Let me just preface this by saying that I'm taking a neutral stance here: neither "Pro AI" because it ignores all the potential moral concerns, nor "Anti AI" because it tries to abolish technology advancements. As NG is all about personal expression, I also feel the same, which is why I've stayed and uploaded all of my music on here in the past and for the foreseeable future. I am also not very good at art and don't intend to become a visual artist in anytime soon.
With that said, I have to raise concern about the new feature of the site, announced just under 24 hours ago: reporting art because it was "majorly made by AI." While this is a much awaited news by many, I'm sure, this does raise me some concerns about the relationship between Newgrounds and AI.
For once, what would be the threshold for "majority"? A purely "text to image" would certainly be counted as one, what about drafting up a sketch and use AI to finish it? What about doing everything manually until flat coloring then use AI for shading? I have went through some (not really scientific) researching to find out that yes, there are many different ways that you can cooperate AI into a workflow. How can we mark a specific point that the works behind an image is made by "a soulless machine"?
We also need to consider the potential abuse of this system. Many artists from other social medias (like "the bird app" or Reddit) are being banned/cancelled for either endorsing AI, using AI, and the most questionable of all, suspected for using AI. Add this to the fact that this technology is growing at dizzying rate, the severity of this can only get worse as confusion grows. Most people with untrained eyes will either believing everything is human made or everything is AI made. For some incredibly bitter people, an artist using AI at all, even if not for their art, is deserving for that person to be pitchfork'd. Letting people report art for "AI" is opening a massive floodgate of hate, because I'm sure most of those who desperately wanted to use that in the first place are those who thought "AI kills créativité".
Newgrounds has, and always is, a place for personal expression. As the internet grows hostile for artists, with ridiculous copyright laws and DMCAs, Newgrounds is the only place that dares to drive next to cliff to give creatives of all art forms a place to show who they are. Removing art because it's "majorly by AI", maybe even banning them for using AI, is restricting them from self expression. Just like how a flipped urinal is a work of art, AI art is also "art" as long as there's some statement to be made, some story to tell. To restrict them is, at least in my opinion, going backwards on the purpose of the site.
Then again, I can understand why this decision was made. As AI generations are being more accessible for everyone, the amount of "AI bros" also rises, thinking that typing "white woman 4k smile" is enough to get them recognized as "a atist". The situation with ArtStation is also unfortunate, filled with unbelievably bland images AI without any substance. To avoid that happening to this site, the "SPAM" option for reporting has always been there. There's no need for any new options just to alienate people who are actually trying to express themselves with AI.
inb4 "you don't intend to be an artist in the first place, don't try to speak for all of us actual human artists": AI doesn't affect just still images. Sora AI videos now can totally pass off as stock footages, RVC is allowing everybody to voice act as any characters, and various music AIs (like MusicFX and Sono) are quickly moving away from sounding like royalty free music, even having discernable lyrics. If this keeps up then eventually, everything will "have a chance of being made with the aids of AI". To expect people finding and scrutinizing which one is "majorly AI" and which is not will get tiring real fast.
I don't expect the people behind this site to change their minds after reading this (if any of them did), but this is just a concern of mine. If anyone can enlighten me about the relationship between this site and "soulless machine" from today onwards (without claiming that AI going to destroy us all, I've heard enough of that on "the bird site"), I would appreciate it.
TL;DR: reporting people for AI usage is bad actually, report spam has always been there if it gets out of hand.
vidu3k333
seems like I just headed straight into the fire, but I felt like I need to say it