One hundred years ago, the creation of art would have taken hours with a paintbrush, or months of putting pen to paper, even years of learning to play an instrument and then later composing a piece of music. Now, we can type Dall-E 2 or Midjourney into a search engine and produce AI generated art in a matter of seconds. This raises all sorts of questions as we are forced to consider whether this is really, truly art or not. Moreover, does this ease of production cheapen and subsequently disrespect the creatives who have spent their lives mastering their craft. Or, contrastingly, do the often flawed AI creations even pose a threat to human, artistic talent.
Some of the most known AI platforms which are recognised for art production are Dall-E 2, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. Some individuals are welcoming these, such as Cosmopolitan Magazine who published the first ever AI generated cover in June, but others fear the repercussions of this technology.
AI seeks its training from huge data sets across the internet. This facilitates AI in producing rather specific images when users of the plug in ‘create a drawing of …. in the style of Picasso’. During an interview, Greg Rutkowski, a digital artist often commissioned to create video game art, highlighted how his actual work is now being lost in a sea of Rutkowski-inspired art by AI. Many have criticised this way of training, with it being referred to as “money laundering for copyrighted data.”
These concerns translate to the music industry, as a lawsuit brought by The Recording Industry Association of America raised serious concerns. The appellants stated that the oversaturation of the market cheapens the content of the industry, as it manages to ‘drown out’ original works.
Moreover, whilst AI could be cheapening work principally, it could be doing it literally too. Earlier this year, the FBI arrested an individual in the US. He has been accused of running a complex fraud scheme whereby AI software was used to create hundreds of thousands of songs. From here, he used bots to stream them billions of time which ultimately produced royalties of over $1.2 million per year. Royalty payments are in place to reward the endeavours of artists. Therefore, when AI facilitates theft from the funds which legitimate creatives are paid from, it is another strike against these platforms.
Nevertheless, some believe that AI will never have the facilities to create true art. This is because they believe that whilst we may struggle to provide a definition for art, we know it to be contained by many choices. In the example provided by The New Yorker, an author must make a choice about almost every word that they type. Similarly for an artist, who may have to contemplate every brush stroke on their canvas, or a composer, who will deliberate how long to hold each specific note. These examples show that true art cannot be produced with the click of a button and returned within two seconds. Instead, art is an expression of the artist’s history, a ‘communication between them and their audience’, their personality and their experience. So, whilst Dall-E 2 and Midjourney may possess some intelligent features, these are qualities which cannot be coded.
Undoubtedly, Artificial Intelligence definitely poses a threat to artists. Whether that be through the pinching of their work for training and inspiration, or through their income via facilitation of royalty fraud schemes, these platforms are creating a space of lawlessness. Though, it is an interesting point raised by The New Yorker that art is an inherently human creation.
Whilst this is an agreeable stance, we must also acknowledge that artists produce art for income too. So even if these platforms cannot produce true, high-level art, they can replicate something which has the ability to interfere with wages. Of course, passion fuels the desire to create beautiful art but artistry wouldn’t be a viable career if people couldn’t make a living. Income can be challenging enough to come by as an artist, so as AI proves to be the most difficult competition yet, we must be watchful to not underestimate the naïve, yet powerful art generating AI platforms.
GRACE CARTY
Featured image courtesy of Jade Stephens on Unsplash Image use license found here . No changes were made to this image.
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