REFLECTIONS 

Hello, and welcome!

Thanks for stopping by. If you’re popping over from my Instagram, you may have already seen my story addressing my discomfort with the content scraping for Meta’s generative AI, but I really only scratched the surface there. For my first ever blog post, I’d like to flesh out my thoughts on this a bit more.

As previously stated, this is a move that makes me – and I know many other artists – feel very uncomfortable. And the fact that opting out doesn’t seem to be an option – at least not in the US – is rather troubling.

As a person and an artist, I find this rather disturbing… I think of all the tears I have shed over this dream and over my craft. The seasons of existential anxiety, questioning whether I truly have anything meaningful to say or to offer to the world. The long hours – ignoring the hunger, fighting the sleep – to birth something of beauty and significance into existence, something that could speak to the heart of someone needing that message at that time. 

The many sacrifices.

The deprivation.

I know the pain that goes into and inspires each of my pieces – and I know this is the same for many other artists, as well. Our histories are present within them. To think that this pain will just be taken to create a facsimile is disquieting.

So often, we suffer for our art… For an entity to come along and feel entitled to the fruits of my blood, sweat, and tears, for them to feel they have any right to my inspired children, is incensing.

In addition, the pursuit of art is full of self-sacrifice before it becomes financially stable, if at all. I’ve gone without and worked terribly hard towards the hope of realizing this dream. And I’m willing to continue going this course, no matter the cuts, bruises, and bloody knees. Because this is my passion. To think that my images will just help profit an already lucrative machine – which hasn’t known self-sacrifice for a long time, if at all – feels demeaning. We are the product, and, yet, we gain nothing. Instead, more and more is just taken.

Our work, our ideas, and our memories are being shamelessly fed to a pet project with no thought of permission, credit, or compensation. Even if you aren’t an artist, your personal photos are feeding the machine without your express consent. Is that not creepy?

I know there are many out there who don’t care about this, or about art, but, if you just think of it as your work (for your job, your school, etc.), would you be okay with someone taking your hours of effort and passing it off as their own? I know AI art is here to stay, and I am less bothered by it in and of itself (because I truly don’t see it as my replacement, and I hope you don’t, either – there will be challenges, yes, but there will always be a market for art created by living, breathing, bleeding souls). What bothers me, and many others, is the fact that, when it comes to the realm of AI, there are no decent laws and protections in place for people’s intellectual property.

I am hoping there will come a day when creativity is far more cherished than it is now. A day when art is valued and not pushed to the fringes. When people will think of us in situations like this and act according to what would be most beneficial and sacred. I’m not sure what it’ll take to get there, but, whatever the case, we need to continue to be present, vocal, and supportive of fellow artists along this journey… What this looks like and how we make it most effective, I don’t know, but I hope to share more thoughts on this in a future post.  

What is your response to Meta’s AI scraping? Your thoughts? Have you moved to Cara like many other artists? How will you be evolving through this new reality?

Thanks for reading!

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