Oakairi

The concept and idea of the AI is admittedly cool and fascinating, so I understand the appeal, but at its current state it is not ethical. Majority of AIs currently use a dataset such as Stable Diffusion to train the AI of art made from artists without their knowledge or consent and give no compensation, which in short is art theft. Another underlying issue that doesn’t get brought up much is that a lot of these generators do not have a reliable safety net when it comes to preventing disturbing explicit images that involve minors being generated.

These AIs are NOT harmless. There are many freelance artists out there trying to make ends meet. By contributing to these AIs, you are not only committing acts towards art thievery, but you are devaluing the work of artists and the years of practice and time spent to develop their work. Art isn’t cheap or fast. Art is a passion that shows years of dedication that AI cannot replicate. You can argue that this makes good exposure for artists, however it is simply exploitation (which is worse). There is absolutely no compensation for the artist, you are giving more to the AI than you are to the artist.

It’s a problem when the AI can take the style of an artist's work and generate infinite number of images for free and stripping the artist of their livelihood. It’s a problem when an artist's work gets associated to an AI image that doesn’t align with their views/morals/religion. It’s a problem when people who use these AI try to claim themselves as the artist completely discrediting the artists of the art used to generate the images. It’s a problem when people who use the AI to open up a booth at an event/convention with limited booth space to sell their AI generated images. It’s a problem when artists are being invalidated for having their artwork be mistaken as “AI Art” These problems in particular are already happening, among many others that may come up.

Digital artists like me already get enough criticism as is from being told their artwork isn’t considered art for not using raw materials. I am tired of seeing artists in general not be taken seriously and being invalidated for their work. If you want to create artwork of your own, I strongly encourage you to practice. In order to become a good artist, you have to make a lot of bad art. It’s okay to make bad art, it’s okay to make small improvements, as long as you keep taking those steps to improve. You do NOT need expensive material to create art, you can certainly work your way towards better material, but it is possible to create a masterpiece with just paper and pencil. There are tons of classes available online, a vast number of resources at your very own fingertips that do not infringe on others work.