Why Are Artists Decrying Procedurally Generated Images? Five ( and 1/2) Reasons.

Note: I’m not going to refer to procedurally generated images as “AI art” because by definition, art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.” I will instead refer to it as PGIs.

1. It’s threatening their livelihood. Artists also have bills to pay. No surprises there.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/16/ai-job-losses-are-rising-but-the-numbers-dont-tell-the-full-story.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/lost-job-chatgpt-made-me-obsolete-copywriter-2023-7

2. Every piece of art that a human artist makes is copyright (mostly owned by the artist and sometimes a publisher that made a contract with the artist to acquire that copyright).

The AI corporations used those artworks without compensating or acquiring permission from the copyright holders (again, usually the artists). This is unethical and probably illegal (we’re figuring that out presently).

https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-copyrighted-material-parliament

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/07/openai-warns-copyright-crackdown-could-doom-chatgpt/

More Sources: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/visual-artists-fight-back-against-artificial-intelligence-companies-for-repurposing-their-work
https://bnnbreaking.com/world/us/artists-rally-for-rights-the-legal-battle-over-ai-generated-artworks
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/01/how-we-should-regulate-ai-is-the-trillion-dollar-question

3. The proliferation of AI is making it hard to tell what is real and what is false, an extremely dangerous trend that contributes to conspiracy and scams.

sources: https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/shoppers-think-click-ai-generated-image-scams-infiltrate-web
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2024/02/14/the-dark-alliance-addressing-the-rise-of-ai-financial-frauds-and-cyber-scams/

https://marinaamaral.substack.com/p/ai-is-creating-fake-historical-photos

4. It’s Highly Polluting

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/05/1084417/ais-carbon-footprint-is-bigger-than-you-think/

5. Over-reliance on technology de-humanizes us, and can lead to more problems

https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/automation-ai/over-reliance-on-generative-ai-top-ethical-concern-for-workers-report/379412

5.5. Other considerations:

Medical records in ‘training’ data set (Ars Technica and biometricupdate.com)

It’s not just independent artists who are trying to take action against PGIs.

Getty Images is suing Stability AI, creators of popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, over alleged copyright violation.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/17/23558516/ai-art-copyright-stable-diffusion-getty-images-lawsuit

AI is flooding the book market with garbage… according to The Guardian and PCmag

…and following the information in AI generated instructional books could literally kill you (link: the Guardian)

From March 2024: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-worm-infects-users-via-ai-enabled-email-clients-morris-ii-generative-ai-worm-steals-confidential-data-as-it-spreads

A group of researchers created a first-generation AI worm that can steal data, spread malware, spam others via an email client, and spread through multiple systems. This worm was developed and successfully functions in test environments using popular LLMs. 

read the paper: https://sites.google.com/view/compromptmized

FURTHER RESOURCES, COLLATED: