Hello, this is probably the first post i've ever made in Suggestions, because in all honesty I don't really care about this site's features, but now I'm getting serious. (Also, I apologize if I made this very long and formatted post only to find out it's already banned lol)

AI “Art” Should Be Banned From Scratch


It's Blatantly Art Thieft
In case you don't know how AI generation works, here's how: The AI scans art from millions of unconseting artists, and complies them all into a dataset. It then takes all the elements of the images (which it doesn't understand, because it's an AI) and turns it into an “original” image. With absolutely no credit or funding to the original artists, it takes their hours of hard work and turns it into something lifeless.

“But isn't that what humans do with inspiration?”
No. While humans can take ideas, we do something a machine could never do: Expand. We expand on what we know, creating something original and beautiful. An AI has no idea what color theory is, what anatomy is, what any of that is. It simply copies. Calling it “art” is an insult to the craft

“How will we detect AI art?”
I'll admit, this will be hard. While some AI art looks blatantly fake and terrible, some can blend in. We can assume Scratch doesn't have the funds to deepdive every image. If this feature is implemented, we could at least discourage this. Maybe NFE terms like “AI Art” (This section is definitely a part where someone more knowledgeable in moderation should step in)

“What will happen if this DOESN'T get implemented?”
If Scratch looks at what is fundamentally thieft and goes “yeah, it's okay”, it will show that They don't give a single * about artist integrity. (Well, it's already clear they don't, considering their views on recoloring and tracing) I remember when I first heard about AI art generation and machine learning replacing artists, I felt genuine fear for my career. I can imagine millions of other artists felt the same. We're STILL afraid.

Scratch's main goal is promoting creativity, and AI art is the exact opposite

At it's core my community has a strong emphasis on art, and AI is incapable of expressing feelings and emotions. It can imitate it well, but it isn't the same thing, no matter how you spin it

- Ivycomb, artist and musician (I'd link the tweet but… yknow)

support, because technically speaking, any AI art used requires the user to link every single piece of art used as training data.

No support. Too discriminatory.

Last time I checked, Scratch is a coding website, not an art site.

This argument could be said about AI Art in general, this doesn't have to do with anything with Scratch. Even though this is a good argument and it makes sense, how is this about scratch (not counting the ‘creativity’ part) and coding.

Other than that, I agree ig.

i'm only here for 2 things and im out afterward as im not a person who can contribute to this discussion

PPPDUD wrote:

(#3)
No support. Too discriminatory.

AI is literally lifeless and senseless

roofogato wrote:

(#1)
They don't give a single * about artist integrity. (Well, it's already clear they don't, considering their views on recoloring and tracing)

please tell me you've read this announcement and read the bottom note

Can I add a note to my project telling people not to remix or recolor?

No. Everything on Scratch is remixable, so by adding this type of note to your project, you’re imposing false restrictions on other Scratchers. If you don’t want others to remix your creations, you can still create projects on the Scratch website, but don’t share them on the website.

Hi, cherry here. I completely agree. My little sister has always wanted AI for reasons I may never understand. I, myself, Hate AI for some reason. After you laid down the facts I agree and think that this is something that should be done. My only issue is the code. You know and I know that this kind of code will be very difficult. You seem to have some idea of what you think should be done and I was wondering if you could go more into dept to help me get some idea of what your thinking. If you have no idea that's just fine but I agree with the whole scratch is about art of all kinds, music, art, it's about your imagination not AI's thing. Calling AI art is an insult to all scratchers like me, who put time and love into their art. Typing a description into a generator is not art, was never art, will never be art. Anyway that was all I wanted to say. If you can I would love to hear about the coding. No problem if you can't. Have a beautiful and blessed day. Goodbye.

CherryBerryBlossom wrote:

After you laid down the facts I agree and think that this is something that should be done.

Those are mostly biased opinions, not facts.

CherryBerryBlossom wrote:

Typing a description into a generator is not art, was never art, will never be art.

Once art, always art.
Since AI art generators produce their art based off of real art, the AI art is real too.

PPPDUD wrote:

No support. Too discriminatory.

Who is being discriminated against here?

EDIT: after seeing this, I'm pretty sure you don't know what the definition of “discrimination” is

Zydrolic wrote:

i'm only here for 2 things and im out afterward as im not a person who can contribute to this discussion

PPPDUD wrote:

(#3)
No support. Too discriminatory.

AI is literally lifeless and senseless

roofogato wrote:

(#1)
They don't give a single * about artist integrity. (Well, it's already clear they don't, considering their views on recoloring and tracing)

please tell me you've read this announcement and read the bottom note

Can I add a note to my project telling people not to remix or recolor?

No. Everything on Scratch is remixable, so by adding this type of note to your project, you’re imposing false restrictions on other Scratchers. If you don’t want others to remix your creations, you can still create projects on the Scratch website, but don’t share them on the website.

I have read that announcement, and I still despise that decision

-Rodri wrote:

Last time I checked, Scratch is a coding website, not an art site.

They litterley have a section for art in their featured page. Scratch prides itself in a coding, music, art, and just general creativity website

I don't think AI images aren't too terrible that they need to be banned. After all, it is a type of medium that should be treated like anything else: an image. We wouldn't want ST to ban stock images, right?

ajskateboarder wrote:

I don't think AI images aren't too terrible that they need to be banned. After all, it is a type of medium that should be treated like anything else: an image. We wouldn't want ST to ban stock images, right?

It's not a median, it's thieft. Would you call breaking into people's homes a sport?

roofogato wrote:

ajskateboarder wrote:

I don't think AI images aren't too terrible that they need to be banned. After all, it is a type of medium that should be treated like anything else: an image. We wouldn't want ST to ban stock images, right?

It's not a median, it's thieft. Would you call breaking into people's homes a sport?

Well, I have never seen a ban on anything work effectively. For instance, if Tiktok gets banned in a country, people can still access it via proxy. Similarly, people will find ways to upload AI images to Scratch with loopholes in the ToU

Don't get me wrong, I think the current state of AI text-to-image generation is screwed up, but banning it is not a good long-term solution

No support, at the very least if it's only for “I drew this”.

what about this? the ai art extension in scratch lab will be cancelled because of this

I'm not going to pretend that AI art isn't just unoriginal and uninspired pictures of amalgamated pieces of other artwork, but it's still pretty convenient for some people.

I know this kind of stuff is an absolute punch in the gut to artists, but the Scratch Team can't only listen to its art community, they also possess educational value, accessibility, and so forth. For example, people who have physical imperfections with their motor skills, (e.g. cerebral palsy, dyspraxia, etc.) or can't draw well in general really benefit from this — I would actually go out of my way to say I personally benefit from AI art.

Also, Scratch encourages creativity, but doesn't enforce it. If they did, then in theory, there would be none of the same-looking platformers, clickers, and probably none of the cultures that heavily revolve around its community would even touch Scratch.

Because of the way AI is currently, I feel like there should be some restrictions in place when using AI art, but banning it outright is just counter-intuitive.

waitwhat2288 wrote:

I know this kind of stuff is an absolute punch in the gut to artists, but the Scratch Team can't only listen to its art community, they also possess educational value, accessibility, and so forth. For example, people who have physical imperfections with their motor skills, (e.g. cerebral palsy, dyspraxia, etc.) or can't draw well in general really benefit from this — I would actually go out of my way to say I personally benefit from AI art.

Can't draw? That's why these have the sprite library

ToastRoastBoast wrote:

what about this? the ai art extension in scratch lab will be cancelled because of this

That was possibly the worst experience I had reading any piece of text

Now we know that Scratch not only isn't against it, they encourage it

PPPDUD wrote:

(#3)
No support. Too discriminatory.

You obviously have a very warped understanding of what “discrimination” is

edit to prevent double-post

Full support. I can hardly call myself an “artist” but I understand how horrible ai art would be for this platform.

think about it.. if one image was removed from the data set. the output image wouldnt change at all. even if 100 where removed the image wouldnt change

the resalt is so far diffrent from whatever the sources where, that the souce being removed doesnt make any difference

people serously dont understand the size of the datasets they use. its not in the thousands, its in the multiple billions. only a very small fraction of those are said art