By Riley Buyskes
Stratford High School
AI art has stirred big controversies with its uprise in output of systems, it is quickly gaining traction in the art community. Software with the ability to mimic that of human creativity to create pieces of artwork from a simple prompt, its capabilities are advanced enough to possibly replace human artists. And although some artists are learning to adapt and work with AI, the majority of artists’ reactions to the risk of unemployment is uneasy to say the least.
The programmed AI the DALL-E 2 created by Elon Musk is seemingly the most well known and used artificial intelligence, being used to make children’s picture books, music videos, and magazine covers by numerous companies and people because it reduces the price of labor to create such things. Because of this influx in popularity, it is catching the eyes of those who work in the art industry and whose occupations are the ones being put at risk when these companies give the positions to AI, and some don’t even blame them.
The invention of AI which can create seamless, near perfect compositions which can also be produced in a much more timely manner than human skill, makes the production of things like album covers or picture books so much easier, and some artists say that they are simply just glad that their livelihoods aren’t tied to certain artistic occupations which are currently the most at risk.
The use of AI is reducing the quality of labor and the purpose of creative talent. By it being so popularly used now to replace the creativity of the human brain, it is therefore reducing the purpose of human intelligence overall. The people who are using artificial intelligence created artwork to create a composition that is supposed to create the same response in the human brain upon viewing as human created artwork is, like submitting AI art to art competitions or exhibits are embracing lazy thinking in their own minds, and are not using their own creativity in any way when they create such pieces.
Another reason for artists being angry at the use of AI artwork is that the art being produced by AI art is not original. There have been accounts of artistic techniques which human artists have developed and created being stolen by AI and incorporated into its generated work. Artists are furious of the unauthenticity and borderline plagiarism which has been getting AI so far in the art industry. There have even been generated artwork which attempted to mimic the watermarks from live artists, making the theft at play extremely obvious.
An artist by the name of RJ Palmer even described AI as “anti-artists.” The frustrations of artists has stirred the question of whether AI is violating copyright laws at this point, and in some circumstances the signs of stealing are so clear that that truly seems plausible.
A lot of what is wrong with AI actually has a lot to do with how it is being used. The humans who are using AI at the moment are using them as a replacement for the human intelligence and to replace workers to reduce pay, but AI could truly be used for much more if it was being utilized properly; to enhance human thought. AI at the moment is only being used to cheat at life, and to cheat others out of life because it is affecting all working class humans and especially creatives.
