I have a feeling this is AI-generated, to be honest. I first found it on a German site IIRC, but couldn’t find any significant matches apart from that.
I’ll try to avoid posting AI art in future, but I have to admit… some of it is pretty flippin’ impressive!
EDIT: No, I guess I’ll post more AI art in future, based on the positive response and discussion below. I’m frankly a little torn, but I’ll abide.
I’ll respectfully remind you that you’re essentially describing this tacky practice — one that has existed in some capacity since the very concept of qualitative judgement first occured to that prehistoric ancestor way back when. Mimicry is an elementary evolutionary trait, and yet plagiarism/piracy are petty propagandists’ labels for it that the greedy and unimaginative bandy about from atop their growing piles of the same.
Fun fact: Hollywood in its entirety was founded by the simple act of selecting a cheap AF stretch of land as far from European litigators as physically possible so that the “innovators” and cinematic “luminaries” of yore could blatantly rip off the artists from multiple nations with impunity for fuckloads of profit. Oh-so-ironically, that cash engine is loudly decrying this new technology on every front, stirring the public into a froth in every direction except historical ones.
Now, I’ll not say that AI isn’t capable of astounding feats of mimicry, of course. Hell, even a basic abacus can do your math homework for you in much the same way. Do not get yanked around by the nose on this, fellow pleb; this is exactly what they want to plant in the cultural soil. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the “innovators” and “luminaries”: cheap (foreign or otherwise) labor to produce unique tools/products (if not outright stolen), then the manufactured threat of legal destruction to lock down “ownership”, followed by selling “rights” licenses to the same populations that the original sprouted from.
This fervor benefits only one demographic, and it’s not us in the exploited majority. Write your own anthem, instead of riffing on the sheet music they hand you. 🤘🏼💀 Fuck the liars and lever pullers, friend.
Hmm. I’m not quite sure how to respond to that as a whole, but FWIW I can assure you that I’m certainly on board with viewing our greater society as being in ‘late-stage capitalism.’
That is-- I view the wealth divide as becoming ridiculous & toxic, with borderline-oligarchs in the spotlight like Bezos, Zuck and Musk all too willing to shamelessly ruin peoples lives (and the planet of course), heavily insulated as they are from reality. But of course, the problem is systemic and rampant, involving networks of many other individuals & exploiters.
Btw, me dumb, but I’m not quite sure I follow your critique of printing posters of famous public domain (presumably) art for profit. You almost seem to attack it and defend it there, so… yeah, me dumb.
No worries, we’re on the same page with all of that, and when the time comes, you’ll know my guillotine from the rest by the words emblazoned on its top beam, “Heroes work here”.
To the other point, I was more drawing a comparison of the ease by which such public domain pieces are churned out like technicolor toilet paper and the low-effort of those AI reiterations you’d mentioned. Their simple existence, much less their undeniably derivative creation process, does not prove the tech as largely plagiaristic — unless, of course, that also includes every student of any artform at all. Reduce the barrier of qualification enough, and everything is derivative, after all.
Additionally, there will always be those that ride coattails for scraps rather than go to the effort themselves, but no one questions the shark’s process because of the lamprey’s tendencies. 🤙🏼