PSA: 'AI didn't copy anyone's style' is the claim folks keep getting wrong, and the timestamps show why
I keep seeing the argument that a model can't copy an artist because it's just learning patterns, so I pulled up a small illustrator's portfolio from Portland and ran her name into a few image tools. The results matched her brush texture and her exact way of shading faces, stuff she posted about 3 years back in a public gallery. One side says that's just style and styles aren't owned by anyone, the other says grabbing her name to steer the output is the problem, not the math. I think the second group is closer, since the tool literally treats her name as a setting, but I want to hear where folks draw the line. Does it change your mind if the artist never got paid for it?
Wait, she posted that brush texture 3 years back in a public gallery and her EXACT face shading showed up in the output? That is wild to me, like the tool just had her whole catalog sitting there waiting to be called up by name. The part I can't get past is the "setting" angle you raised, because if her name works like a dial on a machine then the machine was built to do that on purpose. Paid or not, that is her hand being copied and someone should have asked first, period.