With my recent blog post about whether AI art can be considered real art, I initiated a whole series of posts addressing the topic of AI Art vs. Human Art. While the first post discusses the implications of what makes art real art, I now want to shed some light on the ethical issues of AI-generated images.
Art made by artificial intelligence is a very controversial topic that divides the minds of traditional and digital artists, AI enthusiasts, tech developers, and lawyers alike. I invite you to share your experiences and opinions in the comments. Be nice and respectful so we can have a fruitful discussion!
With that said, let's kick off the second post in this series: Is AI art ethical?
If you have never looked at AI from that angle, you might wonder why anyone would question the ethics of artificially generated images at all. Text-to-image generators are a lot of fun. You enter any string of words and they come up with a visual creation that corresponds to your input. All that within a couple of seconds.
But have you ever thought about how they are actually doing that? Image synthesis models (ISMs) like Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Google Imagen learn to generate images by analyzing millions of images they find online.
Their databases have been built using photos, drawings, sketches, technical drawings – and artistic styles and artworks. Anyone’s artworks. Including those of the most famous, long-dead artists in history. Based on those data sources, artificial intelligence generates images that it associates with the user’s text input.
Generative AI never replicates any particular artwork; the algorithms are programed to not do so for copyright reasons. But the sourcing process alone raises major ethical and privacy concerns because the images are taken off the web without permission and proper attribution to the authors.
Another qualm about AI art is that it so easy to create images that mimic specific art movements. Or, the style of a particular artist who might have spent years developing their unique art style.
Can AI art be ethical if the image generation relies on data that was sourced from human artworks and other copyrighted materials?
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)!
Does AI art violate copyright?
AI technology has been around for the past 50 years, but only in recent months have AI image generators made it to the masses. Two events in particular gave rise to a fierce debate about whether AI art violates copyright.
The first event was an AI-generated artwork winning first place in a State fine art competition in August 2022. Jason Allen, president of a gaming company, submitted a piece (“Théâtre D’Opéra Spatial”) he had created using Midjourney. Artists were outraged and raised concerns about the merits and ethics of AI-generated art. I speak more about that in my first post on whether AI art can be considered real art.
The second cause for concern was the Lensa iOS photo editing app that released its “magic avatars” feature in December 2022. Lensa uses the photos the users send to the app and the neural network Stable Diffusion to generate AI portraits in a variety of styles, from photorealistic paintings to manga-like illustrations. When users started flooding social media with the AI-generated portraits, the debate on ethical and copyright concerns flared up again because all AI systems have been trained on other people’s original work.
Although AI generators never produce a direct copy of another artwork, they take “inspiration” from the images they were trained with – as the developers like to put it. The algorithms can “borrow” any visual elements, artistic styles and techniques to put together a creation that best corresponds to the given task.
Where is the line between “taking inspiration” and plagiarism? Does AI art violate copyright by replicating parts of someone else’s image?
In fact, multiple artists have already accused Stable Diffusion of violating their copyright. But it’s not only about Stable Diffusion.
Many people report having found traces of signatures and watermarks in AI-generated images that they attribute to come from the original works the AI used to create the piece.
In fact, I myself had such an experience when using Midjourney. As I already mentioned in my first post on AI Art vs. Human Art, I have tried out Midjourney and even used my first ever generated image in this artwork of mine. For my second attempt on the free Midjourney trial, I wanted to create something like a “dreamlike jungle with big vibrant flowers.” Interestingly, one of the AI images had some sort of letters the right bottom corner.
…and that was only the second piece I created on the platform. One must wonder how many images actually have remains like that and where they are coming from! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any statement by the AI companies’ CEOs explaining where those artifacts come from.
In this image from Midjourney I found the remains of some sort of lettering in the bottom right corner. Could be from a signature or a slogan. I wonder where that is coming from…
Does AI art steal art?
This brings us to the next question: does AI steal other people’s art?
As we already said above, all AI systems have been trained using images available online. Usually, it is difficult to figure out the origins of the images used for the AI creations (unless a clearly readable signature accidentally remains in the image). However, companies recently released tools that help you check whether your images were included in AI data sources. One of these tools is, for example, Have I Been Trained.
When one artist used the tool to find out if her works were included in AI databases, she actually found her own face and medical records in LAION-5B. LAION stands for Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network, which provides free data for AI research and development. The datasets include publicly available images from sites like DeviantArt, ArtStation, Flickr, Getty Images and Pinterest. They are used to train AI image generators, such as Stable Diffusion and Google Imagen.
In the light of these facts, do you think that AI is stealing art? Do you consider the training process of text-to-image generators to be ethical?
Let me give you another example. AI systems make it incredibly easy to imitate the style of a particular artist. By simply entering a text prompt like “portrait of a woman in the style of Picasso,” the AI generator will spit out an image that looks like a carbon copy of an artwork the famous Spanish painter could have made.
While Picasso and other iconic artists cannot complain anymore, there are also contemporary artists who got hit by the latest technological advancement. One example is fantasy landscape artist Greg Rutkowski. Rutkowski’s distinctive style actually made him more popular on Stable Diffusion than Picasso. Users included his name in text prompts more than a hundred thousand times to generate AI images that copy his signature style.
That’s the reason why Rutkowski and others feel that AI art is a threat to artists. The Polish painter and illustrator sees his livelihood in jeopardy and criticizes that he never had the freedom of choice to opt in or out from having his artistic style used for AI-generated images.
How do you see it? Is AI art ethical if you allow the system to mimic the exact style of specific artists? Does AI art not violate their copyright by creating direct copies of their style?
Now, some of you might want to step in and say that artists like Rutkowski can simply assert copyright claims. After all, there are stringent copyright laws in the United States that the arts and music industries have to comply with. That is true. But unfortunately, the regulations are not as hard and fast when it comes to the use of copyrighted materials by artificial intelligence. AI art might fall under fair use laws, which makes it more complicated to enforce copyright claims.
When I typed “Greg Rutkowski AI Art” in the search engine, I actually came across this image. The piece was obviously created with AI. Its title still includes the names of the artists (Greg Rutkowski and Gustave Doré) whose styles it is based on. And then I noticed something in the bottom right corner and almost got my socks knocked off…
Errr… like seriously? Is there really the signature of the original artist still visible in the AI image? The first letters look like “GR,” while the last part could easily be the remains of “KOWSKI.” I am sure people create and upload such work totally innocently, without malicious intent. They are just not aware of the implications that their behavior has on particular artists and on the art world in general. But it goes to show how important it is to broach the AI topic and establish appropriate terms of use.
I don’t want to miss showing you the original artwork by Polish painter Greg Rutkowski whose style is often copied in AI art. Here he is with his acrylic painting ‘Chaos Dragon’. (Image via Hipsters of the Coast)
Is AI-generated art copyrighted?
Let us quickly touch upon the copyright issue of AI-generated art. Who actually owns the images that artificial intelligence produces?
The short answer is: nobody knows. The truth is that technology is often advancing faster than the law can keep up. Up to this point, no one can claim the copyright on AI-generated art – neither the developer of the AI system nor the one who makes use of it.
In February 2022, the US Copyright Office rejected a claim made by an AI developer to obtain the copyright over the imagery his system produces. The office argued that “human authorship is a prerequisite to copyright protection.”
As long as the federal court doesn’t come to a final judgment on the issue, AI-generated art will remain copyright-free. For artists like Greg Rutkowski that means there is no possibility to legally enforce any intellectual property rights.
Can AI be ethical?
We have just talked about – and seen – many examples that make it clear why artists question the ethics of AI art.
But can AI art as such ever be ethical? Or is it fundamentally unethical?
At the very basis, there is already the dilemma that all AI systems are trained with images that have been scraped off the internet without user consent. Then there are the copyright issues that lawmakers yet need to address.
Leaving that aside, however, a major part of using AI ethically lies in the hands of the users themselves. If used responsible, AI art tools can help artists. I think we all agree that it is not ethical to create images that copy the style of other artists – whether dead or alive. That should not be done. Furthermore, AI art should be clearly labeled as such.
We also need to broach the question whether it is ethical to consider machine-made art as valuable as man-made art. No doubt, artificial intelligence can produce visually impressive creations within a matter of seconds. But it lacks essential factors that characterize the works of human artists.
Art has always been a means for people to express themselves. There is a deep relationship between the human artist and their work that allows them to convey their emotions and thoughts and to tell their stories through their artwork.
AI doesn’t have a life of its own, sentience, and experiences to look back onto. It must take from the emotions, experiences, and stories of humans to mash up something new.
In conclusion, is AI art ethical?
Many in the art community are raising ethical concerns about AI models churning out images for so cheap. Especially, if those images imitate the styles of actual artists, who put in years of hard work and effort to master their craft.
I see a lot of people being enthusiastic about this new technology because it finally ‘brings making art to the masses’. Unfortunately, it’s usually those people who were never willing to put in the time and energy to acquire creative skills on their own. Because they lack the understanding and respect for creative achievement, they don’t hesitate to use any artist’s name to re-create images in a particular style.
‘Bringing art to the masses’ is a poor argument to justify the existence of artificial image generators. Making art has always been available to the masses. Digital tools made making art even easier and more accessible to people. Anyone can use free digital art software and try their hand at creating art. Get yourself a low-cost drawing tablet on top and you are settled to embark on any creative endeavor.
The only difference is that you will have to invest a lot of time and hard work to hone your skills. You will have to cultivate perseverance to keep going even though your creations turn out nothing like you imagined. Becoming proficient at creating art requires tremendous dedication.
This is what AI generators disburden you of. Even feeding the algorithm with some haphazard terms when you try it for the first time it can result in pretty decent looking output. I tried it out myself.
Long story short, AI art generators are yet another new tool that developers have thrown in the market without thinking about the ethical implications it brings along.
Of course, not everything about AI art is unethical per se. By itself, an AI image generator is just a tool, and in the right hands tools can be very useful!
What’s your opinion? Do you think AI art is ethical? What is necessary to make the use of AI comply with human ethics? 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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