Bucktoothstudios

Senior Character Artist-Orlando, FL Specializing in Licensed Character Illustration, Caricatures, Style Guide Creation, Merchandise Art, Christian Publishing

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Really honored and privileged to have worked on creating this year's 2018 dated program graphics for Sesame Place theme park! So much fun!

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@FromHappyRock These are amazing!

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@MichaelFKane @MatthewTanous @BCarpenterBooks As an artist, I very much appreciate that!

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@FromHappyRock Ourobouros reference is 🔥

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@Digitalliturgy How much of this change is due to the "monetize absolutely everything" mentality that commoditizes every form of human expression into "content"?

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@chiproytx DeSantis / Roy 2028

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@kyletwebster @prokotv He's alive! Good to see you here again, Kyle! And yes, PROKO is the art education GOAT!

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Right, I understand that. That will serve to help clean up / gentrify / improve existing infrastructure, but Joel specifically said they will help "reindustrialize". I'm curious what he means by that specifically. The thing about the increase in tax revenue is that it may actually harm the people that are living in those areas more than help. Here's why - their property taxes are likely to go up as well, and if their economic outlook (better paying jobs) doesn't go up along with their property taxes, the data centers may actually make their economic situation WORSE even though it is technically bringing in a lot of revenue for the local governments, schools, etc.

I'm open to the argument, I just want to understand Joel's point because I haven't heard it stated that way before and I'm curious what he has in mind that perhaps I've missed.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@JonnyRoot_ @DineshDSouza If I may offer an alternative, I think speaking with @gavinortlund would be even more productive. Far less incendiary and more willing to meet people halfway in their convictions.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Appreciate you dealing with specifics and not just joining in with the Protestia pile-on here. WLC seems to be commenting on a very very narrow issue here and even if people disagree with his point, I've seen less than 5% of the outrage interacting with his actual position. Most are simply reacting to Protestia's characteristically exaggerated characterization of his point rather than the specifics and nuances he takes great care to explain. It's frustrating.
Thank you for being fair!

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Amen. Some of my absolute favorite people in real life are far better representatives of their theological positions than the ones that have become household names online. It's true in religion and politics as I have some dear friends with whom I share virtually no political positions, but with whom I'd gladly trust my kids or my wallet.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@aelfred_D I genuinely think people are misunderstanding what he's saying here, but that's a top tier meme all the same.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@JordanSchachtel Unassailably correct.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

I think the more useful use of "slop" refers to the fact that it's an unrecognizable slurry of creative content extruded from all manner of sources into a finished frankfurter of digital content. Delicious, but so mixed and remixed that the individual components are unrecognizable from their original form.

Plus, a lot of it is disposable. Like you said, most "art" doesn't function as "art". It functions as content. It's a vehicle to sell something else. Few people appreciate "art" for "art". It generally serves as a means to sell socks, or tickets, or bubble gum, or clicks, or subscriptions.

So when I use the term, I think the "slop" generally just refers to its creative emulsification and the fact that most of it is meant to be completely and utterly disposable. Was it disposable previously? Of course. But when you hire an artist to make it, at least you have some idea of what's going into it - their ideas, training, taste, values, reputation. That becomes much less the case with GenAI.

I use the term because I can't in good conscience take credit for something I used AI for, even if I did most of the work. Once I hand it over to AI, even to do the finished color on a tightly resolved sketch, it becomes "slop" as far as I'm concerned. Clients, timelines, and budgets increasingly demand slop, so it is what it is and people have bills to pay. They don't expect it to last beyond a month, week, or even a day sometimes (if you're in marketing, sometimes the "art" will only be seen for a few seconds on an online campaign).

Unfortunately, most "slop" art that's been made over the years is done by artists who really do care about their craft. That's what makes it sting so much. The artists who had to make "slop" to make ends meet had deep appreciation for art and for craft. Even when making "slop", they took a lot of pride in it and tried to imbue it with as much quality and meaning as possible (whether the client or the customer noticed or cared). Those folks feel the sting of GenAI personally because it's kind of a final coffin nail in their livelihood - proving that nobody really cares about art or process or decision making or how you got from A to B. They just want the content so they can sell the widget.

Otherwise, I totally agree that using "slop" as a pejorative for "low quality" is silly (because the quality is astonishingly good), but it's definitely an apt description for the ol' "plagiarism extruder" as we call it. :)

People just want the hot dog. Most don't care what's in it or how it's made unfortunately.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@jaredcwilson Amen.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@JoshDaws Toy Story 1-5 is a cinematic chiasm. ;)

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

@TheBabylonBee Sigh.

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Sigh.

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Renaissance Artist Finishes Masterpiece That Will One Day Be Great Training Data For AI https://t.co/adIYubxFto

[Bucktoothstudios @bucktoothstudio]

Hey, Neil, appreciate the response!

That part isn't clear yet. That's certainly the front-facing defense and is certainly part of the marketing, but that wasn't the case when they were training them, and it hasn't been the opinion of a lot of the courts in the UK and elsewhere that have been adjudicating infringement cases already. There's lots more cases in the works, but they take years, which I imagine the AI companies counted on. By the time they're adjudicated, the damage to the arts will be done and everyone will have become dependent upon the models rather than the creators who are impacted. Getting compensated, even from a multi billion dollar settlement years down the road leaves a pittance to those whose livelihoods were gobbled up and redistributed to each according their need in the name of "democratization".

(The irony of the term "democratization" being used for what is essentially a socialist style redistribution of intellectual property by a centralized power isn't lost on some of us)

Adobe's model in particular attempted to remedy this ethical issue at the onset by publicly committing to only using images that were licensed specifically for AI training. They were not totally successful in it, as quite a few AI images made their way into the dataset (a small percentage of their training data was discovered to be from Midjourney), but as one of the biggest names in the arena, they understood early on that the other image models were completely unethical and abusive of content creators.

Generative AI that respects the creators of content CAN be done as Adobe has shown, the AI companies simply choose NOT to do it because individual artists, as a rule, don't have the capital or time to go against omniscient big tech.

The government as well has far too much invested in the success of AI acceleration to step in to stop "progress", even if it is obviously built on rampant plagiarism. So, for the moment, everything is fair game, no matter what damage is being done to achieve it.

There's no ethical issues with a Christian using an ethical generative model, but most won't because the results are far less polished than the ones based on all encompassing plagiarism of every piece of music and art in history. Many Christians are, in my experience, as "results based" as anyone else, and the temptation for an instantaneous shortcut to superior results is hard to skip over for a lower quality result when the "good" one is free and (currently) legal.

There's still the wisdom issue of relying on even an ethically trained AI as it may harm your ability to retain information long term, but I've seen almost no one engage with the ethics of the models themselves.