Like everyone else, I have been completely blown away by the improvements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the past few months. Last year, I used GPT-3 to write an article for this column, even if only to see if the content I produced using nothing more than an algorithm’s instructions was acceptable to the editors. Can go away from watchful eyes. When ChatGPT was released late last year, technology like this suddenly became widely accessible through a conversational interface that anyone could use and ask for answers to almost any question – From writing songs in the style of your favorite artist to building functional software, regardless of whether they have any prior experience with coding or not.
But as interesting as it has been to experience how generative AI can be used to create text-based output, what really blows my mind is the way it has transformed the visual arts. I watch with amazement – and the tiniest bit of envy – as ordinary people with no formal artistic training create truly stunning images using generative AI tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. On Midjourney Discord, each channel is a non-stop stream of inspiring creativity – fueled by human imagination and brought to life by AI.
To me, one of the more interesting features of Generative AI is its ability to create images in the style of famous artists. I’ve found this to be a particularly useful hack that novices like me can use to create images with a given mood, despite not being an AI-prompt ninja.
But then I thought – for the AI to be able to create output in the styles of so many artists, it must be trained on hundreds of samples of their work. Who gave permission for this? Surely, some of these artists must be fuming about the fact that anyone can now create an image in the unique style that took them an entire lifetime to make their own.
Last month, three of those artists filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, Stability AI and Midjourney alleging infringement of the three ‘C’s’ of copyright – consent, compensation and credit. They argued that the image training data used by these AI engines was not only removed from the internet without the consent of the original creators, none of these artists were compensated nor paid for the final output. No credit was given for.
Getty Images launched a separate legal proceeding, claiming that these AI companies “chose to ignore long-standing legal protections in pursuit of viable licensing options and their stand-alone business interests”.
These lawsuits raise interesting legal questions about how an old law should be used to regulate a new technology.
The reason copyright law was created in the first place was to assure artists that the law would be on their side if anyone tried to “copy” their images. An artist’s style, especially when the output is realistic enough to be able to pass-off as something actually created by the artist.
As a matter of fact, Generative AI does not copy any of the artworks it has been trained on. Each output it produces is an original work with no one-to-one correspondence with any part or whole of any image by a given artist. And yet, the AI somehow manages to give the impression in its artwork that it was created in that ‘style’.
I am unable to conclude that this ‘impression’ is sufficient to constitute the offense of “copying” under copyright law. After all, nothing prevents a human artist from creating an artwork inspired by another’s style (unless this ‘inspiration’ suggests a brush-stroke to brush-stroke reproduction of the original). Most young artists hone their skills in this way, by looking to senior artists around them for inspiration, copying the techniques from one and the stylistic productions of the other. This is why most modern copyright laws include fair use provisions that explicitly allow artists who have substantially adapted an existing work of art to be free from claims that the resulting adapted work infringes. is guilty of
This is the balance that intellectual property law has to strike – it must find a way to protect artists from copies that reduce the value of their original work, but at the same time encourage them to be inspired by others , so that we all continue to benefit from the creative cross-pollination that is the defining characteristic of the arts.
The US Copyright Office has already declared that AI generated art is not entitled to intellectual property protection because it lacks the “nexus between the human mind and creative expression”, which is necessary to enforce copyright protection.
I believe this official approach will have to change in the near future. While it is true that these tools make it possible for anyone to create images that would otherwise be impossible without a dollop of talent and a lifetime of hard work, I have learned through personal experience how much effort and skill goes into fashion. Gives pointers in exactly the right way to get the desired result.
These may not be the skills that define artistic genius as of now, but as far as I can tell, they are going to be the skills that define artists in the years to come.
Rahul Maithon is a partner at Trilegal and has a podcast called Ex Machina. His twitter handle is @matthan
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