I think it's more complicated than that. Pixiv is a Japanese company, and Japan has no such thing as "fair use" law: everything is copyrighted under all circumstances (unless the author decides it becomes available for public uses and few other instances). Technically speaking, people could get sued on Pixiv out of fanarts of copyrighted characters (and that could be also applied to US laws, if not mistaken): companies simply don't choose to do because it would do them more harm than good (yes, you can win a case against one who makes yaoi fantarts of Naruto and sells them as commission... you would have to spend a considerable amount of money on a legal representative to make me pay... what? 100$? 1000$? All of this with you risking cross scrutiny from the law AND getting out a bad image to the press and the people outside?).

But AI is viewed differently, because it's transformative (not derivative, as many would think) and it also uses the fair use field heavily, all while it allows to create a "spam-like" wave of material using, in fact, copyrighted characters (not styles: those cannot be copyrighted). So companies may be much more invested in checking that their material is not "chocked out" by mass generations (who, we must also remember, cannot be copyrighted... thus making them lose a serious edge in case they want to sue the "generators" or sites who provide the materials to generate, like Civitai or HuggingFace).
So what remains for them to do? Target the services who ALLOW said generators to make money out of their characters transformations: Pixiv probably knows this, so they try to lay low and take down the major "flares" out in their ecosystem (it's the same concept that Youtube follows to take down immediately videos who are clearly under fair use laws to avoid potential legal suits from copyright owners). Pixiv is simply protecting themselves because, if it lets even one slip open, you can bet your butt multibillionar companies will enter it and try to feast it on it like maggots on a carcass: Disney proved this too many times.

I'm not saying this is fair and correct, but I am saying that this cannot be simply reduced to "Pixiv bad, should boycott": it's the system first that is inefficient while, in case of Japan, there is also a deep cultural aspect to consider (not judging, consider).

If only. I would bug slayerduck to fix the tag alias system so much.

..Please find your way onto the staff, I wholeheartedly support your candidacy


I will have to disagree with that outright. Japan's law disagreeing with something has no inherent bearing on how complicated an ethical question is. They've raised their federal age of consent from 12 in the summer of last year(prefectures could put it higher etc. It's still bullshit), they have a 99% conviction rate and brag about it like it's a good thing, the mob runs the country better than the government does sometimes, and Nanking is still [Redacted] seventy years later. Justice is not a concern here. Upholding peace and tradition is.
Everyone who isn't Japanese and lots of people who Are Japanese have many legitimate grievances with All of this.

It's not as if their version of copyright law is a diamond in the rough. It exists to centralize power and chokehold the younger generation like many other laws they got.

What you are saying here is that pixiv got intimidated into enforcing an unjust law one step down onto their users so other companies or the government do not enforce it upon them first. That doesn't make it more complicated, it just means the unjust rule has more victims. Whether or not pixiv is a victim, they are also Complicit.

I did not Say there should be a boycott or anything like that, though. o.o All I said is the rule was unfair. That was in relation to sympathizing with those who suffer under it, not me grabbing a torch.

uh... i think that this conversation has derailed,

i mean one side is debating the objective legality of the ai pixiv rule, while the other side is arguing the much more subjective and entirely idealistic moral and ethics of why pixiv does what it does.

and as much as i like love to talk about how japan is the most accurate depiction of hell we have in real life,
i also wholeheartedly despise moralistic debates because never amount to any meaningful change in our material reality as is common with all forms of idealism not only that but they can also turn very orientalist VERY quick like meat in a compost pile kind of quick (not saying that you were)

The topic was and Is an ethical question. There is inherent subjectivity to that.

But since we should be talking facts, your sweeping statements about what works and what doesn't irk me? It was hard to argue against the meritocracy thing since instances where it did work in history were fleeting and incomplete. That is true for many higher ideals, they just don't quite mesh when they collide with the real world(similar to what you are saying now, really). So I didn't touch that. It's fair enough. You could say the same thing about democracy if you didn't mind setting Everything on fire, but I do mind, so let's not get into any of that.

But Moralistic Debates never working is a claim with a much flimsier basis in reality. The amount of times the squeaky wheel got the grease regardless of the contents of the squeaks just in living memory is staggering. Forget about the morality component for this paragraph, in what world have debates of any kind had no meaningful results, ever? It's the only way Any deliberate social change happens. We don't just sit on our butts and Wait until some necessity shoves change down our throats. That's usually much too late. You need to convince the right people with the power to change things, and different people will be swayed by all kinds of arguments. The kind of debate that works quite literally depends on the person you are talking to.

And I'd like to think there is an idealistic component to the site's foundation. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be strong opposition to AI art from leadership to begin with.

I believe these are moral people, and that their morals and mine overlap in many places. t's a kind of argument worth making.

Honestly, the most annoying part of the AI discourse is that there’s no nuance for a lot of people. If you use it at any point in your workflow, your post is immediately considered low quality, low effort garbage. A lot of it comes from ignorance, willful or otherwise, regarding how the technology works or the many ways you can use it. It also doesn’t help that the vast majority of of AI use currently IS low quality and low effort so it’s not like I don’t see where they’re coming from. This line of thinking unfortunately does hurt the people who do more than just text2img on a free online generator.

As an example, a few months ago I started redrawing and recolouring my gens. While I already spend a lot of time to get a base image that looks good (sketching, posing, inpainting, etc), I felt that proper lineart and colouring would make things look a lot better. You can see an example here: ibb.co/album/3980Mx.

I’ve gotten fairly efficient with how I do things but can still spend over a dozen hours for a single piece. I wanted to post my work to /r/HypnoHentai since it’d help quite a bit with exposure, but they have a “no AI generated art” rule so I wanted to make sure it’d be allowed before posting. I sent a fairly long (probably too long tbh) message to the mods asking for clarification with examples of what I do, but a couple of minutes later I was instantly hit with “No AI means no AI, post this on /r/HypnoAI not here”. As I mentioned before, no nuance.

On the other hand, there are those that ARE willing to see things are more than just black and white. Danbooru bans AI generated art, but many of my works have been posted and approved under the “AI assisted” tag. From what I’ve seen, assisted posts are held to a higher standard/go through a lot more scrutiny, but using AI doesn’t immediately disqualify your work from being posted. It's also why it would have been great to have a distinction between "generated" and "assisted" here, although I know it's not really feasible since the line can be very blurry.

In terms of ethics, I’m not going to touch that conversation with a 10 foot poll because I feel both sides have already made up their mind on what to think and neither will budge.

THAT IS PRECISILY why i say that debates through a moralistic prism NEVER amount to anything

**I** convinced people to change their moral stance before!

Does that mean it's worth it for everybody? I don't know! But you don't either! Please don't imbue your personal experiences with statistical significance! o.oc

So, I had no idea what this thread was about from the title, and only became aware that I was involved thanks to a friend and fellow user. I'll admit that I haven't read this whole thread. So, if you have anything specifically you want me to respond to, post it after this.

I just wanted to address some of the things I saw in the thread. First, the comment I left on the pic in question was my own thoughts and words, no one else's. My opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of the rest of the site staff. If I ever speak on behalf of the site administration, I will make that clear.

On that note, my standing on this site. I am co-founder of the site, and an admin, but I would not say that I have any real standing in the community and barely any real standing on HypnoHub. I'm not the head honcho here. That title goes to Slayerduck, who actually owns the site and the servers. I'm not even the head admin. That position is currently held by SlackerSavior. I'm really just a glorified janitor that occasionally weighs in on site matters. In the grand scheme of things, my opinion doesn't really matter much.

And finally, that brings me to the meaning of my comment. Yes, I was implying that I'm glad my subscription ended before ESCCC switched to AI art. I dislike AI art and I vehemently oppose the selling of it or supporting those who attempt to sell it. I'm not opposed to the use of AI art entirely. I've stuck up for KVFX for using AI art and voice acting, because he's using them to make entire animations. The AI art itself is not the product, just a tool used in it. Similarly, I've seen a number of people take AI art and make their own alterations and fixes to it. I'm fine with that, because at least some work is going into it. But just generating a picture and selling it? No. I don't want any part of that. It fucking sucks that ESCCC got kicked from Fanbox. I hate that that is happening to a lot of artists in this community. But I don't understand or support his move to exclusively AI art. He can still make 3D renders like he did before, but he's just chosen not to. Therefor, I've chosen to move on and support other artists who still make original art.

Thank you for your reasoned and cogent response.

Detour had already calmed my nerves regarding the staff's position, but hearing it from you puts it to rest for good.



From what you are saying here, I believe your position on AI art stems from the ease of making it. If I understood that right, I have a counterpoint. Please consider:


My mother has worked as an accountant for over 40 years now. I never had the mind for it, I only learned bits and pieces here and there, but I saw how it goes every day since I was born, more so since she started working from home.

There is the occasional excitement when she realizes a company she is keeping the books for does something shady, we'd get visits by law enforcement, they'd ask questions, verify our involvement etc. But for the most part the work is the same. You can only add so much creativity to your paperwork before people with guns politely but firmly ask you some pointed questions. So 99% of the work is, you keep up with the tax code, and put fifth grade math into the right rubrics on a standardized spreadsheet.

Even that first step only makes sense since she does it for many people. If you are only doing your Own taxes, all you need is an excerpt from the parts of the law that concern you, a calculator, and a little more time to shake into it. Anyone can do it. Lots of people do.

We live in a rural area, and our home came with a large garden. My mom used to love tending it, but now she is old, and I'm now and always were wimpy. Just the other day we hired a ditch digger, family friend, took away a pile of rubble.

I never asked if he ever did other work, but he's been doing that for a long time. And that's all his job is. He Digs Holes. When it's a small job, he uses a shovel, if it's a big job, he has an old beat up truck with a big shovel built into it. If what he digs up the client does not want, he packs it onto the truck and sells it in bulk for construction. That's it.

These are all extremely simple jobs. Barrier of entry is basically nothing. You probably have everything you need in your house to start doing one of them right now.

And I understand that a distinction has to be made. A paper pusher is not an engineer. A ditch digger's not gonna build skyscrapers. A generator is not an artist. These are rock bottom for intellectual, physical, and creative work respectively.

So...they shouldn't get paid? Obviously they should! It doesn't matter if the work is simple. You make it a profession, specialize, become very good at it, people will pay you for your trouble, you invest back into it, get specialized gear, maintain it, helps you work faster and better.

Mom had supported the family on her back for decades. In the 90s, our house had a storage room full of office supplies. Now, she has some specialized, arcane software that looks like what devils use to torture souls in the afterlife for tax fraud, and she types faster into it than I type plain text.

I helped the digger put his haul onto the truck, and by halfway through, I was just about ready to lay on the pile and die. He's bought his own truck, he maintains it, he fixes the parts and his shovels. He's got contacts to sell the haul to, he's built like an ox, he's savvy with the gear, he makes more money digging dirt out of the ground than I do.

You've said editing the image after it's done is something you can respect. You recognize it as work. Funny you should say that, I edited one of esccc's earlier generations earlier today. It had extra fingers. It took me my afternoon. Someone who does artwork, AI or otherwise, would have probably done it in minutes.

Not having your moral objection, I tried to use generative fill to fix the hands...but I couldn't! I couldn't get the prompt to work. It never came out right. All it achieved was make my budget GPU cry.

You should note, every image he's shared since had the correct number of fingers.

And that's not all they have. Many of his recent images are serialized, telling a simple story through the generated visuals. Huge images full of detail, consistent outfits, consistent artstyle, consistent proportions, scene transitions and consistent backgrounds, the mind control elements generated as part of the rest of the image without post-processing, can You make ai do any of that? When I try, only eldritch, misshapen horrors come out, that never look the same, nary a pendulum in sight, over indistinct blobs for a background, and my shitty computer cannot handle a resolution worth a damn.

I'm sure I could learn. It's ultimately feeding images, prompts and commands into a computer. Anyone can do that.

But he wants to do it for a living. I think he is getting there.

I hope my argument was persuasive. And while you should feel no obligation to pay for anyone's services, I hope that you find some respect for the people who provide it.

Honestly AI fucking sucks, I wish more sites would do like what Pillowfort does and just have a blanket ban on this shit,

it's bad for actual artists, it's bad for the environment and it's basically just bloatware for any site its on because people just spam that stuff to no end, the amount of clogging on sites like Rule34 causes not only the pricing of the site to go up but also less ACTUAL artists get found,

for instance I go on R34 XXX and 70% of the front page is AI Generated, it may start off small BUT it's a snowball, in the year and a bit R34 XXX allowed AI it's now at almost 500,000 pieces of art and it's putting a strain on Admins/Mods to the point now they won't even get rid of Dupes if they are different sizes because they are overwhelmed

DO NOT SUPPORT IT, Support real artists from all over the world who come from all sorts of backgrounds who use the funds to buy food and rent, who do it out of passion, don't spend that $5 on tokens to generate, put it as a tip for your favourite artist or support them on their Patreon/SubStar

it was bound to happen at some point, someone had to come here and shit on ai with bullshit arguments and ruin the civilized and productive debate we were having

It's not a bullshit argument, though. Real artists ARE getting fucked over by this, and it IS getting harder and harder to sift through the avalanche of AI to find the actual hand-drawn art.

What you say is true in isolation, but there is a bigger picture.

The fact is AI is already here. And as it exists, it relies on artists To exist - if you don't have artists to produce the art, you can't feed the AI anything to work with but older art and AI images produced from older art. It will get old just as quick as it appeared.

AI image generation is at Best wholly dependent on artists in the long term.

But it's also not Going Away. People can now create detailed, beautiful art with comparatively little skill and and time investment. Trying to put a lid on this is futile. Of course people are going to do be doing it. And then they will want to share it, that's the whole purpose of making something. For hypnosis art, this Is the place.

And for the most part you guys haven't sent them away.
Pointing at AI and saying it is bad for a system that existed before it is both obvious and reductive. Of course old infrastructure is going to be buried under this much added volume.

Platforms, hypnohub included, are the ones who need to adapt to AI. So that those who create the art, and thus, are core to the entire ecosystem, can survive.

This Can be as easy as leaving AI art to go somewhere else. Another site will pop up eventually that is set up to take on AI generated pictures if they are categorically forbidden. Information wants to be free and all that.

Maybe you guys could give it a head start yourself. You have experience. Open another imageboard, transfer the AI art the hub already has, hand over the keys, send them on their way. I think that would show it was done for pragmatic reasons and there would be little ill will.

Another solution is to change the site so artists get precedent over generators. I myself sincerely believe they Should, and I would support any change in that direction.

But keeping AI generated images here, And wallowing in the unfairness of their existence, is to have your cake and eat it at the same time. They cannot be reconciled. One of those has to go.

I cannot stress this enough: I don't make the rules here. I have a very small say on certain things, but I don't decide policy. If it were up to me, AI art would be banned, with very few exceptions. Same with manips, honestly. But it isn't up to me. Again, my opinions are my own and are not reflective of the rest of the team.

It's also unfortunately not as easy as just changing the site or making a new site. No one on the mod or admin team has access to the site's code, and even if we did, changing it would be... tricky. I mean, just turning off Anonymous commenting somehow broke link posting in comments for all users. We could make some kind of AI site using booru.org, which is also owned by Slayerduck and runs on the same basic framework, but you know us mods would still be telling people to post their AI art there instead of here until the day we die. We STILL get IRL manips all the time despite those having been banned for like a decade now.