Artificial Art?

By Mac Bellingham

AI has always been a somewhat cool, somewhat creepy idea. The concept of a machine thinking like a human falls into the ‘uncanny valley’. Even though AI at the moment is nowhere close to ‘Terminator’, it can still cause problems in our lives. The biggest controversy related to AI at the moment is AI generated art. 

Through apps and websites, people can create their own original artworks with minimal effort. It sounds amazing, but quickly we have realised there are problems. From cheating scandals to racial biases, I’m going to cover all these controversies. As well as the benefits of AI art, and let you make up your own mind.

Before the discussion of positives and negatives, we should first go over the different AI apps and websites there are. First, there is Lensa. This is a paid app in which you upload 10-20 photos of yourself, and then the app will give you back around 50-200 AI generated illustrations. Next, there is DALL-E2. This is a website in which you give the AI a prompt, which can be as specific as you want, and the website will give you back images related to that caption. Those are the softwares that will be referenced in this article.

Lensa Artificial Intelligence Art

First, let’s talk about the potential corporate benefits and downsides. At the moment, it seems to be nothing more than a cool trick. But the potentials of this, especially DALL-E2, seem to be endless. If a marketing team needs a quick visual for a presentation, quickly typing in a caption and generating exactly what they need could be really helpful! Writers could create moodboards, artists could get inspiration for their projects, etc.

However, this also has the potential to remove artists’ jobs. If an AI online could make an image in a few seconds or minutes, for virtually no money, why should companies and people have to pay more money for more time, and for a potentially worse product? This could remove a steady source of income for many artists that rely on these commissions. Many people have tried to refute this point by saying that working with people is easier than working with AI, as it is easier to “tweak” things. They have also said that there isn’t any concrete evidence that AI would “steal” these jobs.

Another controversy surrounding AI art is the fact that AI gets its inspiration and art style from many real artists around the world. These AIs are trained from a massive selection of many artists’ real works. This has led to many people complaining that their AI generated images may have indirectly copied someone’s art style. This may not seem like a big deal, but to commission based artists, it is. In the past, if you want to get a piece of art commissioned in a certain style, you would have to pay a specific artist for that. Now due to AI art, you barely have to pay anything for that art piece. According to some artists, this is theft. These artists haven’t given permission for these AIs to use their art, and even though the internet is free to use, that doesn’t warrant this.

Some people have argued that no art in itself is original. Every piece of art, whether that be visual or musical, is just a combination of art that came before it. If humans do it, why shouldn’t an AI do it? It’s not necessarily theft, more so inspiration. It really just depends on how much AI copies these works. If an AI gets its database from free-to-use images, then there is no issue. But if an AI gets its database from people who haven’t given permission to do so, there’s a clear issue here.

This isn’t a hypothetical either, these events have already been happening. Amy Stelladia, an artist who has worked with big companies such as Disney, had her art stolen by these bots. She didn’t consent to these websites using her art, and since these websites are pay-to-use, they are technically making money off her own work.

The last controversy related to AI art is the discussion around whether it is even art at all. Many have argued that art should have a soul, emotions around it, and not just be a pretty visual to look at. Others have said that art doesn’t need to be deep, that there is nothing wrong with looking at something beautiful yet shallow.

Ultimately, I believe it depends on your definition of art. Whether you believe that art shouldn’t just be aesthetically pleasing, it should also have a human spirit behind it, or if you believe that art doesn’t need to have a meaning or a message. Art unites human beings, it can make people happy, and I think that we shouldn’t have controversy over art. Anything can be art, and it doesn’t matter what other people think of it.

What do you think of AI art? Revolutionary new ideas, or something that will lead to disaster?