Are you as tired of AI bullshit as I am? They always come up with more, the fun never stops.
Today we’ll have a roundup of new AI features that nobody asked for, popping up on platforms that are popular with artists or art enthusiasts. Here’s the newest AI bullshit from Pinterest and Skillshare, but also a reminder about helpful tools that can help you to protect your artwork against AI.
Pinterest recently updated their terms of use and they will use all of the art you save to train their AI (read their updated privacy policy). Which makes sense if you look at Pinterest these days, it’s already full of AI-generated content.
If you don’t want your (or anyone else’s) artwork being trained on, then you can turn this off (Options > your privacy right > disable GenAi) and trust that they won’t include your art in their AI slop training (you’ll never find out if they do), or you can just delete your pins and boards, and also all of your art still floating around the platform. How can you do this efficiently?
- Remove all your pins: You’ll have to do this board-wise. There is a bulk edit feature. Go to the board in question, select „organize“, scroll to the bottom and „select all“, then you can select „delete“. Do this for every board.
- There are probably still some of your artworks on Pinterest, pinned by others. You can search those on Pinterest (do this before you delete your account) and fill out their DMCA form.
- An alternative if you don’t have a Pinterest account is to do an image search with a search engine of your choice, „your name/handle/website + pinterest“ usually works well. Click on the image and copy the URL. Send an email to copyright@pinterest.com with the subject DMCA takedown. Tell them you’re the creator of said images and you’ve not authorized them to be shown on Pinterest, so this is a copyright infringement. You can also use the wording from their DMCA form.
- It’ll take a few days for the request to go through, and another few days for them to disappear from search engines.
- Still, expect your images to reappear on Pinterest and do this periodically. :(
- Delete your account.
If you decide to keep your Pinterest account, please refrain from pinning any of my images, otherwise they will end up in their AI slop generator and I will have to hunt the images down and send Pinterest more DMCA messages. Thank you.
Skillshare
Skillshare is an online learning platform. I also offer classes on their platform, though I’ve become less happy with the direction they’ve been taking in recent years.
Skillshare’s newest AI plans are a bit more subtle. If you’re not a teacher, but a student with a subscription on their platform, your data is probably safe, apart from all the tracking they already do when you’re logged in. They are however targeting the video material that teachers upload to the platform (the video classes).
Skillshare has published an AI pledge to make it sound all trustworthy, but we all know that such policies can be changed over night if they don’t fit the business model anymore.
They’ve started partnering up with (not disclosed) AI companies who want to analyze the video content of their site. Not to replace teachers or create AI-generated classes, as they say, but to let AI engines train their understanding of video material itself.
I actually do believe this because the quality of AI video generation so far is abysmal, and the companies have run out of free training material. I also believe Skillshare when they say they’re not planning to replace teachers, because they would nuke their business model if they did that. But that doesn’t mean they can’t sell our content if we let them.
There is an opt-out, which of course I have signed (will it be respected – we’ll never know), but I don’t like the idea of willingly partnering up with AI companies because „they’re not going away soon“. The expected compensation from letting those companies, whoever they will be, train their AI with your videos sounds meager at this time, and I don’t expect it to be a great new source of income on the Skillshare platform.
By the way, Udemy (the other big online learning platform) has already instated a very similar tactic. AI companies are frantically searching for higher quality (structured, easier to understand) material they can feed into their slop engines, and will now even pay for it, so now they come for the paywalled content.
All of this doesn’t exactly make me excited to share more of my new material in places where I can’t fully control it.
There is nothing you as a student can do at this point, and I’ve already opted out of the AI training with my classes, but…with all of that going down, I’m seriously considering not putting any new longer courses on Skillshare, because those take up a considerable amount of time and energy to create. I’m currently in the middle of producing a long course, and I want to keep control over this material. I’m not interested even remotely in sharing any of its contents with AI companies, or places that partner up with AI companies.
What does this mean for my classes on Skillshare? The ones I have already shared will stay for now, and in the future I’ll probably just share very short classes on Skillshare, similar to Youtube videos. I have not made a final decision on this.
Overall I’m tired of having to put up with AI companies gobbling up my intellectual property (in this case, offering a meager compensation for it and not disclosing a lot of details) to feed into their models that create slop all day long while burning away the planet.
I don’t think we need AI companies to „get better at understanding video“, and I won’t sign away new material I’m working hard for in the pure hope they won’t do anything unethical with it. Why should I just sign it all away and hope to get a slice of the cake some day?
I just wanted to let you know in case you have subscriptions coming up or anything. All of my courses will always be available directly from my website in full length as one-time purchases, without tracking or AI training.
How can you protect your art against AI?
It’s not been fun uploading new work to the internet lately, knowing that it will likely land it the next dataset. Btw, if you upload your art to a place like Facebook or Instagram or other Silicon Valley platforms, you’ve already sent everything you’ve uploaded directly into their generative AI.
Having your own website is obviously much better, but it won’t save your site from being scraped. Meta tags, alt tags and watermarks won’t do much. Some companies say they respect them, but if it’s one the internet, consider it scraped.
If you’re an artist and want to protect your art against style mimicry or make it unusable in scraped datasets, consider using Glaze or Nightshade. This is free software by a team from the University of Chicago that will make your images unusable for generative AI models.
You can learn more about those tools here:
- Glaze (this will put a glaze over your image so that the art style can’t be trained)
- Nightshade (this will poison AI data sets)
You’ll need a powerful computer for this to work, though. I personally use these tools on any new work I post.
Think about what you share & where
- Don’t put your best work on the internet in high resolutions and without protection like glazing or nightshading.
- Don’t upload art to places that you don’t trust and where you can’t control how it’s being processed or shared.
- Don’t put your art in billionaire data silos like Instagram.
- If your image is one the internet, it will likely be scraped.
- Be aware which seemingly „private“, “secure” platforms have already integrated AI functionality into their services. Slack, Discord, Canva, Adobe products and many other tools that are popular with creatives will use your data. If you don’t want this, don’t use those tools (or decide to trust their opt-out). There are alternatives.
- Don’t be surprised if platforms that are built with investor money will enshittify over time, it’s in their DNA.
- These companies will always tell you that they will use the new technology „thoughtfully“ and with „the interests and benefits of their users in mind“. Until they don’t. And then they will still tell you it’s all fine.
- Don’t give up. Yes, it’s all cumbersome and tiring. But: continue to make art and share it online, and protect it as well as you can. There are still lots of people out there who just want to enjoy your beautiful art. Just don’t make it too easy for those companies to scrape your art, and fight back.
Let me know what you think and if you have additional ideas or resources.
Thank you, Julia, for this blog post! it is very informative and I have no idea this was even happening on all these platforms. I appreciate you taking time to research and inform all of us! God bless you
Oops, had no idea* I love all your videos on Skillshare and YT. It’s really sad what is happening with AI.
Thank you Rose, much appreciated!
Dear Julia,
I would just like to say thank you, and tell you how much I am enjoying working through your Sketching Fundamentals course. I live in a small town in South Africa with nowhere to take any classes.
I am drawing things I never thought I would be able to, really surprising myself.
Thank you for helping me to learn a new skill at the age of 70!
Thank you Jane that really brightens my day! Enjoy the course! :-)
I agree, Julia. It is absolutely ridiculous that the onus is on the creator, and not the ones ‘taking/accessing’ your work. It is backwards. These groups should be REQUIRED to contact the originator (of art, music, etc) and jump through the hoops to get permission to use the product. But, as we are experiencing, when greedy, non-sympatheic/non-empatheic billionaires ‘rule the roost’, morality, compassion, adhering to the ‘rule of law’ (oh right, they are trying to rewrite these), and ‘protecting rights of the ‘masses’/most citizens goes by the wayside. They seem to be most concerned with their individual profits. Kudos to you for taking the time to educate us about corporations endeavors to access art.
Absolutely. I don’t even count the hours I’ve lost filling out DMCA forms, that has always been part of the job. But it’s gone to a new dimension with the contempt that billionaires and AI bros have for intellectual property and creative expression and for communities and society itself. We’re only fuel for them to burn.
Thank you Julia for this information and all your research. I was already very weary about posting any of my art. I have never been on FB and never posted on insta although I was thinking of it more recently. You certainly made me change my mind. I sometimes post on a private membership site, but now wonder how safe that is. Is there a way to know?
All the best to you and thank you for your blog. Chris
You could contact the person who runs the membership and ask them what software they use to run it, or see if they list it in their privacy policy if they have one. Then you can do a bit of research on the software/service to find out how they handle user-uploaded data. I’d like to say small private sites should be fine, but with today’s technology you never know.
Thank you Julia for a very informative and thought-provoking post. Good luck with your future endeavours!
Thank you Gill!
Dear Julia,
I have to join the others and say thank you so much for updating, explaining and instructing how to break away from this AI stuff. The moment I heard how this would affect our art, I knew this would be problematic and it would increase. Thank you for taking the time to give instructions how to protect our art, for someone who is not tech savvy like myself, that helps a lot. I’m very much done with AI and being able to move in a safer direction is important for us as people but especially artists. God bless you and your continued work.
You’re welcome Jenny, glad to hear this is helpful. :)
Thank you, Julia! This post was super informative and I’m very grateful for the tips on Glaze and Nightshade. I’m just so disappointed on the completely irresponsible rollout of AI. The impacts on society, art and culture were not even thought about before unleashing this nightmare. Clearly there were no ethics considerations, and artists are really suffering. Thanks again, and good luck with the future!
You’re welcome Angela, glad to hear my post helps!
I think in the case of AI a lot of companies don’t really see the downsides and the impact it leaves on communities, they just see a shiny new business opportunity.
Thank you for this information…I had no idea.
Julia, I love what you do and have subscribed to two of your offerings. You are a breath of fresh air in this age of conspicuous consumption and unfettered capitalism.
So glad you posted of your disgust with AI. I am beyond sick of it!
Keep it up! Kudos!
Good morning from Tasmania. You are brilliant! Thank you Julia for the information. I’m onto it. Goodbye Pinterest. x
Thank you, Julia for this post. Explaining how to do what little we can to protect our own artwork from the AI machine run by the big companies is great info. I really dislike AI also because of how much energy it takes to create it. I started posting my small “mail art” and little number cartoon sketches on instagram beginning around 2014. I haven’t posted any of my serious work out there, but that small less serious work is still distinctly mine! How terrible for you because showing your work online is advertisement for your skills and product! What a shame and a scam is being perpetrated on all of us by greedy rich corporations and the politicians aligned with them.
I deleted my Pinterest account & have stripped my WordPress blog. At the moment I am still deciding whether to continue the blog. I find the AI issue deeply concerning and it reminds me of the myth of “Narcissus”. Many people find it (AI) so enchanting they appear blinded to its dark side. Thank you for your posts and the beautiful work you share. All good wishes to you.
“Enshittify” Love it.
Thanks for the information esp about Glaze and Nightshade.
This whole AI thing is a horse that has bolted.
Social media was/is a terrible social science experiment and it takes a fair amount of discernment about what you expose yourself to. I work in marketing and try to stay away from social media by outsourcing it where ever I can. The funny thing is that the data continues to show that email marketing still continues to garner the best results, so keep building your customer list – your work and content is great.
I am a heavy user of AI to generate work and content at speed and pace, but I use it as a starting point… a bit like doing a ton of google searches only with better results.
But I do evaluate the information and in a work setting, I put a disclaimer at the top of my document saying that it was created with the assistance of AI.
I wrote the AI policy for one of the NFP organisations I contract to because the CRM we use started offering donor prospecting !!!
Another organisation I work for is a hairdressing salon – they are complaining about the huge number of AI images clients bring into the salon as inspo images. They are like “Ah nuh, that’s not real…”
There is an ad currently spamming on YouTube where the person is spruiking the benefits of using AI to write a book in niche content categories to generate the elusive passive income.
It’s all a big mess and we are so overwhelmed and wary because we can’t tell what is true and real anymore and the only reason the powers that be haven’t made a move to protect their customer, members, subscribers and citizens is because it serves them.
The art world is full of unrecognised talent. Thankfully you have carved a niche where yours is valued and recognised. Protect your art but keep making it!
Hi Julia
Is it OK if I share this email about AI with a friend/editor of
our nonprofit online newsletter? I published a couple jpg
of my sketches, but I don’t know if she has your depth of
information AI content scraping.
I’ll accept whatever answer you give.
Hi Janet – yes absolutely, feel free to share it, that’s why I write these posts! :-) Sharing among humans and in communities is always cool, it’s just the involuntary “sharing” with corpos and big tech that never ends well.
Hi, Julia,
I’m not an artist and new to sketching. You are an excellent teacher and I am already progressing due to your teaching style. You also write extremely well as demonstrated by this comprehensive and informative blogpost.
I wish to take some of your online courses and would like to know if it is ‘safe’ to register for them based on the information you have just shared.
Thank you advance for your recommendation.
Hi Debra,
thank you for your kind feedback, it’s great to hear you’re already making progress.
I offer my courses as one-time purchases through my own website (with the help of a service that hosts them + manages payments – Gumroad) and through Skillshare (they are subscription-based, unfortunately I don’t have any control over what they do with their platform, which is why I have to write posts like this..).
I won’t add any AI or tracking stuff to my self-hosted courses, and you’ll have full access to them, you can even download the files to your own device if you want to have them available locally. I’m trying to do everything I can to make sure I offer my courses in a safe environment. The only information I will ever get from you is your email address, and Gumroad will of course process your payment info (name, card data). That’s all.
In the end it’s a personal decision, I’ve always offered the courses on Skillshare too because some folks liked the subscription model, but as we can see it comes with some downsides. I would never add anything that takes away from or hinders the learning process to my self-hosted courses, so yes right now the safest option is to get the course directly from me.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Julia.
You’ve written the most comprehensive article I’ve ever read on AI (and can actually understand).
You are a brilliant artist and teacher and I’m sorry to hear that you have to deal with concerns beyond your passion for art and generosity of teaching.
I will sign up for one of your courses through your website and look forward to the opportunity to take your ‘long course’.
I’ve already progressed significantly from your YouTube videos.
Thanks again for taking the time to to address my concerns so completely.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Julia.
You’ve written the most comprehensive article I’ve ever read on AI (and can actually understand).
You are a brilliant artist and teacher and I’m sorry to hear that you have to deal with concerns beyond your passion for art and generosity of teaching.
I will sign up for one of your courses through your website and look forward to the opportunity to take your ‘long course’.
I’ve already progressed significantly from your YouTube videos.
Thanks again for taking the time to to address my concerns so completely.
I so agree, Julia. I find AI so unnecessary and annoying. I keep seeing ridiculous images that are obviously not real clogging up my searches and Pinterest. I’m concerned for the day these images are harder to spot. Some people are already so gullible and just looking for things that prove them right. It concerns me greatly.
It also concerns me that artists works are being stolen and manipulated. This is not progress, it’s just rich people getting richer off the backs of others. It reminds me of a quote by Edward Abbey, “Growth for growth sake is the ideology of a cancer cell.” I’m so sorry that this is impacting you.
Thank you for this post! I am trying to figure this all out. Guess its time to learn glaze and nightshade!
Yes, if only to have the feeling to be doing something against the sloppification. ;-) If you have a relatively powerful computer, Glaze and Nightshade shouldn’t be a problem, else there’s always Webglaze.