So, I’m a programmer and my thoughts here apply to AI generated code and ChatGPT writing as well.

I think these kinds of modern generative AIs create derivative works based on their inputs. Which means that the training data should consist of only public domain materials or other works that give you an explicit right to use them for training purposes. Blindly scraping the internet for training data without regard to the owner’s wishes is immoral and IMO should be copyright infringement.

Also, I don’t care how legal it is, but if you are a big social media megacorp and start charging money or putting restrictions on “your” training data, I hope you get a special place in hell. Thinking of Reddit, Twitter, DeviantArt and Microsoft here.

I can’t think of any justification that isn’t emotional to say that AI generated art isn’t “art”. Writing a prompt is I guess technically an artistic expression. However, I wouldn’t classify it as “digital art”; it’s its own thing. To me, it’d be like taking a photograph, and then claiming you painted it. It should be marked as “AI generated”, and categorized separately.

Ultimately, IMO it shouldn’t be banned across the entire fandom (if such a thing were possible), but I would not feel comfortable interacting with a place where AI material was not marked as such, or a place where they reserve the right to use your media for training. Even then, if I were given a choice in a place where I frequented, I would say “no” to allowing AI art.

Personally, I’m very negative about AI generated media, and try to avoid it where possible. Maybe that’s because I’m old and grumpy, or maybe it’s just because I’m scared of it. But I wouldn’t willingly use these tools for anything creative I’m involved in.

I think this AI thing has effects on all of society, not just the furry fandom. The proliferation of AI has its tendrils on many places of society at the moment, and could have drastic changes on many of the ways we live our life. And, of course, nobody really has any idea on how to deal with this, and it’s controlled basically by megacorps. I could go into detail about this, but it’s… A bit bleak.

This is unironically one of the things that gives me a lot of anxiety and stress.

To answer the original question though, I think in its current form and without massive societal change, not only the furry fandom but society in general would be strongly negatively impacted.

… Of course, I did get a bit curious, and maaay have asked ChatGPT to clean up a first draft of this post, just to see how it all works. I wonder how good people are at noticing things like that?

I can comment on this as an artist myself.

I think AI generated images (as all AI technology used in different areas) would be best used as an extension for an artist’s workflow as opposed to a total replacement of the artist. AI can speed up the creative process in multiple ways. I personally occasionally use AI generated images to get inspiration for things like poses, hairstyles, clothing and colours. The middle two especially, since I’m really bad at coming up with stuff sometimes. XD

I don’t mind if users post AI generated images as long as they don’t do it in a deceptive way, like actively hiding the fact that the image is AI generated, or worse, claiming that they made it. The argument of “I wrote the prompt” doesn’t really work because you giving specifications for a commission or a request for an artist doesn’t magically mean you made the art that artist creates either. Better yet, some kind of disclaimer about it being AI art would be good so people who do not want to see it know to ignore it or filter it out (if possible).

I’m not as doom and gloom about AI art as some people seem to be. Probably because I’m both a techie and an artist. As long as AI cannot reliably combine separate, possibly never-before-combined contexts in a creative manner, I am not going to be too worried about it becoming a replacement for human creativity. Though I do see that it could be used to amazing gains by someone who knows a thing or two about creating art.

Disclaimer: I’m not an artist.

AI art and text should be allowed if they are marked as such and/or on designated communities and/or as profile pictures. I’m rather radical and would advocate for an “open source” approach. Meaning people posting AI stuff have to post every input that is required to generate that image or text (model, prompt, seed and so on), like an “attribution”.

I think it’s most reasonable to compare AI use in the production of art to something like a Camera Lucida or photography itself as an art, because there are many levels of which AI could be involved in the production of art.

Is it reasonable to exclude such in a situation like an exhibition/contest of drawing skill? Yes, absolutely.

Is it reasonable to exclude them in other situations, like a general furry space where you’re allowing non-artist commissioners to upload art they had no involvement in other than money and prompting? No.

I believe that the fandom is better off for more of its members being able to express themselves and their ideas visually. Some people hold the view that a non-artist should have to pay an artist or become one in order to realize their characters and ideas. I think being discriminatory about what tools people are allowed to pick up should they wish to become an artist is not fair.

One last angle that I really wish wasn’t a thing, but I feel I have to bring up: 3D art using existing models and AI art are among the last-ditch pressure reliefs to facilitate visual expression of ideas that are unpopular. No artist should have to draw subject matter they don’t want to, but many are bullied out of drawing things like feral or feral/anthro art even though they might identify with or want to serve those interests. While in an ideal world that might be partially compensated for by some of the braver members of the fandom learning how to draw/paint/etc for themselves in order to fill those niches, it isn’t enough. Intersectional discrimination against those who choose to learn how to use AI tools to create art has a particularly disproportionate impact on unpopular demographics within the fandom.

For me AI generated images are double-edged sword. As a non-artist I find that these are an amazing tool that allows me to create the specific type of Yiff that I really enjoy. However, I can definitely empathize with the concerns voiced by artists.

To be honest, I have to say that I don’t believe that learning or training from publicly available artwork is immoral, especially if it’s not for profit, I am worried that many of the popular models seem to be clearly ‘over-fitted’. Over-fitting happens when you train a model so much that it ends up reproducing content that seems almost copy/pasted instead of merely being able to reproduce certain concepts present in the prompt.

The second concern I have is related to mediocrity and saturation of AI imagery. I believe that in upcoming years many of us will grow tired of seeing AI imagery as a replacement of stock images. The truth is that most images generated aren’t really that good and people will quickly grow tired of seeing them pop up everywhere. It will become a sign of mediocrity or poor quality.

However, I also think there’s a silver lining: AI images have the chance to drastically increase the amount of visual support that any type of content has. This could lead to us growing into a society in which images and other forms of visual representation such as mascots might become more and more popular (as it is in Japan, for example). And, as a consequence, this could increase the demand of quality artwork produced by real artists.

In regards to the furry fandom, I think it’s a good idea to separate AI images from artist-drawn artwork. Not only because of the controversy, but also because of the potential for massive amount of low-quality an low-effort content.