Be As Well As Possible
I had already deleted my gallery here in the early days of the AI protest when ArtStation decided to offer the useless solution of letting you politely ask AI not to steal from you. There was the chance of coming back if ArtStation realized that wasn't enough and decided to actually make the correct move of banning AI imagery. It was an extraordinarily slim chance of them actually doing that but I wanted to believe the site wouldn't willingly kill itself no matter how in bed with AI generators its tech bro leadership is. Since then they have taken the step to start censoring anti-AI artwork from the trending page and I believe the writing is on the wall at this point. So I have made the decision to join the wave of artists leaving the website.
Even if ArtStation came out tomorrow and announced they would ban AI, I would not come back. Between their support for NFTs and their now aggressive pro AI stance, I believe the company at its core does not see art or artists beyond something to be exploited. They have backed projects that are entirely detrimental to and near unanimously unpopular with artists in the interest of wringing out as much profit from us as they possibly can. The art industry and the people who dedicate their entire lives to it should not have to accept a platform that will only stop exploiting them once hit with mass protests, subscription cancellations, and gallery deletions.
I do not have any galleries other than my personal website at this time. I will be leaving for Marine Corps bootcamp in a month or two, though, so maybe by the time I get back a replacement for ArtStation will have come by. If so then I will upload my work there assuming it actually places value on its artists. If not then I have no issue with maintaining my own website. I joined this website in 2014 when I was first trying to become a professional artist, I never thought I'd leave because it would become a place that would threaten to put nearly the next decade of my life into the garbage.
