While not everyone’s convinced that AI art is actual art, the generators used to whip them up are likely here to stay. DeviantArt is now getting into the space with a generator of its own called DreamUp, promising “safe and fair” generation for creators. The website says one of artists’ main concerns about AI art is that their work may be used to train artificial intelligence models, which means the generator could spit out pieces in their style without their consent. In an attempt to give artists control over their work, DeviantArt is giving them the ability to choose whether or not the tool can use their style for direct inspiration.
Further, the website is giving them the power to declare whether or not to allow their work to be used in datasets used to train third-party AI models. If they choose not to be included in those datasets, their content pages’ HTML files will contain a “noimageai” directive. Also a “noai” directive protects their artwork when media files are directly downloaded from DeviantArt’s servers.
“DeviantArt encourages other creator platforms to adopt this approach in order to ensure artists remain able to share their work with online audiences while retaining control over non-human usage,” the website wrote in its announcement.
Those directives, of course, won’t be added to their pages’ HTML files if they’re cool with their work being used to train AI models. And if they choose to allow DreamUp to use their style as a direct inspiration, they will be “clearly credited” on the output when it’s published on DeviantArt. The website has anticipated that some users wouldn’t be happy seeing even more AI art, though, especially since Midjourney-generated pieces are already a very common sight on the platform. That’s why all DreamUp submissions will be automatically tagged as #AIArt, and users will be able to choose to see or to hide posts under the topic.
DreamUp is now one of the perks for DeviantArt’s paid Core subscription plans, but all users can sample the tool with up to five free prompts.