Last summer there was a buzz going around. It turned out that a few developers had began allowing beta access to their AI-powered image generation software. I think, generally speaking, most people thought it seemed really cool and the stuff that was coming out was darn impressive. I admit I was pretty amazed by it.

But then something else happened. Something that got a lot of people thinking about just what AI "art" actually is. In the wake of the passing of so many popular artists in comics and related fields, my own father included, people started posting AI-generated art in the styles of these artists as an homage. Elsewhere on the internet people were posting AI-generated art in the styles of illustrators that were popular on social media platforms.

When we talk about the "style" of an artist we often misconstrue that as something that is controllable. Yes, artists have signature elements of their work that can be emulated by others but a simple eye test can tell you if you're looking at the original article or someone doing their interpretation of another artist's signature elements. No, style is the DNA of an artist's art. Vastly more complex than the active decisions of any artist in any one moment. It is years of decisions and behaviors that culimated in a way of producing work. Ask any artist to define what their style is and they probably would have difficulty. That's because it's largely unconscious. There's something relevatory about it. I know I never looked at my work and saw a particular style but for years I've been told otherwise.

So, when we come down to the idea of taking the breadth of an artist's career and putting it into a software that uses the information to reproduce something that uses a massive amount of processing power, more than a human can summon, and instruct it to produce a work that emulates that "style," to many it feels like you're taking the soul out of the artist and putting it on the shelf between the crackers and cookies.

But listen, I get what all the AI "artists" are saying. We're trying to gatekeep. That we're denying the average person the opportunity to create wonderful pieces of art that without AI they wouldn't be able to create. Yea, we are. But we're not gatekeeping art itself. Any person is allowed to make art and make art of all forms. You're even allowed to transform the art of others to a degree to make your own. But AI isn't that.

There's a great misunderstanding about art that I have tried for years to correct to anyone that would listen. It isn't about talent. Talent is an abstraction. The closest rational meaning I can give to it is that it's the ability to dedicate to a particular subject to the degree that proficiency and mastery have exceeded traditional timetables and benchmarks. Think of it as a more focused interest. Of course there may be a genetic component to "talent," but it's worth ignoring for the idea that people can dedicate themselves to virtually any practice and achieve a proficiency in it. So when people tell me that resisting AI is gatekeeping people from being artists, I just don't believe it.

And isn't making something great more about the journey than just the result? Do we not look at a piece of incredible art and marvel not just at it, but how it was made? Isn't part of our humanity lost when we take the things that are meant to be fun and automate them while doing nothing to automate the boring parts of our lives like our jobs? Are video games fun if you just push a button and the machine plays it for you? Are you experiencing the joy of making music if the guitar holds down on the frets and plucks the strings for you? At what point is having your life lived for you make life itself meaningless?

AI generation is not a proficiency in art. It is a complex approximation of art built exclusively on the work of actual artists. There is no true "style," no perspective, no great understanding. And without these things all it is, is dangerous.

Let's broaden our examination of AI a little and talk about some other uses of AI that have posed a danger. ChatGPT: a highly advanced text generator. A cursory interaction with the software and it's easy to be impressed, but take any expert in a given field and have them explore said field in detail using ChatGPT and it quickly becomes apparent that the software is producing nonsense. But before anyone can even think to figure out how to manage ChatGPT's output to producing factual information based on factual input, companies are already looking to this software and others like it to replace humans in areas where articles, press releases, and other written content is needed. More on that here.

A look at Netflix. They've released a new anime series that uses AI-generated backgrounds under the guise of there being a shortage of artists in the anime field. If that doesn't sound like lie then I don't know what is. More info on that here.

Buzzfeed has already revealed, whether they meant to or not, that they'll be using AI to generate content. The news came, not quite coincidentally, after they cut a large portion of their staff. It would be naive to think that the use of AI and the cutting of the staff were done completely independent of each other when one very likely happened because the other could be implemented. I wouldn't expect this to be an isolated business move. Other companies will follow suit. More info on that here.

And is it legal? That's a big question. The US Copyright Office is currently struggling with that having recently denied copyright on book produced with AI visuals. Certainly it will be for the courts to say and will no doubt be a complicated process that calls into question a large portion of established law regarding Fair Use, Transformative Use, and maybe even Work for Hire. YouTuber and actual laywer, LegalEagle, breaks down some of the legal questions regarding AI here. (Highly recommended.)

I want to be very clear here: I do not have a problem with people wanting to use AI generators. It's a fascinating thing to play with and I firmly believe that there is amazing potential in AI. The problem I have is with the companies and people who have developed these AI generators and the ethics of releasing such a powerful piece of software out into the world without examining the potential effects it will have and most importantly how it can be abused. This also does extend to the people who are scraping the internet for data to finetune AI generators without respecting the owners of the works. It is this area where I feel there is no room for debate. It is irresponsible.

The very nature of the acts of companies like Stability AI, OpenAI, and Midjourney and the facile defense thereof by their respective owners/PR tells you all you need to know about the ethics of AI: we're not responsible. It's in their fine print.

So! To all my image generating friends out there, If the companies won't insulate its users despite letting them do as they please, then perhaps they too might not be quite so sure about whether or not what they've produced is legally or ethically right. And if the companies that employ you find a way to use AI to replace you, then perhaps AI might close more doors than it opens for you. And if AI image generation requires source material and artists are driven from sharing their works in any place where it can be scraped, then it only becomes. matter of time before all AI generated images homogonize and at that point, certainly, it is as far from art as can be.

Signing off,

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