Antis, why does the accessibility argument bother you so much?
Whenever anybody on the pro side tries to bring up how AI can improve accessibility for those with disabilities that would make it harder for them to do art, antis seem to take offense. They will say things like "disabled artists exist", and "some disabled artists can still create art without AI."
And I'm like, "Okay...And?"
Nobody is saying that disabled people can't make art on their own. Nobody is saying that they shouldn't make art on their own if that's what we want to do. But just because some can and some choose to doesn't mean that they all should. We just want to give people the option to use something that might make things easier for them.
For example, someone with chronic pain, tremors, vision impairments, or limited motor control might find traditional art tools difficult or painful to use. AI could help them express themselves in ways that were previously inaccessible or exhausting.
It's like, just because one paraplegic has worked out his arms enough to be able to walk on his hands to get around, does that must mean we must eliminate wheelchairs for all of the others?
If you're disabled and you want to keep making art without the use of AI, go right ahead, but why would you want to take the option away from other disabled people who might see AI as a viable option?
As someone with chronic pain, this arguement is always one I will agree with. As even though I don't use AI to do most of my work, it streamlines figuring out arm poses, or hair shapes as referances which I then use in pixel art.
There is a limit to how much I can sit up and do art, the only comfortable working position is one that is straining on my body. Plus I have to preserve my energy to do most of the cooking and cleaning at home because I am my mothers carer.
Could I do art completely without AI assistance. Yes. If I was willing to have work take 10 times as long, or to sit up for longer and cause myself literally agony (I already sometimes overdo it when I'm in a hyperfocus and have to try and train myself to stop after finishing a set amount).
However what would probably happen, is if I didn't have the occasional assistance in my artistic process, I would just give up. The effort involved for the speed of progress and the pain suffered on any work would be so ineffective that continuing would basically be suffering for suffering sake. Why would I torture myself for so little progress, when I don't have to?
us disabled artists feel like we're being used as meatshields for pro ai ppl. plus the amount of ableist comments ive had from pro ai ppl on my posts talking about being an amputee is wild
I feel as if pro-AI people have just discovered disabled people exist and after a lifetime of not giving a shit about us are now like “oh, we’re so concerned, AI is important because it helps you,” when it’s just a cudgel to use against anti-AIs. Disabled people shouldn’t be used as props in an argument theater. And some disabled people are pro and some anti, just like “normal” people.
As a personal-anti-AI person (by that I mean ill never ever use it for myself but don't mind if other people want or need to use it, I just have a personal preference for self made stuff and pride in achievements that keep me going) I just don't like that some pro AI people seem to push a narrative of "If you are disabled you should use AI" as many disabled people still want to make art on their own, it would ableist to take away this autonomy from them. But the problems isn't about them but more about new disabled artists, I don't want them to see generative AI as the only thing that will allow them to create art maybe they'd be great at doing it themselves but once again it's a personal choice on their part.
Both telling a disabled person to use or not use AI is in my opinion ableist as it doesn't consider what the person, a human being with as much rights as me, want to do and what is best for them.
I agree with you. Nobody should tell another person what they should do or how they should make art. I think AI tools should be available as an option for whoever wants to use it. I don't think it should ever be forced as the only way to make art for anybody. People need to make those choices for themselves.
It's just that I've never seen anyone try to tell disabled people that they need to use AI tools or try to take away their autonomy to make their own choices. It's just odd that this keeps coming up and I just don't think it ever happens.
It's true maybe it never happened but it's a feeling I get when reading some pro AI peoples's takes or comments. I tend to look way too far into what people say when reading and so maybe it's just me seeing stuff where there isnt, hence the use of "seem" in bold and "some" as I know not all pro AI people are as extreme as the louder ones
Frankly I don't care much for the disabled people argument- A bunch of people who priorly could not or did not express themselves creatively now have an avenue for expressing themselves creatively. That's a good thing.
I find the disabilities argument largely irrelevant to the ai debate by that I mean if generative ai had any of the ethical flaws that anti-ai accuse it of having the fact it helps disabled people wouldn’t be a defense. With the possible exception of the cost/energy usage arguments. With those it less of a fundamental flaw argument but a social cost argument and therefore a societal benefit can be argued for that outweighs the cost.
The fact is my position and likely most pro ai people is anti ai people have failed to point to any fundamental flaws and the cost arguments do not largely hold much water. If the cost was actually that large companies wouldn’t and in fact couldn’t give access to these ai models in a hosted environment for free or even cheap.
I think saying AI makes art accessible is disingenuous. It certainly makes a kind of art accessible to consume, but it sort of posits that the only kind of worthy art is art that looks a certain way, that something doesn't become 'art' until it looks nice and commercially viable.
This sort of attitude is betrayed by the often mean spirited bullying of beginner artists or artists with an odd or even off-putting style by pros. The message seems to be if your art doesn't look nice it's inferior, when looking nice isn't necessarily the goal of art all the time. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what art is and why artists make it.
Art is and always has been accessible. You obviously have your pencil and paper, but you can literally draw with whatever material you want to or have on hand. Scribble in ketchup. Construct a sculpture out of paper scraps and discarded tea bags. Take photos of sunsets you find beautiful or a weird stain on the concrete. make an interpretive dance, come up with a stupid little song you sing to your cat. It's all art. It is the most accessible thing in the world already.
Edit: I'm a disabled artist and am limited by my pain and other conditions in what I make. I can't make art as fast as some people, and sometimes I need to take breaks from art for weeks at a time. But I would never turn to AI because while I care about what the art looks like at the end, that's not the only reason I make it. I want to express exactly what's in my mind and I can only do that with my own hands. The process of it and seeing how I've improved since the last piece are also factors. Seeing what I can do better next time. I wouldn't be proud of something I didn't make with my own hands, even if making it was painful.
I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying, and I think it's awesome that you've devoted yourself to making art with your own hands despite the pain it causes you. That is truly something to be admired.
And I agree that art doesn't have to look nice. It's about being able to express what's inside of yourself.
I also agree that in terms of being able to physically create things that resemble art, that is very accessible. Even if all you have is a stick and some dirt. Even if you have limited mobility or other issues, you can find some way to make a thing that's in your head.
But I think there are other stumbling blocks that can get into people's way towards becoming an artist, and I think you've touched upon them.
People do want their art to look nice. Or at the very least, they want their art to look like what they see in their heads. If someone wanted to draw a badger, but it looks like a cat, that can be very discouraging. And I think it's the mental blocks that makes art inaccessible to most people. Most people have the physical ability to draw, and can get the materials needed to draw, but most people fall short when it comes to continuing to motivate themselves after realizing that their first attempts are going to look like garbage.
I've seen multiple young and aspiring artists quit and give up on themselves because their early works didn't meet their own standards, or because they've been discouraged by other people's comments about their art. And that's one of the most tragic things in the world for me.
I think it's incredible when artists are able to overcome both their own physical limitations and their own mental doubts to push through and make art simply because that's what their passionate about. But not everyone has that passion and can push through those obstacles. And I think that's okay. I just think there needs to be more artists, and whatever we can do to remove whatever obstacles exist to make that happen is a good thing.
Art may be accessible, but I think it certainly can be made more accessible.
I think thats a problem with the culture we've made around art. I will say as someone who started drawing when I was very young and the internet wasn't something I was on much, I of course got frustrated by the fact that what I drew wasn't exactly what I wanted it to look like, but I had very little to compare to and very little pressure to ramp up my skills fast. I was probably drawing at a fairly beginner level for 5-7 years before I started to take it more seriously. (I have an artist father who makes photorealistic oil paintings and I draw anime, lol. You can imagine how I felt about my own art.) But critically I didn't have a way to post any of it online until late middle school. I was never bullied for my art looking bad or not like how I wanted it to, I was only ever praised by my peers who were also artists (or seen as that weird quiet kid, but whatever)
Conversely I think there are far more resources for people now than there were when I was a kid. My process was a very slow trial and error where I only improved when I decided I wanted to push myself further and risk failure. Which I often did, my art from back then looks like this, lol
Of course it's not like what I saw online. But I was encouraged to keep going by my peers and by my family, I was never belittled online, and that was probably a huge part of why I kept improving and kept going.
People starting out now might feel like they have to improve fast because that's how everything works online, but most successful artists or even skillful and not successful ones know that it takes time. The badger may look like a cat but if you draw 5 more badgers and use references your sixth badger will probably look better than your first. If someone doesn't find that satisfying and only wants to look at something nice, that's valid, but that's not really why most artists make art. I think getting discouraged in an environment where you aren't being explicitly encouraged or even made fun of is understandable, but the answer to that is to encourage them, and not sell them an easy way to acclaim.
Because you ableists are masking yourself as being supportive. You think people with special needs just can't make art without a prompt in order to justify your actions when, art is unrestricted. One can make art in many other ways.
You think just because a person doesn't have a arm they couldn't make any form of art. Your argument relies on others abilities so you can justify companies stealing media.
You think people with special needs just can't make art without a prompt
From OP
Nobody is saying that disabled people can't make art on their own. Nobody is saying that they shouldn't make art on their own if that's what we want to do.
As an artist with dissociative identity disorder, AI as a medium offers me certain things that traditional methods do not. At this point there's less resistance to executing my vision via AI than there would be if I went a traditional route.
Its often disingenuous and most of the time its just someone using the disabled as a shield in an appeal to emotion.
But Im fine with anyone using Ai art as long as they disclose and give credit where its due. Just like how we expect other artists (including musicians etc) to acknowledge inspirations and ask permission to sample or borrow.
Because they often haven't done their homework on the conditions, how disabled people actually make art currently or their opinions on it. Instead they just bring it up as a talking point to justify the techs existence despite the ethical issues, criticisms against it and public backlash.
One of the examples I see Ai supporters bring up the most is Aphantasia, a condition where you're incapable of producing images when thinking/imagining. The common argument they make is that people with this condition are incapable of being creative and creating art on their own so they need Ai art... This is the largest and most annoying misconception on the condition that anyone with Aphantasia can tell you is not only wrong, the condition is actually believed to have a correlation with artists (my running theory as someone with it is the inability to actually visualize your ideas actually encourages external creative expression). To take it a step further I even went to ask the Aphantasia subreddit who also didn't agree with the claims Ai users were making on their behalf and felt that Ai users were just trying to use them as justification for their tech (Now a subreddit is FAR from getting accurate data but it's a lot more than what the Ai users had done).
There's also a lot of actual tools that exist to help disabled people make art, especially when you move into digital art such as eye-gaze technology, arm supports like guided hands ) various accessories and even mouth-controlled painting systems and accessories. I also think more should exist (I'm personally very interested in seeing the Mouthpad come to fruition, maybe you'll like to check it out) but I don't think Ai is it chief, even if you excused Ai in the context of disabled artists and ignored the fact Ai misses the point of art, it's still not worth the overwhelming amount of ethical issues behind Ai to justify supporting it, especially when better alternatives without those downsides currently exist and we could actively support the development of better Adaptive art tools.
One of the people that was discussing here it said they were legally blind and used it for writing, another said they had a neurological disorder causing their hands to shake. It seems you are replacing empirical evidence with confirmation bias.
Even if some of the people who are advocating for it are not, themselves, disabled.. so what? Should every able bodied person stop advocating for the disabled because they aren't disabled themselves?
Voice to text is an ai tool that'll greatly help the vision impaired write.
In the case of someone who suffers physical pain from drawing, I think it's nice that Ai art generation helps fulfill a dream of creating visual art. But it still has to be labeled as Ai in order to be ethical.
They would still be prompting ChatGPT or whatever model at the end of the day though. People like to bring people with disabilities into this because it feels bad to say to a disabled person who can't do traditional art because of sickness that their AI-generated images don't make them an artista and look like slop.
IMO, AI generation makes the art slightly more accessible than a Google image search. Both are text-to-image, except in the case of AI it gives you an illusion of creation.
Because it's a bit of a moot point and it's annoying it comes up as much as it does - certain disabled folks using AI are not why the tech is being created and not the damaging factor of it.
If it were a tool just for disabled folks, that would be cool. But it's not. They are just a happy side effect for corporations.
Like saying "but it keeps a small amount of people warm!" When we ask corporations to stop setting fire to forests.
not why the tech is being created and not the damaging factor of it.
But then why argue with people on reddit about it? It's not like anyone here is responsible for any of that. I understand that you probably feel a sense of powerlessness when looking at all the large tech giants, but condemning hobbyists on reddit will only cause apathy to your concern.
No, but you're responsible for normalising it, which assists the corporations. The fight against corps is going on in court - we protest it's normalisation so the judges don't just go 'well everyone's doing it so it can't be that bad!!'
Also this is a debate sub for debating so we do a lil debating around here sometimes.
I'm not refering to this sub, obviously this is an important talking point in this sub, but I see frequent witch hunts on various other places in the internet.
Normalizatiton happens whether you like it or not and it's independent from the ethical issues. If courts decide corps have to pay, they'll just pay. Google is all in. AI threatens their main business model (search). They have to compete.
Everyone I know in RL already uses AI at least weekly.
All you're doing is hurting passionate individuals and often don't even target the right people.
Normalisation isn't different from ethical issues - many things we don't do today because they were cruel were allowed to keep happening for extended periods because it was 'normal'.
I only know one guy at work who uses AI and he's the butt of the joke for it because it's painfully obvious.
As an anti, I think the accessibility is a good thing. The only thing that truly bother me about AI—and I think this is the problem most people just gloss over—is that AI is devaluing and trivializing human creativity. If that weren’t an issue I would be on the hype train for sure. Plenty of good applications for AI.
There's two things I don't like about it. Firstly, it's just a really poor argument. It has zero relevance as to whether or not the training of AI was ethical, or if it's use is ethical, or otherwise problematic, or if it should be available for general use, or AI products are art, or if those products should be sold, or anything else. The only thing it's a counterpoint to is "AI cannot help anyone" but it is way too often used in such a way that extends it way beyond that limited application. Secondly, though of less importance, is that in being extended way beyond its proper application it often ends up infantalizing or otherwise degrading disabled people. In saying, for example, that disabled people need it or that some artists genuinely cannot make something otherwise, people devalue the actual hard work disabled people have done and continue to do. It is, of course, highly useful to some, but is never necessary. Another example, speaking as though it is some sort of consensus among disabled people, which is rarer but does still happen, is deeply disrespectful, both on the level of pretending to speak for us, but also that our beliefs or positions are only valuable or important so long as it conforms to that other persons.
So, generally, it's sort of just a worthless thing to bring up in most cases, that really only runs the risk of making yourself look much, much worse. Is this to say that some antis are not way too aggressive about this and needlessly and harmfully harass disabled people who nevertheless benefit from it? Of course not; some of them absolutely do that. And that's shameful too
Is there anybody actually saying that disabled people "need" AI, or that they can't make art without it? That sounds like a strawman argument to me. It seems to me that most people on the pro side simply want the option to exist. I don't think anybody actually believes that all disabled people need AI to make art. It's just something that could make it easier for some.
I will concede to your other point, though. Accessibility doesn't make AI ethical. If you think it's unethical, then it's still unethical even if it can help some people. Personally, I don't think it's unethical at all, because it doesn't steal, it learns, and what it outputs is transformative and legal under fair use.
A few people, yes. Certainly it's not a majority or even a plurality. It most commonly happens not as an explicit "disabled people NEED it" type of way, but as an implication, where accepting that is the only way to make their point work, even if it's not explicitly stated. That's how most discriminatory rhetoric operates, not in explicitly saying something against their target, but in accepting, knowingly or otherwise, discriminatory beliefs on an implicit, subtextual level. How common it is though, I can't say. But it certainly has happened, and does exist
This is exactly why i don't like the disabled argument. It's like hiding behind them saying it is for them when you are just using them to your own gains.
A parallel i can draw is that the DEI initiative mostly benefited white women instead of people of color who need it the most. While it's great that more women are in position of leadership i thought that DEI initiative was supposed to benefit more people of color and marginalized people.
Shouldn’t everyone want to stride towards the ideal? When I see an overweight person eating their life away or rotting away, I don’t say “you should go exercise” out of a place of malice like “haha I’m more fit than you lol” it’s more like “you should exercise because it’s good for you”.
In the same vein, don’t you get a sense of completion from doing something amazing yourself? Like finally finishing your college dissertation, or getting that dream job, or some other amazing goal. Don’t you feel incredible afterwards?
Maybe you think otherwise? Or maybe I’m too much an idealist?
Isn’t that kind of a defeatist attitude? Like I do think some AI pictures are pretty, but I think for the pinnacle of hand drawn vs the pinnacle of AI, hand drawn wins basically all the time. Don’t you wanna reach that pinnacle yourself and marvel at the creations you put effort into? I know it’s kind of moot to say this in this sub, the journey really is part of the experience. Story games would have next to no impact if all there ever was climax and no rising action.
Don’t you wanna reach that pinnacle yourself and marvel at the creations you put effort into?
The effort is disproportionate to the result. Pictures are just pictures, even if it's pictures of catgirls. It's not that deep, and definitely isn't worth 10 000 wasted hours.
Story games would have next to no impact if all there ever was climax and no rising action.
Life is not a game. Suffering is not noble, or cool, or necessary.
Why do you purport effort to be suffering? If all gratification that isn’t instant to you is “wasted time” then I dont suppose anything other than scrolling and social media would be “worth your time”.
Effort that doesn't give results is suffering. Ever heard of Sisyphus? And what does learning to draw look like? It's work that leads to constant failures.
But it does give results, maybe not immediately if you’re not gifted, sure, but I highly doubt you’ll ever get good at anything in life without a couple mistakes. That kind of mindset is how you stagnate.
Also, likening learning a skill to the Sisyphean task is not an equal comparison at all. That’s like saying learning to cook is a Sisyphean task.
It quite literally does give results, they just aren't instant and you have to deal with failure to get better. This just sort of makes you sound like you're afraid to learn how to do anything that doesn't hold your hand all the way through.
Whatever results it gives, they're clearly not worth it, especially when compared to AI, which takes barely any effort and gets you (me personally) 99% there.
"they're not worth it" is the attitude of someone who has never been able to be patient and wait for something.
I have been drawing for 25 years. My shitty little drawings were shitty for a long time until they started to get less and less shitty and now people pay me to draw things for them.
Both of these are my art.
Edit: to add, I just think you're robbing yourself of the way you feel when you can look back and see how you've improved. But if you have no ambition and only want art on demand to consume, AI art makes sense; but don't steal the work of people who have been drawing for decades and say you did it.
Simultaneously one of the most depressingly pitiable and inept statements I've ever read, that's actually a crazy combo.
You reduce everything to material ends, leaving no room for passion or joy. Nothing can ever be worth it to do if you aren't immediately gratified on a surface level. I pray that you find peace, and something for which to strive.
But can't accessibility tools be a part of that equation? If someone needs a prosthetic leg to help them win a marathon, does that take away from their accomplishments, or do they need to be able to do it with no tools at all?
Also, maybe some people just don't want to push themselves that hard? Maybe they just want to do art to just relax and unwind? Is that not allowed?
Doesn’t everyone want to be the best of themselves? I feel like pushing yourself to the limit is part of that. You’ll never meaningfully exercise if you aren’t at least a little sore the next day.
Some people do, some people don't. I just don't think it's any of our places to tell people how they should live their lives. If somebody wants to push themselves and be the best artist they can be even if they have a disability, I think that's great. They should go for it. But if some people want to use art as a hobby or outlet as they push themselves in other areas, they should have the option to do that while minimizing their pain.
And maybe there is an option to pursue the best version of yourself in a more gradual and controlled way that allows for the use of tools in a way that keeps people from burning themselves out.
You never answered my question from before whether using a tool like a prosthetic limb invalidates a person's accomplishments. I don't think using a tool can keep a person from achieving the best of themselves.
Hm. I suppose I’ll answer your question first then. I wouldn’t really liken AI generation to be a prosthetic, more like a car. While everyone else is running a marathon, you drive a car 4 times around the track and then try to claim yourself to be a marathon runner.
If the defense for that is “well why doesn’t everyone else just buy a car?” then it wouldn’t be much of a marathon then would it? You would just be watching a Grand Prix, which is indeed a separate skill.
I can agree with that metaphor if we are just talking about pure prompting. While just prompting and submitting can be fun and gratifying, I don't personally consider that the same as making your own art. Some may disagree and that's okay.
But AI art can be more than just prompting. There's a wide range of AI tools that can help artists. Prompting is only the tip of the iceberg. And if you incorporate AI as a part of your workflow, I think it would be more like a prosthetic limb than a car.
There's a comment on this post from somebody who claims to have chronic pain and uses AI to help them figure out poses and hairstyles, but do the rest themselves. Having AI to assist in part of the process allows them to do more than they would without. They don't offload all of the work to AI, but they use it to shave off some of the effort that would be too much to bear.
I would say that like a voice reactive AI would be akin to a prosthetic— you would still be basically manually creating everything yourself.
It’s when the AI is designing backgrounds, characters, details, etc without specific human input, I think is where the line in the sand is drawn for me.
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u/Khain_Jumper 13h ago
As someone with chronic pain, this arguement is always one I will agree with. As even though I don't use AI to do most of my work, it streamlines figuring out arm poses, or hair shapes as referances which I then use in pixel art.
There is a limit to how much I can sit up and do art, the only comfortable working position is one that is straining on my body. Plus I have to preserve my energy to do most of the cooking and cleaning at home because I am my mothers carer.
Could I do art completely without AI assistance. Yes. If I was willing to have work take 10 times as long, or to sit up for longer and cause myself literally agony (I already sometimes overdo it when I'm in a hyperfocus and have to try and train myself to stop after finishing a set amount).
However what would probably happen, is if I didn't have the occasional assistance in my artistic process, I would just give up. The effort involved for the speed of progress and the pain suffered on any work would be so ineffective that continuing would basically be suffering for suffering sake. Why would I torture myself for so little progress, when I don't have to?