IT IS TIME TO DEFY AI ART

The emergence of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has signaled a drastic shift in the way many industries function. In a creative industry such as art, the negative effects of this powerful technology are expansive, frightening and near-inevitable. From casual portraits generated on Lensa to award-winning paintings created with Midjourney, AI art has become increasingly entrenched in the mainstream over the past few months. AI art may appear attractive in its limitless possibilities, but it is precisely that quality which makes it dangerous.

Even if AI generated art is visually appealing at first glance, it is impossible to consider it as fair and original work. AI models in general require massive amounts of data points to learn from. In the case of AI art generators, these data points are human-made art, like the billions of images collected by German company LAION that trains models like DALL-E (Los Angeles Times). The fact that these “creations” are purely ripped off of other peoples’ art, whose creators oftentimes did not consent for their work to be used as data, renders them as soulless theft. While artists certainly draw inspiration from various sources, they also add their own original ideas and styles. This important step is what progresses the evolution of art, makes the art the new artist’s own and prevents it from merely being plagiarism. It is also a step that is unable to be done by AI models.

Beyond the fundamentally unethical methods of AI art generators, they are also a powerful tool with nasty potential consequences. They compete with human artists for opportunities; there has been an increased trend of AI art winning art competitions, being published in magazines and displayed in galleries. Not only is this morally questionable, but it will come with the inevitable consequence of human artists being hyper-scrutinized and students being placed under intense regulations. Moreover, AI will always reflect the biases of those who made it and the source material it draws from. The internet’s sexualization of young girls has been reflected in the art generated by AI machines.

Proponents that equate AI art generators to any other industry where technology has replaced human workers miss the entire point of art. The beauty of art comes not purely from its aesthetic appeal, but from the process of creation and emotional nuances. Art is not like other industries where mass production is necessary and betters society; the value of art is not to produce the most of it, or necessarily the best. Rather, art is how people express themselves and interpret the world around them. By disregarding the value of the artistic process, AI contributes to the dehumanizing commercialization of art. Art is a culmination of the artist’s lived experience, evolution of style and time. The value of art comes from the fact that it is created by humans—human storytelling and expression. Creating art with AI is therefore a blatant contradiction of that ideal. It may be too late to limit corporate development of AI art, but platforms such as DeviantArt have protections in place to block third-party data scrapers and the media company Getty Images has banned AI art entirely. Individuals can reduce their personal impact by not monetizing art created with AI and being transparent if they choose to do so.