Screenshot of a Twitch stream by @ato1004fd from October 12, 2022, showing the artist Drawing a character from the video game Genshin Impact.
It’s a scenario that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.
Earlier this month, a popular Korean-language artist who goes by @ato1004fd on Twitch livestreamed an 11-hour sketch session, letting their 22,000 followers watch as they built up an image of a popular character from the video game Genshin Impact.
But by the time @ato1004fd had completed the digital painting, a rogue viewer had already grabbed a picture of the work in process from the stream, used A.I. to “complete” it, and posted their own version to social media—before turning around and accusing @ato1004fd of being the copycat.
“Bro, when you ask your fans to cry about art stealing, [be] reasonable,” the forger wrote. “So you took as reference an AI image but at least admit it.”
A backlash ensued on Twitter where users accused the imposter of gaslighting the original artist. Eventually, the forger deleted their account.