AI and the threat to artists
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few months, I’m sure you’ve seen and heard about the rise of AI image generators. Where an algorithm takes bits of media all across the internet and splices tons of data to create images based on word prompts. Dall-2, Novel-AI are a few that come to mind. DeviantArt has dipped their toes into it and Artstation has one as well. This being said, there has been a rise of artists who are deeply threatened by this. As images using their pictures as “references” has been deemed a type of art theft and a breach of policy. DeviantArt itself has been filled with various art that’s AI generated, allowing people to create artwork without the need of commissions, albeit with mixed results.
With the rise of AI generated artwork, there now has become a split in the community. Those that believe that AI is a cool thing that is the future of art and those that believe it is a threat to art and is merely just taking pictures and manipulating them. Not real art. Others find that certain people have been using AI artwork to produce heavily inappropriate images and deep fakes of underaged individuals as well as non-consensual pornographic or erotic images of people. Dall-E 2 was the first big AI generator that floored people with it’s amazing creations, allowing for people to craft images of their wildest imaginations; A Knight riding through a sea of flames down a tunnel of water. Clay Art of a robot walking through a city. A robot guarding a wall of marshmallows in the style of Van Gogh. However as they created this, they knew there would be issues. Deep fakes of violence, lewd images, content not safe for work. There was a danger to this and hence why the makers at Dall-E 2 kept things under wraps and HEAVILY monitored by protections of words and combinations of words that kept people from creating loopholes to create certain images. Never allowing people to create anything more than G rated images. It was only a matter of time before others created their own algorithms and created their own AIs that came with less restrictions and freedom without censorship. Now people are able to create virtually anything they want without any fear of censorship. Anything. Now there are plenty of people crafting various perverted images of whatever they want with little to absolutely no limits. Is this a fault of AI? I would say no. AI is merely a tool. Something that is nothing more than a novelty. Perhaps overtime it will become something more. Is it black and white though? Pornography exists. It’s going to exist. And there’s nothing we can do about it. So what do we do? Do we censor? Do we allow it? Some would say it’s an obvious answer. Yes we should censor it. Or some say that censoring is violation of freedom. Where do we draw the line? Should we full censor everything? Or create leeway? “A woman with large breasts and thick thighs and wide hips, wearing a tight bikini, posing sensually on the water.” Obviously an image will be generated ether anime styled or otherwise of a buxom woman wearing an outfit that will show skin and clearly this is an image meant to entice. It will be something created for lewd purposes.
In my personal opinion the issue comes from what is called image to image. Taking a picture of ether a previously drawn picture or a screenshot from a game, anime, movie, cartoon, and placing it into the generator, adding prompts for the AI to manipulate the image for further generations. Some say that the AI is just taking an image and using it as a reference, much like actual people do. Many artists are inspired by something or someone. Every artist will tell you something or someone that inspired them to draw. Everyone uses a reference, everyone uses something. So is that simply that? Is the AI just using previously designed art as a reference? Some would say that it’s not a reference. As humans can take what they see and add a personal flair to it that makes it their own. Their heart and soul is put onto the paper (or tablet) and even with references, there’s clearly a flavor that they themselves add that AI simply doesn’t have. But is this statement bias? If we take the human brain down to the most simplest common denominator, everything we do is merely just electrical pulses of data flashing from neurons. The images we view are just lights being bent, creating a variety of images and colors. AI works the same way, it takes images, fragments them and creates new images from what already exists. So therefore is the AI allowed to use references as well? Is it unfair for us to say that AI is not allowed to do what we do, simply because it’s not human? One person made a statement saying that if there were no artists, no pictures, no images for the AI to use, it would be unable to create images. So therefore every image it makes is in some way stolen one way or another. - Will AI eventually fall off? It’s very possible. Could AI also become even -more- advanced in it’s image generations? That’s also possible. It’s possible that AI art could replace humans altogether. But it’s also possible that AI can just drop off the face of the earth, vanishing into the pit for whatever the next fad will be. Some artists live on commissions. Not all, but some. These artists need customers to pay their services for them to pay their bills and buy their groceries, to simply live their life. If you were in their position and then suddenly you see this new AI that can create artwork in literally seconds? Art that would take you several days if not weeks to complete? Why would a customer pay 50 - 1200+ on artwork where they could drop 15 or 25 dollars on something that makes good enough art for them for absolutely nothing? Yes for the most part, the art created from AI is filled with flaws, inconsistencies and many errors, but for the person, they see that it’s just for free and if they don’t like it? They can just generate a new one. No waiting. No worrying about extra costs. No fuss. - In conclusion I believe that there is a current misuse of the power of AI right now. People are using it in the way that it was not supposed to be used. The question now is, what do we do now? Do we fully reject AI? Do we allow AI art? Do we ban all AI generated art? Depending on which side of the fence you are, perhaps the answer is easy.
