We’ve all seen it before, whether scrolling through Instagram, Pinterest or even Google images. Maybe it’s a photograph that looks too smooth or a piece of art that is just a bit uncanny. It triggers that part of your brain that tells you what you are looking at isn’t right. It’s an artificial construction made by one of a growing number of stable–diffusion–based image generators.
Programs like Midjourney and OpenAI’s DallE operate off of a data set gathered from across the internet. Like a parasite, these machines plagiarize the hard work of actual artists such as painters, photographers and content creators. Artificial Image (AI) programs actively steal from any site with a relaxed enough privacy policy. This is due to the inability of online privacy laws to keep up with the sudden and rapidly evolving technology surrounding AI. Lawsuits take a long time; in the interim, AI continues to grow more powerful, disruptive and ever present. It has become so prolific that now even some stock image sites such as Getty and Adobe are beginning to implement AI images. The irony of this is that those same image-generating programs are trained off of a live data set pulled from these sites, essentially meaning that they are cannibalizing themselves to produce an inferior product. Furthermore, AI-generated images that are meant to look photorealistic do not—at the moment—hold up under scrutiny, which essentially defeats any purpose they might serve as stock photography.
AI technology is quickly spreading across all spheres of technology, which begs the question: how did this happen? More specifically, what prompted the sudden proliferation of AI images? The answer is a combination of rapid advancement, accessibility and high demand. The technology implemented in these programs is cutting edge and has quickly become not only affordable but easily accessible to anyone. In the same amount of time that it takes an artist to create an image of high enough quality, AI can recreate the same image a thousand times over practically for free. A technology of this caliber is revolutionary for many reasons, most of which are obvious.
This is where the conjoining of technology and money becomes dangerous. As more and more companies realize the potential for AI-generated images, the demand for human-created content decreases significantly, costing many artists their jobs. The problem here is threefold. AI-powered image generation programs are predatory towards artists (as we previously discussed), but they are also damaging to every creative industry, and they increasingly incentivize dehumanization. The two latter points can be summarized as follows: creativity is an inherently human endeavor, and it cannot be replicated by a machine no matter how advanced. Modern capitalism is a system motivated primarily by the idea of acquiring wealth for the lowest possible cost. If a product can be made by a machine for less than the price of hiring a human, then corporations will naturally choose what is more profitable. This may potentially endanger thousands of jobs, and it will undoubtedly result in a general cheapening of creative products across the board.
This is not to say that all AI-generated content is without its merits. Like most technology, stable-diffusion and artificially generated image programs are tools. How we use those tools is entirely up to us. It is a new and exciting field full of possibilities. With this in mind, I must ask: is trivializing creativity really what we want from this technology? Wasn’t the point of industrialization to remove the strain of labor from humans so we could instead focus on other pursuits? Statistically, Americans work more hours on average than ever before (source needed), and yet new and revolutionizing technologies are released nearly every year. Are we perhaps losing sight of our own future in the shortsightedness of the exciting and revolutionary present?
AI will probably, and indeed hopefully, revolutionize the world, but caution around its implementation at this delicate stage of development is crucial. I have hope that we will be able to adjust, but it is painful to see that this technology, which could be used for so many more helpful things, is being made to replace something so fundamentally human. Art is a cornerstone of what separates us from the rest of creation. If we are truly made in God’s image, then our ability to create and invent is a potentially sacred thing. Allowing AI to so quickly and thoroughly hijack the space we have made for the sharing and expressing of ideas solely for the purpose of making money feels morally and ethically wrong. I believe we can do better, and I am optimistic about the future that we could build with this technology if we allow it to grow within its proper place. Until then, I remain skeptical of the future within the world of the creative arts and the paths that this shiny new technology will blaze.
