Banning AI Art

If I could wave a magic wand and guarantee all AI art was tagged as AI (and all real tagged as non-AI) and could therefore go unseen by people who wish not to see it I would. It's a shame people post stuff and pretend it's not AI so they can make a quick buck pretending to be a real artist (at the cost of both art and real artists)

... but can you do this? If you try to do this by eyeballing it yourself, you will fail. People who want to contribute AI that they think is art are not going to upload something that looks like AI. Democratizing the classification of images maybe works? That's probably what I'd recommend. But then how does that improve on something making the toplist?
Will an algorithm work? Your best bet is probably a neural network image classifier. If you start with something open source like https://huggingface.co/umm-maybe/AI-image-detector people with bad intentions are just gonna beat that by training a net to beat open source image detectors. So you'd need close source (i.e. make it yourself)

I just tested 22 of my own images and umm-maybe's AI-image-detector didn't detect a single one of them ... Average AI score: 0.051 Max AI score: 0.225 I did nothing to make my images difficult to detect, The original uploads should have metadata in them that flags them as AI generated, obviously this doesn't use that and is trying to purely go off the image itself.

Another issue with rule enforcement is: its always easy to catch someone breaking the law their first time, it's hard to catch experience. We currently work on an honor system which, when money's not involved, works pretty well. By trying to ban it, otherwise well meaning people who want to post their images are now on the "Bad side". This will create ill will in the long run and preempt a mini arms race. If you're motivated go ahead and try, but I would encourage you not to implement anything you haven't really planned out. IMO what you do right now may seem simple, but it is really good. By default AI is off, someone can only see AI if they consciously want to.

Added 14 minutes after

zippzap said:

Valyn76

I see Wallhaven more as user curated images and less focused on the "artist". That is my perception and perhaps I am wrong in that. This why I love it because people find stuff they like and upload it here. What I like and what others like, are not always the same thing and that's okay. If someone creates some AI images and they think it's really cool and want to share it, I think that is just as valid as collecting other types of art and photography over the Internet and sharing it.

If someone makes art and shares it here, great. But again, even that is their own curated art. They likely aren't sharing all the art they have and ending people here to view it.

AksumkA's main concern is that infinite AI art demotivates real artists. The point is to motivate real artists, that's what will have the most long term benefit. Treating this as a method to curate only gives you better images in the short term, methinks

Thank you and a good decision

aime111 said:

If I could wave a magic wand and guarantee all AI art was tagged as AI (and all real tagged as non-AI) and could therefore go unseen by people who wish not to see it I would. It's a shame people post stuff and pretend it's not AI so they can make a quick buck pretending to be a real artist (at the cost of both art and real artists)

... but can you do this? If you try to do this by eyeballing it yourself, you will fail. People who want to contribute AI that they think is art are not going to upload something that looks like AI. Democratizing the classification of images maybe works? That's probably what I'd recommend. But then how does that improve on something making the toplist?
Will an algorithm work? Your best bet is probably a neural network image classifier. If you start with something open source like https://huggingface.co/umm-maybe/AI-image-detector people with bad intentions are just gonna beat that by training a net to beat open source image detectors. So you'd need close source (i.e. make it yourself)

I just tested 22 of my own images and umm-maybe's AI-image-detector didn't detect a single one of them ... Average AI score: 0.051 Max AI score: 0.225 I did nothing to make my images difficult to detect, The original uploads should have metadata in them that flags them as AI generated, obviously this doesn't use that and is trying to purely go off the image itself.

Another issue with rule enforcement is: its always easy to catch someone breaking the law their first time, it's hard to catch experience. We currently work on an honor system which, when money's not involved, works pretty well. By trying to ban it, otherwise well meaning people who want to post their images are now on the "Bad side". This will create ill will in the long run and preempt a mini arms race. If you're motivated go ahead and try, but I would encourage you not to implement anything you haven't really planned out. IMO what you do right now may seem simple, but it is really good. By default AI is off, someone can only see AI if they consciously want to.

Added 14 minutes after

zippzap said:

Valyn76

I see Wallhaven more as user curated images and less focused on the "artist". That is my perception and perhaps I am wrong in that. This why I love it because people find stuff they like and upload it here. What I like and what others like, are not always the same thing and that's okay. If someone creates some AI images and they think it's really cool and want to share it, I think that is just as valid as collecting other types of art and photography over the Internet and sharing it.

If someone makes art and shares it here, great. But again, even that is their own curated art. They likely aren't sharing all the art they have and ending people here to view it.

AksumkA's main concern is that infinite AI art demotivates real artists. The point is to motivate real artists, that's what will have the most long term benefit. Treating this as a method to curate only gives you better images in the short term, methinks

I agree with you. Like any TAG, it works only on the honour principle. The amount of risky images that haven't been tagged as so is ... well.. not 0. The amount of NSFW images that are only tagged as risky larger still. And these are just when it comes to main filters.

If there is money involved, it's expectable that people will attempt to circunvent anything that may filter them (the whole SEO thing from the past decade, which google has just now made pointless by including Gemini in search results, is one of the main proofs that any system will be manipulated once money is involved)

Problem is, like it or NOT, AI is here to stay. We have been fighting the enshitification of the internet with adds for decades, and we haven't won... quite honestly, i think we're more or less loosing. We just have to accept it.

You all have to ask yourself this:

If all AI generated images were removed right now, would the remaining images be considered good Wallpapers?

Non AI Examples:

https://wallhaven.cc/w/po8k99

https://wallhaven.cc/w/6lkoml

https://wallhaven.cc/w/vpg9y8

https://wallhaven.cc/w/d8gx73

https://wallhaven.cc/w/qr6ddl

If we play a movie or a game, press the screenshot key, upload the result to Wallhaven.CC... are we artists ?!

IMHO i would leave the AI Filter as it is, but attempt to implement a report system where i and everyone else can report an image that is AI generated/tampered with and is not marked as so.

I know this comes with a burden on Wallhaven.CC as maintainers, you can't simply analyze every report, but you could have a community of curators to do this for you.

Too bad cause some AI stuff deserves to be posted. I get it though. People will go overkill and post too much. They ruined it for everyone.

We could probably say the same for every image uploaded... some are pearls... really like them.

Other are garbage, with appalling proportions, mediocre quality, screenshotty vibes...

Good Call AksumkA! I'm ALL for it!

Added 6 minutes after

Lol. I'm seeing a lot of people here are worried it would be difficult to differentiate AI art from Handmade art.😂 Some are even convinced it CANT be done.🤣 LMAO. It's actually pretty easy, I've been eyeballing it since the initial influx of AI art, (Both on this site and everywhere else on the internet), and I haven't been wrong yet. Anyone who's used to seeing AI art will be able to tell the difference, some are quite glaring, and others are a bit more inconspicuous.

However, I should add that, yes AI art has improved RAPIDLY in the past few years, and at this pace, we might eventually get to a point where we can't tell the difference between AI art and real art, but we're not quite there yet.

I heard AI bro's talking about how AI art and AI products and AI will replace everything in 2 years.. This was back in 2022. The AI "art" is still recognizable unless you're 80 years old. It's funny how slow AI actually has been considering the biggest jumps were done two years ago.

One of the fundamental issues with people that are pro AI, is that they don't really understand why so many people don't like AI stuff. The human to human cultural connection, and interest in appreciating another human's efforts and interests is actually the key part of not liking AI stuff. Even if the art is "worse" than an AI made art, the fact that someone wanted to make it, used their time to make it, and expressed their vision of their own creativity (your own, not the AI's "creativity), is what I love about looking at other people's art. (and no... prompting is the same as actually wielding a brush and making the lines with your hand) (remember to re-order your copium tanks they are running out)

Many parents love their kids drawings when objectively the drawings anyone make at 5 years of age, are absolute carbage. It's not the visual quality that's really the point now is it?

If I had to condense the idea of why AI "art" is bad, is... I'd rather buy a wooden spoon that has been handcarved with a knife, from a branch that has fallen down, than I would buy an automated machine carved spoon from ikea that has been mass produced and the wood used for it was from an industrial planted forest. If you as an AI Bro cannot comprehend what "soul" is when people talk about cars or products or art, not really my problem if you can never understand why people don't like AI.

powerhip said:

I heard AI bro's talking about how AI art and AI products and AI will replace everything in 2 years.. This was back in 2022. The AI "art" is still recognizable unless you're 80 years old. It's funny how slow AI actually has been considering the biggest jumps were done two years ago.

Give it 2 more years. How many people call stuff "Photoshopped" that isn't photoshopped. Everyone thinks they are an expert just because they can use the zoom feature to check for pixel artifacts. In fact, those who usually call themselves experts, are not.

powerhip said:

If I had to condense the idea of why AI "art" is bad, is... I'd rather buy a wooden spoon that has been handcarved with a knife, from a branch that has fallen down, than I would buy an automated machine carved spoon from ikea that has been mass produced and the wood used for it was from an industrial planted forest. If you as an AI Bro cannot comprehend what "soul" is when people talk about cars or products or art, not really my problem if you can never understand why people don't like AI.

So you are saying, if I went into your house, you don't have any mass printed art hanging on your walls? Everything is original by the artists? All your kitchen utensils are handmade?

Knowing which tools to use for your media and how to use those tools, is just as much as part of the art process as making the art itself. Drying something in Microsoft Paint will not yield what you will get out of Photoshop, and Photoshop will not yield what you will get out of other tools. The same can be said about AI. If you use AI as your toolset to create images, with carefully crafted (and redrafted) prompts, using the correct AI tool for your needs (because not ALL AI tool are created equal), that is what an artist does. It takes time and effort and make that happen to create the good stuff we see posted on here that is AI.

AI is just another tool to make art.

odAyzaod said:

Good Call AksumkA! I'm ALL for it!

Added 6 minutes after

Lol. I'm seeing a lot of people here are worried it would be difficult to differentiate AI art from Handmade art.😂 Some are even convinced it CANT be done.🤣 LMAO. It's actually pretty easy, I've been eyeballing it since the initial influx of AI art, (Both on this site and everywhere else on the internet), and I haven't been wrong yet. Anyone who's used to seeing AI art will be able to tell the difference, some are quite glaring, and others are a bit more inconspicuous.

However, I should add that, yes AI art has improved RAPIDLY in the past few years, and at this pace, we might eventually get to a point where we can't tell the difference between AI art and real art, but we're not quite there yet.

you know what some AI images look like, not all of them, and you can't eyeball a million of them

Well, i just saw the new rule today. As a AI uploader i have to say: A rule is a rule, and i fully respect the decision. To the hardliners, just put your pitchforks and torches away, we are all civilized humans and i understand the fear and rejection of AI "art". Wish you all good luck, and stay healthy.

aime111 said:

you know what some AI images look like, not all of them, and you can't eyeball a million of them

😂Hi, your confidence is really amusing , but then I guess mine must be quite surprising to you as well, so, touché.🥂

Added 5 minutes after

P.S. For the record, I don't hate AI art outrightly, I have several really good ones in my collections, but it's getting pretty hard to control the quality and since people can mass produce them with just a few prompts, that means we have way more shitty art uploads in the past couple years of this site than in the initial 10. That's something to be worried about, and this is a brilliant, howbeit drastic way to combat it. Extreme issues call for extreme measures.

I actually enjoyed that wallhaven hosted AI backgrounds. This is about the only site I've ever found that makes it easy to find backgrounds that work for an ultrawide, and MANY of my backgrounds are AI generated.

Though, it would be my assumption that for every 1 good AI BG, there are maybe 99, probably more, that are terrible. It's not reasonable with what I assume are low operating costs of this site to try and filter that per image, rather it's just a more effective move to ban AI in general. It's a shame, but I can understand that if it's the reason.

I do agree with another post I saw here, that a separate subdomain would be nice. Maybe have some deletion rules that are way more hardcore and let the users control more with up and down votes. Not my site, not my labor, but that would be nice.

thank you so much! very very very good!

As the brother of someone who makes their living off making art, thank you for doing this. It matters.

This is perfect, thank you

zippzap said:

Give it 2 more years. How many people call stuff "Photoshopped" that isn't photoshopped. Everyone thinks they are an expert just because they can use the zoom feature to check for pixel artifacts. In fact, those who usually call themselves experts, are not.

Give it 2 more years.... You know fusion reactors have always been 10 years away? they told this since 2005... You can inhale copium but I don't really care what you want, I was expressing my appreaciation of this site and it seems to have principles, you don't have to agree with those that's fine. If you get your kicks from calling other's noobs and you're the expert on this that's fine by me as well. Go download your AI Girlfriend and play games with your AI friends and show them your AI "art" that you bled so much sweat and blood for.

zippzap said:

So you are saying, if I went into your house, you don't have any mass printed art hanging on your walls? Everything is original by the artists? All your kitchen utensils are handmade?

Nice argument, So either it's 100% or you're a hypocrite. I try to do as much as physically and economically possible for me to support my principles, yes. If a utensil is sold that is handmade I will prioritize it. If no products of such nature exist I can't do it unless I make it myself. Are you the kind of person who has principles? If you do I can just say that you're not 100% supporting that principle so you're just a hypocrite... for real think about your "owns" a bit.

zippzap said:

AI is just another tool to make art.

That's not a statement of fact. you just said those who claim to be experts usually aren't. You're claiming to be an expert by saying something as a fact which has not been proven scientifically to be a consensus of said fact. your definition of a tool is way too broad. BTW actual skilled artists can make art with any tools, toothpicks to brushes, sand to macaronis, paint and liquid metal. Traditional or digital. AI prompt "artists" can only make "art" with prompt AI engines. Funny huh?... extremely interesting. I guess this "tool" is very unique in that way.

I don't want to antagonize you but I guess you're using chatgpt to talk to me so what's the point when I'm trying to connect with humans and you're presumably not.

P.S. Also I never even tagged you, seems like you're taking on this way too heavily and tagging everyone who isn't exactly thinking like you are. Why do you even care? Since you can replace everything and everyone with AI why are you so desperately trying to convince humans on this? This is baffling to me...

powerhip said:

zippzap said:

Give it 2 more years. How many people call stuff "Photoshopped" that isn't photoshopped. Everyone thinks they are an expert just because they can use the zoom feature to check for pixel artifacts. In fact, those who usually call themselves experts, are not.

Give it 2 more years.... You know fusion reactors have always been 10 years away? they told this since 2005... You can inhale copium but I don't really care what you want, I was expressing my appreaciation of this site and it seems to have principles, you don't have to agree with those that's fine. If you get your kicks from calling other's noobs and you're the expert on this that's fine by me as well. Go download your AI Girlfriend and play games with your AI friends and show them your AI "art" that you bled so much sweat and blood for.

zippzap said:

So you are saying, if I went into your house, you don't have any mass printed art hanging on your walls? Everything is original by the artists? All your kitchen utensils are handmade?

Nice argument, So either it's 100% or you're a hypocrite. I try to do as much as physically and economically possible for me to support my principles, yes. If a utensil is sold that is handmade I will prioritize it. If no products of such nature exist I can't do it unless I make it myself. Are you the kind of person who has principles? If you do I can just say that you're not 100% supporting that principle so you're just a hypocrite... for real think about your "owns" a bit.

zippzap said:

AI is just another tool to make art.

That's not a statement of fact. you just said those who claim to be experts usually aren't. You're claiming to be an expert by saying something as a fact which has not been proven scientifically to be a consensus of said fact. your definition of a tool is way too broad. BTW actual skilled artists can make art with any tools, toothpicks to brushes, sand to macaronis, paint and liquid metal. Traditional or digital. AI prompt "artists" can only make "art" with prompt AI engines. Funny huh?... extremely interesting. I guess this "tool" is very unique in that way.

I don't want to antagonize you but I guess you're using chatgpt to talk to me so what's the point when I'm trying to connect with humans and you're presumably not.

P.S. Also I never even tagged you, seems like you're taking on this way too heavily and tagging everyone who isn't exactly thinking like you are. Why do you even care? Since you can replace everything and everyone with AI why are you so desperately trying to convince humans on this? This is baffling to me...

That escalated quickly.

You’ve obviously got strong feelings about this, and that’s fair, there’s a lot changing fast, and not all of it feels good. But I think you’re reading way more into my comments than what I actually said.

I’m not trying to invalidate traditional artists or pretend that AI is perfect or a replacement for everything. But the fact that AI is a tool isn’t really controversial. Like any tool, it depends on how it’s used. There are good faith ways to use AI creatively without dismissing human effort.

As for the whole “are you a hypocrite if you’re not 100% pure” argument, I think that’s just an impossible standard. Everyone lives with compromise. Supporting principles where possible isn’t hypocrisy, it’s pragmatism.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything. You said something and I responded with my perspective. That’s all. No offense intended.

Thank you so much! Both for keeping Wallhaven an actual haven on the internet, and for standing against AI art. Keep being awesome.

While I agree with the decision, I also wonder about images that are potentially falsely tagged as AI. For example, I'm almost positive a few of the Neuro-sama wallpapers weren't generated, but were tagged as AI because they're art of an AI Vtuber. Considering one is an image used by the official Twitch channel, which is run by Neuro's creator, and considering they don't allow AI art on their discord I doubt they'd use it on their official channel.

I disagree with completely removing AI wallpapers from this site, we already have a filter to the show and hide them is it not enough ?

I am a recent user to wallhaven and I am not familiar with the history of the site. But as the owner you have the final right to decide what your site shows and what it does not. I am a developer at heart and as you know AI has significantly taken over the developer workspace some say its bad some say its good. I am on the side that supports the use of AI if it makes mundane tasks faster and also helps complex stuff simpler.

AI in art is something entirely different, I can understand how artists might hate the use of AI , "Insult to life itself" as Hayao Miyazaki said. Still I am in the side which supports AI, since it enables people with imagination and slight handle over texting create amazing outputs. AI art is just another classification of art now just like Oil painting , digital art, sketching etc.

aswnss said:

I disagree with completely removing AI wallpapers from this site, we already have a filter to the show and hide them is it not enough ?

I am a recent user to wallhaven and I am not familiar with the history of the site. But as the owner you have the final right to decide what your site shows and what it does not. I am a developer at heart and as you know AI has significantly taken over the developer workspace some say its bad some say its good. I am on the side that supports the use of AI if it makes mundane tasks faster and also helps complex stuff simpler.

AI in art is something entirely different, I can understand how artists might hate the use of AI , "Insult to life itself" as Hayao Miyazaki said. Still I am in the side which supports AI, since it enables people with imagination and slight handle over texting create amazing outputs. AI art is just another classification of art now just like Oil painting , digital art, sketching etc.

Part of the problem with it is the fact that there are people who not only don't tag the wallpapers as AI, but also upload a ton at once. I'm fine with AI art as a thing to mess around with, but in an application like this it's not good for me. AI art has gotten a lot better, yes. It's still not as good as people in this thread keep claiming. And really, it doesn't matter if it ever is, because at the end of the day it will never be anything but being trained on art that it very likely didn't get permission to train off. Just because something is posted publicly doesn't mean it can't be stolen. Essentially it would be like seeing someone's art on Twitter or something' downloading it' then tracing or just recoloring it and posting it as your own work.

Another problem is, even if you block certain content, and it's properly tagged, it will show up in your subscriptions, which means if you follow certain tags, your subscriptions are going to be filled with subpar AI content.

I have a question:

If a Game/Movie/Anime/something uses AI and someone posts a screenshot of that...

Is it AI or not ?

Apprieciate it. Thanks. It was slowly getting crazy.

daedric7 said:

I have a question:

If a Game/Movie/Anime/something uses AI and someone posts a screenshot of that...

Is it AI or not ?

Every image is likely to be touched with AI in the future, so yes of course it is allowed. It's just images that are generated 100% by AI that are on the chopping block, but is 90% AI ok? 80% AI? 50%? or only 25% AI... that is the fine line we will live with for the rests of our lives.

zippzap said:

daedric7 said:

I have a question:

If a Game/Movie/Anime/something uses AI and someone posts a screenshot of that...

Is it AI or not ?

Every image is likely to be touched with AI in the future, so yes of course it is allowed. It's just images that are generated 100% by AI that are on the chopping block, but is 90% AI ok? 80% AI? 50%? or only 25% AI... that is the fine line we will live with for the rests of our lives.

I would wager that it's not the future... it's the present... smartphones had it since what? Huawei P20? It's left and right.

We might be attempting something that will cause a streisand effect.