ai art (and why it should NEVER be brought here to scratch)

Instructions

this is a sudden shift from my usual goofy projects, but for a good reason. ai "art" is vile. not just because it doesn't look good, or it's never exact, it's because it is art theft and stealing. if you didn't know that, now you do. but that's not what this is about. this is about an article a member on the *OFFICIAL SCRATCH TEAM* wrote about wanting to add AI image generation features to the website. let me repeat that: the **OFFICIAL** scratch team wants to add *ART THEFT*. "it doesn't replace your creativity- it amplifies it." as stated by the article. excuse me???? having a bot steal art from the internet amplifies your creativity? because of AI, some people have never felt the joy you get when you draw something you're proud of. if you're a new artist who has used AI "art" before, i'll let you in on something. disappointment with yourself comes with all hobbies, art especially. i speak for myself, and tons of other artists. AI cannot help you solve that. i know that the scratch team has actual genuine artists on that team, such as @ceebee, so why aren't they boycotting??? matter of fact, at the moment one of the members of scratch team is using an AI generated pfp given to them by another user. yes, it may have been another person but just by looking at that person's profile, you can tell AI made the "art". i am not listing the users for privacy reasons. also, i'd like to think scratch knows how big the art community is here, and how many people they would lose, myself included, by adding this "feature". although, on a better note, the article states "there are several reasons why we aren't sharing our prototype with the public, from bias, to cost, to credit, to weirdness." it's not much, but it's enough to hope that this AI image generator will never, or at least be delayed, from coming to scratch. now that you know this, (or have heard it for the 5th time today) please help to raise awareness for the art community on scratch by making an anti-ai project, writing "anti-ai" in your profile, or simply just liking and favoriting other projects just like this one. thank you for listening, and goodbye

Notes & Credits