By Grace Miron Dominguez
Stratford High School
Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, all of these people are some of the most famous artists of all time. Their work is absolutely stunning, but their talent didn’t just magically show up. Becoming an artist takes years and years of hard work, but once you finally get it, everything changes. However, many artists around the world who have gone through this tedious process have fallen victim to the issues caused by Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated art.
Artificial intelligence art is any artwork created through the use of artificial intelligence programs such as text-to-image models and musical generators. Some of the articles and videos I have seen about AI art described things like breaking copyright laws, and endangering the art profession. After watching some videos and doing some research on the topic, I believe that AI generated art is a bad thing and will have a bad effect on the art community and the future of humanity as robots and technology continue to evolve.
AI generated art is something that does in fact endanger the art profession. Many artists have come forward, claiming that their work was stolen and used for AI generated art including artist Lauren Ipsum. She claims that elements such as color, brushstrokes, textures, and individual styles were taken from artists such as herself without her consent, credit or pay. Actual artists describe art as a recipe that never comes out the same each time, because all art is unique and different. When an AI art generator takes work from other people and disguises it as its own, it’s like taking an ingredient from each artist who has spent years finding their own style. Artists have powerful voices, they have the ability to send messages and make change in the world, but we take that ability away when we make computers smarter. If the work of artists keeps getting stolen, people aren’t going to want to keep making the art. We are going to lose one of the most beautiful things in the world, because people want to give computers more power.
Copyright laws give the owner exclusive rights to copy, distribute, adapt, and display their work. Artificial intelligence is the power of a machine to copy intelligent human behavior. It is in the definition of artificial intelligence that its main function is to copy things, which directly violates copyright laws. It’s up to humans to tell it what to copy and we have the ability to stop AI generated art. Some artists compare the artificial intelligence behind avatars to a bandit-baker. A regular baker buys the ingredients, a bandit-baker steals the ingredients and then bakes and sells the bread for a profit.
Artificial intelligence was made to copy everything it’s told to, so how can it be proven that it doesn’t break copyright laws when it does everything copyright laws try to prevent. An anonymous artist says “Why does this machine have access to my work without my permission? And how can companies be making money off my art without my consent?” So how can the argument be made that AI art falls within the restrictions of copyright when it clearly goes against it. Every example I´ve shown of artists claiming their work was stolen proves that AI doesn ‘t care about consent or credit, and directly violates copyright laws.
AI generated art continues to affect the art community in a negative way. Artists dedicate their whole lives to their craft, they spend years figuring out what their style is and even after that, there is not a guaranteed job for them despite all of the work put into it. People think that AI generated art is harmless and will be a great thing for our planet, but it has already made the art community a harder place for artists to work.
Soon, there won’t be people to work in the industry anymore, and we will lose something that brings the world so much joy. It ruins an artist’s pride to see their work be stolen and have credit not be given, because that’s what AI generated art does. It directly violates copyright laws and discourages artists from continuing to enter the industry because who would want to put in all of the effort of making beautiful art only for it to be stolen.
In the future, if the world were controlled by computers and everyone were to wonder why the world got so corrupted by technology, they would realize that we had the opportunity to stop it and did nothing. We can stop it now before it’s too late.
