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The Annenberg Foundation sends this invite for everyone to Support the recent California fires:

"Join us for an evening of music and solidarity".

The FireAid benefit concert will be held at Intuit Dome and Kia Forum on January 30th dedicated to rebuilding communities that have been devastated by wildfires.

Contributions made to FireAid in connection with the FireAid benefit concert and other direct donations will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and will be distributed for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.

The Annenberg Foundation, with decades of philanthropic leadership in our community, including rapid response, will help coordinate a team to direct funds for the greatest impact.

BENEFIT CONCERT -
- Two (2) venues. (1) KIA Forum (2) INTUIT Dome located at Inglewood, CA
- One night.
- Your favorite artists coming together for music & solidarity.
- Shows start at 6pm.
- Tickets go on sale January 22nd at noon. NO PRE- SALE
- Tickets are only valid for the venue that you selected when you purchased your ticket(s). They are not valid for both venues.

**I can’t attend the event, is there somewhere I can watch it?
Yes! FireAid Will be Broadcast by Select AMC Theatres, Apple Music and the Apple TV App, Max, iHeartRadio, KTLA+, Netflix/Tudom, Paramount+, Prime Video and the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch, SiriusXM, Spotify, SoundCloud, Veeps, and YouTube

Stay tuned for more artist announcements in the coming days.

This Veterans Day, we pause to honor those who answered the call to protect our country—the brave souls who faced the unimaginable, often carrying the weight of war long after they returned home.

They are our brothers, fathers, husbands, friends, and family members. Many have endured unspeakable pain and continue to battle invisible scars, a silent testament to the heavy cost of freedom.

We remember those who tragically lost their lives not only in combat but also in the quiet aftermath, struggling with wounds we could not see but that were no less real.

Their sacrifices, along with those of their families, remind us every day that our freedom has been dearly bought.

Today, let us honor them with gratitude, compassion, and a commitment to support all who serve, both seen and unseen.
I invite everyone to view this enclosed video from Thomas J. Brennan about the available Resources to Help Our Veterans.

🎥 https://youtu.be/YJi-sQGZ_5E?si=vwsOQC0E94R8uKNM
☞ Website: https://thewarhorse.org/

#ThomasJBrennan #Veterans #Journalism


As of the most recent data, Veteran suicide remains a significant concern in the United States. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reports approximately 6,146 Veteran suicides in 2020, marking a slight decrease from previous years.

Despite some progress, rates remain higher than among the non-Veteran population. Overall, from 2001 to 2021, the Veteran suicide rate generally increased, peaking in 2018 with 6,718 suicides before seeing small annual declines through 2021. The VA’s comprehensive 2023 Annual Report continues to analyze this trend, focusing on strategies that promote Veteran well-being, such as the Veterans Crisis Line and expanded access to emergency mental health care.

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RIP CSB ❤️ Our eternal gratitude for your service to our Country 🇺🇸

Photo: Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) is a national memorial located in Arlington Ridge Park in Arlington County, Virginia. The memorial was dedicated in 1954 to all Marines who have given their lives in defense of the United States since 1775.

🚨 "Attention, Artists! 🎨✨
Every dollar you donate goes directly to World Central Kitchen—NO money goes to anyone else!

🌍❤️ Let’s unite to feed those in need and show the power of our creative community. Your contribution matters!
Together, we can make a real impact!

💪 #ArtistsForChange #FeedTheHungry"

📢 No funds are diverted; this is about feeding those in desperate need.
Let’s show how art can illuminate the path to compassion and change!

Join us in this heartfelt mission! 🎉❤️"

By Donating directly into their Website
🆘 Check out World Central Kitchen!

Discover our art that shines in the dark! This spectacular Cosmic Skull, surrounded by planets and vibrant colors, not only adds excitement to your Halloween decor but also supports survivors of Hurricane Helene. #Artists4Helene

Donate to the World Central Kitchen WCK at https://donate.wck.org/fundraiser/5854198

-- Proceeds from the sale of any merchandise will be donated to the World Central Kitchen. WCK

With orange eyeballs, fluorescent teeth, and a neon blue glow, it will be the center of attention!

👻Find here: https://rafaelsalazar.com/featured/glowing-in-the-universe-rafael-salazar.html

#buyintoart #halloween #hurricane #spooky #artsy #cosmic #skull #Artists4Helene #WorldCentralKitchen @WCK

As we celebrate the National Hispanic Heritage Month, it's important to honor the legacy of one of the most iconic Latin American artists of our time, Fernando Botero.

Known for his signature style, *Boterismo*, Botero transformed the art world by reimagining form, volume, and space. His work, characterized by exaggerated, voluptuous figures, invites us to see beauty, humor, and critique in every curve.

Born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1932, Botero's journey from a young boy captivated by bullfighting to an internationally renowned painter and sculptor is a testament to the power of passion and perseverance.
His works, while playful on the surface, often carry deep political and social commentary, reflecting his observations on power, history, and the human condition.

Botero’s impact transcends borders and generations. His larger-than-life sculptures adorn public spaces across the globe, while his paintings have found homes in the world’s most prestigious galleries and museums. Through his art, Botero not only showcased the vibrancy of Latin American culture but also challenged viewers to rethink conventional ideas about beauty and representation.

As we pay tribute to Botero during this National Hispanic Heritage Month, let us celebrate not only his artistic contributions but also the way his work connects us to a rich cultural legacy. His art invites us to reflect on our own perspectives and reminds us of the importance of seeing the world through a lens of humor, humanity, and compassion.

- Find more about his amazing artworks at https://rafaelsalazar.io/blogs/news/hispanic-heritage-month-tribute-to-colombian-artists

Image source: Colombian artist Fernando Botero poses on July 6, 2012 next to one of his sculptures in Santo Augustino's Church in Pietrasanta, Tuscany, prior to the opening of an exhibition. Gabriel Bouys / AFPVia Getty Images
USA Today (2023) World-renowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero just died. Look through his most iconic art.
Article by Amanda Lee Myers - Published Sept 18, 2023

I found this article, which I believe is very important to share in today's world as the use of ChatGPT and AI is so prevalent in every industry.

The more we know how to deal with it, the better we can use it for our benefit or to avoid misusing and get penalized by the Search Engines for doing so.

--I show in its entirety as the author posted it for sharing. Hope you find it helpful!

🌟Artificial intelligence has become an everyday tool for writers, students, and businesses. However, there’s a hidden problem: AI-generated content can easily be detected. There are many AI detectors, from Turnitin to GPTZero, that can sniff out text written by ChatGPT within seconds. Hence, if you rely on ChatGPT to create content, you’re risking detection and penalties. Fortunately, there are many easy-to-use solutions. There are many humanizers that can humanize any AI or ChatGPT-generated text.

The Zero Art Fair's somewhat revolutionary approach was met with a lot of interest upon launching.

Upstate Art Weekend, the annual summer series celebrating arts and culture of the region north of New York City, has grown exceptionally since it began in 2020 and for the 2024 edition welcomed more than 140 participants including galleries, museums, artist residencies and studios. This year’s iteration brought something new—the Zero Art Fair. Tucked away in a barn in Elizaville, New York, the Zero Art Fair debuted on Friday 19 July to overwhelming support while touting a slightly revelatory approach to the traditional art fair model.

The brainchild of artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, the fair allowed visitors to take home one available work per day for free—with a catch. Works were transferred at the fair to visitors with a contract that puts the pieces on a five-year vesting schedule. After that time has passed, the work will be owned by the person who took it home. But until then, the contract allows the artist rights to their work that they usually have after an art fair, including the ability to sell the work, borrow it for an exhibition and under certain scenarios even request for its return.

In the case of another interested buyer, the contract gives the borrower right of first refusal and a prorated discount on the retail price set by the artist based on the vesting schedule. If the person who took the work home from the Zero Art Fair decides to sell the work after it comes into their possession, the contract also states the artist will receive 50% of the sale price of the first sale, and 10% royalties in perpetuity on subsequent resales. If the work is sold or changes hands, the contract stipulates the owner of the work will inform the artist.

By Matt Growcoot - Article from PetaPixel June 12, 2024

A photographer has been disqualified from a picture competition after his real photograph won in the AI image category.

“I wanted to show that nature can still beat the machine and that there is still merit in real work from real creatives,” Astray tells PetaPixel over email.
“After seeing recent instances of AI-generated imagery beating actual photos in competitions, I started thinking about turning the story and its implications around by submitting a real photo into an AI competition.”

The color photography contest is judged by people who work for The New York Times, Getty Images, Phaidon Press, Christie’s, and Maddox Gallery, among others. None could apparently tell that Astray’s photo was real.

The 1839 color photography contest has numerous categories with AI being unusual as it is the only one that is not camera-based. The rest are more familiar photography subgenres such as “Architecture”, “Still Life”, and “Film/Analog.”

In an email to PetaPixel, the competition’s organizers said that while it appreciates Astray’s “powerful message”, his entry has been disqualified in consideration for the other artists.

“Our contest categories are specifically defined to ensure fairness and clarity for all participants,” says a spokesperson.

“Each category has distinct criteria that entrants’ images must meet. His submission did not meet the requirements for the AI-generated image category. We understand that was the point, but we don’t want to prevent other artists from their shot at winning in the AI category.

“We hope this will bring awareness (and a message of hope) to other photographers worried about AI.”

To read all and more from PetaPixel : https://petapixel.com/2024/06/12/photographer-disqualified-from-ai-image-contest-after-winning-with-real-photo/

I recently came across this news article on Mashable, which I found to be relevant to all especially for us Artists and public in general.

An Eye Opener for sure available later this week.

I invite all to read & if you'd like to share your thoughts on this blog or my Flipboard Magazine on Artificial Intelligence, you are welcome to do so @ https://flipboard.com/@rafael_salazars/artificial-intelligence-ai-tas815ioz

#artificialintelligence #ai #technology #computerscience #chatgpt #openai

Here is a sample of it. - Mashable by Chase DiBenedetto - image by Credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

➡️ Uh-oh, X's Grok AI can now 'understand' images

New "Vision" Grok will be available to testers and select users.

Elon Musk's AI chatbot can now "understand" images, including information-riddled diagrams and charts. Sorry, doesn't everyone use the platform once known as Twitter for multi-disciplinary research and optimizing their work flows??

Introduced as Grok-1.5V — Or Grok 1.5 "Vision," the company's "first-generation multimodal model" — the bot will be able to not only respond to your uploaded pictures and screenshots but also reason through complex documents, science diagrams, charts, screenshots, and photographs, the company says. Additionally, Grok-1.5V will gain "real-world spatial understanding" to better understand the physical world depicted in the images uploaded by its users.

"Advancing both our multimodal understanding and generation capabilities are important steps in building beneficial AGI that can understand the universe," the company wrote in its' announcement. "In the coming months, we anticipate to make significant improvements in both capabilities, across various modalities such as images, audio, and video."

🧐SEE ALSO: If you're a paying X user, Elon Musk wants his Grok AI to write your posts for you, report says

Source: Mashable by Chase DiBenedetto - image by Credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Artists now have a new digital tool they can use in the event their work is scraped without permission by an AI training set.

The tool, called Nightshade, enables artists to add invisible pixels to their art prior to being uploaded online. These data samples “poison” the massive image sets used to train AI image-generators such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, destabilizing their outputs in chaotic and unexpected ways as well as disabling “its ability to generate useful images”, reports MIT Technology Review.

For example, poisoned data samples can manipulate AI image-generating models into incorrectly believing that images of fantasy art are examples of pointillism, or images of Cubism are Japanese-style anime. The poisoned data is very difficult to remove, as it requires tech companies to painstakingly find and delete each corrupted sample.

We assert that Nightshade can provide a powerful tool for content owners to protect their intellectual property against model trainers that disregard or ignore copyright notices, do-not-scrape/crawl directives, and opt-out lists,” the researchers from the University of Chicago wrote in their report, led by professor Ben Zhao. “Movie studios, book publishers, game producers and individual artists can use systems like Nightshade to provide a strong disincentive against unauthorized data training.”

Nightshade could tip the balance of power back from AI companies towards artists and become a powerful deterrent against disrespecting artists’ copyright and intellectual property, Zhao told MIT Technology Review, which first reported on the research.

According to the research report, the researchers tested Nightshade on Stable Diffusion’s latest models and on an AI model they trained themselves from scratch. After they fed Stable Diffusion just 50 poisoned images of cars and then prompted it to create images of the vehicles, the usability of the output dropped to 20%. After 300 poisoned image samples, an attacker using the Nightshade tool can manipulate Stable Diffusion to generate images of cars to look like cows.

Prior to Nightshade, Zhao’s research team also received significant attention for Glaze, a tool which disrupts the ability for AI image generators to scrape images and mimic a specific artist’s personal style. The tool works in a similar manner to Nightshade through a subtle change in the pixels of images that results in the manipulation of machine-learning models.

Read All at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/new-data-poisoning-tool-enables-artists-to-fight-back-against-image-generating-ai-companies-1234684663/

By Karen K. Ho / 10/2023 ArtNews