#AiArt News: Stable Diffusion pumps the brakes
A twice-weekly, curated roundup of the most interesting stories in the world of AI-generated art.
Stable Diffusion made copying artists and generating porn harder and users are mad
From James Vincent of The Verge
What happened: Stable Diffusion V.2 was released recently with some serious upgrades that offer much greater resolution and allow users more editing control in the creation of an image. But it also has built in restrictions that make it more difficult to create photorealistic images of celebrities, generate pornographic content and copy the styles of certain artists.
The impact: Because Stable Diffusion is open source, third-party releases could work around these restrictions. However, the debate over deepfakes, AI-generated child porn and the use of copyrighted material to train AI is far from over. We can expect the courts to sort through some of this in the near future.
A Top A.I. Art Generator’s Latest Version Prohibits Mimicking Work by Other Artists. Users Are Calling It ‘Censorship’ - Artnet, Richard Whiddington
What Stable Diffusion's New Policies Mean For Creators - Screen Rant, Kristen Billingsley
AI experts are increasingly afraid of what they’re creating
From Kelsey Piper of Vox
This is not necessarily the story you want to read before bedtime. AI is getting so good, it’s scary. No, it’s really f*ing scary.
“But creating something smarter than us, which may have the ability to deceive and mislead us — and then just hoping it doesn’t want to hurt us — is a terrible plan. We need to design systems whose internals we understand and whose goals we are able to shape to be safe ones. However, we currently don’t understand the systems we’re building well enough to know if we’ve designed them safely before it’s too late.”
The weird and wonderful art created when AI and humans unite - BBC, Alexander Reben
Can NFTs make a come-back?
From Jane Morris of Apollo Magazine
Thoughts from five leading figures in the digital art world about the impact of the Crypto crash and the future of NFTs.
“I’m actually happy that there has been a crypto crash because the hype is over. Ever since the beginning of NFTs and especially since the Beeple sale, everybody talked about money and not the quality of the work. I’m hoping now we will talk more about the aesthetics and the ideas behind different NFT works.” ~ Sabine Himmelsbach, artistic director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel.
Yam Karkai’s Illustrations Made Her an N.F.T. Sensation. Now What? - The New Yorker, Molly Fischer
Just for kicks
Victorian-Era People Who Never Existed: These Portraits Were AI-Generated - PetaPixel, Matt Growcoot
Spotlighting the Best of AI-Generated Art from Our Readers - designboom
These donuts are created by AI– just in time for the holiday season - Geektime, Oshry Alkeslasi
Bringing Extinct Species Back To Life Using AI - Medium, HungryMinded
Design
kaveh najafian's midjourney explorations envision surreal, 'impossible' lounge chairs - designboom
Tech
Amazon’s New AI Art Tool Can Help Kids Make Art, or Stifle Creativity - Lifewire, Sascha Brodsky
Data platforms, AI, Web3 to transform customer experience, says IDC - Technology Record, Amber Hickman
NFTs and Digital Art
How Chromie Squiggles Pioneered Generative NFT Art - NFT Now, Jex Exmundo
Art Blocks: Snowfro, Tyler Hobbs, and More on the Rise of Generative NFT Art - NFT Now, Langston Thomas
FutureDeluxe Designs Real-Time Generative Universe as Art Installation - LBBonline
NFT Investor Animoca Brands to Start $2B Metaverse Fund: Report - CoinDesk, Jamie Crawley
Nifty News: Porsche 911 NFTs, BMW files Web3 trademarks, Baby Shark’s NFT game and more - CoinTelegraph, Brian Quarmby