Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to support humanity’s creative endeavours, but it currently paints a dangerous risk to the artistic world.
Over the last year, public conversation over AI has grown thanks to services like ChatGPT. The explosive popularity of image-generating programs like DALL•E mini contributed to this growth by allowing anyone with an Internet connection and access to the site to prompt computer-generated images of any concept they might dream up. This idea has since expanded into programs able to create fully-fledged pieces of art, even capable of representing a variety of artistic styles and mediums.
This is a mind-blowing idea. The ability to think up any phrase and have the near-instant generation of a never-before-seen piece of art has never been historically possible. Image generators could eventually be used to benefit humanity by supporting the creative process – the possibilities are truly limitless. If nothing else, it can be fun to sit down and see a few silly concepts come to life on screen.
But when AI is used immorally, it puts human creativity at risk – something we’ve already begun to see.
While the art created by AI might be original in the sense that the final product has never been seen before, it can’t create images from nothing. In order to bring words to life, AI first needs to understand what those words mean, and it does so by quickly scanning thousands of pre-existing images to derive its understanding of different concepts.
This makes sense when creating a new design. For example, if one entered “an avocado armchair” into a program like DALL•E mini, the program would first need to scan images of various chairs and avocados respectively before it could begin to generate an image that would fulfil the user’s request.
However, as things currently stand, this is dangerous for artists. If a user requests a piece of art depicting a certain subject in a specific style, the AI must first scan through human artists’ pre-existing work to combine them together into something new. In other words, AI isn’t creating these works itself, it’s using the uncredited work of human artists to essentially create an elaborate collage.
When humans rip off others’ work and don’t provide credit, they often get criticized for it (and rightfully so), so why should AI be treated any differently? Without the thousands of years’ worth of human art that has wound up online, AI would have nothing to construct its projects from, and this type of generation couldn’t exist.
Worse yet, there is no way for a human artist to know that their work has been used by AI. The “inspiration” taken from their work might be so minor within a generated piece that there would never be any way for the artist to tell that their work directly contributed to the final product.
Add in the fact that there have been auctions on AI art with the most expensive reaching $432,000 USD and the problem worsens. This art, while impressive from a technological standpoint, is now being sold without credit or payment to the original artists who made the work possible.
I would argue that this has become a form of artistic plagiarism. Again, if a human being were to ever create artwork solely by combining the works of others without giving credit – and then gain substantial profits from it – there would be public outcry. But because of AI’s novel and technological nature, many seem to give it a free pass for the same offence.
AI art isn’t just stealing from artists, however; it’s beginning to actively intrude upon spaces where artists should be allowed to express themselves. AI art has begun appearing in art galleries, with a museum in Amsterdam devoted entirely to AI art.
AI art has even won art competitions against human artists. In cases like these, generated art composed of humanity’s work seems to be earning more recognition than people who are adding to the pool of content that AI will eventually steal from.
In these examples, we see warning signs that AI may end up taking the place of human artists, and it begins by stealing their opportunities and recognition.
While AI art has received a lot of backlash within the artistic community, many continue to consider it an exciting entry into the world of art. This intrusion is propelled even further by those who discredit human artists in the process, such as Adam Hencz of Artland Magazine, who claims that “AI seems to understand the secrets of artistic genius better than we do ourselves.” This statement is especially ironic considering the “artistic genius” that AI supposedly knows so much about can only exist because of the original art that humanity has created throughout history.
This mentality isn’t just ignorant, it’s actively dangerous to artists, who deserve credit for their work and recognition in the industry. This is similar to the concern that automated computers such as self-checkouts are taking human jobs – the concern that artists are being pushed out of their own space and having their own work plagiarized and used against them is completely legitimate.
As aforementioned, there are methods through which AI could be integrated into society in a way that benefits humanity. For this to happen, AI would need to support the creative process rather than take charge of it. For example, product designers could use AI to create an early visualization of a potential concept and then work on bringing the final version to life. Architects might eventually use AI to illustrate potential ideas before beginning an original draft. Even artists may want to use AI for creative inspiration before beginning work on their own piece, using technology in a way similar to an artistic muse.
In each of these examples, AI is used as a creative companion to support humanity’s creative work. But when an image is simply generated as a final piece and then a computer program is left to receive the recognition and accolades, it doesn’t support creative minds – it makes an attempt to replace them.
Using AI for image generation has potential to change the way humanity interacts with technology, but if it doesn’t start being used constructively, it poses a threat to the future of human creativity.