Popular Artist Yuumei EXPOSED For Using AI 

A lot of people missed the part that AI uses so much energy and it's terrible for the environment and Yuumei does a lot of environmental activist art.

Yuumei, for the lack of a better word, has always been an activist. She has always been an environmentalist and her works carry heavy messages. For someone like that to use AI this blatantly, I am honestly just shocked.

I think she still sells at least one of her AI assisted works as prints or downloads. So she is profiting off it as much as she said she won't.

Key note about generators that "only use my artwork", etc. That is an impossiblity. It's focused through select artwork, but it still has pretraining (usually LAION) that uses uncredited/stolen pieces.

why the hell do people who already have skills need shit like this

I’ve been following yuumei for more than a DECADE-I learned about them when I was just a kid, and really appreciated their focus on mixing art with environmentalism. So, this AI thing is like a double whammy, considering how AI is draining water and accelerating climate change. If I remember correctly, yuumei initially went to UC Berkeley for compsci before switching to art, so I have to wonder if she’s always had “tech bro” tendencies. Kinda wild considering how she practiced so much her hands literally got injured and mentioned art practically SAVING her while struggling with an abusive family situation 💀

It was especially disappointing and hypocritical that Yuumei had complained about her artwork being stolen for NFTs and the environmental impact of NFTs, yet handwaved away the environmental impact of AI in her recent megapost 8:48

The fact she heavily promotes saving the environment while supporting ai, which uses a lot of energy and uses drinking water to cool the machines, while wildfires and drought are so prevalent in certain areas. It’s like someone driving a supercar using lots of gas while having a sign that says to save the environment on it…

Bro i had a friend i drew free artwork for put my shit into an AI programmed and showed it to me like i was going to be flattered. I will never support this shit.

"Drawing uses electricity" yeah, but like, there's different levels. AI generators are known to be SUPER bad

I just feel sad when an artist says that "ai is a good thing! it will help with my work a lot!" if you don't like making art why would you want to make art in the frist place?

As someone who had RSI for years and got cured, here's what worked for me: lots of stretching, 45m of work followed by a 15m break and... the last thing the doctor suggested was martial arts. Hitting targets can do wonders not only for your mental health, but your shoulder, arm and wrist will thank you for it. And I do use 3D for comics, and teach some of it, BUT with a grain of salt: I do not use premade models regardless is they are free or not, I learned how to model myself. Therefore, the art style becomes consistent. As for AI, sadly, regulations might take a long time to happen... look at screenwriters, authors, animators and of course, us... the number of layoffs is growing. But the saddest thing of all is the general sense of panic and accusation happening inside the art community. It used to be such an uplifting place.

Yuumei's most recent post on insta talks about how she suffers sever pain in her wrists from overworking. Likely she has permanent damage to her wrist so she likely cant keep up with the swift tides of the algorithm. This doesn’t excuse this, but it might explain where she's coming from

I don’t think she is exposed as she has openly talked about using it….

missed the "exposed!!!" part when the artist was literally vocal about using ai for years

I remember this artist from yeeeaaars ago mentioning that she had severe wrist issues, so she had to go really into finding alternatives to help her, such as using 3D models and such. I'm not surprised that she just picked up AI like it was nothing, since for her it's really just another tool to give herself a break for her wrist, and for time. I'm guessing she does not fully understand that it was created using non-consentual art theft.

AI is a threat to every creative industry. AI art, AI music, AI literature... its just sad that we even have to question if something was made by a human these days

I literally saw an artist use their feet to draw digitally, if theres a will theres a way

I FUCKING HATE that Yuumei is using her disability as an excuse, I have a wrist injury at the moment but that doesn't make me want to use ai??? Like wtf?? If you love and respect art as a medium why would you use ai??? I just don't get it 🧍. And to those saying "It's a learning tool guys!" Why do you reference off of ai when it can't even draw hands right???? Make it make sense. Sure, ai does look pretty from afar but when you look closer you see all of the big mistakes a human just wouldn't make. I'm disappointed in Yuumei.

"People already use my art to feed AI, hence it's the more sad that people accuse my 100% hand drawn painting as AI without any evidence." why does that bother her when she endorses AI herself? She should be okay with people thinking that her work is AI since: "it's the future" right? Like girl, c'mon.

Sorry, but if an artist flat out supports AI art and uses it, they will get people accusing them of using AI art. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. 🤷

Artists using AI is like finding out your friend got bit by a zombie and they try to hide it

As a comic creator, I will love to have new tool that can transfer all the images in my mind, 1 to 1, perfectly angle with exact details and consistency, to the comic page so I can focus on creating my stories, and ai is not that tool. Artists who painted over ai or use it to create their og or backgrounds don’t value their creation. Ai can’t create images exactly what you wants, so using ai is letting technology take over your mind. You’re not controlling it like a tool.

the problem i hate about Ai is that it destroys the artist style over time as the generic Ai look starts to takeover. one of my favorite artist embraced Ai who is a professional, even their anatomy is starting to slip and that disheartening

Over in my country, a legendary comic artist, Ujang, advocates for AI. Despite the criticisms he received, he still will use AI. Worse is since his platform is Facebook, a lot of his fans SUPPORT AI.

I said a big piece on Facebook about this already but I'm a disabled artists. I have made art with splints on. I absolutely hate when people use accessibility as an excuse for shitty behaviour and doubling down. As far as I was aware they have never actually addressed the fact they were openly pro GenAI and said they want to do it more. They never used it in that piece and got so upset when people questioned it and still never addressed their current stance on AI use going forward.

Hearing some artists talk about AI is like listening to coal mine owners talk about clean power

As a 3D Artist, getting real tired of hearing people use 3D as an excuse for why AI should be used more. I make the models and texture them bro, a program doesn't create them for me.

Im actually at this point confused; People say we should use ai art as a tool but when used as a tool you still get shit on and hurt other artists. So whats the point of it? Should we just qvoid it in general? Like if you use it for reference u you also get shined for it so is there any point of recognising it as a tool? People always said "use it as a tool not as the endproduct" so it feels like we shouldnt use it at all?

I've followed her for well over a decade now. She was one of the first few artists I refollowed when I moved to my new (at the time 😅) DeviantART account. I remember thinking she was so cool and revolutionary. I was there when she was working on Axent Wear and I desperately wanted cat ear headphones as a teen. I was there when she started using 3D models for her comics. I felt mixed about it, but ultimately thought it was a smart idea since it would lessen the strain on her hands. I loved her work and I would spend hours just staring at her pieces. So to find out that she is in support(?) of generative AI, it was massively disappointing. It hurts, but not too badly since I haven't been keeping up with her since the mass exodus of DeviantART. I'm not sure who to believe, so I blocked her just in case and figured it's for the best since I barely keep up with her nowadays.

A lot of image-editing programs have AI generated filters that just pull from their existing filters and combine them for the desired effect. That’s probably the only ethical way for a an artist to use AI. As a primarily traditional artist, these filters help me a lot.

Some of the earlier AI uses I think were okay, like the older AI stuff before midjourney was stuff that wasn't trained on stolen copyrighted work afaik, such as clip studio's auto colorise tool. (Unless I'm wrong about it and was trained on copyrighted stolen work, pls correct me) Things like those AI inbetweening softwares or AI image upscalers or (i forgot the name but that software that could overlay a painting onto video with a reference image) might look bad but they weren't illegal and were here long before the big horrible mass image stealing 'AI' companies came along, and I'm pretty sure they were trained on work they were given permission to use/ commissioned work (the older AI stuff i mean, not the newer 2022 onwards stuff). The technology of LLMs isn't evil in and of itself, Spiderverse used something like that to draw the expression lines on the 3D models, and they paid an artist to train those off of with their consent, but those greedy companies like Midjouney scraping the internet and mass feeding an AI and the people who enable those are the ones in the wrong.

This is so incredibly disappointing and disheartening to hear about. I've looked up to Yuumei for years, to hear she's not only using AI, but also dismissing the environmental impact of it and refuses to acknowledge that AI steals from other artists is just...It feels grimey. Like, super gross. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at another piece by her ever again without going "is this AI?" now, and she only did it to herself by so openly supporting AI.

top 10 anime betrayals (i loved their artstyle

Ai is bad, and will always be bad. Like not only does it steal the work of others but also use a significant amount of energy. But at some point I can somewhat understand why she wants to use ai as a tool. I mean look at it, many people use 3d backgrounds for their art to save time. And she could most likely do the same, as long as she doesn't steal it because she did say she is trying to TRAIN ai to her art so she could be able to make artwork similar to her artstyle, she never mentioned she'd flat out steal, I'm pretty sure she knows well that most of the generated images ai pumps out is from real artists. Also back then ai was still being used as an *experimental* tool. I still remember how fascinated I was of a computer program making artwork out of only prompts, plus the tweets she made are literally 2 years old, I'm sure she as an artist knows WAY better than anyone about how ai can affect artists. The art she made with ai was a part of her experimenting new tools she could take advantage of, especially with her wrist problems. She's mentioned about her wrist problems way before Ai was even a thing, and she's always looked for a new tool which could not only help her save time but also make her be more efficient. Also she only wants to use ai as a tool for her COMICS. She has experimented by making full illustrations with ai but with the messages and tweets it's quite obvious she only wants to use it as a tool for comics, and I'm sure everyone is well aware that comics take a lot of time. And with such a detailed artstyle she has, comics are specially time consuming. In the end I think it's okay as long as she doesn't misuse it and doesn't let it get to her head. I hope she can still keep her illustrations original. But yeah, Ai is bad but it's only bad if you misuse it.

My grandpas BIL’s family used AI to write his eulogy. He was in shock.

The bird doesn't have three wings, it's another bird behind the bird above which is why you see another wing.

idk her but does this really count as exposed if it’s known she’s been doing so since 2019? still sad to see though

It's so jarring to see them tweet that about the enviromental concerns, when I was active on DA they had such strong oppinions about air quality, pollution, littering and made multiple artworks to bring awareness to the issue. I get that AI can be used as an artistic tool and can lessen the workload but this aint the way, maybe in the future when AI isnt so scummy, but rn its not good to be excited about taking unethical shortcuts like this as an artist.

yuumei's stance on Ai is only some big artist can have. if youre already as successful and influential as yuumei, Ai wont be able to affect your livelihood hence you can just throw your hands and say : this is not my battle 🤷‍♀

I've been keeping up with yuunlmei since i was a kid. They have had wrist pain since i was a teen, so i believe the decision to use ai was based on that. This is understandable to me, as I've seen how much the pain kept them from achieving, but i can't say its not disappointing and heartbreaking. I dont think i can look at their new art in the same way

She was one of the first artists I found in Deviantart around 2014 and was one of my favorite artists but like many of my favorite artists, she spoke about her hand pain and I realized I didn’t want to become like her. I still ended up with severe hand pain and a decade later was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. When my symptoms started to appear, I immediately began developing a simpler art style that looked both stylish and was quick to draw with less effort as my realistic art. I still followed her for her environmental beliefs but looked at art less when I moved on to focusing on my life. It is really shocking and disappointing that she spoke so positively about AI art. Yuumei, even though we are hurting, this is not the way. There are plenty of ways to make art easier for ourselves and our health. The solution is simpler than it seems.

I just want to add, if you’re having wrist pain, it’s worth training yourself to draw with both hands to some extent. Drawing with fingers I’d save as last resort. With a little practice you’ll be surprised how well you can draw with your other hand. Not for linearts maybe at first but for rendering etc

There are ML models that can be trained on your own art and be used a tool. The Spiderverse movies have an implementation of this. It helps them with animating. I doubt that kind of tech is available for small scale commercial use, but it is possible

incorporating AI art as a tool to boost your own art is the equivalent of using steroids for bodybuilding 😂,even the controversy issue is similar

Should look into Sakimichan too. Hyung Tae Kim also uses stable diffusion that learns off his own art, and uses it because he's pushing 50+ and can't draw like he used to anymore, let alone be the main artist for his company SHIFTUP. We grow older, we can't do things we used to, our output is slower, I don't blame some artists getting AI to learn off of their work.

Adding to the environmental harm, here's another thing: 3D tools and digital tools don't require a dataset of stolen art, but AI does, allowing people to impersonate artists without their permission.

Also with her being an enviromentalist/using it as most of their art themes... And then using AI

I follow her on Tumblr. Her art is gorgeous. The picture on the right at 1:14 is her Tumblr header. It’s really sad to see that she seems to be Pro-AI art. 😢

There are people in the comments saying that AI is just a tool to create. I replayed but ima comment this here to overshadow these silly comments. “No. The brush does not create for you. It is a tool that allows YOU to paint. Ai allows you to claim you made it by doin very little. Just saying this dosnt make it true. Comments like this are giving “this is the only way I think I can make art. I don’t care it steals from artists, cause it dosnt effect me” which is a very uneducated take. If I steal a car, and then the owner says hey, that’s not cool, I cannot turn around and say, this is the only way I have a car, you could just go and get another one. That would be stealing, and wrong. The way AI is now is stealing and wrong. Could it have been created in a way that was not stealing, yeah probably. But unfortunately that’s not how it went, and therefore it is unethical.” Thanks for reading 🫡🥰

Thats kinda the sad part. She's not talented. She is however incredibly skilled. To reach her lvl of skill it takes years of hard work and dedication. And now that's she reducing all that time and effort into simple algorithms says thats she's lost the passion that put her on this journey in the first olace and honestly thats more sad than anything.

19:48 ignoring the actual serious topic, cat meowing in the background is so cute

Here's the thing... she's not wholly wrong, but she misses the big picture. Yes, in theory an AI model trained solely on one person's original artwork isn't theft. But AI as a whole is so riddled with potentials for abuse, and so insanely devastating to working artists, that supporting the technology, and the tech giants profiting off it, is immoral. It's funny she mentions it's "free" several years ago while having absolutely zero foresight. Also, I'm highly skeptical of the integrity of artists who are genuinely excited for this technology as a shortcut to their own workflow. Are you no longer interested in the learning process and the journey? All AI will do is make you more reliant on IT instead of YOUR OWN artistic skills/sensibilities. And over time it will greatly water down, cheapen, and diminish the value, substance and creativity of your work, whether you realize it or not. My advice to people like Yuumei is that it's okay to be fascinated with the tech behind this shiny new thing, but to be keenly aware of its dangers, both existential and personal.

As an artist, if I became unable to draw due to wrist pain/damage I would look for ways to create art without relying so heavily on my hands. And if I did feel the urge to make aI images to see certain ideas brought to my screen I would only ever generate those images for myself, not for others to see while claiming they’re my work.

It is impossible to train a generative neural network using only your data. There are literally billions of images needed for training. All “trained” networks in the “style” of artists are forms of either Stable Difusion or some other networks that have been “retrained”. So the base model has been trained on billions of images (LAION contains five billion) and the user simply uploads 100 more of their works to the network, which makes the result a little more similar to theirs and eases the user's conscience.

Wait what? Yuumei? 😮 I have been known her art since 2014-15 for example and always would make great art. That's so out of character for an artist to do it when they know what AI does

Yuumei is famous for being the basically no1 environmental artist out there. Her being on a pro AI stance is just so utterly contradicting to that and one of the main reasons people are so disappointed in her. And then her comment along the lines of "this is not my fight to fight" is honestly ... just sad. Inspiring arts about oppression, freedom, standing up for yourself and your cause - they feel now all sour (to me personally at least). Where are the morals now? Are we throwing the morals out the window as soon as the cause benefits us? I might sound a bit bitter with that comment, but that is cause I am. I always liked her art. I know Yuumei struggles with her hand to keep drawing, and as an artist myself I don't want to even imagine how devastating it must be to not being able to create like you are use to before. But turning around and supporting, - almost celebrating- the technology that is actively stealing from other artists and damaging the environment, just so *they* can keep on drawing is just wrong. And honestly, her silence and avoidance on the direct question "Are you for or against AI?" speaks to me louder than anything else.

On top of the whole AI ethics issue, the fact a huge part of Yuumei's work/brand has revolved around environmental and human rights activism really adds to fire. For her to just turning around going "well i use a computer/electricity and create a carbon footprint, so what difference does it make?" while completely ignoring the STATISTICAL DATA of how much the rise of AI has being detrimental to the environment makes her look like a huge hypocrite. Plus the way she takes this whole controversy as a personal attack instead of people criticizing her contradicting the values she's advocated for OVER A DECADE is what's damaging her image. As for her justifying using AI because of her physical disability... not included in your video, someone asked her "why don't you hire assistants?" to help with her workload, which is NOT uncommon for comic artists to hire help to for backgrounds/colouring etc... she replied "with what money?" makes me facepalm cause i realized she doesn't see the bigger problem here. Artists > need to draw to make money Art > already inherently does not have a lot of value in the west (especially digital art) For artists to make money > have to make a lot of art, often at the expense of their own health AI > devalues art even more due to market oversaturation and quick production turn over Artists > have to make even more art to make money to live > damage their health even more Conclusion: AI does not help artists, AI will exasperate the problem and make it harder for artists to succeed in this industry. If Yuumei could comfortably make a living off her art without straining her body, she wouldn't feel the need to rely on AI to "keep up" with the industry (cause in the end, she won't be making it easier for herself, she will have to work even harder). It really just makes her look like she values money > her art and values. Her whole argument about "people being against 3D/CSP brush assets at first" is not equivalent to the AI issue. I remember this, most people arguing against 3D/CSP brushes were a small vocal minority of elitists or ignorant non-artists who do not understand the art process... more mature artists Got It and understood that they were TOOLS (created with consent of the asset's creator to be used as a tool), so her using it as comparison to the criticism of AI is a mole hill next to a mountain. AI CANNOT be considered a tool if it cannot be not done ethically.

I'm an artist with arthritis and my hands hurt a lot, but I still will not use AI. I would rather power through the hand pain and get my art done than go that rout.

I think she posted around 2012 about brigading against an art thief, and I questioned her as a large audience creator to weaponize her crowd against a single person. It wasn't about reporting copyright, or being proactive, it was just an open ask to harass this person until they removed her art. Considering her past, I'm not surprised at all she would feel entitled to use AI to cut corners. I quit following her after that drama, she came off as toxic back then as well.

My only thing about training ai on your own art is the infrastructure was developed through art theft. Even if no other art is referenced other than own, the AI engine was built off stolen work

Trying to justify theft with injury is gross. There are lots of people out there with disabilities and chronic illnesses that create challenges to doing art, but do not claim they're owed the opportunity to steal from others to make up for it. There's a difference between accessibility and thievery, and at the end of the day the reality is that there has to be a certain level to work through challenges and limitations on an emotional level as well, rather than steal or become bitter.

I’m not really surprised tbh, yuumei’s wrist injury seems to have severely affected her work. The thought of being able to create art just by typing your ideas must be extremely appealing to someone in her situation.

Dear A.I "artists" you need to accept once you use A.i you are devalued as artist doesn´t matter how many tweaks you do, so if you are willing to use it you need to accept that fact also you need to accept "your" work like A.I generator shouldn´t have full advantage of the copywriting laws, other than that have fun and use the A.I as much as you want, go wild.

I’m sorry but her hand pain doesn’t mean she gets to profit from the artists that AI generators stole from 🖐️

With the “third wing” I feel like that’s the wing of a bird off canvas, confined to the canvas, implying that the other two there are also confined to the canvas, blurring the lines between what is in the world of the painter is and what is in the world of the art.

I like ai for learning different color palettes/ways to render/color something. I don’t like people using ai to masquerade as if they produced the image or in a way in which they did not. Ai is like an image gacha. It’s gonna spit out a lot of duds, but sometimes you get something you like and can learn from since it is all visual information. It’s like everything else in life ones little eyeballs can see. I personally don’t find any joy in using ai to make images. The whole point is I MYSELF want to the make the image, EXACTLY HOW I THINK. The small sub benefit is the sense of greater accomplishment as I inch closer to that ability, granted that craftsmanship is the lowest fruit as the most important thing was the idea being brought into fruition. Maybe when it can read my thoughts and transmit it to the canvas EXACTLY how I thought it in my head and edit it EXACTLY how I want, then i’ll hop on the ai train since now it’s helping me actually do what I want. Maybe the only use case I could think of outside of it is brush textures. I never tried using it that way but it might be useful for that. Like concrete, bark, textiles, etc. On the other hand. Competent human artists tend to be better at making things I enjoy looking at or thinking about. Also they tend to be able to be a lot more creative. Especially when we are talking about art and the context in and around it. They will probably be my biggest source to learn from unless some huge change happens. I do think though, that ai will be a net negative for humanity on a social and psychological front though. But my comment will be too wrong and the zoomer brain rot would never allow anyone to read beyond this point and probably not even past the 4th line tbh.

Being excited over AI in 2022 when it was almost unbelievable and surreal should not be held against anyone. DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. basically didn't exist in 2021 and weren't really widespread and accessible until October 2022. The issue in the short term will be people who just discovered AI or never thought about it going through the same initial wonder everyone else did years ago, then getting bandwagon hate from everyone who hates AI, not understanding the backlash. Lol

Lets be honest, at some point AI art will be more accepted in the future. Yuumei is getting with the times, her hands hurts and she want to produce longer stories. If theres a tool that can help with that vision, go for it.

First ergojosh now yuumei?! Internet artists are falling hard! Sellouts, cowards, scammers in training!

There are actually two AI's that you can train with your art, one is MIMIC (it's a japanese AI that you can only do one try and I think you have to pay if you wanna use it more. This one is the first AI that started with all the problem I think. It's also the forst one I heard of) and the other one is Starry AI (which is mostly free). Those are the only ones I know

There are places to make and upload your own art for custom models, you can also use other artists models with their permission. Personally I genuinely support this as people are making it themselves.

The biggest betrayal…. ( I ALSO LIKED THAT ARTIST 😭)

Most artists didn't really understand machine learning until recently. It also wasn't clear before this year that artists would be against AI art, so it's not surprising that Yuumei's stance on AI could have changed. It might have been unethical in similar ways in 2022, but it would be understandable for someone to not realize what they were doing was wrong, since the discussion wasn't really developed. It sounds like they thought at some point, they would be able to make a model trained exclusively on their own work, which would be relatively ethical. We now know this is impossible with current models, but they didn't seem to understand that and there wasn't really anybody explaining that to them. I get that it's hard to believe that they haven't been using AI now, that's fair. But we can't treat their past stance as their current stance when they've said their stance has changed.

I may have an unpopular opinion but... TLDR AI generated “art” sampling other images and artwork is not different from artists acquiring their visual library from viewing images and other art, and I believe experienced, authentic artists such as Yuumei have every right to use it as a tool to assist with their work. First off just to clarify, I am an artist myself, I drew my profile pic, I support learning to art organically no matter what, relying on AI will not help with improving one’s art, and I am disgusted in the use of AI images in commercial projects like games or media for the sake of saving money on hiring a real artist. But I believe the use of AI as a tool by experienced artists is justified in some special cases. My reasoning is, I've noticed that there are parallels between the processes of an AI image generator generating an image, and a human artist visualizing an idea and bringing it to materialization. AI will receive a prompt, sample images and artwork that is fed to it or scraped off a database or the internet, then assemble those images into a new image. artists will have an idea, then draw from their visual library which is acquired from looking at other pictures and artwork, or view reference pictures and other artworks, to create their composition in the form of a sketch. Of course, there is a world's difference in the physical effort required between the two processes, but that physical effort doesn't always mean a positive thing. For example, this video showed Yuumei saying that they have RSI, and like carpal tunnel it's super common among artists who draw a lot. These conditions make it difficult to continue drawing, but using AI as a tool in the process of sketching/rendering can potentially alleviate the pain. Especially for comic/manga artists, this tool can help make their career/source of income less detrimental to their health by significantly speeding up the drawing process. My point is, I don't believe Yuumei deserves to be demonized for making use of AI as a tool to streamline creating, to protect their health, or just for fun, when we have known for a fact how skilled they are. They hey are not a scammer nor a con trying to take a shortcut to fame. In their case it is helping a real human artist instead of being used to replace them. We need to differentiate people like Yuumei who have dedicated years of their life to drawing from AI bros who are too lazy to put in a fraction of that effort but still want to play pretend “artist”.

4:45 OpenAI is NOT open source. Some are but most are not. Even IF they were open source the training data is not.

When AI first made a booming i just knew they would feed on Yuumei's artworks. She's probably one of the artists out there who uses AI like ergojosh

Its so sad when this happens, knowing an artist u admire and love their art and notice they use AI or support it makes me sad

I think the thing that hurts the most with AI is it does the jobs we dream of leaving our 9-5s for.

the upload rn is very much appreciated!!! just hurt my foot while dancing and need something to watch while i take a break (i assure you i'll be right back dancing after i finish this video, it was nothing major lol)

The funny thing is that yuumeis art is CLEARLY fed into ai… you can see her style in so many of them

"this is not my fight" is such a nauseating thing to hear from someone with so much influence in the art community. it's understandable that she has repetitive strain and that drawing hurts her, but it feels very arrogant to ignore and diminish the damage genAI does to other artist using that as an excuse

Oh here’s something no one is talking about: yummei has always been very up front about how they hire other artists to help with their comic. Now I wonder if they have replaced those artists with ai.. we may literally be dealing with the loss of a few art jobs here which is even sadder

Yuumei has been drawing amazing art since over 15 years. She may use whatever she wants at this point.

They gotta pay theirs bills, that's what capitalism does to art in general. When the hobby turns into your job, productivity is king. Sad but true

(Warning this is a book, save yourself and ignore this comment, I get heated a bit with this, I started watching Kat because her take on AI interest me, to listen to the other side, but due to my mental state I got super annoyed lol. I'm sure some of my points are just confusing and/or Bias as heck, but I still wanted to post this comment. Have a lovely day/noon/night) First off, is ALL ai tools made with stealing other peoples art? is this confirmed? Or is it just fear mongering full of assumption? Some have been proven, like on deviantart originally all artwork was going to be fed into their AI system, later they fixed it where you can check off a box to allow that to happen or not. The damage was already done I'm sure in my view but we can't say ALL ai tools is stolen to make new art unless confirmed. I don't see the problem of using AI art as a tool said many times in my comments, we are told to reference many diff things to make a piece, AI does that when it makes new pieces doesn't it? This artist then takes it step further to make the AI art their own vs turning around and posting the work as finished right from the AI. This isn't exposing even, if the artist has been open of their use of AI in the past? They weren't hiding it then? You have a right to dislike Ai use, but this artist was using it as a tool (not 100% how I wish they were using it far as I can tell, but we don't know where the AI starts and where their actual work ends), no reason to suddenly shun the artist. You're treating them as a criminal at this point. idk, I'm still in favor of using ai art as tool, if it's done right. 2:42 I have used 3D models in art softwares, and my hands have come out like this. The fingers aren't fusing together like AI do, or look broken, that hand looks correct to me. HECK I even screenshot this image to double check used a 3D model in my Clip studio and I could match that hand 99% the same, the thumb was the only issue, but at this point it looks like a style choice with the pose. 3:04 the birds are blending into the canvas, and it's not four wings, those are two bird silhouettes close together! come on :c It looks weird to you because one of the birds are apart of the painting vs the other one still outside of the painting. (least it's brought up again, but she still doesn't see it as 2 birds lol) 3:18 It's because the shading of the hand and the brush are close to each other, a way to have fixed that is adding one small little black line. Alot of areas of the artwork has sketchy linework where it's just color in places instead of complete lines, it's a style. And this one spot was a unfortunate turn because of the style. At least how I'm visually reading it. 5:47 Personally, I don't know this artist, but I've known of this artist for 16 years, Few years after I made a deviantart account, all artists try to cut corners, otherwise digital artists wouldn't be a thing. What is wrong with them using AI as tool? What if it helps them have less strain on their hand? What if they only use it a little. Their art has been outstanding WAY before AI software was even a thing. So to shun them at face value like just reading a title of a news article and calling it a day, is a little disheartening in itself. 5:53 where? where are the crooked lines? Go back and look at their work from like 2012 when they used 3D backgrounds they'd paint over. their "crooked lines" is them just not using a linetool =table flip= Some styles aren't perfect when it comes to perfectly straight things irl. 14:28 What is wrong with wanting to use a new tool if it'll benefit the artist in someway. She's been vocal about her hand issues, so what? She just has to let her hand become messed up? Take long breaks when she needs to make money even if making art is her job? Nothing wrong with testing the waters with AI tools. Be neat if could feed our own style into an AI (privately) to help us visual a work we want to do or AI to set up a 3D scene for us to reference from vs us setting it up ourselves. When time is money vs a hobby new tools to help us speed up our process is amazing and efficient. Like I said, Digital artists wouldn't be a thing otherwise. It's frustrating when we want to try something new, then all our art suddenly become AI generated in the eyes of others. Also frustrating that the title of this video is SO click bait, and all the years this artist has gone through is thrown out the window and "oh now I'm dissapointed in this person because they support something I don't like" uggh. They don't 100% support it, there is still MANY flaws in AI tools, it's just a matter of time it'll be a useful tool and it's just not there yet. Fine be SUS of "artists" that have no artistic background, and suddenly are posting pretty art, but bashing someone that actually wants to use it as a TOOL vs using as a Completed art piece. I..sigh. History repeats itself with the blind hate and it's heart breaking when a use of something is blanketed as the same thing when the process is completely different. 17:34 I'm confused about this, If someone did read this book can you explain to me what echo stuff they're talking about? Maybe I'm googling it wrong but saw nothing about how AI effects the environment. 19:00 That's a great alternative, but I still think AI tool should still be explored, improved, and hopefully one day they'll be as ethical as any other software (though some purists can and will still be out there). AI tools are just not there yet, Least some artists are trying to use it as a tool vs a finished product, and shouldn't be shunned for that the moment other's realize their stance, at this point it turns into toxic politics. Plz no. Just wait and see how things are in the future before chop blocking someone.

You CAN have an AI trained just off your art - there are AI programs that allow you to input your own dataset so you could just give it your art! Would you try this?

Honestly, I have to disagree on this one. People just seem to get absolutely triggered when AI is mentioned. She was always transparent on her views and when AI was used. I absolutely understand people trying to pass of AI art or traced art as their own and then even try to sell it is absolutely not okay. It's like dropshippers trying to sell something as handmade. In this case she disclosed everything, she does have the talent, as far as I can see she doesn't profit of the comic nor the painted over practice pieces and if she succeeds in training an AI model solely on her own art the stolen artwork argument also falls through. This does beg the question. If there were to be an AI model solely trained on pieces given to it with consent, would that make a difference in people's views? 🤔

Yuumei is always overly ambitious with her art, especialy comics. Each panel was very detail and could stand as an art piece on their own. She's been working on it for years and I get the thought of wanting to create everything or telling the stories with high standart, but she simply couldn't keep up with her own expectation. I ever read somewhere that Yuumei was learning to draw so hard that her hand is bleeding. That can also contribute to the unhealthy relationship with art, and wanted to do anything to achieve her goals

I called it!!! yes! no i liked her to... it was to good to be true

I guess the only props i can give her is that at least shes open and not hiding the fact they're using AI. I is more doubly infuriating if an artist uses it but don disclose and doubles down on not using it when they know they did and is wrong to do so. ART IS ABOUT THE PROCESS. Not the finished product only. She uses and is so vocal for AI at the start so obviously ppl is gonna assume everything she does after to be ai! Why is she shocked pikachu face for? 🤨 I don mind if a artist feed their own art into the machine and uses it BUT can they be 100% that the machine would not use elements form other artists in the meantime? She can't. So thats a OUT. Even more so is that she sells even the art she uses ai to build upon. I do not care if she hand draw over 90% of it. It has to be 100% her drawing over it to be considered. If she just want the ai to pop out a baseline idea for her to know what to draw in a blank canvas, she can use the words ones like chatgpt to make sparke her inspiration and get abase idea? but she does it via the art ais and basically only fills in like 60% so no. She still used other artist's work in supposing HER work that she sold via patreon etc.

She actually talked about this more clearly on her tumblr I'd read her statement there before making your final judgments. She actually doesn't use AI I've only seen her use it in those examples and she uploads her process. She has experimented with lots of things over the years to help her process due to her disability like drawing over her own photography and this was just another thing. Lots of people were hyped about when gen AI was just starting to be a thing. I agree her statements on twitter have been pretty bad and I'm not exactly sure what she was meaning to say in them but she's much clearer in the tumblr post. At the end of the day make your decision for sure, follow your morals.

When it comes to appreciating AI-generated art, the tool used to create it is secondary to the quality and impact of the artwork itself. What truly matters is how much you enjoy and connect with the art, not the specific software or algorithm behind it. Whether it's the intricate designs produced by one tool or the vibrant imagery from another, the value lies in the final creation and the emotions it evokes in you. Ultimately, it's your personal response to the art that counts, making the tool a mere means to an end in the creative process.

Exposed? When she never hid the fact she wanted to mix her work with AI to begin with? How long ago were those tweets and messages that only NOW you people are complaining about it? I haven't seen anyone getting hurt or losing clients over her art in all these years, she's not hurting anyone whether she uses AI or not! Stop dog pilling on random people on the internet! And please research about the subjects you're planning on making videos on, the Vtubers getting suspended and harassed because of your video was very painful to watch

ai in art can be good if its transformative and quite literally used as a tool. the generated image is original but made with the style thats stolen from others. so if you keep it and change the style to be your own, then the aspect thats stolen is gone. i dont think people should be penalized the moment they hear "AI" when it comes to artists, but rather penalize only if theres minimal editing. or god forbid people that dont even do anything and try to claim the generated image is theirs. i personally use ai for composition but i create the art myself. i cant really imagine things in my head, i dont get mental images. plus when i know what i want and i search for references, its always never what im actually thinking of. so ai generating the pose and composition helps me. whats generated still only fits 60% of what i imagine, but thats completely fine anyway as i ensure my piece strays from the ai reference i use. also i only use it for rough pose and composition, not specifics because ai is bad for that. i use real references for specifics. but yeah, i do believe ai can be a tool (though i think it should be a paid service and the artists whos work is trained off, should get a cut. however while i agree with this persons sentiment on it being a tool, they didnt really transform what was generated much. at the end of the day, art is about creativity and i didnt really see much there.

:/ Ai has charge a lot in past years. Geez

Photobashing and overpainting has been considered art for years... Using AI as a partial base, while that AI is referencing your own style. Yeah I don't see much wrong with this. With AI the cat is out of the bag it's already being used, there is no harm in using it to speed up your work as long as you are still putting in the effort and still creating what you truly wish to see. I create art for myself first and foremost, what anyone else sees or wants me to do with my art is none of your business, whether publicly posted or placed for sale. Also an edit for 19:17 - drawing with your finger is good and all, but when you are making a comic the most valuable resource you have is time. Like it or not I'd rather complete my comic(s) in full, rather than die with the story half finished because I had to work slower.

People who believe AI without regulation is beneficial to humanity are outright naive and insane. Tools HELPS you accomplish your goal, not doing for you. Overly reliant on AI will result in new generation of artist not able to hone their artistic senses. And without that, they can't art direct a project. Much like using navi when driving. You can be driving in the same state for 10 years, but if all you do is use navi, you probably can't remember 30% of the road around you. And no productivity will not increase with the usage of AI. Companies will now fire 3 artists from a 4 man team and make that remaining artist do 4 people worth of job with assistance of AI which will result in same amount or worse efficiency and a very overworked employee. Imagine if car was given to public before any traffic law are made, would that be a good thing? Absolutely not. Right now AI is in the exact same spot, and it will only get worse.

🤖 she believes in the overlords 🤖

13:00 That is not what she said? She supports the new advancements in AI because she wants to use it to train from her OWN art. AI is a tool in this day and age whether you like it or not, and she’s using it as ethically as possible. She’s not stealing other people’s work.