BY NOAH PARKER
What is AI Art?
Artificial-Inteligence-made Art, (AI Art) has taken the world by storm. AI Art began as early as the late 1900s alongside the birth of the computer, but only in this past year has it received widespread popularity and success. Some of today’s most prominent examples of AI Art generators are Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E. While each has individual differences, the base concept remains the same: Write a prompt, submit it, wait a bit, and the AI will send back images based on that prompt. It’s that simple.
Naturally, with all things that simplify a difficult task, AI Art grew in popularity. With this sudden growth, many potential problems have come to light, and there are avid supporters both for and against the new technology, and some seem to see AI Art differently.
“I see it as a great tool. We look at someone with a hammer and a chisel, and they can carve a beautiful statue with it,” Stephen Schleicher, a digital media instructor in the Fort Hays State Univertsity Informatics Department, said. “We can also see that a person with a pneumatic drill, or pneumatic hammer, can also carve a great piece of art, a statue out of it.”
Schleicher said the tool of choice by an artist doesn’t determine how good of an artist they are, as tools will constantly evolve. He said a pneumatic drill would just speed up the process. He thinks more people should look at AI Art similarly, as a way to do the same work faster.
FHSU Motion Design Adjunct Professor Thomas Giebler had a similar outlook as Schleicher.
“As I’ve become more educated on AI Art and how it works, I think my feelings have been a lot more positive, as far as now trying to see it more as a tool and not just this scary monster that’s going to take away all our jobs,” he said.
Maddy Otter, an FHSU graduate student agrees with Giebler that AI Art has a place, but noted the legal implications that come with using AI Art.
“I think it has a lot of potential to be used as a tool once legal issues are sorted,” she said.
Otter went on to say that there are a lot of other problems aside from just the legal side that need to be solved before it can really be used as a tool.
Does AI Art Break Copyright Law?
Many of those against AI Art make the point it is copyright infringement. This claim comes from the foundation of how AI learns how to make art. This process is very complex and differs for each AI.
For example, Stable Diffusion – one of the most popular art generators as of writing – begins this process from a dataset known as LAION-5B, a dataset that pairs over five billion skimmed images from the internet with text. It is important to note the dataset didn’t allow artists to opt-in or out of it, meaning it took their works posted online without their express permission.
The Stable Diffusion AI then pulls from those images and, through a process of adding and then removing generated noise, attempts to recreate the image to the best of its ability.
Many defenders of AI Art describe this as similar to what artists do to learn their skills, especially early on before finding their style.
“As artists, we’re inspired by those things, like we do master studies… but I think a big part of it is that the machine can only take those things and diffuse it into more iterations,” Giebler said when asked about this point of view.
He went on to say AI Art is taking these learned behaviors, but it’s not a human brain using and interpreting them.
“The thing is that I still think it’s a copyright issue because, as artists, I might do a study of Van Gogh’s piece, but I’m not going to start painting as close to Van Gogh as possible,” Giebler said.
Schleicher had a differing opinion, AI Art is not attempting to break copyright law.
“It’s not. The AI certainly has all that stuff in its database, but it’s not going out there and trying to do anything malicious,” he said.
AI Art’s Impact on Artists
Due to the simplicity afforded to users of AI Art generators, another big question being asked is how it will impact artists and their jobs.
Many artists fear that their jobs will be replaced by an AI, or if they work through commissions, potential customers will choose to use an AI over them for the sake of costs and simplicity.
“I think certain entry-level things, some companies that don’t see the value in having that personal human touch are going to see this as a great way to cheaply produce imagery, content, whatever,” Giebler said. “I think companies that do value good storytelling, good concepts, and care about their work and how they’re being presented to the world will still want to work with illustrators, designers, and animators.”
“It’s not final product worthy,” Otter added, going on to address the infamous fingers AI Art almost always messes up.
Giebler mentioned he has experimented with AI Art when he approaches an illustration project.
“I kind of mess around with seeing like ‘what if I type this prompt in’ and kind of see what it’s going to spit out to come up with some inspiration,” he said.
Schleicher feels those who feel threatened by AI Art need to use that as a motive to improve their skills. However, he did say that right now, the products AI Art generators make are very mediocre at best.
“If anything, AI Art should be pushing the artists to excel, to be even better,” Schleicher said. “Will people lose their jobs, sure; just like when automation caused loom weavers to lose their jobs, just like when robots on assembly lines caused union workers and auto manufacturers to lose their jobs. Those things are going to happen.”
Schleicher went on to say the big thing is where artists can go next, mentioning how people shouldn’t assume their job position is always going to be there and that there will be something that comes in to replace it.
He also mentioned that, for AI Art to grow, artists need to grow, proposing that perhaps it could become a symbiotic relationship.
Is AI Technology Here To Stay?
With the recent explosion in AI generated art, and the concerns raised by the artist community, it begs the question of whether AI-based technology is going to stay, or is it just a passing fad?
“I think it’s here; I mean, people are using it,” Otter said. “So, I think it’s here to stay. I think we’re going to see it more and more with different things as well, not just art.”
“Yeah, definitely here to stay,” Giebler added. “This is kind of like the first, I guess maybe, obvious case to the world… but things like Siri have been around for the past 10, almost 20, years, and so I think we are slowly integrating these digital tools.”
Schleicher also mentioned digital assistant such as Siri, and agrees AI-based technology is here to stay.
“This stuff is here to stay,” he said. “The thing is… one of the things that, anytime you introduce a new technology, you have to introduce it in a way that is non-threatening… unfortunately, with the AI Art [and] chat GPT… they just threw it out into the world because they’re non-profit.”
Schleicher likened it to getting hit in the face with a pie, saying that not many people like to get hit in the face with a pie, but if someone was to politely offer a slice, they would gladly take it. He claims it’s all about the presentation, such as Siri making trivial tasks easier, or even telling the user a joke.
“There’s probably a lot of AI that people are using today without even realizing it,” he said, mentioning examples like Grammarly, a writing assistance tool that many students use. “I would bet that most artists who are using photoshop don’t even realize that, if they use a content-aware fill, they’re using AI.”
Looking ahead
It seems that AI-based technology is going through a grey area with a lot of growing pains that need to be addressed. However, it appears AI-based technology isn’t going anywhere and probably will instead continue to grow.
Some of those issues we could see addressed soon, especially the one of copyright infringement, which seems to currently be the biggest problem artists have with the new technology.
“I’m just interested in seeing how all this falls because, within the next like five years, we’ll probably have a pretty definitive stance on how the world sees it,” Giebler said.