Both professional and amateur artists were united yesterday in protest against it ArtStationthe largest portfolio site in the space, for its seeming inaction against a rising tide of AI-generated images washing up on its front page.
It was very easy to understand their frustrations. ArtStation is a deeply important place for artists, and many used it assuming that its owners (Epic Games) care about its community since… it’s a community site. It’s just for artists and a place where they can not only share their work but also comment on and follow the creations of their peers. It’s almost as much a social network as it is a portfolio site.
However, much of that goodwill has turned to dust in the last 24 hours, initially due to the initial protest that saw many of the original anti-AI images removed from ArtStation Moderators – and now in the aftermath of the website team releasing a FAQ on AI-generated images.
The Frequently Asked Questions which you can read heresays a lot of the same stuff Epic said in their statements yesterday. However, it then branches off into territory that is even more inferior, and in one incredible paragraph states that it is just as important to consider the sentiments of “AI research and commercialization” as those of their own active, human user base (emphasis added). Mine).
How does ArtStation handle questions about artist permissions and AI art generators?
We believe that artists should be free to choose how their art is used and At the same time, we don’t want to become a gatekeeper with website conditions that stifle AI research and commercialization while respecting artists’ choices and copyright. So here are our current plans:
We plan to add tags that allow artists to explicitly allow or denyallow the use of their art for (1) training non-commercial AI research and (2) training commercial AI. We plan to update the ArtStation Website Terms of Service to prohibit the use of art by AI where the artist has elected not to. We do not intend to add any of these tags by default, in which case AI’s use of the art is governed solely by copyright and not restricted by our Terms of Service.
We welcome feedback on this rapidly evolving topic.
This feedback quickly came from users who were disgusted with the site’s response. That was bad enough ArtStation dragged her heels long enough that this was blown up. Then to answer like this is seen as a slap in the face to a community that has helped the site grow from humble beginnings (as an alternative to the industry’s previous go-to place, CGHub, which itself collapsed in 2014
“Well, any hopes I had of ArtStation taking off as the next best platform for artists to build a community are gone now,” it reads a reply to the site’s announcement tweet. “Why are you more concerned about not pissing off tech bros than protecting the work of real artists on your platform?”
“God, they can just be fucked for this,” says another, while several other replies, some from very prominent artists working in video games and films, shared screenshots of them deleting their accounts.
The impact cancellations and continued protests will have on site operators and owners remains to be seen, but for now, over 24 hours into the protest, ArtStations The front page still looks like this (many of the images that look like they are AI generated images are actually protest illustrations)
