Welcome to the dumbest timeline.
We go through the dumbest timeline.
Is this truly the dumbest timeline?
Welcome to another edition
of The Dumbest Timeline.
I'm your host, Brian Holidae,
and we are here for Series 2 AI.
In the past couple weeks,
a lot of interesting AI
news has come out.
I will try and post links in
the description of this
episode for things I think
you should be paying attention to.
The updates on the lawsuits,
other lawsuits that are coming forward.
different types of lawsuits.
Let me just say,
there's a lot of lawsuits
going on with AI, and I wonder why.
Big question mark.
We can see that a lot of the
ways in which AI models
were trained was with using
people's content without their consent.
And that's obviously a major
issue that we need to
address if we're going to
move forward with this.
But
I don't know if they'll address it in time,
and that's the concerning part.
I talked to an artist this week, Vanllem,
about AI, its use in art,
and why it might just never
work in the artist industry.
From sketch artists to comic book artists,
the way it was trained
comes up against the way
they feel passionate about their art,
and it is a major problem
that will need to be addressed,
hopefully sooner than later.
We'll be back at the end for
a quick wrap-up.
Hey, what's up, everyone?
This is another edition of
The Dumbest Timeline,
and we are here with Vanllem.
a name that I always almost
make a mistake when I say
it because it's spelled V-A-N-L-L-E-M,
and I love it.
Vanllem,
we've met a few times at Montreal
Comic Con and a bunch of
different events.
We've hung out randomly,
and I am very excited to
speak with you about AI.
Hey, hello everybody.
I'm super happy to be here with you,
Brian.
It's always fun to see you
and I'm excited to finally
get to work on something together.
It's going to be a very
interesting conversation today.
And yeah, I mean,
you're an artist and I feel
like I want to start right off the top.
I see you always working to
make your art the best.
version of what it is.
I know you work very hard,
very diligently to make your art.
I see you even recently,
for those of you who follow
you on social media,
they may have seen you
trying to draw Homelander.
You were specifically
talking about trying to do
specific things and make
adjustments to how you draw
it because you're trying to
capture the person's essence.
And I find that dedication
very important in a world where
Now people are starting to
use AI to just make art
whenever they want.
I agree.
And I find that the AI look
looks soulless.
There's something different.
And even if it looks kind of realistic,
sometimes there's always something off.
I'm not talking about the 25 fingers,
but just the eye and the
way they look at you, it's weird.
It's not the same.
And it's funny you mentioned
the eyes because I know that...
when it comes to art you
know you're drawing
something and it it's not
it's a an image but I feel
like when artists make
pieces the eyes kind of
have almost have a
semblance of soul to them
whereas when I see ai stuff
often the eyes look like
you know when someone's
looking at you but they're
looking past you and
there's kind of like an emptiness
Am I going off?
Does that make sense?
Oh, it's true.
It makes me think of people
in movies when someone is possessed.
And it's the person,
but they're not there.
Yes.
Something's off.
With AI becoming as popular
as it has in recent years.
Well, first off, I'll start with this.
What was your first interaction with AI?
It feels like it happened all of a sudden.
Maybe I'm not up to date with tank stuff,
but since I'm mostly in the
artist sphere online,
when it became super
popular with Midjourney, ChanGPT,
all those things last year for me,
I started seeing images and
at first they were not that good,
but they became better very scarily fast.
Yeah.
and it was a shock for the
whole community and one day
it wasn't there and the
next day I woke up and it
was everywhere and scary
and the the new normal I
was really hoping it was
going to be a trend but it
is there to stay yeah yeah
I feel like that's an
important aspect of it I
feel that there's a lot of
conversations in the
community about ai as a danger
And some people are hoping
and maybe still hoping that
they can stop AI,
but I feel like it is not
going to go anywhere.
Yeah,
there's too many people making money
and we know that money rules.
I'm so happy you said it
because you said the key thing.
There's too many people
making money off of it.
You go to conferences and
present your art.
You sell your art.
You usually get tables.
Have you noticed,
speaking of people trying to make money,
have you noticed an uptick
in AI art vending at conventions?
So far, the convention I've been at,
they don't allow AI art.
So we've been very lucky.
And all the artists, we speak together.
So if we have a doubt that
someone is using that stuff,
we will report them and
have them exposed.
And it happened at some conventions.
I've seen the post online
talking about it.
We don't want them.
Of course.
Yeah, it's not an insult to our craft.
Yeah,
and I like that the community works
together to identify it.
Is there something, I mean,
we did just talk about the
fact that when you see the art,
you can kind of tell.
Is there anything that the
collective group of artists do
to try and identify?
Are you sharing tips with
each other on how to identify?
Is there a conversation?
Because I'm not an artist,
so I always wonder in this
industry that is being
heavily affected by this,
how do you as a community
adjust to these changes?
I'll try to find you a post
so you can link it.
But there has been many going around.
There are so many details.
Of course,
it's easier for artists because
our eyes are trained to
notice those things.
But there is an uncanny valley going on.
And when you look close up,
the details don't make sense.
At first,
you might see a scenery like kids
playing in the park.
Then the kid,
a part of his clothes will
connect to his hair.
You will see an animal but
it's missing a leg and it's
not because it's injured,
it's just not there.
Some things are connecting,
colors are not right,
the shape of objects,
many little details.
It's like those exercises as
Chianti did when you got
the two pictures and it's
like the differences.
And when you take a moment, you're like,
wait a second,
why is there a hole in the sun?
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's things like that.
So yeah, of course, like we said,
like too much,
too many fingers on Canyon Valley stuff.
Yeah.
That don't make sense.
And the composition, it's also weird.
It's just all kinds of
little stuff like that.
And online,
like everybody's grandmas right
now are sharing like
pictures of stuff that
supposedly happened.
Share if you care.
And it's just a crazy image
that never happened.
But for those,
I wish we had more like the
general people knew more about this.
But for the art,
it's easier to notice
because especially if you
follow an artist and you
scroll back and if they
were active before 2022,
Yeah.
If suddenly their art style
changes completely and also
they used to post once
every two weeks and now
every day like they're
posting high resolution
images in completely different styles.
It's impossible to post all
the time every day and the
styles are different.
You can't have 14 styles.
It's little things we notice like that.
No, that's super interesting.
This is why I wanted to speak with you.
The idea that before 2022,
an artist who might have
been starting their craft
and might have felt
motivated to try and create,
and then Midjourney or all
these other AI art sites
start to come along,
and they can now just pay a subscription,
take some art that they've made,
or they can give prompts.
get art and then put it into
whatever software they use
to try and adjust it to
look more like their style.
And then they want to make a
profit off of that.
And it feels like you're
breaking an agreement that
you made with the people
that have been supporting
you until that point.
So it's very...
I almost I mean,
not that I want to give
them a platform because I
generally don't want to get
the perspective of someone
I feel is scamming.
But I am interested in
understanding why do that
as opposed to continue creating art?
Because if you're an artist and to you,
I ask this question,
do you do this because of
the money or do you
genuinely love making art?
If I did it for the money,
I'd be a masochist.
I just... It's been my
passion my whole life and
it's a pleasure to do.
I don't know if it's public knowledge,
but I think the very
important thing to say and
the reason why we hate AI
art is because it's unethical.
It's impossible for those
programs to make the art
without scraping art from everybody else.
So...
Because of that,
all the artists are being
stolen from without any compensation,
without our consent.
And then people are making
money on our back.
So it's just, it's super, super bad.
And no matter how they try to say that, oh,
we're going to make it better.
And our pool of images is better.
No, it's not.
And they even sound like
pictures of random people.
They sound mythical documents,
like anything has been said
in that machine.
and some horrors that I
don't even want to say on the podcast,
but you can imagine how
freaks of the world would use that tool.
yeah yeah yeah that is that
is a very difficult aspect
to think of and I i do
agree with you that you
can't build you can't fix
something that you built
off of a bad system because
it will always be built
from a bad system you have
to start from scratch and
like you said because
everyone's making money
they don't want to start
from scratch because it would cost them
I did have a conversation
and people who are
listening to this have
probably heard this episode already,
but I spoke with a musician
who had a really
interesting idea and I'd
like to pitch it to you and
see what you think.
He explained,
so I don't know if you know
that when you bought blank
CDs back in the day,
there was a fee that was
attached to purchasing
blank CDs that went into a
pool for recording artists.
And then that pool paid out
to all the different
recording artists that were registered.
Wow.
Yeah.
So that's how that that's
how it was for CDs,
because once blank CDs
became a big thing in the market,
you could burn music.
So there was a sense that
anyone who bought a blank
CD could potentially rip music.
And so they figured we have
to do something to compensate the artist.
So he was suggesting if you
were and I don't think like we said,
because the system is so poorly made.
They ideally have to start from scratch,
but if they were to start
from scratch and use people's art again,
but pay out to artists out
of a pool for everyone's
art that was used,
would that come across as a
possible option in the art community?
Do you think people would be open to it?
i don't think so oh even
then okay okay yeah it's
too hard to know I'm
assuming with the cdt it
was everybody that was like
registered as yes like or
something but artists it's
everybody like it's my
little brother my cousin
it's my co-worker it's just
everybody posting on
instagram deviantart anywhere so
It's just it's creeping the
whole internet.
So that dividend of money,
that five cents every five
months that I'm going to
get and the person is going
to just like make a bunch
of money using my hard work,
the skill I worked for over
30 years to achieve and all
the people around.
No, we don't want that at all.
That's fair.
That's a good point.
Yeah, no, I mean,
I think the idea that he
had is very interesting.
And I do, for the music perspective,
where he talked about AI
scraping for musicians,
that seems to make sense to
me because there's already
a model in place.
Like you said, when you're an artist,
you register your songs.
There's SOCAN, there's CMRRA.
But with art, you're right.
There's just sites that
people post on and there's
no real control over that.
There's no governing bodies that,
you register with and to ask
every artist to register
would be a very
all-encompassing task and
would need an entire
different organization.
And that just seems like a
lot of work that ultimately
you're doing a lot of work
to try and get money out of
someone who shouldn't be
making money off of you in
the first place.
Yeah, exactly.
I can't think of a way to
make it possible.
No, no, that's great.
That's fair.
But I wanted to end off by
asking you your final thoughts.
Is there a way for the
artist community to open up
to the use of AI that you see?
The current state of AI,
I don't think can be accepted by us.
If there was a way to train
the AI on a database of consenting images,
then that would be something else.
But right now,
I don't think,
imagine someone would say like, oh,
we're going to use all the
pictures of their family on
Facebook for the AI.
You don't want that.
And they're doing that.
Yeah.
Anything that's online, they're taking.
So like,
would you accept a picture of you
in the AI machine for some fee?
Or right now, there's just no way.
I wish there was.
And it's a conversation
going on and we keep trying to find ways,
but...
Well, the artists,
we don't want to coexist
with that and we're forced to.
And until there's an ethical
way to train those machines,
I don't think it's possible.
Perfect.
That is 100% fair.
I think that is one of the
most valid points.
At the end of the day,
if there is not an ethical way to do this,
as a community,
it makes sense that you
would not want it.
I appreciate you taking the
time to talk to me about
this because I can only
imagine that this isn't
fair to or it definitely
doesn't feel fair to any of you.
And I hope that we can find
a way for the art community
to continue to prosper and
for AI to be better managed
or ultimately restarted.
which I know is very unlikely,
but in a perfect world.
And obviously, like I said,
this is the dumbest timeline,
not the perfect one.
So the chances of it happening are slim,
but fingers crossed that it
can be better.
Yeah.
Can you tell people where
they can check out all your
content and where they can
go for your artwork?
So as you said, my username is Vanllem,
V-A-N-L-L-E-M.
You can find me on most places online.
I'm mainly active on Instagram.
This one is vanllem.art,
but I am also on YouTube, on TikTok.
I am on...
my god on facebook yeah I
know you have a bit
everywhere so just with vanllem
you will find me and
on my instagram I have the
link tree you can click on
my bio with all the links
my social media my youtube
channel all my projects and
feel free to dm me comment
on my stuff I i love to
keep the community active
the last thing I was going
to say what as are you
still doing commissions
I actually stopped.
And actually,
it could be another conversation.
But one of the reasons I
stopped was also because of
the rise of AI.
And I feel like people,
they were cheap before,
but now they're just going
to scrape my art and put it
in the machine.
Like, I don't know, I could,
but right now it's not my priority.
I have other projects I prefer.
Okay,
that's such an interesting point that
I did not think about.
People requesting specific
art to then use that with an AI.
Well,
I'm scared or maybe if someone
doesn't want to pay my fee,
I'm just not interested in that.
And I feel like people,
they will be cheaper now
because they will say, hey,
why aren't charging that
amount when I could just
like try to generate
something with your art style.
So I'm just,
I don't want to get into that
hassle right now.
So I'd rather sell my
artwork on my Etsy shop.
And yeah.
Very fair.
Very valid.
Thank you so much once again
for taking the time to speak with me.
And once again,
everyone check all the links.
It's going to be in the description.
Vanlem, thank you so much.
I look forward to seeing you
at another con soon.
Always my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
And just like that,
we come to the end and we
realize that the way we are
going about with AI right now,
as much as I love AI,
might not be working for everybody.
There's a lot of parties
involved that are going to
be hurt and a lot of
parties that are going to
benefit from this.
And the people who are going
to benefit from this are
the people already
benefiting and already
making tons of money who
don't actually need this more.
And the people who are going
to lose out are the
creatives whose work is
going to potentially be
lost in the melting pot
that is AI's training models.
And it's concerning.
And, as Van Lem said, unethical.
So, it's hard for me, because as you know,
I do genuinely find AI interesting,
but it is definitely hard
to talk with an artist and
hear them talk about how
passionate they are and see...
from their perspective,
which I already had quite a
few people explain to me
from their perspective,
but to get an in-depth look
and to discuss,
and even after this interview,
Van Lem and I continued to talk off mic,
and just to hear how this affects artists,
it's really unfortunate.
And I'm hoping that we'll be
able to figure something
out that can benefit everyone equally,
but...
Like I said, this is the dumbest timeline,
not the darkest one.
And in the dumbest timeline,
greed will often win out.
And on that note,
we'll be back with another one soon.
Peace, everybody.
The Dumbest Timeline, Series 2, AI,
hosted by Brian Holidae.
Produced by Brian Holidae
for Brian Holidae Productions.
Co-produced in partnership
with Free X Agents Media.
Theme song by Jasper Q. Jones.
Mixing by Brian Holidae.
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