A.I. Art and How It Affects Artists

If you’ve been on social media lately, I’m sure you’ve heard the term A.I. art. In the art community, this has caused a massive debate about how ethical A.I. art is. So what exactly is it and how do we deal with it?

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What is A.I. art?

A.I., or Artificial Intelligence, art is a computer-generated image created using an algorithm. Companies such as DeviantArt, Midjourney, and Stability AI use a program called Stable Diffusion. According to Appleinsider.com, Stable Diffusion “scans large databases of images in order to create new images based on a text prompt”.

Why are so many artists against it?

You can find heated arguments all across the internet on whether A.I. creates art ethically. Why? Because allegedly “AI art generation engine Stable Diffusion was trained on billions of copyrighted materials without credit, compensation, or consent of content owners” (Appleinsider.com). The art community, especially digital, has started taking legal action against companies using Stable Diffusion claiming copyright infringement.

How to deal with A.I.

Unfortunately, A.I. art is only growing in popularity and looks like it’s here to stay. So how do we as artists deal with it? One option is copyrighting your work. This way, you have proof that you own the original work and therefore are protected by the law.

Another way is to simply adapt. A.I. can only do so much on its own, but as artists we can create whatever our imagination can come up with. We have to use our individual creativity to our advantage in order to stand out from A.I. art.

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Throughout history, the art community has faced threats like this before. When photography first came onto the scene, many people thought it meant the end of traditional art. Instead, artists started focusing on what cameras couldn’t capture and putting that into their work.

In a similar way, we must do the same with A.I. art. Artists need to focus on creating pieces defined by their unique qualities and styles that A.I. can’t capture.

Learning to live with this potential threat can be a scary thing to think about, but we’re all in this together. Creating art is a uniquely individual experience, and that is one advantage we’ll always have over A.I. art.