Realized I was blaming AI for something the artist did themselves
I used to be fully on the "AI is stealing everything" side. Then last month a local painter in Portland showed me her process. She does these huge acrylic landscapes and she openly traces photos she takes, uses projectors, even copies color palettes from other painters she likes. Nobody calls that theft. But if someone runs her painting through a diffusion model and tweaks it, suddenly it's a crime.\n\nThe thing is, the line was already blurry before AI. Humans copy each other all the time, we just call it inspiration or technique. The real issue for me now is not the tool, it's the deception. If someone sells AI art as fully hand made, that's bad. If they're open about it, I don't see how that's different from using a projector.\n\nI still think artists deserve credit and pay, but I stopped treating AI as the enemy and started asking who's being honest. Is anyone else here more bothered by the lying than the tech itself?