The Art subreddit on Reddit has permanently banned on artist solely because their style looks similar to AI art, or at least that’s what one mod thinks.

The artist who goes by the handle benmoran_artist submitted his painting “A Muse in Warzone” to the subreddit of over twenty-two million members before being banned.

The unnamed moderator on the art subreddit explained their decision to ban the artist through the site’s anonymous modmail:

I don’t believe you. Even if you did “paint” it yourself, it’s so obviously an AI-prompted design that it doesn’t matter. If you really are a “serious” artist, then you need to find a different style, because A) no one is going to believe when you say it’s not AI, and B) the AI can do better in seconds what might take you hours.
Sorry, it’s the way of the world.

Most shocking here is the Art subreddit’s flippant response regarding the artist’s style. They go as far as to say that even if the art wasn’t AI generated, that the artist should change their style because of the similarities.

Since the artist went public about his ban, Reddit users have reported being similarly banned for publicly questioning the decision or even memeing about it. One user reported using the phrase “sorry, it’s the way of the world” and catching a ban, presumably from the same moderator.

AI art has been a point of contention ever since it became readily available to most consumers. Projects like Novel AI, Stable Diffusion, and more have put the potential to generate artwork based off simple written prompts in the hands of anyone (even us!).

At the time of writing, the mod staff at the Art subreddit has yet to make a public comment about the seemingly erroneous ban. In the meantime you can see the full picture on r/drawing.

This is Niche Gamer Tech. In this column, we regularly cover tech and things related to the tech industry.