In my free-time, I enjoyed scrolling through the limitless posts of the buzzing art community on social media. With countless beautiful pieces of art sprawled all over my feed, I did not hesitate to give a like to each of them. Naive to the concept of AI art then, little did I know that some of the pieces I interacted with were not manually drawn by humans. The discovery of this fact aggravated me. The existence and use of AI-induced art is pernicious to artists and the art community.
The bar for the value of art is already so low, and determining merit is difficult. There is an ocean of small artists who struggle for even a tiny bit of exposure. I remember posting my art consistently in the hope of gaining recognition, but creating a post with significantly more than 1,000 views and greater than some few interactions only happened once in a blue moon. With AI art entering this new era of technology, It will surely bring forth even more fierce competition.
Moreover, AI created art does not just compete with small artists, but also becomes a nationwide issue. An AI-art piece made by Jason M. Allen landed a blue ribbon for the Colorado State Fair of 2022. Allen did not deny that he used AI to create his art. The fair allowed “digital technology and creativeness,” but is it truly part of creativity if technology is the one carrying out the visualization of ideas? The thought of it is outrageous. The outcome of the fair is an evident mockery to contestants, as well as artists in general, who actually input their skills, expertise, thought and heart into their works. Hard work is dismissed and goes unseen, or it gets exploited.
With the involvement of AI, art will only become more discouraging for artists. AI art is generated by reviewing already existing artworks that are fed as data into the system.”It just got weird at that point. It was starting to look pretty accurate, a little infringe-y”, expresses Kelly McKernan, whose art was implemented into and used by an AI art generator. Such actions can bring out a sense of insecurity, especially since art style assimilates with the artist. Having your art style, something that is considered to be unique to a individual artist, replicated by AI, is similar to the concept of having a large part of your identity taken advantage of.
Admittedly, AI has the purpose of making things easier for people. AI is a tool to make creation efficient. However, there are frequent consequences from some limitations of AI. The thievery that AI enables access to in art is worse than imaginable.
A twitter artist by the name of “haruno_intro” had their art not only stolen, but also finished off and claimed by the culprit as well. The nefarious actions of this AI utilization happened before the original artist was even able to finish the piece themselves. The incidental piece of art became spoiled, and patently ruined with false ingenuity and expression generated by a robotic system. The use of AI in art brings utter disrespect to artists, and that point cannot be stressed enough.
On the whole, artists already have it hard enough to keep the community of genuine expressive creativity and imagination thriving. Thus, it is important to recognize humans from robots to ensure that credibility goes to the right producer. In a world where technology can be infused into art, value is a key that must be protected with the term “art.” The use of AI art should be kept monitored so that artists and the art community as a whole can keep their sense of pride and uniqueness.
Work Cited
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