The topic here is: "I will never use AI".
To all the pro-AIs who sell their faith and prostration on this thread: Why not open a topic "I pray I will get eternal AI" for the simple sake of consistency and intellectual respect? 

[Edit]:I know that most AI critics tend to leave this forum, and that's unfortunately really understandable.

I agree with Ralf. I found the discussion interesting and would find it a shame to only read one-sided opinions against AI here. Especially as we won't be able to avoid AI anyway.

Personally, I would just like to see fairer rules concernig the financial aspect of it.

Let's not confuse generative AI content with AI software.
 
The copyright problem is gigantic for generative AI content and affects little-known authors.

I agree 100% with Wilm.

That's exactly what I mean. I was still learning at the drawing board. Then came computers and CAD software. Of course, these tools are an immense relief. And they help enormously to save time.

But I still had to - and still have to - design things myself.

When the architects at Gerhy develop new buildings, they naturally use the latest software. They are no longer living in the last millennium. Nevertheless, what is created there is a creative achievement for which all these architects are paid.

None of us are allowed to upload Gehry buildings for commercial purposes - it's forbidden. And if someone were to upload AI-generated Gerhy images, their portfolio would be blocked. But only because Gerhy has the money to make sure that this is forbidden.

But platforms like midjourney and others allow exactly that: that what someone has spent a lot of time creating is simply used to teach their own software. Which wouldn't be a bad thing per se if midjourney paid to use these images. But they don't do that. They even take money from their users for the theft. That's exactly the point! From my point of view this is incredible!

eta

...then I am just adjusting the clothes a bit, changing out the sky, removing the glasses, changing the hairstyle...

Yes, I have also exchanged skies. For many years now. But it was always a sky that I photographed myself. I've never used a sky from one of your photos. That wasn't allowed either.
And that's exactly what the AI providers get around. Without paying a single cent for it. Why are you not allowed to use elements from other people's images, but AI is? Can you explain why?

If someone were to develop an AI that made it possible to open any car, start it up and drive it around, that would also be a great innovation. And there would certainly be a lot of social and environmental aspects in favor of this. Great! Anyone who didn't have a car before can now just take one that's standing around. All they have to do is pay money to the developer of this software. I am sure that such an AI could be developed without any problems.
But if someone were to use your car and not have to pay you a penny for it, would you still celebrate this innovation?

Quote from: Josephine on November 25, 2023, 03:38

I can only answer from the point of view of an illustrator. I easily could generate a coloring book for kids within minutes and sell it on Amazon. Is this fair? without a single stroke, without any knowledge and costs of any software. Its the matter of typing a few words into the search engine and you are done. You can proudly call yourself illustrator.

A photographer can easily steal someones sky and use it for the own purpose. The one who spent maybe days waiting for this very sky with this very special light. If anybody feels this is correct, fine.

Sorry my English is not perfect.

You are using a computer to create your work then offer it online to the entire planet via agencies with the potential to create a million copies or downloads.

How is that fair to the real oil painter who painstakingly creates their art on canvas from scratch and probably even makes his own paints and brushes???

It used to take YEARS to complete a great painting or portrait.

Yet here you are using modern tech to create it in mere hours.

How is what you are doing fair to the REAL artists?

And even worse if you use a camera, photographers are just one button pushers.

If you actually believe what you are saying, you MUST stop using any modern version of photoshop and forgo all modern cameras.

And please stop using your smartphone.

Because all modern tech will be using ai in the future.

Basically - freeze yourself in the tech and software of 2015, or maybe even earlier.

Forever.

So good luck with that.

You're comparing apples with oranges. So I have to disagree with your statement.

If someone creates something, then that person needs visual, linguistic, musical or creative know-how. That is something completely different from typing in prompts.

It doesn't matter whether you use a paintbrush, a camera, a guitar, a keyboard, a computer or any other tool.

A work created by a human being, be it a painting, a photograph, a poem, a piece of music or whatever, is therefore an achievement that represents a value.

The fact that this is the case can be seen in how many images you are not allowed to upload anywhere for commercial purposes - be it an Eames chair, an Apple computer, the light installation on the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, a Harley Davidson and countless other subjects.

This also applies to AI-generated images, which are not allowed to take up these protected works visually.

The fact that a normal image contributor does not have the money to legally prosecute the illegal use of their work does not mean that a corporation offering AI software has the right to freely use the work of these "normal" contributors to make money illegally!

Anyone who produces something creative - with whatever tool - is the author of that thing. And no artificial intelligence has the right to circumvent that!

It doesn't matter whether you upload the images in 240 or 300 ppi.

The size/resolution of the image is relevant.

If an image has a resolution of 3000 x 2000 px, it has this resolution - regardless of the ppi.
The ppi only plays a role for the image size when printing.

For offset printing, this means (for an image with 3000 x 2000 px):
At 300 ppi, this would be 25.4 x 16.93 cm.
At 240 ppi it would be 31.75 x 21.17 cm.
Strictly speaking, however, 300 ppi is an old unit from the time when printing was still done in a 60 grid (60 lines per inch / 60 lpi).

Since most printing today is done in 70 or 80 grid, 300 dpi is actually too low.

For perfect image quality with a 70 grid, an image should be switched to 350 ppi. Then you could only print the image with a resolution of 3000 x 2000 px in a size of 21.77 x 14.51 cm.
With an 80 grid, it would only be 19.05 x 12.7 cm, because this would have to be switched to 400 ppi.

However, when it comes to print products that are significantly larger than a book or magazine, such as posters or large-format banners, significantly lower ppi figures are sufficient, as the viewer has a greater distance to the printed matter. Depending on the size, 100 to 150 ppi is sufficient for large posters.

For huge banners that are viewed from many meters away, 60 or 40 ppi may be sufficient.

I find it all strange anyway.

People are paying money to platforms on which they can create images that cannot be protected by copyright.
These platforms themselves earn money by infringing copyright without paying any compensation to those whose copyright they infringe.
It's all absolutely absurd!

It will become even more absurd when those who offer such images commercially and have also spent money on creating the images find that these images are copied exactly 1:1, because there is no copyright protection.

The whole construct is absolutely sick! It will lead to money being shifted around once again. The winners will be a handful of companies that offer AI technology. The losers will be those who have made a living from the creation of intellectual, literary, musical or pictorial works.

We will have even more monopolists, such as Google, who will then have global market power and dictate prices.

The discrimination thing was meant as a joke. Sorry - I probably should have used an appropriate emoji.

It is absolutely understandable for me that the search results must be different. A Central European family home usually looks different than one in the USA or Japan. This also applies to the topic of food and many other topics as well.

If I am a real estate agent in Germany, I search at AS optimally in German, because then I get more country-typical results displayed than with the English search - that also makes sense.

But if we stick to the example of Tuscany, it is not understandable that in Germany, the German name of Tuscany gets less than one tenth of the search results compared to the search with the English name of Tuscany. Because it doesn't matter whether I travel to Tuscany as a Turk, a Chinese or an Australian - it looks the same to everyone.

I have written a PM to Mat concerning this. I don�t know what to do because lots of my images with German keywording don�t appear in the search results. I loose lots of money.

It is interesting to see how, since the AI hype, people are popping up all over the net, including here, trying to tell the "old-timers" how the business works and how great AS has become.

I am sorry, but those of us who have been around for a while know AS and especially Fotolia very well.
But unfortunately I have to agree that AS has become much worse in many aspects and this has not only to do with the flood of AI images.

Especially from the customer's point of view. For example, the search in German has become so bad that you have to question whether there are beginners at work behind the scene. This has to do with some peculiarities of the German language, such as the way words are written together and other factors.
It is probably the same with other languages.
I wouldn't complain if it hadn't worked fine before, but this is just bumbling now.

That's right! The translation does not work at all anymore! But this has nothing to do with complicated words, where the translation software has a hard time.
An example:
- Tuscany (search Region USA) = 417.000 results
- Toscana (search Region Italy) = 242.000 results
- Toskana (search Region Germany) = 37.000 results
If you do not do the keywording in English, you will not be found, because search terms from other languages will not be translated.

Mat, can you please comment on this?

The first regarded wood textures, which by nature are quite similar.

Recently I needed wood textures for 3D visualizations. These included spruce, pine, larch, meranti and oak (and more).

I have not found any usable textures at AS. There were several reasons for this in combination:
- The algorithm did not show useful results.
- I did not need any planked textures.
- The textures could not contain knotholes.
- The scale did not fit for me.
- For many textures it was not obvious if it was really the exact wood species. Or if there was keyword spamming on the files.

I then bought a texture bundle from a specialty vendor. However, these were not usable because the textures only contained numbers - it was not obvious behind which number, for example, pine or spruce was hidden. I got my money back.

The fact is that pine, spruce and larch in particular have a very similar grain. It is a huge mistake for a stock agency to reject such textures, which are difficult to distinguish, because of similarity.
This has nothing to do with spamming!

I am very sorry for you and I hope that the problem will be solved as soon as possible.

Quote from: J_Stock on October 04, 2023, 20:28

Day 4 of October and already on SS I'm at � of my total September sales.  Hopefully that's an indication that things are picking up.  Maybe because the writer's strike is over?

Day 5 of October and I'm on 7% of total September sales.

And yesterday was my first working day in 12 years where I didn't hit $10 ... 50 sales for $8 ... With 5,000 files, I was used to make $40-50 a day before 2020 and $25-30 a day this year.

SS is in a nosedive.

The problem is: This story will continue. Feeding the beast day by day seems to become even more neccessary.

Truly disgusting......

Whats next jews gas chambers recreation with explicit fake images, hutu and tutsi fake images....

This has to stop and I hope that companies that accept this kind of content get hit hard or by laws or by boycott

Truly disgusting....

1000% agreed!