So, that was 2 years or ~570 days ago. Needless to say, in line with the usual experience curves & scaling laws, image generation has gotten vastly better in general, and nudity/porn with it, although because it is in so many ways a ‘solved problem’, most attention and research has moved on to video generation. How has this worked out since then?
I got back in touch to ask how things were going. Broadly speaking, not much seems to have changed. Some AI-centric furry porn sources have emerged like subreddits, and e621 in particular has made some limited concessions to AI, but it is essentially still the same: seemingly human-generated artwork despite the vast quality increase. He does not note any major third party aggregators rising by breaking the cartel. He was unsure what the effects on commission-based artists has been because while they continue to complain on social media, they would do so regardless, and there are no hard numbers on employment or income. It seems likely that ‘rich furs’ have indeed gradually been switching to AI models for their own personal art/porn consumption, and simply diverted their conspicuous consumption budget into fursuits, VR rigs (particularly for VRChat-style partying, which seems to be downright addictive), video, etc.
As a case study in post-scarcity economics or complements-until-substitutes or parasocial dynamics, it is currently obscure and confusing. But it may still only be a matter of time. (Many things take longer than a few years to happen despite being predictable.)
So, that was 2 years or ~570 days ago. Needless to say, in line with the usual experience curves & scaling laws, image generation has gotten vastly better in general, and nudity/porn with it, although because it is in so many ways a ‘solved problem’, most attention and research has moved on to video generation. How has this worked out since then?
I got back in touch to ask how things were going. Broadly speaking, not much seems to have changed. Some AI-centric furry porn sources have emerged like subreddits, and e621 in particular has made some limited concessions to AI, but it is essentially still the same: seemingly human-generated artwork despite the vast quality increase. He does not note any major third party aggregators rising by breaking the cartel. He was unsure what the effects on commission-based artists has been because while they continue to complain on social media, they would do so regardless, and there are no hard numbers on employment or income. It seems likely that ‘rich furs’ have indeed gradually been switching to AI models for their own personal art/porn consumption, and simply diverted their conspicuous consumption budget into fursuits, VR rigs (particularly for VRChat-style partying, which seems to be downright addictive), video, etc.
As a case study in post-scarcity economics or complements-until-substitutes or parasocial dynamics, it is currently obscure and confusing. But it may still only be a matter of time. (Many things take longer than a few years to happen despite being predictable.)