The AI Art Morality Wars Have Arrived

The protests have hit a fever pitch among artist communities

Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few months ago, AI art generators such as DALL-E and Midjourney rose from the tech landscape, and already artist communities have declared war on them (and apparently anyone that uses them.)

Artstation users in particular are up in arms over AI, for the platform’s perceived lack of action against AI portfolio entries. Protest images against AI are circulating, including this one that I’ve seen all over the place in the past 24 hours (without credit to the original creator, if I may add.)

Gary Taxali, a veteran illustrator I’ve long admired, also had some choice words for AI on social media recently. His argument is that AI users do not respect real artists and that people using the new technology are thieves (because you can render AI images in an artist’s style.)

At the risk of being roasted by someone I respect, I humbly disagree.

I’m not saying stealing original work is okay — I’m saying there’s some hypocrisy in the outrage. I’d argue that many of the people crying about how artists are being duped by AI are not consumers of art. Meaning, most of them have never commissioned a human artist or bought one of their works. But they don’t seem to have any issues with paying AI to glorify their selfies. These same people will lift copyrighted images off the internet to use in their blogs with no credit to the original artist (it’s happened to me a few times.)

My own livelihood is in danger too, but I won’t cry (yet)

I’ve been creating art in some form for most of my life, starting from childhood. I went to art school (Sheridan College, one of the most sought-after schools for animation and illustration in the world), and have drawn/painted pictures by hand. I am also an avid photographer (who went from film to digital) as well as a professional writer.

There are new AI writing tools out there such as ChatGPT threatening my job. However, instead of panicking and launching hate campaigns against these artificial writing platforms, I’m learning how to use them to my advantage, and how to adapt as an editor.

I have also learned over the years how to use photography-enhancing software such as Photoshop and Lightroom, which do post-processing jobs that photographers once did by hand. (I don’t hear anyone complaining about that.)

As I stated in another recent article about AI art, it still takes creativity and knowledge to tap the potential of these new image-generation platforms.

Sure, I can ask for an image in the style of Gary Taxali, but I cannot necessarily come up with the concepts that he does. (Both DALL-E and Midjourney did not replicate Taxali’s signature style when prompted.)

The argument from some artists is that the AI is trained on their images (without their consent) in order to faithfully reproduce the style.

However, imitating another artist’s style is not theft, according to copyright law (although at least one creator has copyrighted their AI-assisted graphic novel). Stealing artists’ actual work to use for your own purposes is.

Human artists will live on (if they adapt)

Taxali himself did not respond to my comment on Instagram about how artists have studied other artists for eons and copied them. Instead, I got an angry rant from another Instagram user (who doesn’t allow replies) about how I’m “lazy and untalented.” To that user, I say… well, you can take a guess. I have honed my artistic skills for decades, and AI allows me to expand my imagination. You can’t tell me which tools to use.

I do not think AI art will destroy traditional artists any more than Photoshop destroyed photographers (it didn’t). There’s still a skill set involved. New technology is not going away, so my advice to artists is to get comfortable with it, instead of wasting time getting angry about it.

I predict Taxali’s original work will still be in demand, as will the work of other artists upset about this newest digital disruption. It may even be more valuable than ever if the market is flooded with copycats.

In the meantime, dear readers concerned for artists, go buy some art from human artists.