I don’t think I’ve seen pretty art thefts like this before. Two days ago, ah The Genshin effect fanatic drew a new creation on Twitch. Before they could complete the fanart and post it on Twitter, one of their viewers put the ongoing process into an AI generator and “finished” it first. After the artist posted their finished work, the work thief proceeded to claim credit from the original artist. “You posted like 5-6 hours after me, and with that kind of drawing you can make it fast,” brazen scammer tweeted. “You did [a] references [from] an AI image but at least acknowledge it”.
AT is a Korean-speaking anime artist who streams treat videos on Twitch. On October 11, they drew Raiden Shogun from The Genshin effect in front of a live audience. A Twitter user named Musaishh then took the image during processing, created a similar image of Raiden Shogun using Novel AI, and then uploaded it six hours before the artist’s stream ended. They would probably have gotten away with it if they hadn’t tried to attack AT for posting their own work. Musaishh deleted account. Maybe because a lot fan and artist were angered by their blatant art theft. When you fuck around, you should expect to find out.
Ever since the software behind AI-generated art went mainstream, artists in the flesh have struggled to maintain control over their works. Now they have to take care of proving that they are creators. In response to the incident, one artist reminded their audience keep redundant streams their process. Some artist tweeted that they don’t want to replay their workflow. “Any one of us can now be accused of ‘stealing’ by art thieves because their AI artwork ‘finished’ the work first,” Written an artist.
If you’ve read this site in the past few months, you probably know that AI-generated art is a moral minefield. The software takes data from copyrighted artwork without the original creator’s knowledge or permission and attempts to create a new image from it. I’m a bit out of place among art enthusiasts in that I think technology itself has the fascinating potential to create ethical art with the creator’s permission. But so long as artists are not protected by law against their art being stolen and unscrupulously defrauded, that day is far from over.
But hey, I want to end this blog on a positive note. Here is the original painting by Raiden Shogun for you to see:
