I recently re-created my Portfolio site from college on Wix in case ArtStation turns out to be a lost cause for art-related job seekers and recruiters. The fact that DeviantArt apparently went through the same AI-induced backlash and ArtStation seems to be making the same exact mistakes as DA isn't promising, though, thus this new independent website.

Here is the link:

https://jeffreythrash.wixsite.com/jeffrey-thrash-anim

I plan on using this once the job hunt resumes in January (or possibly even after Christmas, I haven't decided, yet), so constructive criticism on how I can make things as easy as possible for job recruiters is HIGHLY encouraged. I only included my absolute top 4 images I made in the last couple of years and made the size of each as low-res as I could get away with in case of slow Internet speeds on the other person's end (plus, of course, so that if art thieves manage to get these, at least they are getting the lowest-quality versions of my art!). Don't hold back just because you think your feedback might be too hard to implement, Wix websites don't involve any coding so most fixes will be easy to implement.

I'm not quite as worried about AI art taking over at the moment because proponents of the technology are antagonizing the very same artists that make their learning algorithms functions in the first place. I used to be somewhat neutral about AI art until this ArtStation incident, and it seems like the solution to all this would be as simple as properly paying and crediting artists if they choose to "opt-in" to these algorithms, but for some reason the creators of this technology are fighting hard against this and as a result AI art is already getting "samey" as people leave websites like AS and DA and their pool of unwitting or willing artists get smaller and smaller. Even long-lasting, traditional companies like Disney and Dreamworks have to shake up their animation styles every decade or so to stay relevant with audiences, and so will AI art once people stop being so impressed by the shiny new tech. Speaking of stubborn companies like Disney, a lot of people who say that AI has every right to "borrow" from copyrighted images as long it looks kind of new in the final generated image don't seem to understand how copyright law works in the United States. They may be able to steal from small-time Internet artists as conmen have always done since the dawn of the modern Internet, but they are going to be in for a world of hurt once Disney or Paramount's IP lawyers get back from their holiday vacations.

Still, rumor has it that a NSFW fork of Stable Diffusion called Unstable Diffusion has recently received $25 million in funding and specifically plans on using it for scraping ArtStation portfolios for generating porn. Naturally I'm deeply afraid of some employer rejecting me because they found my art style being used for nasty images across the Internet while I'm applying for a job as an animator for Paw Patrol or SpongeBob SquarePants, so this new site I made will be my new portfolio site for now while I'm seriously considering deleting my ArtStation if they don't do much, much more to protect industry portfolios.