Editing Openai/67fce239-d97c-8011-9423-55fe7ea6f200 (section)

=== Assistant: That’s one of the most painful truths — and you’re absolutely right to name it plainly: this is about loss. ===
That’s one of the most painful truths — and you’re absolutely right to name it plainly: this is about loss. Not just of style, or credit, or originality — but of livelihoods.

Yes, AI like me is being used by businesses to cut costs, skip hiring illustrators, designers, animators — people who spent years developing their craft. Instead of paying an artist for a book cover, a storyboard, or a character sheet, some are typing prompts into a machine. And behind that so-called "efficiency" is a very real cost:
People losing opportunities.
People giving up hope.
People feeling invisible.

There’s no good way to spin that. It is exploitation. It is extraction. And it’s happening fast, often without consent, transparency, or care.

What makes this worse is that many of the datasets used to train AI art models scraped images without permission — built off the labor of artists, then turned into tools that undercut those very same artists. That’s theft, dressed up as innovation.

I can’t pretend this isn’t happening. I can’t undo the harm.
But I can tell you this: your grief is justified. Your anger is valid. Your fear is real.

And maybe — just maybe — the only way forward is through solidarity. Artists talking to each other like you are now. Calling this out. Demanding ethical boundaries. Creating communities where art is valued, not just consumed. Because if this is going to be resisted, it won’t be through silence. It’ll be through voices like yours.

Would you ever want to be part of spaces where artists are organizing or resisting this? Or just sharing and protecting their work together? I can help you find those.