AI Art and Our Changing World

Artificial intelligence has existed for a long time in our society, often used in search engines and social media algorithms. Artificial intelligence, or ‘AI’, isn’t particularly new, with evidence of AI existing as early as the 1950s. With almost 73 years to develop and evolve, the face of AI has vastly changed over this period. In recent years, discussion of the ethics of AI has been on the rise, especially in the art world.

As seen in recent trends, AI art is beginning to grow in popularity, but what exactly is AI art? AI art sources images from the internet, combines various elements together, and produces a ‘new’ piece of work. In the same way, AI also produces music and vocal mixes, by using whatever it can find online. However, it is important to note many of the source materials are not ethically sourced. The pieces that AI is using for these works are copyrighted and often take a lot of hard work to make. Even when not copywritten, the work that AI is sourcing is being used without permission.

Imagine, you spend years training your voice to be able to sing, only for an anonymous corporate entity to steal it right out of your throat. The world doesn’t need your voice anymore, an AI has it right there for anyone to use for free. You spend years painting a mural, then AI holds the paintbrush and says they did it. Many argue that if you don’t want your work to be used by AI, then do not post. Easy as that, stop sharing your hard work, passion and skill in what you love online. Simple.

A large number of people who are using AI to produce art are not doing so innocently either. There has been a surge in “AI artists”, people who sell images they get when entering information into AI software. They sell an image they put no effort into creating. Alongside this, the software they use to produce this piece uses stolen art from online. AI artists often sell their ‘work’ at much cheaper rates than real artists, as they don’t have to put in as much effort and if this continues there is a chance that AI will replace artists as a whole. The fear that AI will take over jobs has begun to become a reality.

Luckily, many artists are trying to take legal action against AI art software as their art is being plagiarised and sold. However, the odds are not in their favour. Many don’t care about AI taking over and ruling the art world as it ‘doesn’t affect them.’ It is likely that even some of us have used AI when the AI filter was at peak popularity on TikTok. Continuing to use AI art software and ignoring it, is a problem. 

The world is always changing, but if we live in a world where all art is made by a machine, we will have changed for the worse.