Every artist knows the twisted gut feeling they get when someone they love offhandedly mentions something they did with generative AI. For those who aren't artists, it may be confusing to see a group of people so upset by something that does something similar to them but makes it more accessible, right?

Wrong.

Generative AI doesn’t make anything. It takes things that it’s trained on (such as REAL artists work that they spent months perfecting) and regurgitates it in a half-baked “generation.” The artists whose work is used to train AI models did not consent to their work being used in this way, and now are subjected to half-baked interpretations of their work tossed at them by friends and family with pride as if what they did wasn’t essentially accidental theft.

But some people don’t realize this. Some people are unaware of how AI generates things, they just like to see what it makes. I used to generate things with AI before I learned the effects of it, but this was back when it couldn't really do anything. That’s why I’m here: to outline the effects of AI on real artists and everyone else.

To make it simple, I'll outline 5 tangible ways that AI “art” harms real artists.

As most people know, if you make a piece of art, you own the copyright to it. If someone wants to use something that's copyrighted, they either have to agree to royalties for the original copyright owner or get sued.

With AI, this system falls apart since people say it was the AI that was taught from the art, so who is to blame? It introduces another level that isn’t legally defined which essentially just disregards the rights and work of artists in this way.

All creatives have seen a shift in the job market towards AI. For some positions, such as some design or writing projects, companies decide to use AI to generate content since it’s cheaper and faster than hiring someone. This leads to less work for creatives due to the decreased demand.

If you go on Pinterest, a platform that used to be for creatives to find inspiration, you’ll find around 90% of the images are AI generated. This lowers the demand for the platform as well as traffic artists may have gotten from Pinterest since many people have started disregarding the platform entirely due to the abundance of AI-generated slop.

Similarly to the previous point, around 50% of art I’ve seen advertised on Etsy is also clearly made by AI. This may seem inconsequential to some, but if you recall the first part of this article, this essentially means that someone is stealing someone's copyrighted work with no consequences.

I hope this article has been helpful and not (too) filled with rage. My intention is not to shame, but to bring awareness to the harmful effects of AI.

Until next time. 🥰