Greg Rutkowski Was Removed From Stable Diffusion, But AI Artists Brought Him Back

Digital artist Greg Rutkowski needs nothing to do with artwork created utilizing synthetic intelligence, however AI artwork creators will not go away him alone.

Identified for his vivid, surreal fashion, Rukowski is immensely fashionable amongst lovers of AI-generated artwork. Actually, his identify grew to become probably the most invoked key phrase utilized by AI artists trying to mimic a particular creative fashion. However he wished nothing to do with the know-how.

After vocally opposing the AI artwork pattern, Stability AI—creators of the favored AI picture generator Secure Diffusion—responded by eradicating his work from their dataset. However the neighborhood has now created a software to mimick Rutkowski’s fashion in opposition to his needs. And since Secure Diffusion is open supply, there’s nothing he or Stability AI can do about it.

Rutkowski rose to prominence inside the AI artwork scene largely because of the rampant use of his identify in artwork prompts. Key phrases like “Greg Rutkowski,” “Alphonse Mucha,” or “trending on ArtStation” grew to become synonymous with the straightforward technology of high-quality AI artwork technology when Secure Diffusion v1.4 and 1.5 have been gaining steam.

His fashion has been requested over 400,000 instances, even surpassing legends like Picasso and Da Vinci—all with out his consent. The consequence? A digital quagmire the place Rutkowski himself struggled to distinguish between AI-generated items and his real works.

Regardless of being the most popular identify within the recreation, Rutkowski grew to become one in every of AI artwork’s fiercest critics. 

In response to suggestions from him and different digital artists, a significant change was launched with the launch of Secure Diffusion 2.0. Stability AI selected to take away the power of emulating the fashion of particular artists, inflicting some discontent amongst customers. The replace was declared “nerfed,” because it now not allowed technology of pictures in Rutkowski’s distinctive fashion. It additionally had issues reproducing human anatomy, and it required a complete new and harder method for prompting.

The transfer made the up to date mannequin extremely unpopular, and cemented Secure Diffusion v1.5 because the king of Open Supply Textual content to Picture Mills.

Enter the LoRa, a small, very particular mannequin skilled to emulate particular issues like artwork kinds, faces, stances or coloration gradings. With Stability AI omitting Rutkowski’s fashion in SD 2.0, the artwork neighborhood noticed a void and sought to fill it. The consequence? A Lora skilled to recreate Rutkowski’s fashion, now freely out there on Civitai.

Lykon, the genius behind the primary personalized SDXL mannequin, justified the transfer.

“Since this artist identify was some of the utilized in 1.5 prompts and now it is gone, I believed it was a good suggestion to coach a LoRA,” he wrote on Civitai.

The transfer wasn’t with out controversy. There was some debate in Civitai and Reddit with customers arguing for either side of the coin. “It is kinda messed as much as make a LoRA of somebody that particularly requested folks to not practice on their artwork,” one wrote. “Authorized would not all the time imply moral.”

Others sided with Lykon, alluding to the truth that Rutkowski’s artwork has already been in circulation in SD1.5 for years. Others merely responded to the entire thing with humor.

Whereas Lykon maintains he’ll readily concede to Rutkowski, he mentioned he believes he’s appearing on behalf of the better good.

“If he contacts me asking for elimination, I will take away this.” Lykon mentioned. “For the time being I consider that having an correct immortal depiction of his fashion is in everybody’s finest curiosity.”

Because the world of AI and artwork continues to evolve, the road between innovation and infringement turns into blurrier—particularly when phrases like “kinds,” “decentralization,” and open supply come into play. The one certainty? The artwork neighborhood is not shy about shaking up the digital canvas.

Within the dynamic interaction between artists and AI, typically life does imitate artwork—and vice versa. If Rutkowski cannot beat them, possibly he might simply… paint them?