AI discussion (split from Canva thread)

[William Overington]

Or just ask it to produce an original painting.

William

 

[William Overington]

Readers who are interested in what can be produced using AI may like to have a look at the many threads about this in Alfred's forum.

There is new content yesterday and today.

https://punster.me/serif/viewforum.php?id=11

William

 

[William Overington]

Is the ban on posting anything generated using AI in either the Share your Work forum or this thread due to concern for the future of livelihoods for artists and designers?

William

 

[Dan C]

On 4/26/2024 at 12:01 PM, William Overington said:

Is the ban on posting anything generated using AI in either the Share your Work forum or this thread due to concern for the future of livelihoods for artists and designers?

This has been answered in other threads of yours, and I've even pointed that our previously within this thread - 

On 1/19/2024 at 3:17 PM, Patrick Connor said:

"These Forums are not for sharing AI created artwork, or discussions regarding AI prompts to create specific images.

The 'Share your work' section of the Forums are designed for sharing work specifically created within or using the Affinity apps.

On 1/31/2024 at 4:20 PM, Patrick Connor said:

"Share your work".... the clue is in the name "Share. Your. Work."

• Share: show to others things that they may be interested in, not something that you have spent a short time rotating or shearing that is of little or no interest to others.
• Your: the images should be your own creation. Do not not start with someone/something else's artwork. This therefore precludes AI generated source work that you go on to edit and also artwork created by others that you adjust/edit.
• Work: demonstrating some artistic skills or that you have used the application in a novel way that requires some degree of effort, not just a basic understanding of the tools

We simply want the Affinity forums to be used to post artwork created in Affinity. There is no further meaning or hidden agenda to our decision.

[William Overington]

Yesterday I tried experimenting with Bing Chat AI when prompted with poems that are written using localizable sentences.

In case some readers might be interested, here is a link.

Bing Chat AI and a poem written using localizable sentences (Page 1) — Art & Literature — Alfred's Serif Users' Forums (punster.me)

William

 

[Dan C]

William, the following is quoted from Page 4 of this thread -

On 4/6/2024 at 10:33 AM, Dan C said:

We are happy for users to have relevant and courteous discussions regarding AI tools and the ethics surrounding them here - but please do not use the Affinity Forums as a place to simply copy and paste AI transcripts and AI artwork with the accompanying prompt.

If you wish to log your findings when using AI models, we ask that you do this elsewhere online as this is not what the Affinity Forums are designed for.

You are the only user of the Affinity Forums continuing to flagrantly ignore our requests about posted content here, as this is not the first thread (or even post within this thread!) that we have had to moderate directly and ask you to stop.

Simply posting a link to the content on a different forum is the same as posting the content here, as both posts are wholly off-topic from the Affinity apps and as above, do not belong here.

These forums are for Affinity users, who require support, have bugs to report, are a member of the beta program or simply wish to provide feedback / share their work created within the apps.
They are not designed as a scratchboard for you to post the flavour of the week which is entirely unrelated to the Affinity apps - which you seem to continue doing even after being told not to.

There are many other websites online that will happily welcome your AI discussions, off-topic posting and 'lounge' style Forum requirements - but the Affinity Forums are not included.

I can see you have previous warnings actioned against your Affinity Forum account, as mentioned above this is not the first time, or the first member of staff asking you to stop with these off-topic posts.
Please consider this your final warning, as continuing to break our forum rules or ignore our moderation team will result in your access to these forums being revoked.

Many thanks.

[William Overington]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Simply posting a link to the content on a different forum is the same as posting the content here, as both posts are wholly off-topic from the Affinity apps and as above, do not belong here.

No it is not. That is a retrospective ruling made after I posted today. I was trying to abide by your ruling.

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

I can see you have previous warnings actioned against your Affinity Forum account, as mentioned above this is not the first time, or the first member of staff asking you to stop with these off-topic posts.

And they were unfair because the rule that I was purported to have broken had not been stated at the time when I posted.

I had no idea that I was not allowed to draw the attention of Ash and Patrick Connor to my post.

Patrick Connor started this thread and gave it the title AI discussion.

Management must manage, I consider it unfair that rules are made up and applied retrospectively.

William

 

[Dan C]

There are no 'retroactive' rules being applied here.

Whether you consider posting the actual content, or a link to the content as enough of a differentiator in your opinion - the post itself is not at all related to the Affinity products, or even an extension of the larger creative software bubble (If your post was related to an Adobe feature, for example, then our moderation team may use discretion to allow the thread and the discussion surrounding it).

These off topic posts are one of the previously provided reasons we have asked for these to be published elsewhere online.
Simply posting a link to the same content elsewhere is taken as an attempt to evade such rulings and this has always been the case in regards to moderation, on any website I have previously used.
_____

As a thought experiment, imagine for a moment that a hypothetical 'website A' has rules which prohibit posts that contain violence, and off-topic posting.
If a user was to then post a link to 'website B' on 'website A', whereby the direct link to 'website B' has multiples posts of gratuitous violence - that would equally not be acceptable and would require moderation on 'website A'.

The rules of the post on 'website A' are applicable to the immediate content within the link for 'website B', where possible/relevant - else there are effectively no rules to content shared from external sources. Otherwise this would mean that posts on 'website A' could contain links to all manner of unsavoury, dangerous or even illegal material.

_____

The above is not unique to the Affinity Forums.
Of course we cannot and do not wish to moderate external websites, but we will choose to continue to moderate the posts to the Affinity Forums as we see fit.

As we've mentioned to you elsewhere, other users seem to have no issues with understanding these rulings and do not require specific letter of the law definitions in order to recognise this. 

Please keep any posts here on the Affinity Forums related to the Affinity apps (at least tangentially*) and following our Guidelines as closely as possible there should be no issues. 
(*this tangential relation is up to the discretion of the moderator, as always is the case - direct AI artwork and transcripts are not related to Affinity, as we've covered previously).

[William Overington]

26 minutes ago, Dan C said:

As a thought experiment, imagine for a moment that a hypothetical 'website A' has rules which prohibit posts that contain violence, and off-topic posting.
If a user was to then post a link to 'website B' on 'website A', whereby the direct link to 'website B' has multiples posts of gratuitous violence - that would equally not be acceptable and would require moderation on 'website A'.

The rules of the post on 'website A' are applicable to the immediate content within the link for 'website B', where possible/relevant - else there are effectively no rules to content shared from external sources. Otherwise this would mean that posts on 'website A' could contain links to all manner of unsavoury, dangerous or even illegal material.

That is interesting because it seems to be the direct opposite of the official position taken in the Share your work forum for images unsuitable for posting in the Share your work forum where adding a link to an external website is authorized.

William

 

[Return]

[William Overington]

39 minutes ago, Dan C said:

As we've mentioned to you elsewhere, other users seem to have no issues with understanding these rulings and do not require specific letter of the law definitions in order to recognise this. 

Well, when I posted the post that got removed or hidden by Patrick Connor it had not occurred to me that posting into Share your work a PDF document and I think an explanation of my workflow in starting with a 1024 pixel by 1024 pixel image produced using Bing Chat AI and scaling it and aligning it to produce an A3 size PDF document ready to get a colour print from an online virtual print house facility would be regarded as unacceptable. I thought that the post might well be of interest and could be helpful to people new to using Affinity Designer. I still think that actually, but it is your forum so there we are, your rules, but the rules were not stated clearly at the time and it all seemed to be on an "understood" basis.

People are allowed to start with a photograph from another website taken by someone else, but not start with an image generated using Bing chat ai, which seems to me a curious anomaly, but it is your forum, your rules.

William

 

[Dan C]

7 minutes ago, William Overington said:

That is interesting because it seems to be the direct opposite of the official position taken in the Share your work forum for images unsuitable for posting in the Share your work forum where adding a link to an external website is authorized.

Neither this thread or the above posts I've referred to are in the ' Share Your Work' section of the forums - so the rules for those posts are not the same here.

Even if this thread was in that section, any external content link would still be moderated by the Affinity team to ensure it is not wholly outside of our acceptable content for the Affinity Forums.
The suggestion by Matt in the above post is to benefit other users that may not wish to see this content on the Affinity Forums directly - it is not an allowance for non-acceptable content to be linked to as any user sees fit.

Again, the same hypothetical I've provided above would apply. Equally;

45 minutes ago, Dan C said:

we will choose to continue to moderate the posts to the Affinity Forums as we see fit.

As we've mentioned to you elsewhere, other users seem to have no issues with understanding these rulings and do not require specific letter of the law definitions in order to recognise this. 

Stop trying to find workarounds or loopholes to our rules.

Just respect that we are telling you to stop or we will be forced to moderate your account further.

[William Overington]

9 minutes ago, Return said:

(added an image)

Yes, but that post was added after my post was removed so as to make the rules clear. At the time that I had posted the stated rules were different.

I thanked Patrick for that post.

William

 

 

[William Overington]

1 minute ago, Dan C said:

Stop trying to find workarounds or loopholes to our rules.

I am not trying to find workarounds or loopholes to your rules, that is not my style.

I thought that I was complying with the rules.

I am simply saying that it is in my opinion unfair to criticise me for supposedly breaking rules which were unclear or non-existent at the time that I posted.

I thought that the link that I posted this morning would be of interest to some of the people who read this thread entitled AI discussion. Perhaps it already has been of interest to some readers, and, unless removed by the management, might be in the future.

However, I note what you have written and will abide by your ruling, notwithstanding that it restricts what people may learn and might then apply in relation to Affinity products in some way. We clearly have different approaches to how people learn and gain experience and apply experience, but it is your forum, so your way is how it will be.

William

 

[G13RL]

Just a thought that doesn't need an answer, but I've been itching for a while now: I got banned without warning from a German forum because I had the misfortune to ask a question in French and not in German (I received an explanatory e-mail afterwards), and I find it hard to understand how @William Overington can still crack down here on the forums after several warnings! 

[William Overington]

@G13RL I don't understand what you mean by suggesting that I "can still crack down on the forums".

But anyway, this is England. People do sometimes post in languages other than English in these forums. Also, when it is clear that someone is trying their best to write in English but has not quite got it right, people are very helpful.

So if you would like to write in French in this forum, Bonjour.

William

 

[William Overington]

I have altered my previous post as I may have been mistaken. 

William

 

[xMaxrayx]

I use RemBG (AI that remove the background) mainly for Affinity publisher but I can use it for other software as well, it's not perfect but good to see if the picture fit well and match the vipe; so AI don't need to be "generative" it can use to  remove thing, anyway most of time I use AI-image for inspiration or just to rush for temp file, since I need to code first before doing the final art (sometimes I leave them because I don't have time)

 

i'm planning to make new script for image2image randomize prompt but I must change my drawing place from Ipad to my windows laptop so it will take longer, hope new ARM windows generation will be cheap and can be used stable defusion, I hate my Ipad too much because how Apple restrict their system.

 

 

Edit : ok never mind sorry for off-post  

[William Overington]

Two threads about AI were started recently and were locked with the posters directed to existing AI threads.

For the content of those two threads, here are links.

These links included here as just a matter of archiving.

William

 

 

[steelblackRoan]

As a new user who is migrating away from AI-enhanced programming, I want/need Affinity to say SEPARATE from Canva and *avoid* any AI integration. If AI integration MUST occur, then a disabling feature that 100% disables ALL AI involvement in the app must be possible, or Affinity may have a mass exodus just like Adobe CS currently has. There is a large majority of artists who stand against generative AI and have found solace in Affinity products, but now that it has been taken by Canva, the solace may no longer be applicable. AI generated imagery is not "art" as "art" implies effort, soul, and self expression, of which AI cannot perform, and in fact the databases that AI uses is built on theft of IP and causes environmental distress due to the amount of energy, servers, and information storage AI requires. Take this into consideration, Affinity. I will not respond further, just provide my own input.

[William Overington]

Welcome to the forums.

Affinity has three programs at present, which one can use separately, or linked.

So if Affinity were to have AI features, and it is a big IF, it seems to me, on the face of it, but I am not expert in AI, or Affinity products, that there could be two additional, separate products, Affinity Adjustment AI and Affinity Generative AI.

That way, those people who wanted to use AI could do so, and those people who want nothing to do with AI would be able to avoid it and also not pay for the features either.

William

 

[Alfred]

46 minutes ago, William Overington said:

there could be two additional, separate products, Affinity Adjustment AI and Affinity Generative AI

As discussed in the linked threads, it would be more useful to have AI features added to the existing products, with a switch provided so that people who want to avoid using those features could turn them off easily. The creation of separate products would involve a huge amount of time and effort to cater for this niche market.

[William Overington]

59 minutes ago, Alfred said:

As discussed in the linked threads, it would be more useful to have AI features added to the existing products, with a switch provided so that people who want to avoid using those features could turn them off easily. The creation of separate products would involve a huge amount of time and effort to cater for this niche market.

Well,

7 hours ago, steelblackRoan said:

As a new user who is migrating away from AI-enhanced programming, I want/need Affinity to say SEPARATE from Canva and *avoid* any AI integration. If AI integration MUST occur, then a disabling feature that 100% disables ALL AI involvement in the app must be possible, or Affinity may have a mass exodus just like Adobe CS currently has. There is a large majority of artists who stand against generative AI and have found solace in Affinity products, but now that it has been taken by Canva, the solace may no longer be applicable. AI generated imagery is not "art" as "art" implies effort, soul, and self expression, of which AI cannot perform, and in fact the databases that AI uses is built on theft of IP and causes environmental distress due to the amount of energy, servers, and information storage AI requires. Take this into consideration, Affinity. I will not respond further, just provide my own input.

@Alfred I consider that my proposed solution is the better solution.

I shall try to start a thread in the Feedback forum to ask Canva Affinity to consider please a Pledge to not include any AI in Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and if Canva Affinity introduces any AI into Affinity that it is done in separate products.

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

The creation of separate products would involve a huge amount of time and effort to cater for this niche market.

Clearly the Affinity team are employed so that effort can be made to produce and maintain Affinity products. Whether it is a niche market or not I do not know. If Affinity does nothing at all about AI then it could be seen s a wonderful situation by some artists, or it could be that Affinity products would be seen by many people as severely lacking in by that time up to date facilities. I cannot say which way it will go.

I cannot do it myself so I am not going to purport how much effort separate products would take as compared with full integration into existing products. But is the way to start to make a copy of the source code of each of Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo and go from there?

William

 

 

[William Overington]

14 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I shall try to start a thread in the Feedback forum to ask Canva Affinity to consider please a Pledge to not include any AI in Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and if Canva Affinity introduces any AI into Affinity that it is done in separate products.

 

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Clearly the Affinity team are employed so that effort can be made to produce and maintain Affinity products.

Clearly, indeed, but diverting development and QA resources into building and testing new products will affect Serif’s ability to reduce their lengthy list of unresolved bugs.

14 minutes ago, William Overington said:

But is the way to start to make a copy of the source code of each of Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo and go from there?

I imagine that they would start with the core code which is common to all of the desktop apps.