We’ve talked a lot about the controversial sides of artificial image generation in the previous posts of my AI Art vs. Human Art series. I started the series by looking into whether AI art can be considered real art and whether the ethical concerns are justified. The following posts considered the implications of AI art, discussing whether AI art is stealing from artists and whether it is a threat to the art industry.
Last but not least, we’ve learned about the different opinions artists have about AI art and the reasons why artists are against generative art.
So let's conclude this series on a positive note. How can AI art help artists, and how can we use it in a responsible and ethical way that benefits all of us?
2022 was the year that brought image generation technology to the masses. We’ve seen a plethora of AI art generators emerge that allow users to create new images from text or from a photo they upload. Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, Google Imagen, and Lensa are probably some of the names you have heard along the line.
As those text-to-image generators became more widespread, the minds of people became more divided on the topic. Some love AI art, others hate it. Some predict that AI art is the end of artists, while others consider it the magic tool to “democratize access” to art-making, as Andrey Usoltsev, CEO of the company behind the Lensa app, puts it.
What about the ones most affected by AI art – the artists themselves. What does AI art mean for artists? Is it blessing or curse, friend or foe?
Before we delve into whether AI helps enhance creativity or rather negatively impacts art, design and culture, let’s quickly look at how AI art actually works.
How does AI art work?
The process of generating artificial images is pretty simple. All you need to do is type in some words that describe the picture you want to create. A few seconds later, the tool will return a range of visual creations that (most of the time) correspond to your text input. Yes, it’s really that simple.
You’ll be amazed at the complexity and the speed artificial intelligence comes up with aesthetically pleasing output! The first ever AI image that I created on my free Midjourney trial was already ‘good enough’ to use it as background in this surreal artwork of mine.
Because image generation is so easy that virtually everyone can do it without any artistic skills, many people feel that AI art is not really art. You can read more about the arguments and counter-arguments around the ‘AI art is not real art’ debate in my first post of the series.
So much about the workings of image generation systems. But what are actually the implications of AI art for artists?
What does AI art mean for artist?
When the possibility to create AI art reached the mainstream in mid-2022, many artists experienced its negative impact. In fact, there’s a lot of controversy around image generation. Let’s start with the beginning.
Have you ever wondered how artificial intelligence is actually able to generate new images? Before any artificial art generator can ever create a single new artwork, it must have been fed with the artworks of humans. All image synthesis models (ISMs) rely on huge databases that have been trained with billions of images.
Those images come from sites like DeviantArt, ArtStation, Getty Images, Pinterest, and any other publicly available source. They include the famous works of long-dead artists as well as the pieces of contemporary artists – any most likely every picture that anybody has ever uploaded to the web. All images were taken without permission and proper attribution to the authors.
Even though generative AI never replicates any particular artwork, the sourcing process alone is enough for artists to raise ethical concerns, and some even accused AI of stealing from artists.
There’s another point of contention. AI systems make it incredibly easy to imitate the particular style of any artist that has ever lived. That means anyone can generate dozens of images, for example in Picasso’s style, in just a matter of minutes.
As image generators also allow you to imitate the style of living artists, many creatives have seen their styles being copied and feel that AI art is a threat to their reputation and livelihoods. Used in that way, AI art does not help artists, but adds to their struggles.
Are you worried about your creative future with all the machine-made imagery swallowing up the market?
Worry not, AI art is not better than human art, and you don’t have to stand back and watch all your hard work get lost in the flood of artificial mass production. You can do something about it. Start now and learn how to promote your art when AI is the end of artists (supposedly)!
How does AI help enhance creativity?
But AI art is not all negative. RJ Palmer, a California-based movie and game concept artist, believes that “there are tremendous benefits to the tech for artists as well, which is part of why it’s such a headache.”
To help enhance creativity, visual and other artists can use image generation systems to gather ideas and inspiration, and experiment with preliminary designs to later mold them into a final product. Sculptor Benjamin Von Wong, for example, works with DALL-E to explore ideas that he uses to model his sculptures. He believes that artificial neural networks increase his productivity.
In other words, AI art might save artists a lot of time and energy doing the legwork. In fact, a recent study found that artificial intelligence in its current form is a great tool for artists to enhance creativity. AI-generated images may be a great starting point to select ideas that the artist can then craft out further.
Moreover, AI tools can also make art-making accessible to people who were previously unable to express themselves creatively, due to physical handicaps.
But so far, there is no consensus on the ethics of generating AI art.
Apart from establishing appropriate copyright regulations, we need to find means to prevent AI from being used in unethical ways. Like any other creative tool, AI art carries the risk of misuse, theft, and plagiarism.
How can we use AI art in an ethical way that benefits all of us?
In the previous posts of this series, we’ve talked a lot about the negative impact of AI art. As it stands, image generation is yet another one of these new technologies that have been thrown in the market without thinking of the consequences.
Unfortunately, most people are not able to discern what should be done with AI and what not. As most AI users have never been artists themselves, they are not aware of the implications their creations have on the art world. While passed artists like Picasso or van Gogh cannot speak up against all the new pieces recreated in their style, contemporary artists have expressed concerns.
Greg Rutkowski, for example, is a fantasy landscape illustrator whose name has been used more often than Picasso’s on Stable Diffusion to generate artwork in his style. “Right now, when you type in my name, you see more work from the AI than work that I have done myself, which is terrifying for me,” he says.
Mateusz Urbanowicz, a watercolor and digital painter, also feels that the new technology exploits his work. “If you type in my name in a prompt to make a new piece of art, it’s forcing the AI to make art that I don’t want to make.”
In order for AI to help enhance creativity and benefit artists and non-artists alike, the following ethical rules should be applied:
In my opinion, that could mean the following:
- AI systems should not allow users to replicate the styles of particular artists, whether dead or alive.
- AI systems should restrict users from recreating celebrities and other public figures, or even prevent them from doing so completely.
- AI-generated pieces should be clearly labeled as such.
- (If at all) AI art should get its own category on art sharing sites, competitions, etc., because it requires a skillset entirely different from digital arts.
Some AI image generation platforms have already implemented measures to prevent users from creating offensive and misleading content. Those measures include banning the use certain words and restricting the generation of celebrity faces. Which is a good thing.
However, I still see a big problem with art sharing sites. ArtStation has already announced that it doesn’t have any plans banning AI art from their platform, and I believe other sharing sites won’t either. At the time of writing this post, no site has yet set up a special category for AI-generated images.
As a consequence, AI users upload their images to the regular digital art categories, jamming the sites with thousands of artificial images that also get featured on the main pages. The ‘man-made’ works of human creators get buried under the sheer mass of artificial pieces, which is admittedly unfair. With a new category for AI art, art sharing sites should make sure that an equal number of artworks from all categories are features on the main page.
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How can AI art help artists?
So is there any possibility to use AI art in an ethical way that can help artists and non-artists alike?
Most artists, including myself, agree that image generators can serve us as a source of inspiration. The generated images can be the starting point for more.
“For me personally, I could see myself utilizing AI-generated imagery for initial visual references and inspiration,” says Karla Ortiz, an illustrator who has worked for Ubisoft, Marvel and HBO.
Showkot Shawon, artist, painter and illustrator, shares the same view. “I think the images produced by DALL-E are very beautiful. And it will help artists and creative people. It creates a new scope for them to think, speculate and play with ideas.”
“Having it come up with loose compositions, color patterns, lighting, etc. can all be very cool for getting inspiration,” RJ Palmer adds.
“I think AI could be used in a similar way to how the Lasso tool in Photoshop is used today,” says Jodie Cai. “You could use DALL-E to generate a new scene, crop that scene into a painting you’re working on, and make some changes to add it in as a background.”
This is also where I see the potential benefits of generative AI art.
I cannot cotton up to the fact that AI relies on the images that it took from anyone and everyone, without respecting copyrights and giving attribution. Another thing that I don’t like about image generation is that it allows copying specific artistic styles. Though that’s entirely up to the user. As the saying goes, in the right hands, everything can be a tool.
Since AI is not going to leave any time soon, we should make the best of it. We should use it in a way that actually benefits us. Instead of handing over all our creativity and skill to a machine, we should draw on AI to nurture our natural creativity and advance our acquired artistic skillset.
I personally find it hard to consider AI art as real art. It is too easy to create and lacks the components indispensable for real artwork. However, where I could see the benefits in AI art is by using it as inspiration, reference, and perhaps as part in an otherwise human-made creation.
That being said, let's wrap up this post on a positive note. AI art will not kill human art, on the contrary.
The way Cansu Canca, founder and director of the AI Ethics Lab, sees the future of human art is that “it could even become more valuable. You could imagine human art being this artifact that is hard to find and even highly priced, whereas computer-generated art would be not so highly valued.”
Here we are at the end of my AI Art vs. Human Art series. At least for now. (*‿¬) I hope you enjoyed the posts and were able to take something home for you. As usual, I’d like you to share your thoughts. How can AI art help artists in your opinion? What is your outlook on the future of AI art?
Please leave comments and questions below or reach out to me directly. I’d love to hear from you! Make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new blog posts and other cool stuff. ♥
For more about the topic, check out more posts from my AI Art vs Human Art series:
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