Artists fight artificial intelligence programs that copy their styles

Illustrator and content artist Karla Ortiz works in her studio in San Francisco, California, on March 8, 2023. Ortiz and two other artists have filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with art-generating services. Photo: Amy Osborne/AFP

Illustrator and content artist Karla Ortiz works in her studio in San Francisco, California, on March 8, 2023. Ortiz and two other artists have filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with art-generating services. Photo: Amy Osborne/AFP

Published Apr 2, 2023

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by Julie Jammot

Artists outraged by artificial intelligence that copies in seconds the styles they have sacrificed years to develop are waging battle online and in court.

Fury erupted in the art community last year with the release of generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs that can convincingly carry out commands such as drawing a dog like cartoonist Sarah Andersen would, or a nymph the way illustrator Karla Ortiz might do.

Such style-swiping AI works are cranked out without the original artistā€™s consent, credit or compensation ā€“ the three Cs at the heart of a fight to change all that.

In January, artists including Andersen and Ortiz filed a class-action lawsuit against DreamUp, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, three image-generating AI models programmed with art found online.

Andersen said she felt ā€œviolatedā€ when first she saw an AI drawing that copied the style of her ā€œFangsā€ comic book work.

She fired off an indignant reaction on Twitter; it went viral, and other incensed artists reached out to her with stories of their own.

Illustrator and content artist Karla Ortiz sketches in a notebook in her studio in San Francisco, California, on March 8, 2023.Ortiz and two other artists have filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with art-generating services. Photo: Amy Osborne/AFP

Backers of the suit hope to establish legal precedent governing generative AI models that copy artistsā€™ styles.

Artists want AI creators to be required to secure permission for works used in training software, with an option to remove it.

They also want suitable compensation.

ā€œThere is room for a conversation about what that would look like,ā€ said Ortiz.

Compensation could take the form of a licensing model, she said, and would need to be appropriate.

It would be wrong for artists to ā€œget a couple of cents while the company gets millionsā€ of dollars, added Ortiz, whose resumĆ© includes working for Marvel Studios.

Illustrator and content artist Karla Ortizā€™s website displays a design and illustration she created for the movie ā€œDoctor Strangeā€, in San Francisco, California, on March 8, 2023. Ortiz and two other artists have filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with art-generating services. Photo: Amy Osborne/AFP)

Cheap and easy

On social networks, artists are sharing tales of jobs being lost to generative AI.

The suit notes that last year, video-game designer Jason Allen won a Colorado State Fair competition with art created using Midjourney.

ā€œArt is dead, dude. Itā€™s over. AI won. Humans lost,ā€ Allen was quoted as telling ā€œThe New York Timesā€.

The Mauritshuis Museum in the Netherlands sparked controversy by displaying an AI-generated image inspired by Vermeerā€™s ā€œGirl With a Pearl Earringā€.

The San Francisco Ballet caused a stir by using Midjourney to generate illustrations used in promotional material for ā€œNutcrackerā€ performances in December.

ā€œItā€™s sort of a natural consequence of something being easy and cheap and accessible,ā€ Andersen said.

ā€œOf course they are going to use that option, even if it is unethical,ā€ she added.

AI companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to requests for comment.

Stability AI founder and chief executive Emad Mostaque has portrayed generative software as a ā€œtoolā€ that can tend to ā€œmundane image outputā€ and provide new ways ā€œof ideating for artistsā€.

Mostaque contends that it will allow more people to become artists.

Critics disagree. When a person prompts software to draw in the style of a master, they say, it does not make that person an artist.

Mostaque has said that if people choose to use generative AI unethically or to break the law, ā€œthatā€™s their problem.

Illustrator and content artist Karla Ortizā€™s website displays some of her designs and illustrations in San Francisco, California, on March 8, 2023. Ortiz and two other artists have filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with art-generating services. Photo: Amy Osborne/AFP)

Death of creativity?

Companies defending themselves from artistsā€™ copyright claims are likely to claim ā€œfair useā€, an exception sometimes allowed when a new spin is put on a creation or when it is only briefly excerpted.

ā€œThe magic word used in the US court system is ā€˜transformativeā€™ā€,' said lawyer and developer Matthew Butterick.

ā€œIs this a new use of the copyrighted work, or does it replace the original in the marketplace?ā€

Artists are turning not just to the courts but to technology to defend themselves against generative AI.

Last week, prompted by artists, a team at the University of Chicago launched their ā€œGlazeā€ software to help protect original works.

The program adds a layer of data over images that, while invisible to the human eye, ā€œacts as a decoyā€ for AI, said Shawn Shan, the doctoral student in charge of the project.

That leaves the onus on artists to adopt Glaze. Butterick predicts a ā€œcat-and-mouse gameā€ as AI makers figure out ways around such defences.

Butterick also worries about the effect of AI on the human spirit.

ā€œWhen science fiction imagines the AI apocalypse, itā€™s something like robots coming over the hill with laser guns,ā€ he said.

ā€œI think the way AI defeats humanity is more where people just give up and donā€™t want to create new things, and (it) sucks the life out of humanity.ā€

AFP