ART-ifical: Terminator x Da Vinci
Predicted as far back as the 1980s, I think, the robot uprising is a staple of science fiction. AI so intelligent it deems us inferior, choosing to either enslave or kill us. I, Robot, The Matrix, Terminator, I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, these stories show us the bleakest, most harrowing, anxiety inducing visions of technology gone bad.
None could have prepared us for the reality though… none could have prepared us for AI PLAGIARISM.
So, unlike the movies, the AI uprising has been far more mundane, with machine learning being used to create artwork and replicate the voices of current and past US presidents.
Truly, we are in a golden age of scientific endeavour.
Within the last year, AI generated music and artwork has increased in quality and quantity. I remember finding an AI generated Nirvana song, designed to show how musicians could be replaced and potentially resurrected through computers in the future. Side note - why is peak of human invention either finding ways to destroy ourselves, or ways to replace us within society?
All round creepy asshole and creator of Rick and Morty, Justin Rolland, released the video game High on Life late last year. It was revealed that some art assets within the game were created through AI generation, with Roiland insisting it was only “finishing touches” to “make the world feel like a strange alternate universe of our world.” Considering the man who said this also created a show which features a dimension hopping old coot who literally fucks a planet, raises its offspring, then fights Zeus in a mech suit, I think Roiland was just trying to defend a decision born from laziness. Also, he’s just a vile so I have no issue slandering his work ethic.
ANYWAY, BACK ON TRACK - AI GENERATED ART ASSESTS FEATURED IN A HIGH-PROFILE RELEASE FROM A TEAM THAT COULD’VE MADE IT THEMSELVES!
Those who don’t know may be asking “why does it matter if a computer made the art?”
An AI is just that: artificial. It can’t truly make something from scratch, but instead is pulling from various sources – pre-existing pieces of art in this case, to generate “new work”. In short, it’s kinda just grabbing stuff from wherever, no matter who originally made it or how it may be licensed. Now this might sound like a trivial thing, but the implications it has for creative industries and the individual artist is nothing short of frightening.
As this area is not my forte, I sat down with a good friend of mine, Olly, an animator, artist, and student here at Massey. Olly explained to me how these AI algorithms pull artwork from different sources, and the impact this has on the original artists.
“(AI art) is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s how it’s been implemented. These AI algorithms must be trained on a dataset of images, to then be able to create images, and you need A LOT of images to train it to do anything somewhat decent. So, what people have done, they’ve taken images… I believe there was a website called Art Station that for a while has been a site that a lot of artists upload their work to showcase their portfolios, and people took all the images from that website without the artists permission (I’m not sure if it was explicitly without permission or if something was hidden in the terms and conditions, but either way people were unaware their art was being used for this), and basically training the algorithms on other people’s artwork to then create their AI artwork. The reason this is bad: AI art doesn’t really create new things… It takes bits and pieces and combines them from other people’s art to create something that looks new, but it isn’t actually building it new from a sketch like a real artist would. You could see in a lot of the earlier AI art pieces, random squiggles in certain spots of the artwork, those were the remnants of artists signatures. That’s how you know ok, this is a problem. It’s taking people’s artwork without their permission; you can literally SEE the remnants of the signature.”
And if that wasn’t convincing enough of the AI plagiarism occurring, Olly also explained an incident that was designed to prove this was a problem.
“A lot of people (on Art Station) realised their art was being used in these datasets, so they started uploading these images that were black squares with the words “AI ART” and a red cross in front of that, basically saying no to AI art. And when people started those on mass, it ruined the dataset and all of these AI artworks started having these red squiggles over them due to these images tainting the dataset, which proved they were taking artwork without people’s permission.”
Forget museum theft, the next generation of art criminal may just be your Roomba.
All joking aside, it’s clear that there is a genuine problem occurring. AI art requires art to learn, so setting it loose on a dataset of work is the easiest option, no matter the ethics.
Much as I hate him, I have to say that Roiland makes the slightest point. AI artwork can be used to create pieces that give off an “other worldly” feel and using that to add finishing touches to environmental art in a game: posters, framed photos, things the player will see in the environment etc, it’s not a silly idea.
But it needs to be done right.
Don’t set it loose on someone else’s work, create your own and cultivate a dataset for it to take from. While that might seem counterproductive as the artist could just make other worldly art, we’ve all seen how weird the AI stuff can get and sometimes that may just be more effective.
But again, it HAS to be done right and NEEDS the human element. Outside of plagiarism, it gets in the way of artists jobs. As a musician and writer, my art is my passion. If I found out someone was reworking it, or giving jobs I could do to a machine, I’d be pissed. AI art doesn’t necessarily need to be what it is now, we could easily use it in more effective and less ethically bankrupt ways, without removing the human element.
Like it or not, it’s a tool that is becoming part of the creative industry. People just need to figure out how to use it properly, without removing potential jobs and stealing from others.