannot think like a real human.

“Over time, we’re going to realize it’s not as fantastic as it might seem,” he said. He added: “I would like to believe that the discerning consumer who appreciates art and creation will still be able to notice the difference and gravitate toward the work of creators.”

After an explosive backlash on Twitter, Reshi “braced himself” before sharing his latest personal project with the public — a fictional, animated Batman video he put together using an edited version of a script he generated on ChatGPT. He generated images on Midjourney, scaled them to larger resolutions using AI functions in Pixelmator, and then recorded himself doing a voice-over that he edited using an Adobe AI tool. He edited the video on the phone app Motionleap.

“I saw claims that this is going to replace storyboard artists,” he said. “I actually don’t agree with that take.”

Though he acknowledges he may be too optimistic, he said he hopes professional creators can also find a use for these tools. Storyboarding artists or illustrators could test their ideas by generating them with AI and then use their hard-earned skills to create a more refined product, he said. Amateur creators might also use these AI tools to help their visions come to fruition, as he did with his Batman video, he said.

As it stands, some amateur video game developers have begun looking to Midjourney to generate game assets and graphics, while others have used the program to brainstorm visuals for an indie board game.

“A lot of people see this as empowering a new set of creators — the kids who couldn’t illustrate or write as good of a story. Now they might get a head start or a jump on this,” he said. “I view this as an equalizer in many ways.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/19/ai-childrens-book-controversy-chatgpt-midjourney/?

Genie is out of the bottle now with AI created content & art, too late, some compromise regarding payment is required

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

He made a children’s book using AI. Then came the rage.

By Kelly Kasulis Cho
January 19, 2023 at 4:35 a.m. EST

Ammaar Reshi with his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” written and illustrated using the AI tools ChatGPT and Midjourney. (Courtesy of Ammaar Reshi)

Ammaar Reshi thought of it as just a fun, creative idea: Use artificial intelligence tools to write and illustrate a children’s book that he had always wanted to make for a friend’s daughter. He gave himself only a weekend to do it.

But after finishing his project, the 28-year-old design manager at a California fintech company found himself caught in the crossfire of an escalating public debate: Are artificial intelligence tools a grim reaper for the arts?

Using ChatGPT and Midjourney, Reshi generated drafts of text and illustrations that would stitch together a story that would show the magic of AI to children, as he put it. Both programs, free for at least a trial period, require the user to type prompts that then refine them by regenerating images or text.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies — in Reshi’s case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers — and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was “hit a button.”

He has sold more than 900 copies since he put his book, “Alice and Sparkle,” on Amazon in early December. But a look at the reviews — 60 percent 5 stars and 40 percent 1 star — as well as his Twitter mentions suggest a growing divide over these tools as the public considers whether they’ll starve the starving artist, or if they’re ethical at all.

“The man who made isn’t an ‘author,’ nor is he an ‘illustrator,’ yet in his bio above he claims that he ‘writes,’” one Amazon reviewer wrote. “Our world is turning into a joke.”

Reshi doesn’t hate the technology, but he understands why some would be worried.

“With any kind of new tech that is incredibly powerful, it’s somewhat threatening to people,” he said, adding: “You see people wondering, ‘Will this replace my job?’ … That concern — we shouldn’t pretend like it isn’t a serious one.”

One of the main complaints about AI art, for instance, is that some tools appear to have learned from data sets of art created by real people — with real copyright protections — to provide the fodder for its computer-generated creations.

Reshi doesn’t have an answer for that: “People say, ‘Well, if this model is trained on my artwork, and my artwork is copyrighted, is this exactly fair or legal?’ But then I think you’re going to get into this philosophical debate, which is, how is this different than a human learning their favorite artist or someone drawing Batman fan art? One could argue that the computer is doing the same thing here.” He adds, “I don’t have a very concrete stance here yet.”

Already, AI has made its way into the creative world. Last summer, a Colorado man won the state fair’s art competition with an image generated on Midjourney. In November, the Lensa app debuted a new feature that sent AI selfies flooding into social media feeds. A comedy robot created by an Oregon State University professor has begun learning how to gauge the crowd in how it times and tells its pre-written jokes. Shudu, the “world’s first digital supermodel,” was created through artificial intelligence and has been used in a Louis Vuitton ad.

Some high-profile creators have made their disdain for this technology clear. The Australian singer Nick Cave recently called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty” — and a song it wrote in his style “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.” During a presentation on artificial intelligence, the famed animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki referred to the technology as “an insult to life itself.”

Online, artists have also banded together to stage a digital protest of AI-generated art. Last month, many railed against the platform ArtStation after AI-generated images appeared on its site. One protest image implored AI users to “pick up a crayon like the rest of us did.”

Earlier this week, a U.S. law firm announced a class-action lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, alleging that “billions of copyright images” were used in a data set “without compensation or consent from the artists.”

“AI image products are not just an infringement of artists’ rights; whether they aim to or not, these products will eliminate ‘artist’ as a viable career path,” a release from the Joseph Saveri law firm stated. It added, “If streaming music can be accomplished within the law, so can AI products.” The law firm did not respond to interview requests from The Washington Post.

Nik Thompson, an expert in human-computer interaction at Curtin University in Australia, said that he has heard of cases where a real artist’s signature has appeared in an AI-generated images, and that creators “are quite rightly upset about this.”

“The thing is: The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back, so I don’t think litigation is going to stop these platforms from continuously developing and gathering up as much data as they can,” he said. “It’s going to keep happening.”

Thompson believes that many are overestimating the present level of sophistication in AI programs like ChatGPT or Midjourney, both of which were released in the past year. Artificial intelligence is actually just “a simulation of intelligence,” he said — it cannot think like a real human.

“Over time, we’re going to realize it’s not as fantastic as it might seem,” he said. He added: “I would like to believe that the discerning consumer who appreciates art and creation will still be able to notice the difference and gravitate toward the work of creators.”

After an explosive backlash on Twitter, Reshi “braced himself” before sharing his latest personal project with the public — a fictional, animated Batman video he put together using an edited version of a script he generated on ChatGPT. He generated images on Midjourney, scaled them to larger resolutions using AI functions in Pixelmator, and then recorded himself doing a voice-over that he edited using an Adobe AI tool. He edited the video on the phone app Motionleap.

“I saw claims that this is going to replace storyboard artists,” he said. “I actually don’t agree with that take.”

Though he acknowledges he may be too optimistic, he said he hopes professional creators can also find a use for these tools. Storyboarding artists or illustrators could test their ideas by generating them with AI and then use their hard-earned skills to create a more refined product, he said. Amateur creators might also use these AI tools to help their visions come to fruition, as he did with his Batman video, he said.

As it stands, some amateur video game developers have begun looking to Midjourney to generate game assets and graphics, while others have used the program to brainstorm visuals for an indie board game.

“A lot of people see this as empowering a new set of creators — the kids who couldn’t illustrate or write as good of a story. Now they might get a head start or a jump on this,” he said. “I view this as an equalizer in many ways.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/19/ai-childrens-book-controversy-chatgpt-midjourney/?

Genie is out of the bottle now with AI created content & art, too late, some compromise regarding payment is required

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

Genie is out of the bottle now with AI created content & art, too late, some compromise regarding payment is required

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

True, it’sn’t like people have never used ghosts to write before.

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

Genie is out of the bottle now with AI created content & art, too late, some compromise regarding payment is required

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

Watch this from the 17:30 mark to get an idea of what is possible with 2 minutes training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHyyXSEXfus&ab_channel=EEVblog

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

True, it’sn’t like people have never used ghosts to write before.

Ghost writers or spirit writing ?
Who knows, they could compete with the best of us humans
What can you do though can’t uninvent the technology

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

True, it’sn’t like people have never used ghosts to write before.

Ghost writers or spirit writing ?

Cymek said:

Who knows, they could compete with the best of us humans

and they should, any self respecting human who claims that AI are inferior should be able to demonstrate its inferiority

sibeen said:

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

to be fair much ado about nothing was written by artificial intelligence as well

AI images are likely to be somewhat generic perhaps like stock photos as we assume no emotion or feeling is behind them

Watch this from the 17:30 mark to get an idea of what is possible with 2 minutes training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHyyXSEXfus&ab_channel=EEVblog

Aye, you could probably tell an AI programme to generate a bloke talking like a jockey.

Cymek said:

What can you do though can’t uninvent the technology

well you can always worship nedludd and sing along with Chumbawamba right

As an artist, what tech people do with computers doesn’t bother me as long as they respect copyright, which doesn’t seem to be happening.

They can churn out whatever they like as long as they’re not churning out mangled versions of other people’s work without permission.

Bubblecar said:

As an artist, what tech people do with computers doesn’t bother me as long as they respect copyright, which doesn’t seem to be happening.

They can churn out whatever they like as long as they’re not churning out mangled versions of other people’s work without permission.

well obviously the correct solution is to give permission and then

freedom

¡

—

on a more serious note

what out there is truly original though really

Bubblecar said:

As an artist, what tech people do with computers doesn’t bother me as long as they respect copyright, which doesn’t seem to be happening.

They can churn out whatever they like as long as they’re not churning out mangled versions of other people’s work without permission.

AI’s power can indeed be used for good, not evil, as well.

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2023/01/20/what-it-would-look-like-if-the-muppets-went-to-war-now-we-know/

AI is better at writing pop songs.

There the words don’t have to make cents.

Who knew, when it came to the rise of the machines that it wouldn’t be a domestic or industrial robot, or a police or military robot gone rogue.. no, it would be a slightly wonky chatbot that crept out of the undergrowth around the nether regions of a big tech company…

“no rational reason”

¿ do yous all not thank your ai assistants ?

Google Calls In Help From Larry Page and Sergey Brin for A.I. Fight
A rival chatbot has shaken Google out of its routine, with the founders who left three years ago re-engaging and more than 20 A.I. projects in the works.

By Nico Grant
Nico Grant, based in San Francisco, writes about Google and the technology industry.

Jan. 20, 2023

Last month, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, held several meetings with company executives. The topic: a rival’s new chatbot, a clever A.I. product that looked as if it could be the first notable threat in decades to Google’s $149 billion search business.

Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who had not spent much time at Google since they left their daily roles with the company in 2019, reviewed Google’s artificial intelligence product strategy, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings who were not allowed to discuss them. They approved plans and pitched ideas to put more chatbot features into Google’s search engine. And they offered advice to company leaders, who have put A.I. front and center in their plans.

The re-engagement of Google’s founders, at the invitation of the company’s current chief executive, Sundar Pichai, emphasized the urgency felt among many Google executives about artificial intelligence and that chatbot, ChatGPT.

The bot, which was released by the small San Francisco company OpenAI two months ago, amazed users by simply explaining complex concepts and generating ideas from scratch. More important to Google, it looked as if it could offer a new way to search for information on the internet.

The new A.I. technology has shaken Google out of its routine. Mr. Pichai declared a “code red,” upending existing plans and jump-starting A.I. development. Google now intends to unveil more than 20 new products and demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features this year, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times and two people with knowledge of the plans who were not authorized to discuss them.

At the same time, Alphabet is scaling back its work force. On Friday, the company said it would cut about 12,000 jobs after a hiring spree during the pandemic and amid concerns of a slowing economy. The layoffs were designed “to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company,” Mr. Pichai wrote in a note to employees.

“This is a moment of significant vulnerability for Google,” said D. Sivakumar, a former Google research director who helped found a start-up called Tonita, which makes search technology for e-commerce companies. “ChatGPT has put a stake in the ground, saying, ‘Here’s what a compelling new search experience could look like.’” Mr. Sivakumar added that Google had overcome previous challenges and could deploy its arsenal of A.I. to stay competitive.

The Rise of OpenAI
The San Francisco company is one of the world’s most ambitious artificial intelligence labs. Here’s a look at some recent developments.

ChatGPT: The cutting-edge chatbot is raising fears of students cheating on their homework. But its potential as an educational tool outweighs its risks, our technology columnist writes.

DALL-E 2: The system lets you create digital images simply by describing what you want to see. But for some, image generators are worrisome.

GPT-3: With mind-boggling fluency, the natural-language system can write, argue and code. The implications for the future could be profound.

Since stepping back from day-to-day duties, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin have taken a laissez-faire approach to Google, two people familiar with the matter said. They have let Mr. Pichai run the company and its parent company, Alphabet, while they have pursued other projects, such as flying car start-ups and disaster relief efforts.

Their visits to the company’s Silicon Valley offices in the last few years have mostly been to check in on the so-called moonshot projects that Alphabet calls “Other Bets,” one person said. Until recently, they have not been very involved with the search engine.

But they have long been keen on bringing A.I. into Google’s products. Vic Gundotra, a former senior vice president at Google, recounted that he gave Mr. Page a demonstration of a new Gmail feature around 2008. But Mr. Page was unimpressed by the effort, asking, “Why can’t it automatically write that email for you?” In 2014, Google also acquired DeepMind, a leading A.I. research lab based in London.

They were concerned that a rival’s new chatbot could be the first notable threat in decades to Google’s $149 billion search business.Credit…Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency, via Associated Press

Google’s Advanced Technology Review Council, a panel of executives that includes Jeff Dean, the company’s senior vice president of research and artificial intelligence, and Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, met less than two weeks after ChatGPT debuted to discuss their company’s initiatives, according to the slide presentation.

They reviewed plans for products that were expected to debut at Google’s company conference in May, including Image Generation Studio, which creates and edits images, and a third version of A.I. Test Kitchen, an experimental app for testing product prototypes.

Other image and video projects in the works included a feature called Shopping Try-on, a YouTube green screen feature to create backgrounds; a wallpaper maker for the Pixel smartphone; an application called Maya that visualizes three-dimensional shoes; and a tool that could summarize videos by generating a new one, according to the slides.

Google has a list of A.I. programs it plans to offer software developers and other companies, including image-creation technology, which could bolster revenue to Google’s Cloud division. There are also tools to help other businesses create their own A.I. prototypes in internet browsers, called MakerSuite, which will have two “Pro” versions, according to the presentation.

In May, Google also expects to announce a tool to make it easier to build apps for Android smartphones, called Colab + Android Studio, that will generate, complete and fix code, according to the presentation. Another code generation and completion tool, called PaLM-Coder 2, has also been in the works.

Google executives hope to reassert their company’s status as a pioneer of A.I. The company aggressively worked on A.I. over the last decade and already has offered to a small number of people a chatbot that could rival ChatGPT, called LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications.

“We continue to test our A.I. technology internally to make sure it’s helpful and safe, and we look forward to sharing more experiences externally soon,” Lily Lin, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a statement. She added that A.I. would benefit individuals, businesses and communities and that Google is considering the broader societal effects of the technology.

Google, OpenAI and others develop their A.I. with so-called large language models that rely on online information, so they can sometimes share false statements and show racist, sexist and other biased attitudes.

That had been enough to make companies cautious about offering the technology to the public. But several new companies, including You.com and Perplexity.ai, are already offering online search engines that let you ask questions through an online chatbot, much like ChatGPT. Microsoft is also working on a new version of its Bing search engine that would include similar technology, according to a report from The Information.

Mr. Pichai has tried to accelerate product approval reviews, according to the presentation reviewed by The Times. The company established a fast-track review process called the “Green Lane” initiative, pushing groups of employees who try to ensure that technology is fair and ethical to more quickly approve its upcoming A.I. technology.

The company will also find ways for teams developing A.I. to conduct their own reviews, and it will “recalibrate” the level of risk it is willing to take when releasing the technology, according to the presentation.

The consequences of Google’s more streamlined approach are not yet clear. Its technology has lagged OpenAI’s self-reported metrics when it comes to identifying content that is hateful, toxic, sexual or violent, according to an analysis that Google compiled. In each category, OpenAI bested Google tools, which also fell short of human accuracy in assessing content.

Google listed copyright, privacy and antitrust as the primary risks of the technology in the slide presentation. It said that actions, such as filtering answers to weed out copyrighted material and stopping A.I. from sharing personally identifiable information, are needed to reduce those risks.

For the chatbot search demonstration that Google plans for this year, getting facts right, ensuring safety and getting rid of misinformation are priorities. For other upcoming services and products, the company has a lower bar and will try to curb issues relating to hate and toxicity, danger and misinformation rather than preventing them, according to the presentation.

The company intends, for example, to block certain words to avoid hate speech and will try to minimize other potential issues.

Google expects governments to scrutinize its A.I. products for signs of these issues. The company has recently been the subject of numerous government inquiries and lawsuits accusing it of anti-competitive business practices. It anticipates, according to the presentation, “increased pressure on A.l. regulatory efforts because of rising concerns about misinformation, harmful content, bias, copyright.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/technology/google-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence.html