Steven Zapata Art Podcast

Color is fascinating! And also, isn't real.

My dog does not find this interesting.

“So take advantage of this human boat. Free yourself from sorrow’s mighty stream! This vessel will be later hard to find. The time that you have now, you fool, is not for sleep!”

I recorded this a few weeks ago, my dog is in perfect health now, don't worry! Also, when I recorded this I had no idea where I would be sharing these, so you'll hear me talking about keeping these on Patreon at the beginning. I have been posting these as I make them on Patreon first, but based on the encouragement many of you gave on the first video, I want to share some more publicly! I did try to warn you...

Watch in HD on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iaE9RQ-djUw

Watch in HD on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9GhbYlCEjh4

Watch in HD on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TEMl6Hq2OUU

Watch in HD on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4MNiQtZLeJk

Follow The Concept Art Association for further news on organizing against AIs, and check out their recent AI town hall video: https://www.youtube.com/c/ConceptArtAssociation/ 

Equity is fighting against AIs replacing many kinds of artists, their efforts are relevant to all creatives and they have good resources here: https://www.equity.org.uk/getting-involved/campaigns/stop-ai-stealing-the-show/ 

Know more organizations going against the AIs? Send me links at: stevensketches (at) gmail.com  

A transcript of this video is available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/128yey0VfYhM9eUdvkvCpk5zvvoIkqXfI4hEPAYeJCHU/edit?usp=sharing 

A site to investigate just one of the LAION data sets to see if you or your art are in there. A note that this site offers to sign you up for a future opt-out product- I have no idea what the nature of that product will be and would urge caution: https://haveibeentrained.com/ 

Open AI explaining how they invented their legal structure because nothing else worked for them: https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp/ 

Stable Diffusion release info with no mention of “artists”: https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-announcement 

Imagen release info that explains how the data set it is trained on is “uncurated” and contains “a wide range of inappropriate content including pornographic imagery, racist slurs, and harmful social stereotypes.” This is another page you should do a ctrl-f search for “artist” on: https://imagen.research.google/ 

Dance Diffusion explanation: https://wandb.ai/wandb_gen/audio/reports/Harmonai-s-Dance-Diffusion-Open-Source-AI-Audio-Generation-Tool-For-Music-Producers--VmlldzoyNjkwOTM1 

Example of private medical imagery being used to train the AI: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ad58k/ai-is-probably-using-your-images-and-its-not-easy-to-opt-out 

A great article summarizing the data laundering techniques of AI companies: https://waxy.org/2022/09/ai-data-laundering-how-academic-and-nonprofit-researchers-shield-tech-companies-from-accountability/ 

California Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo writes OSTP urging investigation into unsafe AI release models, namely Stable Diffusion: https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/eshoo-urges-nsa-ostp-address-unsafe-ai-practices 

The best non-technical explanation I’ve seen on how diffusion models work: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRHrUyDM/ 

A good semi-technical explanation of how diffusion models like Stable Diffusion work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CIpzeNxIhU 

I did the drawing for this video, “Prey For A Spiritual Creature” on 18”x24” Strathmore bristol paper. From imagination for the sheer love of drawing!  

Special thanks to my wife for her help editing the script, to my Patrons for their support, to my friends on my Discord for links, expert info, and first reactions, and to those who get the course, of course.