AI vs Artists - The Biggest Art Heist in History
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses the impact of AI image generators like Midjourney on artists. It explores concerns around copyright infringement and data scraping, with models trained on billions of images without consent. The speaker argues this is hurting artists directly by allowing easy mimicry of unique styles. They examine ethical issues like impersonation and generated fake content. Overall, they advocate careful, selective use of AI art to avoid jeopardizing creative futures or discouraging emerging talent through over-automation. The video calls for transparency, consent, and compensation around training data as well as human review of AI art laws.
Takeaways
- ๐ฎ Generative AI models like Midjourney are trained on billions of images scraped from the internet without consent, including artists' copyrighted work
- ๐ข Artists feel their unique styles are being stolen by AI to generate images, while they receive no compensation or credit
- ๐ There are no regulations restricting companies from scraping copyrighted content for AI training data
- ๐ AI-generated art saturates online spaces, making it harder to trust content and appreciate human creatives
- ๐ Ethical models like Adobe's train on stock image libraries with creator consent and compensation
- ๐ Tools like Nightshade and Glaze can help creators poison-pill images to protect against scraping
- ๐ค Contributing images to AI models may enable style mimicry and involuntary data laundering
- ๐ Young artists feel hopeless seeing AI instantly achieve aesthetics that took them years to develop
- โ๏ธ Clear legislation is needed around transparency, consent, and compensation for AI training data
- ๐ Human creativity, skill, and vision will likely regain dominance as AI art becomes industrialized junk food content
Q & A
What are some of the main concerns artists have regarding AI image generators?
-Artists are concerned that their work is being scraped from the internet without consent and used to train AI models. This allows companies to profit from their work without compensation or credit. There are also concerns about potential reputation damage, forgery, and identity theft.
How does AI art affect young and aspiring artists?
-Many young artists feel hopeless and discouraged because AI can generate quality artwork with little effort, making them question spending years honing their skills. This could negatively impact the number of people who pursue art as a career.
What are some solutions proposed to make AI art more ethical?
-Solutions include only using work from artists who consented, providing royalties and compensation, cataloging generated images to make them traceable, banning direct style mimicry, and requiring a mix of at least two art styles.
How does AI art affect perception of what is considered quality art?
-Seeing a lot of AI art online will make people assume most art is AI-generated. This means great human artists may not get recognition, as people doubt the authenticity of art from new and emerging artists.
Why can AI art not be copyrighted in its current form?
-The last step of creative expression is done by the AI model based on the prompt, not the person typing the prompt. Without human authorship and creativity, AI art cannot be copyrighted under current laws.
What are some flaws in believing AI art democratizes art?
-Most AI artists want to copyright their own work and profit from it commercially. The art community has always welcomed beginners, so there have not been major barriers to entry other than dedication and practice.
How does generative AI threaten the appreciation of art?
-AI art is fast, cheap consumerism rather than something contemplated and appreciated. Losing the connection between art and the artist's skills, efforts, experiences and feelings removes meaning and value.
What are examples of companies taking an ethical stance on AI art?
-Some companies like Procreate explicitly avoid integrative AI to focus on empowering human creativity. Others like Adobe and Shutterstock are transparent about using only consented data in training.
What skills do human artists have that AI lacks?
-Humans have skills AI lacks like true creativity, surprise, conveying thoughts and feelings, and the ability to make glorious mistakes that lead to breakthroughs. This will keep human art valuable.
How can artists with influence make a difference regarding AI art?
-Influential artists can speak out about concerns over losing the option to pursue art as a career, and discouragement of young artists. They can value human skill and creativity in their own work.
Outlines
๐จ Generative AI's Impact on Art and Copyright
This section highlights the concerns of artists and creators about generative AI, such as MidJourney and OpenAI's Sora, which create art and videos from text prompts. It discusses the ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of massive datasets like LAION-5B, which contains billions of images without the consent of the original creators, to train AI models. The potential for these technologies to undermine copyright laws and the creative process is a significant concern, as AI can replicate styles and produce art that competes with human artists, raising questions about originality, compensation, and the future of creativity.
๐ The Business Perspective and Ethical Concerns in AI
This paragraph addresses the predominantly business-first approach in discussions about AI, highlighting the need for a more inclusive perspective that includes artists and creators in the decision-making process. It critiques the practices of companies like Mid Journey for using copyrighted images without permission, likening the impact of generative AI on artists to the disruptions caused by file-sharing services on the music industry. The emphasis is on the potential of generative AI to not only use artists' work without compensation but to replace them entirely, raising ethical concerns about the sustainability of creative professions.
๐ฅ The Personal Toll on Artists and Style Mimicry
Focusing on the personal stories of artists affected by AI's ability to mimic styles, this paragraph illustrates the emotional and financial impact on creators who see their unique styles replicated without consent or compensation. It introduces the concept of 'consistent styles' by platforms like Mid Journey, which exacerbates the issue by allowing users to generate art in any artist's style, further blurring the lines between original work and AI-generated content. The discussion also covers the inadequate responses by AI companies to copyright infringement, highlighting the broader implications for artists' rights and recognition.
๐ค Ethical Dilemmas and the Future of Artistic Creation
This section delves into the ethical quandaries posed by generative AI, including the manipulation of data to create art that mimics specific styles, raising questions about originality and copyright. It discusses the impact of AI on the value of human creativity and the potential for AI to saturate the market with content that lacks the depth and authenticity of human-made art. The text also examines the implications for emerging artists and the importance of ethical considerations in the development and use of AI technologies in creative fields.
๐ The Proliferation of AI-Generated Content and Copyright Issues
Exploring the widespread distribution of AI-generated images and their impact on digital platforms and stock image libraries, this section highlights the challenge of distinguishing between human and AI-created content. It points out the transparency efforts by companies like Adobe with its Firefly model, trained on a unique dataset, and contrasts this with the broader issue of non-consensual use of copyrighted materials. The discussion extends to the implications for copyright law, artist compensation, and the need for ethical standards in AI-generated content.
๐ Perception of Reality and the Value of Human-Created Art
This paragraph reflects on how generative AI affects the public's perception of art and reality, suggesting that the abundance of AI-generated images could numb people's appreciation for the intricacies of human-made art. It emphasizes the importance of the creative process and the unique experiences and emotions that artists bring to their work, which AI cannot replicate. The text argues that while AI art may offer accessibility and instant gratification, it lacks the depth and personal touch that characterize human creativity, potentially leading to a devaluation of genuine artistic talent and effort.
๐ The Debate on Generative AI's Ethical Use and Copyright Reform
Discussing the ongoing debate over the ethical use of generative AI and the need for copyright reform, this section outlines the views of various stakeholders on how to address the challenges posed by AI in creative industries. It explores potential solutions like consent-based training datasets, compensation for artists, and stricter copyright laws to prevent data laundering and style mimicry. The text underscores the importance of transparency, accountability, and responsible innovation in the development of generative AI tools to ensure they complement rather than compromise human creativity.
๐ Prospects for Ethical Generative AI and Creative Futures
Looking towards the future, this section examines the potential for developing ethical generative AI that respects artists' rights and contributes positively to creative industries. It discusses the efforts of companies like Adobe and initiatives like the Content Authenticity Initiative to integrate ethical principles into AI development. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of legislative action, community standards, and technological solutions to ensure that AI serves as a tool for enhancing human creativity rather than undermining it, preserving the opportunity for future generations to pursue art as a viable career.
๐ญ The Importance of Human Creativity in the Age of AI
Concluding the discussion, this paragraph champions the irreplaceable value of human creativity and the unique qualities that human artists bring to their work, which AI cannot replicate. It reflects on the role of discipline, passion, and hard work in the creative process, using the example of PewDiePie's art journey to inspire and encourage artists. The text argues against the notion that AI can or should replace human creativity, advocating instead for a future where technology supports and enhances the artistic expression, ensuring that art remains a meaningful and vibrant part of human culture.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กgenerative AI
๐กtraining data
๐กdata laundering
๐กartistic style
๐กconsent
๐กcopyright
๐กcompensation
๐กtransparency
๐กethics
๐กregulation
Highlights
AI models are designed to generate new images similar to what they have seen during their training.
The more distinct an artist's style is the more successfully AI can mimic it.
The real appreciation of art comes from valuing the process of the artist, not just the final work.
Looking at generated images is numbing your senses and distorting your perception of reality.
Relying mainly on generative AI to make money is not going to last long even if the creator tries to hide the AI use.
Without an AI tool, most AI artists wouldn't be able to even come close to their generated images.
The companies behind social platforms are baiting users with pretty AI pictures and videos, harvesting their attention and selling it to advertisers.
Generating images, videos, music, 3D objects and everything else will quickly lose its novelty and hype.
The real danger of generative AI is its effect on up-and-coming artists. Many talents may have already been lost to discouragement.
I want a future where there's an option to pursue art as a career. I want kids to want to draw, want to create, want to make things that mean something to them.
Drawing is a visual language, a form of communication. Just because a robot can speak doesn't mean we should stop speaking.
Generative AI models are devouring art in order to mimic greatness created by artists, but they will never have a soul or feelings to express.
At some point human art is going to be valued higher than AI art. AI will always be second rate.
There will be a constant race to identify real human creativity versus something that just came out of a pixel predictor.
We're putting the whole creative future of humanity at risk with generative AI because it's not just skipping fundamentals, it's skipping the emotional journey of learning.
Transcripts
I've seen a lot of my friends just
suffering because their work is so
prominent and they struggled for 10
years or more trying to get their Style
just to see someone else parading
wearing their face and parading it right
there is nothing stopping ad companies
from taking whatever you own from the
internet downloading it and putting into
their training model nothing really
we're putting the whole creative future
of humanity at risk here in the last
couple of weeks I spoke to many amazing
artists and scientists about my mixed
feelings of generative AI join me to
hear their thoughts my advice to
creators and predictions on what's to
come I will be perfectly honest with you
I am equally fascinated and terrified by
generative AI as a graphic designer
illustrator and educator I try to stay
on top of any new technology and tool
that helps self-expression and
creativity I still remember the first
time I saw the potential in AI use for
creating art it was in 2018 when I saw
the example Scott Eaton achieved using
his model trained exclusively on his own
photography data set from his body's in
motion project I never thought that by
2024 we will have tools like mid Journey
that can generate photorealistic images
indistinguishable from real photos or
art and tools like open AI Sora capable
of generating ultra realistic videos
from Tex prom
by now most likely you are familiar with
how AI images are generated but in case
you are not let me give you a very brief
and extremely simplified summary you
type in a few words your prompt
describing what you want to see and the
AI model generates images for you that
never existed before for this process to
work well the AI module needs to be
trained on a massive amount of images
and their descriptions at the moment the
most effective and most widely used data
set Layon 5B includes
5.85 billion uncurated images cwed from
publicly available websites and Cloud
storages this data set was meant for
research purposes only but companies
started to utilize it commercially
within a few months after its release
there are all kinds of images in this
data set from public domain pictures to
a staggering amount of copyrighted work
of both dad and living artists and a
fair amount of explicit content too the
creators of this data set didn't get
consent from anyone while collecting
these images there was no opt-in or opt
out but since it was meant for research
purposes only it didn't seem to violate
anyone's rights you can get a better
idea of the effectiveness and sheer
amount of scraping that was used to
generate Layon 5B data set by going to
have iben tred.com website you can
search the entire training data using
someone's name a domain name or even a
keyword for instance you can find out
how many images of elephants were
scraped off the internet and you can
start to see why AI models can generate
images of elephants from any angle and
in any artistic style this is like
scanning someone's brain to see how well
they remember how an elephant looks only
artists with extraordinary visual memory
like the late Kim jangi can come close
to this level of familiarity and
comprehension of a subject matter
without going into the technicalities of
how deep learning and stable diffusion
works here are some important things to
understand about text to image
generative AI models they are designed
to generate new images similar to what
they have seen during their training
once a model is trained on an image it
cannot unsee it it is a bit like human
memory but much more accurate and
extensive a bit like photographic memory
paired with unlimited storage capacity
to improve the speed of the generation
process all images that are fed into the
AI model are compressed now this
compressed form of the image or latent
image looks like noise to us but the
model is capable of reversing it back to
a recognizable almost identical image as
the original input this transformation
between the original image and the
recovered image after the def Fusion
process is crucial as this is used as an
excuse by AI companies to get around
existing copyright laws and to allow
them to cheat artists out of their
rightful
compensation you may have heard of the
term data laundering it involves
transforming stolen data so that it can
be used for legitimate purposes in this
instance the original data 5.85 billion
images was collected from the web by
nonprofit research groups and then
shared with for-profit companies most
people who are having the AI discussion
are unfortunately starting from a
business first mindset so all of the
ideas all of the discussion about what
should be legal what should not be legal
our discussions are sort of framed
around companies that want to scale up
to the millions to billions of dollars
of Revenue right and if if you're going
to be that kind of company I don't think
you can just have a charismatic CEO at
the top who thinks that they have
perfectly understood the future of
technology and that for some reason
thinks their fairh handed handling of
this situation is going to assure the
best outcomes for everybody no you need
boards that are made up of actual
artists right not just um not not just
technology people who stumbled upon a
code that happens to make art you need
people who are really sort of outside of
the situation real stakeholders um to
help guide these organizations creators
of mid Journey one of the most popular
text to image generators have been
recently CAU discussing laundering
copyrighted images whilst training their
AI model many scientists who worked on
developing AI Technologies are also
disillusioned by the predatory practices
of AI companies used to harm individuals
and entire Industries there is nothing
stopping a companies from taking
whatever you own from the internet
downloading it and putting into their
training model nothing really uh there's
no legal uh statue standing in the way
there's no regulatory agencies that that
say this is not allowed but why is it
such a big deal you might ask that AI
modules have been trained on copyrighted
materials how does this affect the
original
artists remember what happened to the
music industry when nepsta first came
out and then with pretty much every
other intellectual property once fire
sharing or torrent sites became
available I'm talking about movies TV
shows books software Games Etc although
pirated content is still widely
available most Industries found ways to
combat it mainly by streaming their
content the main difference however is
that while torrent sites have been
hurting mainly large companies and
Brands generative AI is hurting
individuals what is worse is that
generative AI didn't just steal artists
work it was created in order to replace
them since we are comparing AI systems
to torrent sites it's as if you can only
download the last season of your
favorite show but even generate any
number of new episodes or Seasons
without the consent and input of the
shows creators if they if they were
marketing a commercial product that was
solely based on people who opted in they
wouldn't have a very competitive product
they wouldn't have a product that would
compete directly with artists right and
like you know this they want to tell
people it's a tool and it's a tool for
artists but it's not it's it's meant as
a replacement for artists because
they're trying to directly compete with
artists in the same market right that is
not a tool that is a replacement the
only way to have a very competitive
extremely competitive product that has
the best imagery is to scrape from
everyone and anyone one of the main
arguments of people using generative AI
tools is that their generated images
only look similar to existing real
artwork that was used to train the AI
models they compared this ability of
mimicking other people's work to how
artists find inspiration and references
here is what l v bar or Lo wrote about
this many have compared image generators
to human artists seeking out inspiration
these two are not the same my art is
literally being fed into these
generators through the data sets and
spat back out of a program that has no
inherent sense of what is respectful to
artists as long as my art is literally
integrated into the system Ed to create
the images it is commercial use of my
art without my consent there are
dedicated websites like this one to help
people easily copy any artist style
using mid Journey you can consider these
style cataloges for people who are lazy
to even research and get to know the
artist they would want to copy Bobby CH
put it this way in his video ai's
ability to copy my style is kind of like
after I spent all this effort to climb a
mountain once I get to a top everyone
else just pops up with the you know
taking selfies on top of this mountain
right beside you and you know that if
you didn't climb the mountain then none
of the others could either yet the only
compensation that's given is to the AI
company even though without my artwork
as well none of this would be possible
they're just looking at something and
they're they're thinking that looks cool
um who did that I'm going to keep
prompting stuff by lowish right then
that's not you're not learning anything
you're just kind of you know it's cool
you don't understand why it's cool and
you just kind of want to keep generating
more of it so that that to me feels like
you're not really benefiting from
anything you're kind of just you know
pulling the slot machine for more for
more results but I've seen a lot of my
friends just suffering because their
work is so PR and they struggled for 10
years or more trying to get their Style
just to see someone else parading
wearing their face and parading it right
you might wonder what happens if you
want to mimic a specific less known
artist style and M Journey doesn't
recognize their name when you're using
it in your prompts well mid Journey
recently introduced a feature called
consistent Styles which makes it even
easier to mimic anyone's style let me
demonstrate this quickly here are some
illustrations my good friend George ton
created
using one or two of these as style
references mid Journey can closely
emulate George's style and the whole
process takes less than a minute within
an hour anyone can generate hundreds of
detailed illustrations in George's
unique artistic style what this means is
that even if his work wasn't scraped in
the first place and used to train the AI
model the uploaded style references will
help to identify similar artwork in the
database and use that to generate
something very similar I don't know if
the uploaded images by the user are then
automatically added to the AI models
training data but I'm pretty sure they
are used in some way to improve it if
that is the case then users become
complicit in data laundering without
their knowledge here is what Patrick
Brown has to say about style mimicry
when I confronted him with generated
images using mid Journey's consistent
Style featur
when I saw this I was kind of surprised
very shocked each of these were probably
just made within seconds compared to if
I was to draw something like this maybe
like this one I would spend probably at
least 3 days probably pulling this
together maybe four or five including
the background for sure like that
background very detailed you know it
does look very
aiish but to the average eye I think it
would just pass as a the usual kind of
Spider-Man artwork or just a piece you
would have thought that it would have
been done by an artist so it's very
scary and I don't like that side of AI
to be honest especially when you aim at
a certain artist and say Hey I want to
get this style and then create a full
picture and out of thin air it really
does suck to have your name or your art
style kind of siphoned off and like put
through a filter and generated and spit
it out in few a few seconds you know
there is a short paragraph about
stealing someone's intellectual property
in mid Journey's terms of service if you
knowingly infringe someone else's
intellectual property and that cost us
money we are going to come find you and
collect that money from you we might
also do other stuff like try to get a
court to make you pay our legal fees
don't do it Sam does Arts explained the
dangers of AI imitating anyone's work
when AI Generations are made to look
like an artist's work this has the
potential for reputation damage for
forgery for fraud for identity theft and
what's most concerning is that when
these models are trained on images of
your artwork they are unable to forget
so almost all of these models are now
working with tainted data their
Generations now all involve copyrighted
content which has been gathered without
the knowledge or permission of the
copyright owner it is directly hurting
artists who have put their passion and
their soul into everything that they
create only for their work to be scraped
from the internet without their
permission and used in training AI
models the unfortunate Paradox is that
the more distinct an artist style is the
more successfully AI can mimic it
Additionally the more complex and
detailed an artwork is the more likely
people will think it is made by AI even
when it's not so generated images
mimicking someone's style is not only
plagiarizing the artist but also makes
people doubt the authenticity of any
future or past work created by the
artist I've been looking at at for I
don't know the past 20 years or so in my
life and yeah sure sometimes there are
dead giveaways about like oh it's too
smooth or does this and that but like
for what you're showing here especially
with their consistency update it's it's
scary like it's it's truly scary you
take someone like gabs for example and
and you just want to emulate his style
you want it for a cover you want it
for an illustration for a movie poster
right you just you take a few more
examples double it triple the uh the
amount that you that you use for
consistency and all of a sudden you have
even better results so I think it's
tremendous tremendously scary because
it's so good this AI ethics Spectrum
demonstrates really well how exact style
mimicry is ethically and morally the
worst thing you can use generative AI
for especially when used to profit
commercially from the generated images
Dana Executive Vice President general
counsel and chief trust officer at Adobe
said this in his interview with neai
Patel from the word there's no such
thing as style protection in copyright
law right now that you can't protect
that there's that's not a concept so
we've uh We've introduced in the same
sen of testimony you refer to earlier
this idea of a federal anti-
impersonation right and the idea of that
is it would give artists a right to
enforce against people who are
intentionally impersonating their work
for commercial gain is it still possible
to share anything online without
worrying about feeding a generative AI
model with your work Ben Xiao professor
of computer science and his team at the
University of Chicago created two
interesting tools that can help protect
your digital images stored online so n
shade is trying to help give some power
back to the to the content owners um
against people who don't care about
licensing who don't care about ownership
who don't care about copyright uh it is
a small poison pill you can put inside
your art um it works very similar to
glaze except where glaze is modifying
what the AI model sees in terms of
artistic style Nightshade works by
changing what the AI model sees in terms
of composition so instead of you know
seeing a cow in a you know Green pasture
it sees a big leather handbag uh sitting
on a grassy Hill right so um each art
piece can be equipped with a small
poison pill um in such a way that if
enough of it gets collected and gets
trained by the same model then that
model will start to get very confused
about what is a cow it will think that a
cow has a nice leathery handle and you
know shiny buckles um and those kind of
things AI is not only saturating the
internet with unreliable fake content
that's free to access but also in the
form of paid content here is an example
of a fake art book that is advertised as
a compelling and extensive guide book on
drawing people while in reality it is a
collection of generated images and
generated text with close to zero value
to anyone interested in learning to draw
fellow YouTuber Jaz dros made a video
about this it just goes to show the
moral ethic iCal ambiguity of AI now uh
and how it's how it's impacting artists
I could have paid that $95
us to the people who whose style that
was based on or or it was used you know
I might have bought J Scott Campbell how
to draw book you know which I and I've
bought some of those I am pretty sure
this is just one of many examples of fig
books out there just imagine you are
learning to drive and you get scammed to
learn from a fake book or you get a
story book for your child that turns out
to be AI generated with hidden flows
that will secretly influence your
child's imagination or understanding of
the world oh wait this already happened
how can you protect yourself from fake
books only by being extremely Vigilant
but it is going to get harder and harder
to differentiate generated books from
real ones as AI models and workflows
improve but it's not just books there
are all kinds of generated digital
products already out there sites like
art station are full of stuff like this
massive collections of image references
of something very specific like a
stylized werewolf head there is a small
mention that this product is made with
the help of AI meaning it's nothing more
than a library of curated generated
images at least here they were not lying
about the use of AI stock sites are also
Ed with generated images to see the
scale of proliferation it's worth
checking the ratio between real images
compared to generated images on some of
the popular stock sites shut stock for
instance currently has around 5 million
AI generated images which sounds like a
lot but it only amounts to
1.15% of its entire Library compared to
this free pick went all in with AI
images a staggering
42.7% out of their 121 million stock
images are generated I have to give it
to them though that they are being
completely transparent about this and
they make it super convenient to filter
for AI images even based on which model
they were generated in and whether their
original prompt is available or not out
of the 400 million stock images
currently on Adobe stock 10.1% are AI
generated contributors have to indicate
if their image was created using AI
tools and whether people or property in
the images are fictional here is one of
their guidelines for generative AI
content don't submit content created
using prompts containing other artist
names or created using prompts otherwise
intended to copy another artist the most
interesting thing is that adobe decided
to train their generative model Adobe
Firefly on a unique data set made up of
adobe stock IM images along with openly
licensed work and public domain content
where copyright has expired I stock by
gy images also introduced their own
generative AI solution in September 2023
partnering with Nvidia which similarly
to Adobe Firefly was exclusively trained
on their own stock Library these two
examples Adobe and gy pro that
generative AI models can work without
stealing billions of images and being
transparent about their training data
large stock sites like these were in a
unique position that they were sitting
on a gold mine from a deep learning
point of view they have a huge library
of mostly high quality and high
resolution images with descriptive
titles and tags added by the
contributors to make their images easier
to find at the moment when comparing
Adobe Firefly with mid Journey for
instance it's a clear wiin in most cases
for Mid Journey in terms of the quality
and realism of the output however Adobe
is undeniably the more ethical model out
of the two flip normals is another great
example of a digital Marketplace aimed
at 3D artists where the founders Morton
and Henning made it clear that
contributors can upload and sell a wide
variety of content as long as it's not
AI generated any AI art uploaded even if
given away for free will be taken down
relying mainly on generative AI to make
money is not going to last long even if
the Creator is going to try to hide the
fact that they used AI on one hand it is
unethical using mid journey is similar
to using torrent sites selling work
heavily relying on generated images is
even worse however it is like selling
stuff that you downloaded from torrent
sites the creators of AI tools are not
directly involved in the of plagiarism
they only provide the framework or
vehicle for it on the other hand art
created with AI is super accessible
anyone can do it which means pretty much
everyone will use it eventually it
reminds me of Google and other search
engines when they first came out in the
mid '90s and using them to find answers
to your questions was like magic it
seemed like a unique skill for a while
but then it became the norm and now it
is as normal to use a search engine as
breeding having amazing cameras on our
mobile devices didn't automatically turn
all of us into professional
photographers also randomly taking
thousands of photos every day may still
not result in any outstanding images
generating images videos music 3D
objects and everything else that will be
possible in the future will quickly lose
its novelty and hype and the value of
generated art will plummet Jake Parker
calls generative AI a new and Incredibly
successful form of industrialized art
where quantity affordability and speed
is the priority over quality and skill
previous successful examples of
industrialized art are stock sites
Fiverr and social media platforms like
Pinterest Instagram Tik Tok the
companies behind social platforms are
baiting users with pretty pictures and
videos harvesting their attention and
selling it to advertisers they are
serving up compact thumbnail size art on
a conveyor belt what's worse is that
these social platforms are already
saturated with AI images and soon AI
videos will follow turning them into a
Minefield if you're looking for
authentic content compared to these
other examples of industrialized art
generative AI takes things to a whole
new level it is a peak example of
consumerism it's like the the fast food
version of art it's available to
everyone it's cheap but it is not good
for you while fast food is negatively
affecting your physical condition AI art
is affecting your mind and how you
perceive things that you see looking at
generated images is numbing your senses
and distorting your perception of
reality remember when a piece of art was
experienced by staring at it for several
minutes and appreciating all its details
and imp factions trying to learn its
meanings and Mysteries the thoughts and
emotions the artist was trying to
capture generative images on the other
hand serve our impatient Society
perfectly we are Highwire or trained to
think that looking at anything for more
than 2 seconds feels like a waste of
time and to be frank that is actually
true about most AI art what humans want
is like the shortcut like biologically
we don't want to do work we don't want
to do do hard things because well I mean
we burn more calories and if we don't
have to we don't want to do that if
there was a pill that overnight you
would get jacked you would go from being
a skinny or a fat guy to like actually
like Henri caval in The Witcher kind of
level and you would be like sweet now
that's done I don't have to spend 10
years of my life and 5 hours at a gym
per day like you would you would just be
there and it's almost like we have that
if you have a button to get jacked with
in art like what's the point of things
right the real appreciation of art comes
from valuing the process of the artist
not just the time and effort it took
them to create a specific piece of art
but their entire life experience
generative AI removes the process from
creation and makes people believe that
it offers a shortcut to acquire artistic
skills and experience the actual Act of
taking a great photo requires much less
time than creating a painting of the
same sub subject and it could also be
considered a shortcut to achieve the
same composition however taking great
photos still relies on a lot of skills
and practice compared to writing a
prompt imagine that you have an idea for
a painting and you describe it to your
friend you also tell her that you don't
think you have the time or skills to
create it but you would love to see
someone else painting it next time you
meet your friend shows you a painting
that closely resembles what you
described she tells you that your idea
inspired her and that she worked on it
for several days now would you consider
yourself to be the artist in this
situation this is the same relation
between a user and a generative AI tool
where the AI is the friend who does the
actual work based on your prompt another
way to think about this is to imagine a
game where you have two options in the
main menu to start the game or to see
the end of the game the first option
would require you to spend dozens of
hours of playtime to reach the ending if
you decide to choose the second option
you could save all that time and effort
but would the ending mean anything to
you then not only you wouldn't fully
understand what's happening but you
wouldn't have any emotional ties to any
of the characters or events is AI art
not just a new type of digital art which
when it first became available was
considered to be a shortcut to creating
art and was looked down on by
traditional artists most people had the
misconception of digital art being
somewhat similar to generative images
where you just push a few buttons and a
great image pops out but compared to AI
art digital art is made by hand and
requires a lot of skill to do well most
AI artists already look at traditional
and digital artists as dinosaurs and
saying generative AI is just another
tool and those who won't embrace it will
fall behind but most of them don't
realize is that without an AI tool they
wouldn't be able to even come close to
their generated images while pre-i
artists would be able to make amazing
art pretty much with any tool you put in
their hands some some people who have
who have been into generative AI when
they saw the mid Journey artist database
they stopped using it right away because
they realized what the implications were
and they understood that it wasn't their
skill it was other people's skills and
they just
they they understood the the moral
implications right other
people just turned a blind eye and kept
going because it was too painful to
understand what was happening and they
just wanted to keep spiking their
dopamine and they wanted to stay in
these um communities without thinking
too critically right again this is
generalizing but a lot of people who are
using these image models never knew who
any of us were before which means that
their interest in art wasn't that deep
mhm it never went that deep to find out
who Kim jongi was you know who Greg
rowski was who John Singer Sergeant was
like none of that right there was no
real interest this just became junk food
yeah it's and it's it's interest based
on dopamine accessibility and
addiction right and it's causing harm
here is another little experiment for
you let's find a few great examples of
generated images from mid journey and
compare the complexity and
sophistication of prompts used to
generate them is there a correlation
between how detailed The Prompt is and
the quality of the generated image in
most cases there isn't which proves that
there is a huge factor of luck and
Randomness involved in generative AI art
democratization of art is an interesting
but flowed concept most AI artists who
who believe in this sentiment however
would still prefer to own copyrights for
their generated images they don't mind
exploiting other artist work but they
want their work to be marketable and
profit from it there is a big divide
between the AI artists and non- AI
artists or as jav Lopez founder of
magnific AI likes to call them the anti-
aai cluster the art community has always
been welcoming and helpful to anyone
interested to get started or gain skills
I hate to see this unjustified hatred
towards traditional and digital artists
as if they were holding on to their
secrets and acting as Gatekeepers
thinking that finally now with
generative AI anyone can become an
artist a lot of people look at this
movement as a revolution where the
snobby artists are finally getting what
they deserve while in reality nothing
can be further from the truth at the
moment the main reason why big Brands
and companies are careful about adopting
generated images and videos in their
communication is that AI art cannot be
copyrighted the US copyright office
noted that image generators produce
images in an unpredictable way and thus
cannot be considered creative or
inventive typing in a prompt and having
generative AI create the image we don't
think that output is copyrightable by
itself because we think that the um last
step of expression is being done by the
AI not you you're typing your prompt
you're like you know pink bear riding a
bicycle the AI is choosing in the first
instance what kind of bear the shade of
pink all the things that are supposed to
be the expression that the artist is
supposed to have in order to get a
copyright so we think that just typing
in a prompt is probably not going to
create a copyrighted blpr the copyright
law is quite clear that human authorship
is required for copyright adobe's
content authenticity initiative and
content credentials were created to
enable creators to add extra information
about themselves and their creative
process directly to their content in the
form of a new kind of temper evident
metadata this could be a solution for
proving the ratio between the work
achieved by Ai and the human artist but
we will have to see how widely it will
be accepted and how effective it will
become if you're a creative professional
you're never satisfied with what comes
out of one of these gen of AI um models
because it's not exactly what you wanted
right you're always going to make it
whatever your vision is and it's it's we
we referred this the first step in the
creative process and all the other steps
are going to be catable the opinion on
generative AI is extremely divisive and
I hope if you ended up watching this
video this far you can see why most
artists agree that they would consider
using AI if the training data was clear
of copyright violations using AI is
similar to tapping into the collective
imagination of humankind and it can be
useful for ideation for for the first
time you can brainstorm on your own and
get surprising ideas you may have never
thought of creativity is fueled by the
unexpected and AI has no fear of failing
so it will often make surprising
mistakes that can lead to breakthroughs
and Brilliant new ideas Sam Harper said
that AI art makes glorious mistakes and
therefore makes glorious art he also
said that AI is in its early days and
it's making lots and lots of mistakes
these are the days of AI being a good
artist once it gets too good at doing
what it was designed for it will no
longer make mistakes one question that
I'm particularly interested in is
whether there is a way to make a
completely ethical generative AI tool
Adobe has an AI Ethics program for
instance following three guiding
principles accountability responsibility
and transparency which spell art by the
way but it can be argued that shoving
all of adobe stock into a training data
set was not all that ethical since the
contributors only found out about this
after their images were already used to
train Firefly it is also fairly easy to
find generated images with copyrighted
materials on famous IPS on Adobe stock
I'm pretty sure Disney and Nickelodean
would not be happy to find out that
adobe is licensing their intellectual
properties I am sure that adobe is doing
its best to filter these out but it's
not an easy task when the contributors
are trying to be tricky when naming
these assets what I hope will happen in
the near future is that the L will
Define the requirements for generative
AI data sets so what would an ideal
ethical legislation look like for
generative AI training data sets to be
100%
transparent only use work in a data set
by artists who gave their consent
royalties and compensation should be
paid out to artists who opted in
generated images need to be cataloged
and easy to track direct or exact style
mimicry should not be allowed perhaps
the combination of minimum two artist
styles could work or simply completely
ban the usage of names of creators
generated images can only be used for
reference purposes and fully AI
generated work should not be acceptable
as a finished concept the UK House of
Lords publication on generative AI
states that the government should
prioritize fairness and responsible
Innovation it must resolve disputes
definitely including through updated
legislation if needed Empower rights
holders to check if their data has been
used without permission and invest in
large highquality training data sets to
encourage Tech firms to use license
material this is a very promising
Direction and I hope it won't take long
before this gets more traction around
the world the real danger of generative
AI is the effect it's having on upand
cominging artists many talents may have
been lost already to discouragement by
generative AI many might ask the same
question why should I spend over 10,000
hours perfecting my skills and repping
my head around complex and confusing
things like Anatomy perspective and
color theory when I can just write a few
words and get dozens of beautiful
generated images I already assume that
every day I'm seeing several AI images
that I'm not clocking right the the
problem with AI is that you're only
noticing the ones that you notice yeah
right the ones that are of sufficient
quality you're just scrolling right past
them you know you're just accepting them
for what they are and um I have
seen groups of professional artists you
know in a sort of formalized way try to
see how much can they identify AI art
and you know who can get a perfect score
right and in a considerable group of
artists you know maybe 20 or something
like that there's only one person who
will clock them all you know there and
and most everybody will make some amount
of mistakes and not just one so I'm
deeply deeply concerned about this I
think this problem is only going to get
worse and it it's bad for the artists
and it's also bad for the atmosphere
around Art Online the the issue with
stuff like this is that once there's
enough of this online and I think we're
basically already there you'll just
start assuming most stuff is AI and when
that happens we're on a slippery slope
that I really don't know how we come
back from once that happens that's a
very bad position to put new artists
into and artists who are trying to break
in and get popular it's horrible to
think that I would be less inclined to
recognize them as a a great talent just
because I'm like well where did you come
from and if you came out of nowhere
you're probably AI you know you don't
have a natural progression where have
you been it's like that is a horrible
atmosphere to have around art sharing
and the the and and social media I I
think that's only going to make us more
insular like you said it's going to make
us more inclined to only can only
interact with the people that we already
follow you know it's going to be much
harder to on board someone new as a
favorite artist or a great artist you
know think about the young people right
now I get so many comments and messages
from people telling me how they feel
hopeless there are literally kids out
there art babies who are in art schools
going through a 4-year program to
hopefully work in the industry and they
feel like there's no hope for them if
you're an artist with a voice with a
platform you don't have to do it for
yourself do it for the younger
generation there are so many people
young people who are counting on you I
don't know about you guys but I want a
future where there's an option to pursue
the passion of art as a career I want a
future where the kids want to draw want
to create want to make things that mean
something to them Stan preno or proo in
the draftsman podcast said drawing is a
visual language it's a form of
communication and just because a robot
can speak doesn't mean we should stop
speaking generative AI models are
devouring art in order to come close to
the greatness created by real artists
but they will never have a soul or
feelings to express but I do think that
also at some point if not already uh a
lot of people and a lot of companies are
coming to the realization that human
skill matters uh creativity really does
matter you know a lot of book covers a
lot of Publishers a lot of companies
creative companies are already
instituting no AI policies how long does
it take for AI to become the the sort of
the bottom line the minimal version of
what we can get and and if you want
something that is really surprising and
really thought-provoking and challenging
you'll still need to come back to humans
and at that point I don't know how many
human artists will be still thriving but
I do think at some point Human Art is
going to be value higher than AI are if
not already that that AI is always going
to be second rate it's always going to
be the cheap version when you can't hire
someone with real skill and creativity
you go back on Mid journey and you get
this you know uh something that you can
have for 50 cents um and so there's
going to be this constant race of how do
we tell the difference how do we
identify real human skill versus
something that just came out of a you
know pixel predictor um so that will be
interesting to see how it develops and
and what kind of tools come up with to
to to tell that difference to identify
something as you know true human
creativity versus uh a copy one of the
best things that happened recently on
YouTube that demonstrates the beauty and
importance of discipline and hard work
is the amazing art journey of one of
YouTube's biggest influencers PewDiePie
Felix decided he was going to improve
his drawing skills and Drew at first for
30 days then continued his challenge
till he reached 100 days his progress
passion and dedication is so inspiring
and sets a great example for those
discouraged from learning to draw some
companies like procreate are taking a
firm standpoint that they are not going
to introduce anything to do with
generative AI to their products they are
a small team passionate about art and
creation and they always value their
users over making profit their product
procreate has been the number one
bestseller app on the app store for iPad
for over 5 years and now their latest
app procreate dreams became a close
second on the bestseller chart they are
a prime example of a tech company who
believes in providing people tools to
express Express themselves easily but
they realize that AI is not about making
the process of creation easier it is
about automating or replacing the
process itself we're putting the whole
creative future of humanity at risk here
because another issue with this is not
just that uh like you let's say you want
to be an illustrator and now you go
straight to doing this kind of stuff
you're you're skipping the important
steps of learning about the art
fundamentals it's not just art
fundamentals as you know learning
perspective or learning construction and
color theory it's it's like you go
through a journey when you're learning
these things like you you're not just
going to school and like you don't you
don't enter the school as as the same
person as you leave the school as
because there is just an emotional
Journey there what does it mean to even
be creative or to express yourself that
is what what's at stake when you're
dealing with technology like this
generative AI is here to stay there is
no stopping or slowing down this
technology should you use generative AI
for your creative work I will let you
decide that but whatever you do I
encourage you to use this technology
carefully I am hopeful that generative
AI will evolve and become more ethical
in the future but until then we have to
be very selective in how we use it thank
you for watching don't forget to share
your opinion in the comments and I hope
to see you in the next
one
Browse More Related Video
WHY AI ART IS HARMFUL FOR ARTISTS.. AND YOU
Why Artists are Fed Up with AI Art.
DALLยทE 2, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney: How do AI art generators work, and should artists fear โฆ
Did AI Just Die? - Company's Pull The Plug
How artists and critics think AI art will transform the industry | Art Works
Use of Artificial intelligence generates questions about the future of art
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)