pivot-to-ai.com
DragonCon is a long-running science fiction and nerd culture convention. Dane Ault of monkeyminion.com was at DragonCon as an artist. He broke the news on Bluesky about a suddenly empty booth in Artist’s Alley with a sign saying: [_Bluesky_]
> VENDOR REMOVED FOR SELLING AI ART #ARTBYHUMANS
The site was quickly enhanced by AI haters, including a sticker changing “AI ART” to “AI IMAGES”. And of course, an RIP BOZO. [_Bluesky_]
DragonCon has a no-AI policy: [_Reddit_]
> No AI artwork of any kind will be allowed to be sold or distributed in Comic and Pop Artist Alley. Failure to comply with our AI policy can lead to immediate removal from the show floor.
So what happened? Dane watched it live from booth A-11, right next to the AI miscreants in A-10. [_Bluesky_]
Dane says the art the AI guys put up on Thursday was “while not to my taste, clearly made by a person.” But on Friday, two different people came in with other stuff: [_Bluesky_]
> The paintings were still there, but now so were new images of various anime characters & comic characters, monopoly man and snoopy, all bloomy and blurry with weird details and various numbers of fingers. I immediately clocked it as AI, but was too busy Friday to get away from my table.
The AI image of the Monopoly Man playing a bass is striking in its way. Five fingers on one hand, four on the other, and a varying number of strings along the neck of the bass. My first thought was “this should be on an NFT.” [_Reddit_]
On Saturday, Dane got onto the convention staff about the AI slop mongers. The staff running Artist’s Alley investigated over Saturday and Sunday.
The AI guys apparently gave the staff a proof video of their artistic process — a time lapse of how they made the pictures — and the proof video was also AI-generated! [_Reddit_]
Then Monday arrived: [_Bluesky_]
> That morning, I got in at 9:45 & the AA folks (plus a few others and a cop) were already at the booth. The owners weren’t in yet. I got set up, the show opened and then the booth folks showed up, about 15-30 minutes late. At which point the AA staff descended upon them like avenging angels. They took up positions, creating a wall across the entrance to the booth, telling attendees who stopped that they were being removed and were no longer available, and the scammers took down their displays and angrily packed their gear and left.
There’s video of the ejection as it was happening. [_Threads_]
Another artist left a sign in the empty booth explaining that the vendors had been kicked out for AI. Dane posted a photo of that sign to Bluesky later that day.
Spaces in Artist’s Alley are limited and under heavy demand. So the AI scammers took a space from a non-AI artist and they used it to push slop.
How did these guys get into Artist’s Alley at all? They lied on their application: [_Bluesky_]
> He told me that the people in that booth submitted the pop art paintings for their application and were approved for those. He had no idea they were going to offer AI garbage and started working on the process for deleting them from the show as soon as he learned about it.
The booth was booked in the name of Oriana Gerez. She’s actually an artist, she can paint, she has a gallery! The AI slop was apparently made by her boyfriend and Gerez helped set up the booth.
It looks like Gerez was fully on board with the scheme — she posted on her official Instagram bragging about their sales and calling everyone laughing at them broke losers. Her Instagram went private shortly after this. [_Bluesky_]
I’ve heard that for next year, DragonCon will be banning vendors from selling AI-produced work anywhere in the convention.
Other conventions are noticing the response from the fans, and there’s already a notice from GalaxyCon: [_Facebook_]
> Effective immediately, AI-generated artwork is prohibited for any booth or table type. This applies to ALL merchandise, including, but not limited to, prints, posters, mugs, t-shirts/apparel, towels, etc. Failure to abide by this rule will result in ejection from the event with no refund given, as well as a ban from any future GalaxyCon, Animate!, SuperStar, or Nightmare Weekend event.
* _Video version_
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