A brief look into AI "art" and how it is effecting, and will affect, the art industry.

1. The Future of AI

2. What is AI Art?
- Generation of a digital piece of
media created by an Artificial
Intelligence
- Commonly through stable
diffusion (The ability to turn a
text prompt into visual media)
- Uses datasets that contain art
from all across the internet by
different or specific artists

3. The Issue With AI Generation
- AI art unethically takes the art of thousands of artists across the
internet and uses it for their datasets
- This includes tons of copyrighted art that is neither credited
nor compensated, and where the artist does not consent to
their work being used
- AI artists and programs are also making a profit off of work that
does not belong to them under copyright laws while taking away
profit from human artists

4. AI generation isn’t just
something contained to corners of
the internet, though. It’s currently
being used in large companies as
well. In June of 2022, the
Cosmopolitan released its first
magazine cover generated by an AI
program named DALL-E 2. This cover
was just one of many stepping
stones for artists’ fear of being
replaced by AI generators.

5. AI in Industries
With the Cosmopolitan being a good example, AI is cropping up all over
the art industry, especially game art and animation. While concept artists are
using it to create the bases for their characters and environments, there’s still
fear that it may cut down development teams and cause major job loss.
James Gurney speaks to this in his blog when he shared, “They can make
endless variations, served up immediately at the push of a button, all made
without a brain or a heart,” after discussing how AI may devalue the work of
artists and ruin their livelihoods

6. Prompt: “A rabbit detective sitting on a park bench and reading a newspaper in a Victorian setting.”
Latent Diffusion LAION-400M versus DALL-E 2

7. Steven Vargas, an LA Times art reporter spoke on AI art and said, "You can
type in any phrase, and it'll spit out, within 30 seconds, a different image
that kind of encapsulates what you typed up. They sometimes look a little
warped, specifically with Midjourney. But for DALL-E 2... very
hyper-focused and very detailed images that come out of it. And it is
exactly what you type out."
While he speaks to this as a good thing, it goes to show just how
dangerous an advanced program like DALL-E 2 can be for concept artists
as it completely wipes their advanced artistic abilities with a stable
diffusion and a database built on stolen art.

8. "AI art is exploitative by nature, since it draws
from a large library of uncredited source
images. It can only have a place in the art
industry if [they] were ethically built with
public domain works only, with the express
consent and compensation of artists' data,
and legal purchase of photo sets."
Karla Ortiz, an award-winning concept artist whose clients include Marvel,
HBO, Universal Studios and Wizards of The Coast

9. As stated previously, copyright is a huge issue surrounding AI art for
both the generator and for human artists. Christopher McFadden states:
“In general, copyright laws are meant to protect original works of
art that are written or drawn on a physical medium. In the case of art
made by AI, the question of who owns it may depend on how much
humans were involved in the process.”
If no human is involved with the physical creation of the art, who
owns it? Can it still be used for monetary gain? What regulations can be
put in place to make it fair for all parties?
What Needs to be Changed

10. Going forward, I believe a lot of issues need to be addressed and altered for AI
art to be used as a tool, not a replacement.
- Copyright laws should fall in the original artists’ favor
- Neither the creator of the generator or the person who generated the
art should receive copyright of the work.
- Credit and compensation should be given to the original artists whose art is
inputted into these databases.
- AI generators should have to obtain the consent of the original artists to input
their work into any datasets.

11. Benefits and Obstacles
Like every plan, there are major benefits, but also major obstacles. These include, but are not limited to:
Benefits:
- Artists will be able to make sure their work isn’t used for machine learning
- Artists will not have to face the risk of losing out on current or potential work
Obstacles:
- Companies may fight back because it doesn’t allow them to cut production teams
- If artists wanted to use AI Art as a tool for ideas or references, it would be hard to have one with a
database built from non-copyrighted or consented-to art

12. References
Caulfield, B. (2023, April 20). Ai tools promise push-button art, but reality is more complicated. NVIDIA Blog. Retrieved April 28,
2023, from https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/10/13/ai-art/
Gray, K. (2023, January 2). How do game developers and artists feel about the rise of AI art? Nintendo Life. Retrieved April 28,
2023, from https://www.nintendolife.com/features/how-do-game-developers-and-artists-feel-about-the-rise-of-ai-art
Gurney, J. (2022, April 9). How smart is dall-E 2? Gurney Journey. Retrieved April 28, 2023, from
https://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2022/04/how-smart-is-dall-e-2.html
Lightstudio. (2022, December 24). Will AI replace concept artists? written by ai. Medium. Retrieved April 28, 2023, from
https://lightstudio.medium.com/will-ai-replace-concept-artists-written-by-ai-b3649016ce74
Liu, G. (2022, June 27). Dall-E 2 made its first magazine cover. Cosmopolitan. Retrieved April 28, 2023, from
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a40314356/dall-e-2-artificial-intelligence-cover/
Los Angeles Times. (n.d.). How ai-generated art is changing the concept of art itself. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 28,
2023, from https://www.latimes.com/projects/artificial-intelligence-generated-art-ownership-bias-dall-e-midjourney/
McFadden, C. (2023, March 5). The rise of Ai Art: What is it, and is it really art? What is AI generated art and how do AI art
generators work? Retrieved April 28, 2023, from https://interestingengineering.com/culture/what-is-ai-generated-art
Segundo, E. (2022, October 17). Ai-generated art is changing the concept of art itself. spectrumnews1.com. Retrieved April 28,
2023, from
https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/la-times-today/2022/10/17/ai-generated-art-is-changing-the-concept-of-art-itself