With all the fuzz about IA image “stealing” illustrator job, I am curious about how much photography changed the art world in the 19th century.
There was a time where getting a portrait done was a relatively big thing, requiring several days of work for a painter, while you had to stand still for a while so the painter knew what you looked like, and then with photography, all you had to do was to stand still for a few minutes, and you’ll get a picture of you printed on paper the next day.
How did it impact the average painter who was getting paid to paint people once in their lifetime.
AI isn’t stealing jobs any more than cheap clip art has. The only people who would resort to AI for illustration stopped hiring actual artists ages ago, they buy from shutterstock and the like instead.
The reason artists are pissed id because they used our art to train the AI without our permission. And no, its not the same thing as an artist learning from others, first because of the scale, and second because a student who is learning from other artists isn’t looking to copy an existing style, they’re learning and developing their own. AI just regurgitates what it already knows and attempts to imitate the style of an actual person. It was developed specifically to do that.
If a human being copies the style of another artist rather than develop their own, they’ll be called out too. No one has ever been okay with that, ever.
It sure did have a big impact, comparable to what some people expect to happen soon with AI.
However, I think your framing misses the main point of why many artists today are wary about AI: They are not just being replaced, their own work is used as a building block for the tools that will replace them; and they were not asked for permission and don’t even get any compensation for that.
If you have a basic understanding how AI works then this argument doesn’t hold much water.
Let’s take the human approach: I’m going to look at all the works of popular painters to learn their styles. Then I grab my painting tools and create similar works.
No credit there, I still used all those other works as input and created by own based on them.
With AI it’s the same, just in a much bigger capacity. If you ask AI to redraw the Mona Lisa you won’t get a 1:1 copy out, because the original doesn’t exist in the trained model, it’s just statistics.
Same as if you tell a human to recreate the painting, no matter how good they are, they’ll never be able to perfectly reproduce the original work.
But it does hold water. The original image might not be contained within the model, but the fact that it was trained on stolen data makes it problematic. Even if humans do the same, an AI model is not a human but a product, and therefore needs to adhere to different rules.
If a painter looks at another artist’s painting, then decided to paint something similar, is that stealing?
It does become not a technical discussion but a philosophical one pretty soon. I’m not sure humans can accurately cite their sources either—yes they can be interviewed and claim X or Y as a big influence on their artistic work. But how do they know that? Do they know that more than an AI asked the same question?
AI pulling from a database to recreate artstyles is much more destructive than human inspiration.
Imagine you’re a child book illustrator. Your work is out there and accessible. Now someone has the idea to get into it using AI. They really like your artstyle and tell the AI your name. Now the AI spits out illustrations in your artstyle, and many people might not even be able to tell the difference.
This random person uploads it or maybe even contacts your publisher. Worst case scenario they even buy his work and not care about the quality of the stories. Now you’re actually replaced.
Now is this not copyright infringement?
Having the AI cite sources is not a solution to this as people will simply detach them. Having signatures on your works is not a solution and it actually makes it worse because then the AI copies it and now it looks like signed work from you.
When I first saw people using AI to make great images I thought the same. It’s just a non human inspiration cycle. But human inspiration is so so different. You don’t just look at existing images. EVERYTHING you’ve ever seen is an inspiration. Everything you’ve ever read heard or done too.
Human inspiration is one thing. Creation takes skill practice and time. AI creation doesn’t. The program might have required skill to write, but that’s not an excuse for it to threaten entire industries.
With AI it’s the same, just in a much bigger capacity.
And this bigger capacity makes a huge difference.
I try to give you an easy example:
When a company wants to fell a tree, it is no big deal. When a company wants to fell 100.000 trees, you would maybe start to think if they should be allowed to do that. Environment and all. When a company wants to fell all the trees in the whole world, you would say No to that plan (hopefully) without much thinking.
So, you see, scale makes a difference in nearly all decisions. Legal and other.
This AI thing is already at the size of “all in the world”. It is a big deal. We need to think very carefully.
I’m just adding on to this.
Scale here comes in multiple layers, including the capacity/speed at which these technologies can be deployed, as well as the breadth of domains/fields/applications they touch upon, not to mention the unintended consequences when at scale. It’s not only they are much faster, cheaper, but they come almost all at once and have the potential to affect so many fields. Heck, “GP” means general purpose in GPT. Plus the effects of scale can be extremely unpredictable that we should not underestimate (disinformation campaigns now come much cheaper and easier, trust erodes even further).
I don’t know much about history so please correct me, but photography “replacing” painting may be quite specific, that painters could probably have adapted or switched to another professions. I think one commenter stated that the transition was “smoother”. In the case of these generative techs, this affects the livelihood of a whole bunch more of people (possibly both in absolute and per-capita number) that will need to grapple with what they’re going to do with their life, and have to do it fast.
One branch of the arguments I’ve been seeing is about capability comparison, sometimes even anthropomorphizing tech/companies. While I find that interesting and valuable intellectually, I personally think the conversations need to be more about the labor aspects.
Learning takes time and people need to eat. In the name of progress, society sometimes forgets or brushes over the “casualties” it leaves behind. I think many would benefit from this tech, but let’s hope they have a meal on their table doing so.
We don’t want a dystopian where they use these techs to generate the illusions of enjoying a feast over a big hotpot, while in reality it’s just a can of tomato soup for a family of 5.
An independent artist learning new styles and gaining inspiration in creating their own work is not at all the same as a profit driven software corperation stealing other artists works on a massive scale to develop their own commercial products. That’s on top of most artists like myself prohibiting using our work for private commercial gain unless properly compensated or credited.
It looks to me like you’re talking about something else compared to the person you’re replying to.
To my eyes, he’s arguing in favor of the technology as a concept, while you’re arguing against specific products (let’s say midjourney, for the sake of the discussion). If midjourney proved beyond any doubt that their model was trained on a data set that they had rights to (by buying them from artists, or the images already being copyright free, doesn’t matter), would you still be against it?
Similarly, you said you’re against your work being used for commercial purposes, but would you be ok with me training a model on your work, and then using AI to generate images in your style that I use as, for example, character art for my DnD games that I will pay with friends? (making an assumption here, don’t know what kind of artist you are)
The thing is, with a certain model you could get a perfect 1:1 copy but that’s not really the point. I have a degree that includes machine learning and I believe it’s imperative that we have legislation that protects content owners and puts restrictions on what data you’re allowed to use to train your models. Not because I don’t understand but because I do understand.
Haphazardly introducing this technology at a large scale in society will come with serious consequences, not to mention the consequences to privacy if we don’t curtail what data that companies are allowed to scrape from the internet just because they throw in buzzwords about “AI” in somewhere.
This is fundamentally not about being pro-technology or anti-technology, it’s about how we value private citizens versus corporations.
The difference is that we recognise humans and their history, imperfections and many many influences to be part of what makes both the human and expression unique.
A lot of the discussion doesn’t grant the machine learning models the same inherent worth as humans get, and thus is viewed as a tool trained to replicate others’ work (rather than a creative agent).
This means that where a student painter is expected to have a desire to express something, and are putting in hard work in practice and paying tutors. Replacing them with a machine without desires or stories to express, by stealing artwork without neither credit or compensation, to then replace the same people who’ve been exploited in creating the tool, seems unfair.
This is true, but the way AI differs in a problematic way is usually described in confused and incorrect terms like “stealing” or “training without permission”.
It is, to some degree legally and to some degree culturally, not allowed to copy someone else without their permission. For human artists this problem is contained.
If I am inspired by your work and create a painting a biiit to close to your work, intentionally or not, you have the option to talk to me and we can work something out. Or worst case take me to court.
If an AI does the same, unintentionally of course, it’s not one painting after a few weeks of work. It’s thousands per day. You have no capacity to find and initiate conversations about each of those. And worse, your conversations will not be with someone who recognizes that they were inspired by your work. It will usually be with someone who doesn’t have the affinity to see the similarities and will shrug and says “I don’t see it sorry” and you have to take the fight to the AI supplier third party’s legal team who will also shrug and hide behind terms like “algorithm”.
Let’s explore this further. When we look at the work of a human we can often see their influences (and they can often acknowledge them or even cite specific works). In a way, they are able to credit those they were inspired by.
Would an “AI” be able to do the same? I’m guessing it probably can, but more as a statistical similarity to other works. I don’t know if it can cite its sources.
A human can say that they were influenced by XYZ but they might not be crediting all of the instructors they had, or all the art books they read, all the stepping stones that got them to the point of being able to produce a work that has an identifiable influence. Then consider the people who influenced the person they’re citing as an influence, and so on and so on. I don’t know that the AI can tell you where every flourish comes from, but the person using it as a tool certainly could tell you what tags they used, which often include "in the style of "
Comparing the emergence of photography to that of AI is a bit like comparing a nuclear explosion to an all-out nuclear world war. There are magnitudes of difference. You can say, humanity didn’t get wiped out because of nuclear bombs or power plant failures so far. But what would you think if everyone today starts nukeing their neighbours?
Photography made an impact, but not like AI. You need to take into account that technology, goods, and resources moved at different speeds back then. Today, anyone can access a camera. And AI for that matter. Back then, it required a certain status, having money to purchase it, learning how to develop the photos, etc. It was a gradual change, not one that swept the rug under everyone’s feet.
And yes, painters did lose part of their jobs as portrait painters, but not too much because those who could afford a portrait to begin with, were the wealthy. And the quality of a photo, then, wasn’t always better than a painting. Which meant the wealthy still commissioned art for one reason or another.
Art gradually shifted towards printing and advertising, so taking all these factors into account, you could say that only portrait painters suffered less demand, but art overall was getting more and more commercial for other reasons.
AI in contrast just popped out of nowhere a couple of years ago and keeps perfecting itself at an incredible rate. It’s so broad it what it can represent that it will affect all sorts of artists, not just this one specific subset.
Thank you for this comprehensive response. Out of interest, do you think that certain artist jobs/genres will survive? For example, I would imagine that humans can innovate better than an AI trained on existing data. So perhaps we’ll see a shift towards more human-created modern/post-AI art?
It’s difficult for me to make a prediction like that. I figure the next generation of artists- which we’ll see mature in some 20 years- is going to be nothing like what we’ve seen so far. I believe having actual skills in art will become irrelevant and outdated. It will survive, the same way we still have people enjoying horse riding and archery but it won’t be a determining factor on art as a final product.
Humans will surely be directing the way art evolves but AI will do the heavy lifting. Considering we have technology capable of putting thought (and I mean brain activity, not words, but actually thoughts) into images and words, it’s just matter of time before art becomes something anyone can produce just by thinking about it.
The problem for me isn’t so much copyright or how it will evolve, but this sudden transition phase which will drive to extinction the process of art as we know it. Well established artists today are probably going to stay the same, and the new ones as I mentioned will grow up with these new technologies so that won’t be a problem, long term.
My concern goes for artists who just got started and who can’t embrace AI as part of the process. It’s gonna be rough. It’s like asking someone to stop listening to their favorite music and switch to some new genre they have no love for. Considering artists are usually more sensitive (psychologically) than people without artistic inclinations, I’m worried for their mental health, not just the financial. AI is damaging the sense of self worth of many talented people and that’s going to have consequences.
I feel like people will still continue to draw/paint etc. for the enjoyment of it but perhaps it will be a less viable career choice. Current artists will feel more and more pressured to incorporate some level of AI generation into their process, before they become overtaken by those who have adapted. That could start out as people using AI generated textures or backgrounds within their art for example.
You forgot a massive step in-between: Digital art / Photoshop.
Which already vastly sped up art creation and made it easier (when you can just use special brushes instead of having to spend hours doing a pattern by hand).
And even though it’s a lot easier, you still need artists to produce proper products. Good artists and designers will keep their jobs in the foreseeable future, while more simple one-shot works can be done by AI.
I really hope you are right about the last paragraph. About the rest, I didn’t forget, I didn’t mention it as it’s not what OP made the comparison to.
But you make a good point about digital art creating more disruption to the status quo than photography did. However, AI is still an on steroids comparison if you ask me. You still need to invest a massive amount of time and practice to get good at digital. Creating a whole image can take hours , days, months. And if you don’t understand what makes it look good, it won’t. This is not the case with AI. You don’t need art skills. It helps if you do, it gives you more control to manipulate a result, but the quality you get from the beginning is on another level.
You only get good quality if you use the right model, the right keywords, the right negative prompt, the right settings, … and then it can still be pure luck.
If you see a high quality AI image that actually looks good (not just parts of it, but the whole composition) then someone probably spent hours with fine-tuning and someone else spent weeks to customize the model.
And even if you’re good at that, you’ll never get exactly the image you had in your mind. Especially as most models are heavily biased (You can create a portrait of a busty beautiful woman, but the second one you create probably has a very similar face).
This might get better relatively fast, but right now AI art is not a replacement for good artists. Especially if you need more than one image with consistency between them.
It’s more like a superpowered Photoshop where you can mess around with and get cool results, just that instead of filters or a magic stamp you generate the entire image.
Super cool tech, but of course artists feel threatened. Except the popular ones who already drown in commissions.
A discussion around the extent to which painters were replaced by photographers (and professional photographers replaced by laypersons with smartphone cameras) isn’t going to quite be the same as a discussion about human illustrators being potentially replaced by “AI”.
I suspect the words “soul” and “character” (and derivatives thereof) to turn up more.
I imagine a better analogy would be scribes talking about the printing press.
Prior to the invention of the printing press, the endeavor of mass creation of copies of a book could employ dozens of highly trained, highly skilled workers whose recreations were frequently seen as an artistic endeavor as much as a literary one. When the printing press was introduced and didn’t carry illustrations in the margins or nice little flourishes on some of the letters, the works were considered “soulless” and “without character”
I think the key difference is that the words put out via printing press were still arranged the way they were by human hand.
The painting and the photograph are framed by human eyes.
The output of an “AI” seems different because it seems that there is less (of potentially no) human input. I say “seems” because that may or may not be true. If a human guides the AI with instructions, is that enough?
In my line of work, AI is coming. I see it as a friend in silico
I don’t disagree that it feels way different, and honestly I’m still not sure if it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing.
But are the words you and I are writing a lesser form of communication just because we’re tapping a screen or typing on a keyboard rather than writing them out by hand?
Granted, it’s still not the same thing. These are my words being arranged to my liking, but will we one day look at AI art as an extension of our hand the way that a keyboard is?
Is the world a better place because the commodification of art is monopolized by AI, or will art be better for the fact that it’s only practiced for the love of art and more bespoke purposes?
This subject is super complex and philosophical and definitely something I hope I live long enough to see the resolution to, some day.
I read an article on PC Gamer just the other week where one of the prominent D&D artists said AI was already impacting his work. And not just in the usual way of stealing away jobs, but also, by damaging their artistic reputation by people generating ai artworks in their style, and people not knowing what was or wasn’t actually his.
