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If you are reading this, then there is a good chance you made an ignorant or offensive statement about AI art and AI art creators.
I want to clear up some of the many misconceptions you have because a lot of the negativity towards AI art is clearly based on plain old ignorance. We humans tend to hate and dislike what we don't understand or don't know. So let me try to clarify some misconceptions.
You didn't do any work!
Many seem to think AI art just requires writing whatever comes to mind and a perfectly formed image ready to upload pops up immediately. Many also seem to think that just because we mark our images as AI art, it means we didn't do any actual photo editing or work on the images. Most of us with a sizable following and who stand out in any way do extensive photo editing or post-processing of images. We aren't only writing words.
Furthermore, the whole process of creating an image typically requires numerous photo edits. A lot of my images are made by pushing modified images through an AI art generator. Next I get an image out, which I modify further before putting it through the AI generator again. And I use more tools than image generators and editors. I also use special upscalers. In short, making an image is a entire process with multiple steps. It isn't merely writing words.
Learn to draw!
Many of us actually do know how to draw. We use AI tools to improve our workflow. All my first AI images were based on initial sketches that I made, which I got the AI to improve upon.
If our work isn't real or isn't art because we don't draw manually to the same extent as traditional artists, then photographers aren't doing any work either. Nor are they making art or have any skills. When I brought this point up in the past, a critic insisted that doing photography well is a complex skill where one has to learn about light settings, right lenses, composition, etc.
Surprise, surprise, AI art is the same. Do you think you can make good AI art without skills? That you can do it without learning anything? In fact, we use many of the same tools and processes as photographers. Some of my most important tools and techniques are the same as for photographers. Post-processing of AI images is very similar to post-processing a real image. Real images can have all sorts of artifacts, noise and bad colors which need to be fixed. AI art is the same, although the nature of the problem is a bit different. We don't generally get blurry and noisy images. However, we get more serious artifacts than real photographers get. Photographers don't suddenly get hands with too many fingers or deformed faces. Many AI artists actually draw hands and eyes manually to fix-up their images.
It is cheating!
AI art is a tool like anything else, albeit a powerful one. But that is the case with photography as well. The criticism against AI art is very similar to criticism levelled against photography by people who used to draw portraits. In time, artists learned to use the camera to their advantage. Many have used overpainting techniques, for instance, where you draw on top of a photo.
The revolution in quality of portraits and scenes in the 1600s was really down to the use of the camera obscura and lenses. It was used to project a scene onto a canvas and then the artist would simply trace out the areas, and color according to what the projected image showed. In many ways, it was a form of manually photography.
The next step-up is 3D modeling. You cannot accuse AI artists of not making art because we aren't moving a pen around on paper and exclude 3D modeling. Most 3D modeling involves buying ready-made models and modifying those and composing them with other ready-made models. Some models are digitized from real objects and not drawn. Where is the accusation against 3D modelers that they didn't draw anything?
In fact, much existing 2D vector art is the same. Long before I got into AI art, I composed images by buying various vector art elements which I then composed into complete images. In other words, just because somebody didn't use AI tools doesn't mean they drew the whole thing manually.
You are putting people out of work!
The same argument could be made against photographers. Were they not putting portrait painters out of work? The machines of the industrial revolution put weavers and spinners out of work. Is that reason enough to stop a technological revolution?
Furthermore, it simply isn't true. AI art today has so many limitations that there is a long list of things that traditional artists can still do much better than us. In fact, the most powerful combination is having both skills. A traditional artist armed with AI tools will be much more productive and capable than somebody only using one tool.
For instance, as an AI artist, I cannot do the following things:
- make complex poses and view angles
- create stable characters. Making the same character in multiple scenes doing different things.
- hands holding and doing things. AI is terrible at drawing hands. We can only get hands doing the simplest things.
In other words, we AI artists cannot really use our skills to make comics or graphic novels. Making those things requires being able to make characters with very stable outfits and appearances. Furthermore, interesting stories require more variation in poses, movements, and angles than we can currently do.
But let us assume those problems got fixed. Does that make AI art bad? Do I not care about real artists? Of course I do! Here is my take on the Luddites smashing factories with power looms: Stopping the industrial revolution made no sense. Our current prosperity is built upon it. On the other hand, weavers were simply trying to look after their welfare and the risk of being reduced to poverty.
Thus, in these cases of technological change, we need compromises. Here, governments can play a role to ease the transition. That is why a welfare state should exist with unemployment benefits, retraining programs and so on.
AI Models Steal the Work of Real Artists!
AI models are trained on images from many artists and able to replicate a lot of their style. Artists are not getting any compensation for their work being used to create these models. Is that fair?
I think here we ought to acknowledge that the question is not black and white. If I look at images made by other artists to learn how to draw, then I am not stealing their work. Acquiring a skill by looking at the work of others isn't stealing. An AI is trained much the same as a human. In this regard, making an AI model isn't stealing.
On the other hand, it isn't quite the same, as an AI model can be trained so quickly and on so much data. In addition, an AI model can cheaply be duplicated, while my skills acquired by studying other art cannot be cheaply duplicated and copied into another brain.
Thus, what an AI model does isn't quite comparable to a human. In my view, we need to find some compromise. Connecting the benefit of AI art back to artists is quite difficult today. In other words, I think artists should be compensated more as a form of public service. If some artist is used a lot in text prompts or included in lots of datasets and AI models, then that artist should get a higher reward from the government.
It may seem bad to have to involve the government but charging users of AI models is far too complex and impractical. Looking at data in the public domain should not be illegal. The issue should be deriving commercial benefit. But a company can release an open-source AI model to the public. That means the problem of charging people for commercial use will then get pushed to countless individual AI artists using an AI model. Extracting money per sale of every AI image from every AI artist is next to impossible. It relies on AI artists being honest and reporting the work as AI art.
In other words, there is no simple and practical way of having those who benefit from AI art paying the artists whose work they ultimately benefitted from. That is why I think artists ought to be compensated by the public for doing a service to the public. It is not ideal, but similar approaches have been done before for other forms of art.
