notapersob - Tumblr blog

notapersob · 1 year ago

Text

I wrote an essay on this topic, which is what the comic is based off of. If you care to read it it's beneath the cut , as well as my works Cited, and alt text.

This was a college English assignment, first the essay then the multimodal project. I wanted to share it with the internet people on my phone because this is something that is important to me. (i added it up and i spent roughly 40+ hours on this comic in two weeks, guys, the carpal tunnel is coming for me...)

i would also like to give a huge thanks to some of my best friends for helping me, @ellalily my wonderful talented friend who i love so much and adore their work. (i love her art so much). I know you'll see this, love you king <22223333.

and my partner, @totallynotagremlin . amazing artist and the person i admire every day. thankyou for helping me with this and listening to me rant about this project. i love you so much *kisses you on the forehead.

If anyone reads this, please go check out their art.

THE ESSAY

If you're not paying attention you could mistake AI art for art made by real artists. Many people use AI without much knowledge about it, thinking it's something harmless and fun. However, AI art has a real impact on the art community. AI art is largely harmful to the art community because it negatively impacts artists by stealing and plagiarizing their work.

Knowing how AI generators create art provides important context in understanding the negative impacts of AI-generated art and why it is bad. In an article by The Guardian, Clark L. explains, “The AI has been trained on billions of images, some of which are copyrighted works by living artists, it can generally create a pretty faithful approximation”. On its own, this doesn't sound that bad, and many fail to see the issue with this. However, the corporations training these AI art generators use artists' work without their knowledge or consent. Stable diffusion, an online AI art generator, has provided artists the option to opt out of future iterations of the technology training. However, the damage has already been done. AI is ‘trained’ by being fed images. It analyzes them. It works by being given large amounts of data and input codes. In an article by The Guardian, written by Clark L, there is a quote from Karla Ortiz, an illustrator, and board member of CAA, concerning this issue. She says, “It’s like someone who already robbed you saying, ‘Do you want to opt out of me robbing you?”.

Another article by Yale Daily News has several categories, the first being, “How does AI generate art”. As the heading explains, the first section of the article explains how AI text-to-image generators like DALL-E2 and Midjourney create images by “analyzing data sets containing thousands to millions of images” (Yup K.). In the same article, they cite an artist, Ron Cheng, a Yale Visual Arts Collective board member who is against AI because AI fails to obtain consent from artists before stealing their art. Cheng says “There are enough artists out there where there shouldn't really be a need to make AI to do that.” (Yup K.). The article says Cheng views AI as a tool but not at the cost of the people who spent their lives developing artistic skills.

Many artists feel that they should be compensated or that this should fall under copyright laws but because proving this machine-made art has taken elements of their style is so difficult, the AI companies get off with no consequences. For an artist to take action against an AI image generator, they would have to prove that one of their art pieces had been copied into the system which can be difficult. They would have to prove specific elements of their personal art style have been directly copied and prove that their art has been used and imitated without their consent. Many artists feel that this technology will take their jobs and opportunities in the creative field of work. Kim Leutwyler, a six-time Archibald Prize finalist artist, expressed her issues with AI companies stealing her art in an ABC news article. Leutwyler said that they had found almost every portrait they created, included in a database used to train AI without their knowledge or consent. They said it “feels like a violation” (Williams T.).

With AI art relying on, often, stolen artwork, and creating an interpretation of what it sees, it blurs the line between what is copyright infringement and what is not. In a BBC article by Chris Vallance, Professor Lionel Bently, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge University said that in the UK, “it's not an infringement of copyright in general to use the style of somebody else” (Vallance). Another point to keep in mind is that not many artists have the means to fight these legal battles for their art even if they wanted to. This same BBC article speaks about the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), an organization that collects payments on behalf of artists for the use of their images. One quote helps illustrate their point, “I asked DACS’ head of policy Reema Aelhi if artists’ livelihoods are at stake. “Absolutely yes,” she says” (Vallance).

Another concern about AI mentioned in this article is deep fakes, porn, and bias. “Google warned that the data set of scraped images used to train AI systems often includes pornography, reflected social stereotypes, and contained “derogatory, or otherwise harmful associations to marginalize identity groups.” (Vallance). These are all important things to consider when using AI because an AI system can harmfully replicate biases and negative stereotypes because of what it learned. For example, if you input the prompt criminal, it is more likely for the image to be of a person of color. On the other hand, if you input the prompt, CEO, it is strongly probable that an image of an old white man in a suit will show up, not a woman, or a person of color. These stereotypes go much further and much deeper than just these two examples, but the AI recreates what it was taught and can follow patterns that are harmful to minorities.

Another concern many artists have is about their jobs and livelihoods. With how AI art has progressed in the past few years, it is starting to take opportunities from real artists. “It’s been just a month. What about in a year? I probably won’t be able to find my work out there because [the internet] will be flooded with AI art,” Rutkowski told MIT Technology Review (Clarke L.). Many of the articles I researched mentioned the Colorado State Art Fair, where an AI-generated image won first place. The BBC article written by Vallance talks about how a man (Allan) entered an AI-generated image mid-journey and won. Many artists were outraged by this and suddenly aware of how AI could take opportunities like these from them. The artists who entered this competition spent hours and hours on their pieces. As you can imagine they were angry, rightfully so, that an AI-generated piece that took no more than a few seconds won. There is a level of unfairness to this and many artists feel that AI should not be allowed in art competitions like this. It feels like they got cheated out of something they worked hard for. Nobody would let a robot compete in the Olympics or a cooking competition, so why should a machine be allowed to enter an art fair? AI could start taking jobs from artists working on animated projects, or taking commissions.

With AI’s ability to imitate a certain artist's style, some people may feel that they no longer have to pay an artist for work when they could just input a few words into a machine and get something done in seconds. There were artist and writer strikes in Hollywood, in part because of this. These creative people wanted to be paid fairly and have better working conditions, as well as a promise that not all of them would be replaced with AI. When SORA AI came out, I saw many artists online who aspired to have jobs in the animation industry, losing hope and motivation. A soulless and emotionless machine can rip away a lifelong hobby and passion.

Many artists were upset but Allen, the winner of the Colorado State Art Fair, stood by his point and said, “It's over. AI won. Humans lost” (Clark L.). The article quoted a game and concept artist, RJ Palmer's tweet, “This thing wants our job, it's actively anti-artist”. The article speaks of how artists often take inspiration from other artists, “great artists steal”, but Mr. Palmer said, “This (AI) is directly stealing their essence in a way”. In an article by The Guardian, Clarke L. writes about how AI art has raised debates on just how much AI can be credited with creativity. Human art has thoughts, memories, and feelings put behind it and takes a lot of skill, whereas, on the opposite end, AI art can't handle concepts like that. AI does not experience life like real people do. It does not have feelings or emotions and it can only think with the knowledge we give it. Since it cannot have these emotions, the art it creates will never have the emotions that art made by real artists has.

Cansu Canca, a research associate professor at Northeastern University and founder and director of the AI Ethics Lab said, “It is important to be mindful about the implications of automation and what it means for humans who might be ‘replaced’” (Mello-Klein, C.). She went on to say that we shouldn't be fearful but instead ask what we want from machines and how we can best use them to benefit people. The article says “With the push of a button, he was able to create a piece of art that would have taken hours to create by hand” (Mello-Klein, C.). Some artists said, “We’re watching the death of artistry unfold right before our eyes” (Mello-Klein, C.). In an article by the New Yorker, Chayka, K., started by giving three reasons why artists feel wronged by AI image generators that are trained using their artwork. The “three C’s”, they didn't consent, they were not compensated and their influence was not credited. The article states how it is hard for copyright claims based on style to get picked up because in visual art “courts have sometimes ruled in favor of the copier rather than the copied” (Chayka, K.). This applies to music as well, where some songs can sound similar but nothing will be done about it because they are different enough, or the source material was changed enough not to be seen as a complete copy. The article said, “In some sense. You could say that artists are losing their monopoly on being artists” (Chayka, K.). Some people are even hiring AI to make book covers instead of hiring artists.

While I am personally against the use of AI art as well as many of my artist friends, all people have their own opinions about the technology. The article by the New Yorker, written by Chayka, K, quotes Kelly Mckernan, who said they watch Reddit and Discord chats about AI. This provides opinions on some everyday people who aren't in the art field. on the situation and said, “They have this belief that career artists, people who have dedicated their whole lives to their work, are gatekeeping, keeping them from making the art they want to make. They think we’re elitist and keeping our secrets.” (Chayka, K.). I remember an acquaintance of mine said that he used AI art because he could not afford to commission an artist. Not everyone can afford to commission an artist and pay them fairly for their time. However, this does not mean artists should settle for less than their work is worth. Art takes time and that is time the artist could be doing something else.

Northeastern Global contacted Derek Curry, an associate professor of art and design at Northeastern, who gave his thoughts on the subject and he does not believe AI art will ever replace humans because technology has limits. “The cycle of fear and acceptance has occurred with every new technology since the dawn of the industrial age, and there are always casualties that come with change” (Mello-Klein, C.). The article goes on to say how auto-tune was once controversial but it has become a music industry standard. It's used as a tool, and AI art could be similar. It is true that with new technology, people always fear it before it is accepted. For example, the car. People feared it would take jobs and replace people, and this did happen, but it offered more convenience and opened up more jobs for people than it took. Now cars are used by everyone and it is almost impossible to get around in America without one because it wasn't made for walking, it was built around roads. There are many more examples of people fearing a new technology before accepting it, so this could be the case with AI, but for AI to be used as a tool and aid to artists, greedy corporations have to change the way they think about the technology. They have to see it as, not a replacement, but a tool. Big animation companies want to replace a lot of their human artists, who need their jobs to support themselves and their families, with AI. This prospect is something that is discouraging to artists who want to enter the animation field, which is already competitive.

The Yale Daily News (Yup, K.), cites Brennan Buck, a senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture. He uses AI as a tool to colorize and upscale images. He does not think AI is a real threat to artists. This is a very different take from most artists I’ve heard about and talked to. I can see how this technology can be used as a tool and I think that is one of the only right ways to use AI art. It should be used as a tool, not a replacement. Another way AI art can be used as a tool is to learn how to draw. New artists can study how art is made by looking at colors and anatomy for inspiration, though it should be taken with a grain of salt because AI tends to leave out details, and things merge and some details make no sense. These are all things real artists would notice and not do in their pieces. Young artists could also study the process of real artists they admire. Getting good at art takes years and practice. Seeing all kinds of different art can help with the learning process. On the topic of some people feeling like AI is not a real threat to artists, some people feel that eventually the technology will fade in popularity and will become more of a tool. Only time can tell if AI art will take the jobs of artist.

With everything being said, AI art is actively harming artists and the art community. Even if some artists like Brennan Buck feel that AI isn't a real threat to artists, presently, it is taking opportunities and jobs from artists and it will only get worse as the technology progresses. We need to prioritize real artists instead of a machine, a machine that will never be able to replicate the authenticity of living people's art that reflects their experiences and lives. Some artists use art to express and spread awareness of real-life issues. I have neurodivergent, transgender and queer friends who create art to show what it feels like to experience the world when it seems everyone is against you. I make art to reflect the beautiful things I see and read. I too am queer and fall under the trans umbrella term and I'm autistic, and I use art as a way to express myself through these things that make up my identity.

AI could never put the emotion that real people put into the things they create. Art is a labor of love and pain. Art like Félix González-Torres free candy contemporary art piece cannot ever be replicated by AI and have the same meaning. He “created nineteen candy pieces that were featured in many museums around the world. Many of his works target HIV”(Public Delivery, n.d.). The opinions and views on this, relatively, new technology differ from person to person. Some artists view generative AI art as a tool to utilize in their art while others see it as a threat and something that is taking away from artists. AI art can be used for bad, as it has and will be used to make deep fakes unless limitations are put on it. The AI systems are trained on thousands of images of real people and of art made by artists, all without their consent and most of the time, without their knowledge. On the other hand, some artists use it to aid their process and don't see the issue. Based on what I have learned, I do not think AI art is good, nor should it have a place in the creative job fields. Companies should not copy and steal work from artists. Artists work their whole lives to learn to create, and that should not be replaced by a machine.

ALT TEXT (I didn't know where to put the alt text, sorry, also, this is the first time I've ever done alt text so I'm sorry if its not the greatest, i tried. if you have feedback though, that would be greatly appreciated)

Page 1

“AI art is NOT real art” under a picture of the letters AI, crossed out in red.

“AI text-to-image generators like DALL-E2 and Midjourney create images by, “analyzing data sets containing thousands to millions of images” (Yup K.)”

Beneath the test is a set of polaroid photos strung up, with a black crow sitting on the wire. There is a computer with a few tabs open and two ladybugs near it.

“AI art generators are trained off of artwork used without the artist's consent.”

To the side of the text is a small person holding up something they drew. There are lines leading from their drawing to an ai recreated version of it.

Page 2

There is a picture of Kim Leutwyler

“Feels like a violation”

“I found almost every portrait I've ever created on there as well as artworks by many Archibald finalists and winners”

Kim Leutwyler

(Williams T.)

There is a picture of Tom Christopherson

“I didn't think I would care as much as I did. It was a bit of a rough feeling to know that stuff had been used against my will without even notifying me.”

“It just feels unethical when it's done sneakily behind artists' backs… people are really angry, and fair enough”.

Tom Christopherson

(Williams T.)

There is a drawing of Ellalily drawn by them, with their cat sitting on top of the bubble they're in.

“AI sucks the life out of art… there’s no love, no creativity, no humanity to the finished product. And that's not even scratching the surface of the blatant violations put upon artists whose work has been stolen to fuel this lifeless craft”

EllaLily

(@ellalily on tumbrl)

There is a drawing of Gremlin/Cthulhu 14 with small mushrooms growing off of their bubble

“AI art isn't real art because it just copies from real artists. Art is something that is so very human and it has human emotions in it. A robot can't replicate that emotion and cant give meaning to an art piece”

gremlin/cthulhu14

(@totallynotagremlin on tumbrl)

There is a drawing of myself gesturing towards the text.

“AI art is actively harming the art community by:

Taking jobs

Opportunities

Hope and motivation

From artists.”

Page 3

“Most artists can't do anything against the people feeding their art into these AI systems.”

There are two drawings of myself, sitting down, crisscross, underneath the text with speech bubbles showing that I'm theI'm person talking.

“Many artists don't have the means to fight these legal battles for their art, even if they wanted to.”

“Some dont have the:

Money”

drawing of a dollar and some coins

“Time”

drawing of a clock with the numbers jumbled

“Capability”

drawing of a green frog in a purple witch hat and dress holding up a magic wand with its tongue.

“And even if they did…

Most AI art escapes copyright laws”

Beneath this is an image of Professor Lionel Bently and a small drawing of the university of cambridge.

“Professor Lionel Bently, faculty of law at university of cambridge said (In the UK) “its not an infringement of copyright in general to use the style of someone else””

There is a drawing of the same wizard frog from before. It is laying down.

“so … AI gets away with stealing from artists with no consequences.”

The text is surrounded by a yellow and orange comic emphasis speech bubble

Image of van gogh, starry night, and fake ai recreation.

Image of Zeng Fanzhi art, image of john chamberlain art, “art by artists inspired by Van Gogh

“Artists take inspiration from each other. AI only companies what it sees.”

Page 4

There is a drawing of a green beetle with yellow wings in the top right corner. On the other side of the page, there is an image of Reema Aelhi.

Design and Artist Copyright Society (DACS) is an organization that collects payments on behalf of artists for the use of their images. “I asked DACS’ head of policy Reema Aelhi if artists' livelihoods are at stake, “absolutely yes,” she says”. (Vallance).

There is a brown bat hanging upside down from red swirls on the page.

“Deep fakes and biases

Another problem with generative AI is that often, the data sets used to train it contains, “pornograhy, reflected social stereotypes and contains “derogatory… or harmful associations to marginalized identity groups””. (vallance)”

There is a cartoonish small white and brown cat underneath the text.

“Example, Prompt CEO”, image of a white old man.

“Prompt, criminal”, image of person of color

“These are examples of HARMFUL BIASES”

There is a moth emerging from a green cocoon through three images. The first is an untouched cocoon, the second has a yellow, red, and green moth halfway emerged from the cocoon. The third has the moth fully emerged, resting on the cocoon. There is one last moth flying across the page underneath the text.

“AI art also threatens the jobs and livelihoods of artists.”

There is a drawing of a brown suitcase with stickers on it, and college certificates around it.

“The artist and writer strike in 2023 that lasted 148 days happened in part, due to the fear of being replaced by AI.”

There is a broken yellow, red, and green moth wing at the bottom of the page.

Page 5

“AI also takes opportunities” two green shoes are hanging from a red dot.

“Animated jobs”

Two cartoon birds are on a television screen with a red/pink background.

“commission work”

There are two people, one is a person in a purple shirt who is handing over a drawing to a girl in a blue shirt with ginger hair.

“Book cover art jobs”

There is a fake book with a person on the cover, who has a big orange bird on her arm. There are clouds and three stars in front of her.

“The Colorado State Art Fair was won by an AI image, entered by Jason M. Allen”

Arrow from Jason M. Allens name to quote, “it's over. AI won. Humans lost” - quote from Allen (Clark L.)

“Artists were outraged. You don't let robots compete in sports competitions, why was it allowed in an art competition?”

Tweet from RJ Palmer, @arvalis - august 13, 2022

“This thing wants our jobs. It's actively anti-artist”

“Great artists steal…[but] this (AI) is directly stealing their essence in a way.”

How much can AI be credited with creativity? Human art has emotions /feelings, thoughts/memories, and takes skill and time.

AI art has none of that”

Beneath the text, there is an image of a desert with two clouds, one partially covering the sun. The sky is blue and there are cacti in the background. There is a singular tumbleweed bouncing through the scene.

Page 6

“With a push of a button, he (Allan) was able to create a piece of art that would have taken hours to create by hand… we’re watching the death of artistry unfold right before our eyes.” (Mello- Klein C.)

There is a person in a coffin. There is water in the coffin covering most of them. There are stars over their chest. There are leaves surrounding the coffin.

Page 7

“It is important to be mindful about the implications of automation and what it means for humans who might be replaced”

-Cansu Canca, research associate professional at Northeastern University, founder and director of AI ethics lab. (Mello-Kline, C.)”

There is an image of Cansu Canca. There is also an orange owl in flight.

“Most artists taken advantage of by AI feel wronged in 3 main areas

They didn't consent”

There is tea in a white and blue cup. Steam is coming up from the brown tea.

“They weren’t compensated”

There is a bronze coin. Next to it is a stamp with the words “the three C’s (Chayka, K)”

“Their influence wasn't credited”

There is a blue credit card with waves on it and a silver chip. On the credit card, there are the words “credit card numbers :D”

“Courts have sometimes ruled in favor of the copier rather than the copied”

There is a red fox with a blue butterfly on its nose and a turquoise background.

Page 8

“If AI art should be used at all, it should be used as a tool and not a replacement”

There is a hammer with a red handle and two wrenches, one on either side of it, followed by two files and yellow pencil.

“Brennan Buck, senior critic and Yale School of Architecture uses AI also a tool to colorize and upscale images.”

Next to the text is an image of Brennan Buck.

“New artists can look at art made by artists and AI to learn new techniques. However, learning from real artists is more ethical and effective.”

Beneath and between the text is a drawing of a woman with long flowing ginger hair. Her body is obscured by waves like clouds or mist. Six white wings are coming out of her back. She has several hands surrounding a woman with shorter brown hair.

Page 9

“AI is actively harming artists and the art community. It's presently taking jobs and opportunities. Art is a labor of love and pain. Artists cannot and should not be replaced by machines.”

There is a drawing of myself in a birch wood forest. There are bits of sunlight streaming through the gaps in the leaves. I am painting a picture of the scene I see before me. I am in a green dress with a white off-the-shoulder top and there is a brown easel.

Works Cited

Chayka, K. (2023, February 10). Is A.I. Art Stealing from Artists? The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/is-ai-art-stealing-from-artists?irclickid=xyOXQL259xyPRBuWV7XlJViKUkH17cVGIzN7Xs0&irgwc=1&source=affiliate_impactpmx_12f6tote_desktop_FlexOffers.com%2C%20LLC&utm_source=impact-affiliate&utm_medium=29332&utm_campaign=impact&utm_content=Online%20Tracking%20Link&utm_brand=tny. February 28, 2024.

Clarke, L. (2022, November 18). When AI can make art – what does it mean for creativity? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/12/when-ai-can-make-art-what-does-it-mean-for-creativity-dall-e-midjourney. February 28, 2024.

Mello-Klein, C. (2022, October 12). Artificial intelligence is here in our entertainment. What does that mean for the future of the arts? Northeastern Global News. https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/09/09/art-and-ai/. February 28, 2024.

Public Delivery. (n.d.). Why did Félix González-Torres put free candy in a museum? https://publicdelivery.org/felix-gonzalez-torres-untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a-1991/

Vallance, B.B.C. (2022, September 13). “Art is dead Dude” - the rise of the AI artists stirs debate. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62788725. February 28, 2024.

Williams, T. (2023, January 9). Artists angry after discovering artworks used to train AI image generators without their consent. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-10/artists-protesting-artificial-intelligence-image-generators/101786174. February 28, 2024.

Yup, K. (2023, January 25). What AI art means for society, according to Yale experts - Yale Daily News. Yale Daily News. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/01/23/what-ai-art-means-for-society-according-to-yale-experts/. February 28, 2024.

#art #anti ai #anti ai art #artists #artists on tumblr #comic #digital artwork #digital art

7 notes · View notes