Ethics, Ego, and Legalities around AI Art

Who stole it?
Who made it?
Who owns it?
Let’s talk Artificial Intelligence Generated Art

Prompt by Autumn Janelle: “white rabbit with long ears sitting on top of a large red and white dotted mushroom with grey smoke in the background blurred tiny mushrooms in the foreground done in Tim Walker photography style" on DALL-E

AI Art feels like a digital slot machine to me.
Put in your quarter / Put in your words
Pull the handle / Push the “go” button
Watch as it spins / Watch as it processes
Your “spin” shows up on the screen / Your “art” shows on up the screen.

Don’t like what you see?
Pull the handle again!
And just keep going until you DO like what you see. And maybe, just maybe you’ll land on a jackpot!!!!
If you do- cash out. Download and Save!

As the quarters spit out at you, you might wonder who paid you. The casino?
No.
The people before you who sat in the same chair you are sitting in now, who pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and never got a jackpot. They are funding your win.

Much like AI Art you might also ask- Who is “funding” theses creations? Because AI can’t create something from nothing, yet.

SO, WHO MADE IT FIRST?

First let’s have a super basic discussion around how it all works.

AI is fed billions and billions of images (from a free, legal, and open data base that collects images that are paired with alt text) to “study.”
(Data Base Info: Click Here and Click Here to read more)
It learns these images+words-the basic makeup, the styles, patterns, etc.
Now you go to these AI Art sites, put in your choice of words, and the AI does it’s best to mimic what it has learned.

Prompt by Autumn Janelle: “vintage wooden schooner sailboat with torn sails in dark choppy waves fighting an oversized octopus coming out of the water with evil clouds and lightening in the sky” on DALL-E

So, again, where is the AI Art coming from? Well… Artists who created in real life and put their Art on the internet for AI to study through the data base and then imitate.*These images aren’t just art, they’re ANY image on the internet.. is your face or body on the internet? It easily could have been studied.

So back to the casino- Sure the casinos bought the buildings, machines, and paid the staff making the whole thing run, but there would be NOTHING to win if it wasn’t for the gamblers who came before you.
Just like these AI companies. They created the programs, keep them running, but they wouldn’t be able to put out “new art” if the system wasn’t fueled by old art / photographs first.

So you take your winnings home and no harm done, right? Or can you not stop thinking about going back and pulling that lever!?
Just like AI- you go back, and now you start paying for a subscription bc you’ve maxed out your free trial.
But what are you going back to?
Just like anything computerized we have to REALLY think about how it’s all functioning and where it fits in to our society. Will it help us or eventually hurt us? Will Artists work side by side with it or will it kill out Artists all together?

A lot of people are justifying AI Art saying it’s all just modeled off of things in the past, and humans function off this modeling every day. We are no longer really capable of being original, almost everything these days is connected to, resembles, is based off of, was inspired by, subconsciously or consciously influenced by something that already exists. And I really can’t disagree.

If you’re into psychology you also know humans run mostly off of patterns and can be easily “programed”, just like AI.

“Your brain is wired to notice patterns. Research from 2018 suggests it's a part of your learning process — how you make predictions and determine probability.” From :psychcentral.com

“According to UC Berkeley-based clinical psychologist Rick Hanson, you can train your brain to experience more happiness on a daily basis through a series of short exercises performed during your workday and downtime.” From: www.inc.com

So… are we really that different?

Prompt by Autumn Janelle: “tiny iridescent fairies jumping on top of glowing psychedelic mushroom with moon and stars in the sky with dramatic lighting bokeh hyper realistic cinematic” in Midjourney

My biggest beef with AI Art was / is the fact that the images that were studied by these programs were created by real people, and these real people didn’t opt in to being a part of the research. That feels like a horrible gray area leaning towards taking advantage of people through some weird loop hole.

With that being said-

When I was in college I studied Art History. We too studied centuries worth of old art and looked at hundreds of photos to better understand Art in general, where it came from, what it means, how it impacts us, how it was made.
When I took Drawing 101 and 102 we drew real life objects in front of us and called it our own Art. The Artist that created the hand thrown vase that I drew or the glass blown art (and then could have sold as an original piece of art) wouldn’t be credited by and certainly never paid by me. And there’s no law saying I have to. So was I doing the same thing!?
I have sold several graphite drawings of faces I drew based on images I found in magazines. Those models and photographers will never get the credit or money from my “original” work. Did I do it again?
In my Graphic Design classes we brought in stock images and used them to create posters, product lines, and advertisements. Sure, those images may have been bought or brought in from a free site, but I wasn’t creating alone. I not only used work that wasn’t mine I was relying on a computer to put it together for me.
Many of the self portraits I have created along with short stories I have written were modeled after Disney’s princesses, JKR’s Harry Potter, or Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Even the the way our own brains pair images and words is quite similar to this AI technique of studying- there’s no way anyone will ever read the words or see the objects: glass slipper, scar, or white rabbit the same ever again and not have a very specific concept in mind first created by a different artist / author.

And to be fair it’s been done to me many times. My photography clients screen shotting an image I shared online but they didn’t buy and then using it as their phone wallpaper, or downloading a Facebook feed image to print as a 4x6 at Wal-Mart.

SO, WHO STOLE IT FIRST?

In the beginning I was 100% against AI Art, labeling it as stealing. But now, sitting here writing this, I’ll admit, I’m not so sure. I can’t deny how I have “stole” from Artists in the past, and you probably have to. Here’s a list of things when looked at in the same light as AI generated Art would constitute as “stealing”:

Collage/ Mixed Media Art from magazines and books
Tracing
Using a reference photo that isn’t yours for your drawing
Creating a Mood Board/ Pinterest Board with other’s images to start your own concept
Googling graphic design work when creating your own logo, marketing material, etc.
Using a song you don’t own for a video you posted online
Dragging and dropping a Google image into Photoshop then manipulating it into your own Art
Recreating a famous Artist’s style- like Rembrandt Lighting
Photographing Street Art or Architecture
Making Art that contains movie quotes, song lyrics, or poems
Buying a knock off brand
Making a DIY version of anything using a companies list of ingredients

I suppose what feels so different is when “stealing” used to occur it still took time, talent, research, knowledge, tools, investments, and more. I would draw for days, edit for hours, collect magazines to then cut out tiny pieces all over my bedroom floor before pasting them onto new objects. Now with free credits and some search words you are good to go in 60 seconds.

OR are you?
Have you actually used it?!
I got off my high horse and thought I should give it a try if I was going to preach about it.

Brace yourself.

This is a look at exactly how the process goes. You visit the website. You put in words. It generates 4 of it’s best options for you to view which you can then save, or go back and tweak. My first attempt, no doubt, made me feel like a young child with my first set of paints. I knew I could do better.

BEHOLD! My second masterpiece. When I tell you I laughed / screamed outloud in pure joy when DALL-E spit this back out at me I am not lying in the least. The prompt I put in, which I thought was quite detailed this time was:
blonde princess with green eyes light pink lips in long red long sleeved velvet gown with hood holding glowing lantern on top of tall mossy cliffs overlooking dark choppy waves that open to a fairytale dimension storm clouds done in painterly graphic style with dark mood

Thinking my issues were my shabby face description I decided to delete and try to cheat and replace with ‘Emma Watson’ (which it would NOT let me do on DALL-E) so I swapped that to Harry Potter. TERRIFYING! ha!

I must say Midjourney got me much closer, much faster, this being my first prompt for this look over on their Discord Channel, however, the specifics I added were things learned from watching others create their Art, as it’s all a huge open public forum with people constantly inputting new prompts that you can watch render literally every 10 seconds or so. It truly is fascinating and entertaining to watch!

Another thing to take into consideration is that some AI Art starts with a base image the user chose to work with, some create from nothing. *It should additionally be noted that some terms and conditions do state then when you upload your face to be used in the AI Art the company will use your image so their AI can study it. Heads up on that! All my creations started with nothing other than words, and as you can see, not all programs are nailing the facial features quite as easily as I had imagined. With that being said I know some companies WILL allow you to use “in the style of XArtsit’sNameHereX” which is REALLY pushing ethics for me. Example- the Mona Lisa painted in the style of Salvador Dalí. Even note how the same prompt on tow different sites produces different “Art.”

I think it’s the ease (VERY loosely said- clearly not all simple words produce a good final piece of Art as you can tell with what I’ve created here!) in which AI works that’s the most insulting and unnerving part to many, including myself in a sense. But I have to wonder if I’m just being old and grumpy about this new technology.
“I had to suffer for years and pay thousands to master my craft and these kids just have to type in a few words and they call themselves artists.”
Like, I can see how that just sounds old and crotchety, so I have to ask myself if I’m just being stubborn and jealous of how easy this next generation will have it when it comes to creating.

Same as when film was killed by digital cameras, dark rooms were closed from Photoshop, iPads started “painting” replacing dirty brushes with clean i-pencils, films were shot on green screens instead of traveling to specific locations. Things evolve, they get easier.

If I drop my ego I can get excited about how we as Artists can work WITH AI instead of with out it or against it. With that being said I think there will always and forever be a place for HUMANS in the creative world. Even this AI has to be prompted by a human who has a very, very specific and clear vision of what they want and must be able to articulate it in way that’s incredibly clear. And the Art you’re seeing that’s SUPER exquisite and not starting with any base image, let’s just say the prompts aren’t a few words, I would imagine they are EXTREMELY lengthy, like paragraphs upon paragraphs, if not pages, of trial, error, tweaking, etc. In the end I think human Artists will still rule this realm because of what is required- imagination and knowledge around what creates good art in the first place.

Prompt by Autumn Janelle: “long haired maine coon cat sitting next to a large caterpillar smoking a hookah sitting on top of a log in the middle of the dark forest in Tim Walker Photography style” on DALL-E
Even though this is pretty rough and that cat looks higher than a kite, it visually gives me a place to start and sparks A LOT of ideas. I’m the type of Artist where I can dream it, say it, see it, but I truly struggle with getting it out. That is why Photography is my medium of choice. It gives me a base to build off of, and I’m finding that AI does the same thing for me.

SO, IN THE END WHO OWNS IT?

So with this much help from AI, but it being prompted from us, WHO owns it!?
I couldn’t say it better than this site:

“The US Copyright Office has already refused to grant a copyright registration for AI-generated art because the current copyright law requires human authorship for copyright protection. That means that, under the current rules, AI-generated art has no owner.”

However, under the current US law, owners of the AI technology itself may be the ones with cause for concern - potentially being at risk of copyright infringement lawsuits. He continues, “AI cannot create art in a vacuum; instead, it usually reviews or even contains reproductions of other people’s artwork that it uses to create new artwork. That new artwork could be an unauthorised derivative, which is an infringement. If the AI also stores a reproduction of that artwork, that too is an infringement. Another issue is that, while artwork is generally in the domain of copyright law, computer technology necessary for AI-generated artwork might be protectable under patent law. We might start seeing patent law used in new ways to protect AIs and the methods they use for creating artwork.” According to Ryan Meyer, Of Counsel at American law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP

With that, I will leave you with this thought:

We must never underestimate or destroy what can be done with human hands in the real world in which we actually live and breathe.

Regardless if your AI Art career takes off, I urge you to ground yourself in the REAL world every once in awhile so you are still connected to the things in life that let you know you are a being in the physical realm and not just a phrase of words strung together in a mental matrix.

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