AIBU that I am upset over a tattoo design?

[Lemonypaintpots]

Hello,

sorry this is a little long so please bear with me!

Backstory- I am currently doing an illustration degree, as a mature student and the rise of AI was right around my first year. It is well known that AI has stolen many artworks that are published online to feed into their generators and AI is a big threat to illustrators. My husband and I have had many conversations about AI and he knows my views and knows I do NOT want my work put into any of these. I am a quiet and introverted person, and I don’t generally show my work much to anyone but I am gradually building up more confidence. I have loved art and drawing all my life and by no means new to it,

Moving on to the tattoo- He specifically asked if he could do one of my drawings- and requested a few alterations, which I did. He seemed very happy with the design, and booked in to get it done. I was having a small tattoo done as well so we booked to share a time slot.

Well yesterday was tattoo day. I checked again with him in the morning that he was happy with the design. He said he was, and that he was going to have a small alteration- to add my name into it. As there is a space where this could work, I thought nothing more of it, as I know the tattooist could easily incorporate it.

We got to the studio and began filling out the forms. Whilst he was filling his out, the tattooist asked which design he was going for- mine or the AI. This was news to me and I wondered what was going on. He immediately said, the AI one and asked my opinion. The tattooist showed me the screen with the AI image. I was mortified. I was completely put on the spot, and on the screen was this image with the same items as my drawing, but completely different style. It was very obvious it was AI, the positions had all changed as well, and he could see my reaction wasn’t positive. He tried to explain himself, saying that mine wasn’t very clear so he ran it through AI to sharpen it up. But It’s a completely different image. I just said, well it’s your tattoo so go for whatever you are happy with.

I went off to have mine done, silently furious he put my work into AI, and so embarrassed- that he told me he wanted my design- was it not good enough? I was also embarrassed that he put me on the spot, and that my name was going to be put in the middle of an AI image after hours of hard work making a design.

Later on he showed me, and honestly, It looks AI. When we got home, I expressed my views about AI again, and asked why he did it. He genuinely didn’t expect my reaction, and claimed he forgot to tell me that he ran it through, that he wanted the elements to be different proportions, and sees this AI image as my design. It only has the same objects in- it looks nothing like my style or design at all. Bear in mind I asked several times if there were any changes to be made, and he kept saying no. I explained how I felt, why it bothers me etc. We both hate confrontation, so he just shut down conversation about it and nothing more has been mentioned about tattoos at all. I noticed he has chosen to keep it covered up since. He seems to genuinely not understand my reaction, and I am just so embarrassed that he chose AI, embarrassed that my name is in the middle of it when it’s not my work, and most of all I am disappointed that he hid this all from me until the moment- he clearly knew my opinion and we have never hid things from each other. It’s not like I didn’t ask if there were any further alterations either! It has completely put me off finishing my degree, if my own husband cannot even support me over AI-

So AIBU?

YANBU to be upset, but he was right to go with the design he wanted for his own body. His tattoo was for himself and he has to live with it forever, so the issues about AI in the creative industry didnt need to impact his tattoo. Very lazy of the tattoo artist to just use AI rather than redesign it themselves

It sounds like you and your dh disagree about the usefulness of AI - you are 100% against it and won't use it ever, he is happy to use it. It's normal in a marriage to have different views and perspectives and to disagree. The real question is how do you approach those? It sounds like up until his point you have both used avoidance. However the marriage can be enhanced by actually working through disagreements because then each of you will feel more free to be fully yourselves rather than having to mute parts of yourself that are different to each other. I think a full and open minded discussion is needed where you accept that how your dh sees the world is just as valid as how you see it and take it from there.

I can understand your hurt feelings about the extent he changed your design, but I think you just have to accept he decided it wasn’t quite what he wanted.

What is unacceptable is that he ran your design through AI after you had explicitly asked him not to and he agreed he wouldn’t. I don’t see how that is anything other him believing what he wants overrides what you want and that his word is worthless.

some might say it’s just a tattoo. In my experience people who casually lie about just this or just that are likely to lie about the big stuff too. It’s their go to response.

I really feel for you and completely can understand why you're so upset. The people saying that you need to develop a thick skin are forgetting this is your husband, not an unknown client at work. I don't know what the solution is, just wanted to say I empathise and would probably feel the same way.

Please don't quit your degree. Again, I understand how you feel but don't let it squash your personal love of illustration. Try and learn more about AI if you can and don't write off using it in some ways professionally. I work with designers and creatives and they are embracing some aspects to help them but it doesn't take away their personal style and creativity. They are still completely individual and I can see that as a client.

But you're completely reasonable to feel like you do about AI, particularly in your personal art and illustration. Try and have a calm conversation with your husband and clear the air because otherwise this might fester. He's been a total idiot but if he's otherwise great, you'll be able to work past it together and with forgiveness

Yup.

"Working alongside AI" is not the same thing as throwing an artist's work into it and churning out a horrendous edit that the original artist is unhappy with. That's such an insult to you and your work.

It takes away everything special about it being made by you, for one thing, and disregards artists and creatives across the board whose livelihoods are being slain by AI.

It's the ignorance of it that gets me - he's married to an artist FFS - he seems completely oblivious.

If your feelings are this strong you should have left the tattoo shop there and then, lost the slot you paid for and gone away and had a proper discussion about it. Not let him have it permanently put onto his body and then you fester and seethe about it afterwards.

Exactly this- AI can be incredible and very useful in some areas, I don’t deny that at all, and I use it in other aspects of life- but when I have built up these skills over decades and he requested to have me do the design- to then throw it to AI is insulting.

Honestly I think people who aren't artists have trouble understanding just how bad AI is. I see it more and more and the artists I know absolutely hate it, with good reason.

Seems that your DH is very tone deaf about the reasons you dislike AI and doesn't grasp that altering your design means it's no longer your design! Since you said you both tend to avoid confrontation he wasn't brave enough to tell you about the more extreme alterations. He's said he 'doesn't know' why he did and 'forgot to tell you' he ran it through AI, but I expect if he was honest, yes he does know, he simply didn't want to have a confrontation. It shows a weakness on his part.

I've a friend who does YT podcasts and is now making AI thumbnails for them (apparently encouraged by YT to 'reach more people' and 'grow your channel'). The AI features a picture of her but it's altered by AI - 70% her and 30% altered, apparently this is YT's recommended ideal. Afterwards I felt weirdly upset about it, as I've seen other content creators' thumbnails altered in this way. It's like your own image and design isn't good enough, it needs to be altered by AI to make it more attractive. Gives me a very bad feeling about the way things are going. So yes OP I'm sorry this happened. I think all you can do is try to get better at having calm conversations about these difficult issues, and encourage your DH to do similarly, or else some other bigger topic may arise in future and be much harder to deal with.

I think both of you not liking confrontation is at the heart of this. We don’t always agree with our partners and in long term relationships learning to handle disagreement and conflict is important.

Your feelings about your design and AI are valid and understandable, but the concern for me is that your DH avoided discussing it with you. It’s his body and so he gets to choose the design for it 100%; the question is why he didn’t ask you to alter your original design and thought it would be easier to ask AI.

Would you have been upset if he’d asked you to change the design? I think you need to bottom out the communication between you here.

Was the changed image not a combination of AI and the tattooists own work?
Generally, good tattooists don't just go with the image they are presented with and will make suggested changes / improvements.
So Its highly likely that the original design would have been altered anyway.

With all due respect but please start working on your confidence and thick skin if you want to be an illustrator. Lots of resilience will be needed. Become unflappable. All that is part of the job

I think of it was about something different to a tattoo, it would be YANBU.

But, and it’s a big but, tattoos are permanent and extremely personal. They have to be just right and while I can see how hurt you are, him walking around for ever with something that isn’t quite right /to his liking on his body , just to spare you feelings, wouldn’t be any better either.

I really want a new tattoo(and have for years) , but I haven’t found anything that is “IT” , rather than “yeah that’s nice” so I’m not having one done.

I also think that if his instructions were really prescriptive (as you do when you use AI) … make that bigger, slide that to the left , turn this upside down, add a happy cow, do it in the style of .., and so on, you’d also find it quite insulting. Mainly because every artist has their own style and creative licence that they incorporate in their designs. I have a feeling that to end up with what he really wanted, it wouldn’t have been truly “your” design anyway if that makes sense.

Nope, she took the ai image, printed it onto the stencil paper and went with it. I thought and hoped she would somehow at least combine my drawing with the AI one as she had seen both, but no- Even my name is done tracing the AI font. I’m really surprised as this tattooist is one of the highest rated in our area. There is zero personality in it.

My husband has designed a tattoo for me. I haven’t gotten it yet as we don’t have the money, but we have it ready to go. He’s not a professional artist, but he does pen and ink drawings and we worked together on a design - he did a few versions. He knows the tattoo artist will clean it up a bit and make it more symmetrical and there might be minor changes just with where I want it on my body and the sizing and whatnot, but I wouldn’t inherently change the design - it would still be his design.

I actually think it’s super depressing that the tattoo artist resorted to this too. I’m always blown away by tattoo artists and how they can make anything happen on a very random canvas so that’s super disappointing.

I was at a women in science talk last week and someone asked about AI. It was really interesting as the women in hard sciences were talking about how a well designed, specific AI can do amazing things to input into work - scanning all the known stars to look for something, or look for diseases in samples, etc. But asking AI to ‘think’ is where the problems start. Leaving aside the environmental concerns even, it just doesn’t make great things happen. The author on the panel was horrified by what she’d seen - her books were fed through without her permission to try to teach AI to write, and the results were as you’d expect.

Basically I think your specific concerns are valid but also wouldn’t love my husband flat out ignoring me about any request. It doesn’t require agreement in principals to stick to something you’ve agreed to as a partner. If it was any other disagreement I’d think the same, either don’t agree or stick to it. And having a permanent reminder of a rough argument will be difficult for you- I’m so sorry.

Your husband knew what he was doing.

I would ask him to have my name removed from the tattoo, tbh.

I‘m a creative too. So I do understand it. But we work with what we have so for me that means my work is online. With all the advantages and disadvantages that brings.

Does your uni an AI philosophy/ crit module? I’d do that if I were you to really work out your position on this and make peace with it or build a practice away from AI (may not be possible as you’ll always have to show your work which is online)

I am very intrigued
Could you post a picture of your design and the AI version?
I use AI a lot at work but I use data and presentations so I think it's less emotional.

I can see how this would be hurtful to you but I also see AI as an inevitable tool. It's not going away so how can you use it to your advantage

People always said to me that you learn more at uni than just the content of the course! If you enjoy the course finish it for fun. I completely get your pain from AI theft as I am a computer programmer and AI claims to be going to replace us too. AI isn't very good at computer programming and code generators have been marketed as the end of computer programming several times in the past. They just make a mess quicker.

I'd be fucking furious too, AI is ruining everything and tattooists are fed up of people using it for designs. Honestly, people take the absolute piss.

I would ask him to go back and have your name tattooed over, and make it clear he is NOT to tell people it is your design. Arsehole.

Do I understand right that you are happy to use AI in other parts of life - ie benefiting from other people’s work - but not happy that your husband used AI to adjust a tattoo that he will wear for the rest of his life?

it must be awful for both of you that he is essentially wearing an argument on his body. But respectfully, look at whether you are being a bit double standards about this.

I’m a glass artist. I can spend 40-100 hours working on a new design, cutting, grinding, foiling, soldering. I share a photo online and within days Temu type platforms have stolen my images and are selling plastic replicas for 1/10th the price while the artist is left with r and d costs, materials and struggling sales.

How is that fair? I would be hired in your shoes to op. You offered repeatedly to do any alterations and add the artist you also should get to decide who owns your work. I

I’d request a cover up on your name but. It’s not your design.
100%. I understand what you’re feeling and why. You not wrong to feel like this and you H shouldn’t have done this.

a fucking tattoo too! It’s permanent!

Oh gosh I agree they are totally personal and permanent and I wouldn’t want him having something he is unhappy with. However He actually generated the AI one only a couple of days ago and emailed the tattooist the first generated image he created within 5 minutes of generating it... bizarre!
Tattoo was done yesterday.

I share your concern and skepticism over AI. However, I would just have been clear before he had it done that I did not want my name on AI generated nonsense. Now, the poor chap has it for life and knows you don't like it (whatever you might say after the fact). I do think you should speak up. So you are not being unreasonable to be upset or not like the design/what AI did to it, but you were absolutely being unreasonable in quietly fuming. You need to assert your opinion and rights over your intellectual property - which is also the skill you need to thrive in this world!