Many people are using AI for many different tasks, one of those being art. So is it real art or is it a lazy excuse for it?
AI art isn’t real art, but it isn’t always used out of laziness. AI can be used for inspiration, but most artists would rather use real pictures and even make their own reference pictures.
A big problem artists have with AI is that it steals art. The AI will use any and all art to train itself to make things, more often than not without the artist’s consent. It makes artists not want to post and share their work.
“[AI art] doesn’t count as real art because art is something made by a person to express something that they want to say or show about themselves, and robots can’t do that. Yeah, they can make a picture that looks like a water colour painting, but it’s just generated, not created,” said junior Audrey Ehresman.
Another factor is that AI is faster and cheaper than hiring an artist or graphic designer. Because of this, companies would rather just use AI for creating commercials or designing their products, resulting in artists losing job opportunities.
There are also stores that are selling products with AI generated artwork, including Hobby Lobby, Etsy and Michael’s. All three of these stores were created specifically for artists, so their use of AI art in their products has upset many artists. Pinterest, a platform that many artists use to post their work and find reference photos/images, is also now full of AI images.
“Pretty much all [Michael’s] stuff has been AI generated since last Halloween. If it’s a mold or statue type thing it’s a real design, but if it’s “art” or a print, then it’s AI generated. Last year for Halloween they forgot to remove the watermark for the website they used, and it got pulled from the shelves so fast,” commented redditor LuckySea3600.
AI has gotten more and more indistinguishable from art made by real people.
Can you tell which of these two images was generated with AI?
If you said the one on the right was AI you’d be wrong. The rose picture on the right is a photo taken by ameenfahmy on Unsplash, whereas the image on the left was AI generated on Google Gemini using the prompt ‘rose.’ The real rose has flaws and imperfections, that alongside its more natural coloring makes it appear more natural. The AI rose looks too perfect; with its overly uniform petals, colors and symmetry, you can also see some of the petals are overlapping unnaturally.
While it can be a helpful tool when used correctly, AI art is not real art and steals from artists. This is a growing problem that needs to be stopped. If you want to help, you can start by supporting artists, especially small artists, by showing support for their work.
