His style has been requested over 400,000 times, even surpassing legends like Picasso and Da Vinci—all without his consent.

Greg Rutkowski, a digital artist known for his surreal style, opposes AI art but his name and style have been frequently used by AI art generators without his consent. In response, Stable Diffusion removed his work from their dataset in version 2.0. However, the community has now created a tool to emulate Rutkowski’s style against his wishes using a LoRA model. While some argue this is unethical, others justify it since Rutkowski’s art has already been widely used in Stable Diffusion 1.5. The debate highlights the blurry line between innovation and infringement in the emerging field of AI art.

  • Harrison [He/Him]@ttrpg.network
    5·
    11 months ago

    Artists don’t own their styles, so it’s interesting to see them fight to protect them.

    The only thing that makes anything valuable is that someone wants it, or at least wants it to exist. Nothing has intrinsic value because value itself is a human construction. This necessarily includes art.

    • itsgallus@beehaw.org
      2·
      11 months ago

      Artists should own their styles, but only in combination with their name. Forgery has always been a problem, but it’s obviously a lot more accessible thanks to AI. As a hobbyist artist myself, I don’t see monetary value as the main problem, but rather misrepresentation. Feel free to copy my style, but don’t attribute your art to me — AI generated or otherwise.

      That being said, I’m super excited about this evolution of technology.

      • shagie@programming.dev
        3·
        11 months ago

        Artists should own their styles, but only in combination with their name.

        Consider how many of the small, independent artists produce art with the intentional style of Disney.

        Styles being something subject to protection would probably be disastrous to all but the biggest names (who could hire lawyers).

        • LSNLDN@beehaw.org
          1·
          11 months ago

          Maybe I’m missing something here but isn’t Disney a great example of a style having ownership? One that Disney aggressively defend too. Difference being an individual person doesn’t have the resources of all of Disney so they can’t do much to defend their art… idk i’m rambling.

          • shagie@programming.dev
            1·
            11 months ago

            Disney doesn’t defend the style. They defend the use of the characters. You can find countless pieces of. fan art (draw X in the style of Disney) that haven’t been sued over.

            Things like r/learntodraw : Trying to get better at Disney’s style (yea, reddit) aren’t infringing.

            But I can assure you that if style was something that could be protected, then there’d be a great deal of amateur and fan content that is currently produced by small time artists that wouldn’t be able to anymore. … And the “you copied my style” would mean more than internet bragging points.