In Defense of AI Art
I occasionally use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate art, both for promotional purposes and in published works. When I mentioned that fact publicly, the amount of negative reactions surprised me, especially remarks that attacked me personally with considerable vitriol.
Every attack was based on misinformation and/or poor reasoning, and it seems that the spread of this misinformation has not been properly addressed and rebutted. Therefore, since I plan to continue using AI art, I decided to post this rebuttal by examining the claims of the detractors.
Refuting the Attacks
1. AI art is stolen art. It is theft. Anyone who uses AI art is therefore guilty of theft.
AI art is not stolen. The AI engines did not take what was not theirs. They don’t incorporate any particular piece of art into their creations. Instead, they learn how to generate art themselves by studying other works of art and creating their own styles based on millions of samples of artwork. They can also mimic a style by studying that style.
Here are a couple of articles that explain this fact:
Human artists do exactly the same thing AI engines do. Humans learn by observing the artwork of others, and they create their own artwork based on what they have learned. Human artists also mimic styles. Witness the myriad anime creators who use that style, or renaissance painters of that era creating works that were in sync with the style of the time.
Yet, the detractors of AI art would not accuse the human artists of theft, even though the same kind of learning and generating is going on. Every piece of AI art that I use is an original work. It never existed before. Yes, the generator learned from the artwork of others, but, again, human artists do the same thing.
2. AI engines obtain artwork without permission from the artists.
That’s partially true if “obtain” means that the AI engines observe and learn from artwork. The engines act like any human artist who observes artwork and learns from it. In fact, in art schools, teachers encourage budding artists to learn from existing art, even to mimic certain styles. Again, this is exactly what AI does.
I can’t think of a single artist ever in existence who did not want his or her art to be observed by others. In fact, artists hope for that, long for it. This insistence that an AI engine should get permission is spurious. Otherwise, every museum would have to shut down because the artists are almost never available to provide permission. Every post of art on the Internet would need to be taken down for the same reason. Simply put, artists don’t want to be asked permission for observation, study, or inspiration, and they shouldn’t.
3. AI art takes income from human artists.
That’s both true and false depending on the circumstances, and I will get into that, but first, it’s important to state that human artists don’t have a right to the money someone wants to spend to create art. The “income” isn’t their income until it is passed from the customer to the artist, and the money belongs to the potential customer until an agreement is made.
If a potential customer decides to have his dog create an illustration by stepping in paint and then walking on a sheet of paper, has he taken income from a human artist? That might sound absurd, and it is certainly an extreme example, but it illustrates the principle that human artists don’t have a claim on someone’s money every time that person wants to create artwork. And whether a dog makes it or an AI engine does so, no artist has lost income. They have no legitimate claim on it.
In most cases when I have created AI artwork, I would never have employed a human artist. Since I expected that those projects wouldn’t generate the profit necessary to invest in human-generated artwork, I would have dropped the project if not for the AI option. In these cases, no human artist lost income, either real or potential.
In cases where the project might well produce enough money to hire a human artist, I have often hired one, but if I had opted to use AI art instead, does that mean a human artist lost income? Definitely not. There is no artist that I was considering for employment whom I later, because of AI art, opted not to employ. As I mentioned before, no artist has a claim on my money when I decide to create AI art, and I am under no obligation to pay one.
4. Artificial intelligence will lead to writers like me losing jobs.
While discussing this issue online, one detractor wrote, “Your job is on the line next from AI.” That is also not true. It is true that AI engines create text, even full-length novels, but they learned how to do so in the same way aspiring human writers learn, by observing and mimicking the styles of established writers.
I encourage writers to copy my style. In fact, in classes and seminars, I teach them to mimic my style. If they do copy my style, I consider that a blessing. If they write fan fiction using my characters, I feel neither threatened nor offended. Of course, I would disapprove of them causing my characters to act in ways that I would never approve, but I wouldn’t do anything to prevent them from writing that way.
The only exception would be if someone lifted paragraphs that I have actually written and used them as his own. That is plagiarism. The same would be true if I were to use an existing artwork image and use it in my own work without permission. Again, that is not what AI art engines do. They create original artwork, not copies of existing artwork.
Affirming the Positives
Now I will move away from refuting the detractors and explain why using AI artwork is often a better option than employing a human artist.
In the past, I have employed human artists several times. Over the years, I had to settle for what the artist delivered, which is never exactly what I had hoped for. The result was usually good enough to use, but rarely stellar. When I asked for a change, the artist would sometimes give me minor changes, but if I wanted bigger changes, I would have to pay more money. That can become prohibitively expensive, and I still might not get what I wanted.
With AI art, I have many more advantages. I can conduct rapid trial-and-error experiments to create exactly what I envision, and the engine often provides alternatives that are even better than what I had in mind. Also, I can alter the prompts on the fly to hone in on getting a better and better result.
I can't go through this procedure with a human artist in a reasonable time frame or at an affordable price. And, again, at the end of the day, I might not get what I hoped for. Therefore, AI often does a better job for less money, and now that I have a tool that is better, faster, and cheaper, it would be unwise for me to choose the inferior, slower, and more expensive option.
I know that some human artists are concerned about AI art, that they might not get as many opportunities as they did before. That could be true, but every advance in technology has resulted in the loss of opportunities for those who use the traditional methods—the printing press, sewing machines, and harvesting equipment, to name only a few. Traditional artists might have to adapt in order to compete.
In conclusion, if AI art were truly theft, then the detractors would have a solid argument against its use. But since it is not theft and simply mimics exactly what human artists do, the AI-is-theft argument is not persuasive.
AI art is a groundbreaking technology that can benefit authors in many ways, and I plan to continue using it for some projects.