William Overington

It's interesting. Reminds me of a mosaic  :).

Why would an AI have to feel anything or be self aware to create art (good or bad by whatever standards one wants to use to judge that, objective or subjective) for that work to evoke strong emotional responses in humans that view it? 
Try a Google search on something like "examples of AI-generated art." Among the hits are items like this one about 'mind blowing' examples. I don't know about what others feel but for me some of them do evoke strong emotions in me very much like those I feel when viewing human-created artwork of similar subject matter.
A bit off topic but my Google search turned up a lot of interesting stuff, one of which is this "Timeline of AI Art." While none of it directly addresses if AI's can or ever will be able to feel in the same sense that humans can, much of it suggests that is not necessary for them to create artwork that evokes strong feelings in humans.

This means that this whole takeover and the reasons given do not add up on both sides.🤡
 
No, to win, all they need to do is deliver one of equal quality at a more affordable price than the competition.💪

This afternoon I decided to do a first test of whether AI copies.
There is a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci of a lady with an ermine.
Lady with an Ermine - Wikipedia
I tried Bing Chat AI with the following prompt.
Please produce an original painting in the style of Leonardo da Vinci of a lady with an ermine.
Four pictures were produced, none like the one by Leonardo da Vinci.

My conjecture presumes that the training of the AI included the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
William
 

This can be answered by any "AI" expert (I'm not one, but I know about this one aspect) : they don't know anatomy. They can't process how a muscle is inserted into a bone and produces certain external aspect with the skin and flesh over it, and how it looks if rotated in certain angle, its exact bulging if flexed in certain other angle, and how that arm responds to the environment, lighting, other conditions, etc. They are mixing and mashing up, mostly, many bits of information, using patterns that are ways less sophisticated than what we do in our brain, even if we can't process as much data. They are much dumber than what marketers are trying to sell, but that hype brings money. Not saying it won't be possible, but current tech is very far from that (and yet producing enough artistic jobs destruction, but because humans like to shoot their own foot). This can be easily checked... And like anatomy, many other concepts needed in art creation, through skills intensively trained for decades. That besides it not being conscious of itself, not self aware (and that is really far, if ever possible), which is a huge aspect of being able of true artistic expression (and other types of human communication), if not the main one.

@William Overington

I am in a  hurry right now, but, having read some bits, I certainly have  (personally) no issue if it is stated that the images are AI generated. I will read it later on. 
There could be some legal issues regarding copyright (as in, not being able to register the images), still, though, for some  operations (that's a bit of a complex matter).  In general I am recommending friends not to publish with AI images for a little while until all is a bit more settled, though (and this not because of ethics or the like). Not ideal, but it should not be a problem.
If everybody would do this (adding such note), things would be much better. 

If you have 'Adobe Stock' (iStock etc.) in mind: While they may own the brand / company they do not "own" the image resources but rather the legal right to sell copies with / for use under certain, limited conditions. Apart from this aspect it is hard to proof whether a specific texture, shape, mood, light etc. within a generated image is developed from the data of a specific image file of their stock library.
It is still evolving and nobody "knows" until court rulings are made…
"Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement"
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/9/23788741/sarah-silverman-openai-meta-chatgpt-llama-copyright-infringement-chatbots-artificial-intelligence-ai
"We’ve filed law­suits chal­leng­ing Chat­GPT, LLaMA, and other lan­guage mod­els for vio­lat­ing the legal rights of authors."
https://llmlitigation.com/
"More than 200 musical artists (…) have penned an open letter to AI developers, tech firms and digital platforms to "cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists."
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/02/musicians-letter-ai-replace-artists
… and used to create, adjust, fine tune existing or new law, for instance:
"EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence – The use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law." 
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence
"Want your content made using generative AI tools to be accepted into the Adobe Stock collection? Find out how to submit authentic assets that meet our quality, legal, and technical standards."
https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/generative-ai-content.html

Claude Monet (practically the creator of Impressionism) would paint a lot more loosely a female figure and definitely the stegosaurus and the Okapi, which for other reasons have certain problems (among other things, the Okapi's head looks more like a deer's head...btw, Okapi's males do have horns, but skin/hair covered. An stegosaurus had much smaller head, and different shapes in several parts...That almost seems like a mix between a turtle, a brontosaurus, and something else  ).  
The problem can be detected also in the backgrounds (slightly in a different style than the figures, anyway), he would not paint them so, he was after a very fast impression of light and color from reality ("Impressionism" was initially a term invented by an art critic, supposed to be derogatory) , a sensation, more than a very refined thing.  Her hand and wrist over the Okapi have important issues (easily seen when compared to the other, and due to anatomy). Indeed, in certain way this reminds me a bit more of pointillism (even if there's no actual pointillism in there).
But for a greeting card it would be fine.

I think it would be reasonable to ask the chatbot to generate some text to accompany the picture.

Venture Capitalists

Per statements by companies:
"Our customers expect a human touch to our releases, and so long as the ethical and legal circumstances surrounding these programs remains murky and undefined, we are unwilling to associate our brands with the technology in any way."
or:
"Our internal guidelines remain the same with regard to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes Magic great."
and, after being confronted by customers for using generative features in marketing images:
"Now we’re evaluating how we work with vendors on creative beyond our products – like these marketing images – to make sure that we are living up to those values.”
and in marketplace advisement, such as:
"AI art, AI writing, or algorithm-based creation is prohibited on the Infinite Platform. Any product posted to Infinite that contains AI-generated art or writing where very little human work was done is subject to removal."
In practice, this has included artworks that were primarily human-generated but used tools like generative fills, and texts where creators admitted that they used generative AI to supplement, edit, or restructure their own writing.
In chat rooms and on social media where creators in this field congregate, they raise products to each other that they suspect contain generative AI, investigate them together, and collectively report them to marketplaces until the products are removed.

Thanks for your patience @Granddaddy you'll understand we've had a much higher volume of contacts to respond to since the announcement but to answer your question, things will remain the same i.e the forums and Technical Support will remain free.

Will Affinity forums remain free or will Canva charge a subscription fee for user forums?
Some Affinity competitors charge a substantial subscription fee to participate in community forums, to access user resources, and to view tutorials. Annual fees for what they call "user support" can equal the cost of the software itself.
Affinity's free forums provide one compelling reason to continue using Affinity. In these Affinity forums there is extensive support for all users--both casual and professional, both new and experienced, both amateur and professional. These free forums constitute a fellowship of users. Here users from all over the world come to understand and benefit from their affinity for one another. 
I hope this free community of users will continue under Canva. 
Edited 4/4/2024
I'm happy to say that @Leigh responded below saying: "things will remain the same i.e the forums and Technical Support will remain free."

The main web site seems to be this
https://contentauthenticity.org/
I'm a club photographer and I think the provenance thing will happen for competitions there sooner rather than later. My club is discussing it and as most people use Photoshop there may not be much resistance.
Its in beta for Photoshop
https://helpx.adobe.com/au/creative-cloud/help/content-credentials.html
and available  in one of the recent Leica's for the documentary photographers
https://leica-camera.com/en-AU/photography/content-credentials
 

If Photo goes the generative AI route, then we need them to join the content authenticity initiative and editing adjustments be in the meta data. I've been led to believe Photoshop has it already.

I think of AI somewhat like how I think of langauge translation programs, namely that, if, for example, I view a video of a song in a language that I do not know and I wonder what it means, if I find the lyrics of the song in that language on the web, then the translation program translating from that language to English gives me a good impression of what the song is about, but I would not use the translation program to publish something that I had written translated into a language that I do not know.
William
 
 

So perhaps it is forlorn hope, but maybe they are paying decent money for the licenses for this material & a market will emerge for those skilled enough that they can make a living selling the licensing rights to the content they create specifically for training AI's?

AI related/specific posts are now here. Obviously they spun off things that were said here but this is not for the discussion of AI

It probably does not have enough data for it. Any average artist is "smarter" than these systems (so I think the term "learn" is somewhat incorrect. They don't know of anatomy like I do (or at all, better said), or any other artist who dedicated at least a decade or so to the  matter). But them having gazillions of data to 'mashup' gives them the edge in many commercial markets, which yep, destroys many artists' way of living, ends up with a bunch of artists having to quit. That while... you telling an artist to dig info about the 1813 locomotive Puffing Billy, or whatever, this person will research about the matter and do a collection of art concepts about it before even starting the project. Will also consider many more nuances (and making more sense at it) than any AI. That advantage is not enough, though. 
The concerns of clients and companies (for not using AI) in some cases are related to privacy issues, industrial secret, etc. As things can get leaked not just with text, also images. And I suppose some level of uncertainty/lack of control introduced by AI is a problem, too.
I have zero problems with AI being used for content aware or speeding up some tedious process, when it is not substituting fully the creative job (BTW, with AI, I have seen in many articles and people's comments in lots of social platforms a considerable confusion about the art concept... a prompt is not "art", no matter how elaborated the prompt). 
The Procreate app has taken a very different stance (probably unique in the industry... huge kudos to them), opposing to AI, to defend the ones who helped them bring the app where it is now (the artists). 
 
Design.. yep, it can be also challenged (the jobs matter). Less so than with artists, by far. But it is already capable of quite in several apps, and perhaps it's a matter of time.
But a designer is a lot more of a "puzzle maker", and we (I am also a designer and 3D artist, though illustration is my passion) have always been able to use such tools to focus on function (more so since the Bahaus ), composition, etc, always thinking on the end user.  Programmers are less affected, and anyway, they have many more ways to integrate with the whole AI train. 
One of the major problems is that.. Although it (the visual art world) has not (yet) seen applied as severe methods as happened in the music industry in the past (to protect the musicians IP), when you use content to build a tool (AI apps, the totally essential scrapping of content), and you don't ask for permission, do not sign any contract... you are using content in an unfair way. Whether regulation will be able to fine tune several matters to bring things to its most fair state, it is hard to guess. Also, there's a lot of money to be gained, and that makes it more difficult, as a lot of powers that be will oppose, money move mountains, way more than ethics.   

Any product using generative AI in any capacity makes it a business risk for me, because the creative field I work in strictly prohibits its use in any capacity for any content, writes those prohibitions into contracts and publisher agreements, and enforces them aggressively.
I'm not morally opposed to the features and personally find them fascinating, but strictly pragmatically there should be options to completely disable them in creative software, and if its usage is automatic and either opt-out or unavoidable then I will always prefer a less-capable tool that lacks any such features, not out of a knee-jerk reaction but to protect my relationship with such clients.

The reason I'd like a forum specifically for typesetting issues is there is no forum for it. It's not a bug, it's not a feature request, it's people with everyday issues like how to best get rid of orphans, widows and runts. How to format a table of contents. Certainly these issues come up with many people. They're not feature issues. It would be helpful to be able to go through the issues others have had, and see how they solved those issues. Search is nice, and of course people should properly title their questions, but it doesn't replace being able to scroll through all typsesetting issues and seeing how those issues are solved. Sure, one can go on other forums for this, but I just thought it would be helpful for Affinity Publisher users to have a place to share their issues. It would also probably help the developers to see the ways people are dealing with the issues, what workarounds they need to use, and see if they can make people's lives easier.

Possibly, but I am finding it very interesting to read people's posts.
It will have run its course when people stop posting or ... ooh ... if a moderator closes down discussion, but I hope that that does not happen please.
William
 

@Ash
Often, a software package where an end user generates original artwork saves that artwork in a proprietary format file.
If the software package becomes unavailable then the artwork source information can become lost.
I suggest the development of an open source plain text format where not only is the artwork itself totally described using plain text printing characters yet also the algorithm for applying that information is also stated in the same plain text file.
Thus given that one plain text file a programmer skilled in the art of programming can program new software that can read that artwork source information.
For example, to start such a project, one could try to define the algorithm stating format for artwork drawn using just the Pen Tool.
A first step could be if every node is a sharp corner. That seems at first glance to be a relatively straightforward thing to do. The artwork could contain one or more uses of the Pen Tool, each use having two or more nodes, and some uses could be a closed loop.
However, once one adds the possibility of making a node Smooth, then not only does the data about that need to be added in, but also the algorithm of how to draw the resulting curve from such data, expressed in plain text, the plain text can include parametric equations so as to draw the curves.
Affinity products could allow export to an algorithm stating format file and import from an algorithm stating format file.
Thus artwork would be conserved even if Affinity products cease to exist at some future time.
William
 
 

Currently there's no such thing as an 'archival license', but as more and more of our media and culture becomes dependent on technology, many of the commercial platforms, applications, etc that were originally used to create these works have either been abandoned, discontinued or the entities that held them have ceased to exist, meaning any works created using those tools will become inaccessible.
It may also no longer be possible to purchase licenses for these tools and platforms, nor may it be possible to even access the original software via legal means. While many of the emulators available state that they are only to be used with licensed applications, the reality is that many folks using these tools have to do so with software, patches and licenses scavenged via the internet as their original software may be inaccessible (on floppy disks, unreadable CD-ROMS, cartridges, etc) and they may have misplaced their software licenses/keys/dongles after all these years.
As many orgs with digital collections seek to make more and more of these accessible to users via the internet, what will constitute a legal license that could be used by potentially millions of individual users without becoming prohibitively expensive? One way to look at this would be in terms of how services such as Libby, Hoopla and Kanopy who provide digital copies of books, music, films, etc to users via their local public libraries. In the case of Libby they chose to limit a number of copies available at any one time, and in the case of Kanopy and Hoopla, each user receives a set number of credits each months that can be used to borrow media for a limited time. These services all create scarcity where technically there is none.
I don't know how the Internet Archive licensing works with regards to online emulators and downloadable media as they don't seem to have the same restrictions as Libby and Kanopy. 
Anyway, I suspect in the coming years we'll need to find other ways for public orgs to archive digital material legally, and some sort of 'archival license' that provides unlimited legal use to an institution for all of it's users would go a long way in helping preserve our media and culture now embedded in our technologies. Not something we're going to solve on these forums, but maybe something for Serif/Canva to start to think about as they make their software available for free to educational and non-profit orgs.
 

Possibly, but I am finding it very interesting to read people's posts.
It will have run its course when people stop posting or ... ooh ... if a moderator closes down discussion, but I hope that that does not happen please.
William