Let’s Not Use AI to Steal More Artists’ Livelihood? M’Kay?
AI art programs are using living artist work as the basis to make stuff to order … free of charge
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Listen, any tool you can tell to do a picture of Marilyn Monroe partying with Julius Caesar at Studio 54 in the “Style of Shepard Fairey” and it comes up with this —
which obviously is going to change the world, right?
So of course, the AI art programs are already making trouble for artists who currently have to do a lot of repetitive bullshit work to order for low amounts of money. However, I have news for people who think AI art will replace artists.
If this is your belief, it is going to “replace” artists the same way as Uber and Lyft “replaced” taxis and every other shit gig platform created ways for people to spend their time to eke out a subsistence living instead of doing something they actually want to do that might make life better for themselves and others.
AI art programs assemble images using verbal prompts from source material that apparently includes “the entire internet.”
The creators of these programs didn’t think about the full implications of what it means that somebody can type in a few words and output an image similar to ones not only created by dead artists out of copyright — those who no longer need to eat or pay bills — but living ones. I just tagged Shepard Fairey. I don’t think the AI did a very good job with what I asked it to do but whatever. The first image of Marilyn on the upper left looks a little like maybe Shepard Fairey did Marilyn, sort of. Where’s Caesar? Who knows.
Now my article header? That’s a different matter. I didn’t tell it to do any particular “style.” I told it “Julius Caesar entering the Roman Forum followed by Brutus and Cassius with their knives out, realistic, detailed, focus on Caesar, red color.” Okay! Swords, knives, heads, shrunken pegs atop red cloaks — what are a few details with this awesome State Fair winning digital art!
