KATE THOMPSON DAVY: AI content alone is not a strategy for creative community marketplaces
Generated works and profiles appear to be taking over Etsy, a once beloved artsy-craftsy platform
Deviant Art is one of the older social and creative spaces online. It was founded in 2000 to showcase and find art, particularly digital designs, photos and scanned-analogue images. As we all know, art is subjective, and Deviant Art was never a gatekeeper, allowing both amateurs and professionals to upload their works. These two things in combination made the site a grab-bag of stunning, hilarious, inspiring and filthy works — the kind of unhinged blend that now seems characteristic of noughties-era internet.
Two decades later, Deviant Art hosts 550-million uploads, or “pieces of art” in its parlance. It also boasts 90-million registered members. This reach and longevity online is rare, coveted even, but Deviant Art’s critics — from within its own communities — say the site is squandering this with its hands-off approach to artificial intelligence (AI) generated “art”. ..
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