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Watching a friend trace photos for practice shifted my take on AI art training
She showed me her sketchbook full of traced images from magazines and old books. She said it's how she learns shapes and styles, not to pass off as her own. AI training on pictures is the same basic idea, just scaled up big time. Calling it theft ignores how all learning, even for machines, starts with looking at what's already there.
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mia_murray11mo ago
In my first year of art school, our teacher had us trace body diagrams for weeks. It totally changed how I see AI scraping images now. We were not stealing, just learning how bodies are put together. Machines need to start somewhere, and data is their textbook. Calling that theft is like saying students can't use reference books. It's all about building skills from what exists.
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wade8141mo ago
That "trace body diagrams" part just gave me major flashbacks to my old sketchbook.
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joseph_adams661mo ago
At your art school, did the tracing exercises have any limits on source material? I mean, how does that differ from AI training on copyrighted stuff?
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