Art Station is probably the most important website on the internet for professional artists, especially those working in entertainment fields like video games (most of our fine arts links, for example, point to it). This is why the site’s continued use of AI-generated images has become a point of contention with its users.
Technology, which is rotten to the core, is of particular concern to a community that makes a living by creating art, and as such should also be of concern to the companies responsible for owning and hosting that community. But as of today, Art Station does not have a policy directly limiting the hosting or display of AI-generated images on the site, which has led to repeated instances where images created by computers, not humans, have floated on top of ArtStation’s “Explore” section, its most popular way to showcase the work of artists.
That is to say, of course, piss off a lot of people. Indeed, in the past 24 hours, so many artists have become so infuriated by the site’s permission of AI-generated images that they have begun spamming their portfolios, with a protest sparked by illustrator Nicholas Kole and costume designer Imogen Chayes resulting in ArtStation’s front page looking like this at the time of writing:
It’s just the same picture, originally created by Alexander Nanichkov and saying “No to AI-generated images”, pasted over and over again by hundreds of artists:
These artists are right to be upset! The burgeoning practice of AI-generated images will destroy all manner of websites, but allowing it on a site specifically designed to showcase the work of talented human artists is particularly bad.
“ArtStation’s content guidelines do not prohibit the use of AI tools in the process of creating artwork shared with the community,” a spokesperson for Epic Games, the owners of Art Stationto tell about my city. “That said, Art Station is a portfolio platform designed to elevate and celebrate originality powered by a community of artists. User portfolios should only feature artwork they create, and we encourage users to be transparent in the process. Our content guidelines are here.”
While this is an expected response given the prevalence of AI-generated images currently on the site and the apparent lack of moderation involved in letting them stay awake, Epic also says that they “do not enter into any agreements with companies to scrape content from our site”. website. If AI companies do this without permission and beyond purely academic use (where copyright fair use may apply), they may be infringing the rights of ArtStation’s creators.
Epic also says they’re “in the process of giving ArtStation users more control over how their work is shared and tagged, and we’ll provide more details in the near future.”
While this veiled legal threat is perhaps a sign that Epic isn’t as cool with the practice as it seems, and the word that user controls are coming in the “near future” is promising in to some extent, that doesn’t change the fact that Art Station users’ wallets have already been fueled by these AIs, and that it will do nothing in the short term to prevent AI-generated images from encroaching on a website that is supposed to showcase the best of human art.
For now, the best way to detect AI-generated images and ignore them (or better yet, to report it) has been the same for a few months: always ask to see the fingers.
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