Years of practice, meticulous hours of work for humans, against a few seconds for the machine that swallowed and digested their works: artificial intelligence (AI) makes artists desperate, but they have not said their last word, neither online nor in the tribunals.
Last summer, they discovered to their horror that so-called “generative” AI programs could now produce, with a simple request, a drawing of a dog “like Sarah Andersen” or an image of a nymph “like Karla Ortiz.” An appropriation without the interested parties having given their consent, being accredited or financially compensated, the 3 “C” at the center of their battle.
In January, the artists collectively filed a complaint against Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DreamUp, three AI models fashioned from billions of images collected from the internet. One of the lead plaintiffs, Sarah Andersen, was “intimately aggrieved” to see a drawing generated with her name, in the style of her ‘Fangs’ comic. Her outraged reaction on Twitter was widely shared and she was later reached out by other artists.
“Art is dead”
In particular, artists want to be able to accept or reject their works being used by a model, and not have to request their removal, even when this is possible.
Under these conditions, a “licensing system could be imagined, but only if the commissions are enough to live off of it,” says Karla Ortiz, another of the plaintiffs. It’s not about “getting pennies while the company rakes in millions,” insists this illustrator who has worked for Marvel Studios in particular.
On social networks, artists tell how they have lost a large part of their contracts.
The Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague is currently exhibiting an AI-generated image for a competition to create works inspired by Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” The San Francisco Ballet, for its part, sparked debate by using Midjourney for its Nutcracker promotional campaign in December.
An “unethical” use
The accused companies did not respond to AFP’s requests, but Emad Mostaque, the head of Stability AI (Stable Diffusion), likes to compare these programs to simple tools like Photoshop.
They will allow “millions of people to become artists” and “create tons of new creative work,” he said, believing that using “unethical” or “doing illegal things” is the “problem” of the users, not the technology. .
Companies will claim the legal concept of “fair use” (“reasonable use”), a kind of exception clause to copyright, explains lawyer and developer Matthew Butterick.
labor protection software
With the Joseph Saveri law firm, he represents artists, but also engineers in another complaint against Microsoft software, which generates computer code. Until a distant trial, and an uncertain outcome, the mobilization is also organized in the technological field.
Called to the rescue by artists, a University of Chicago lab released software last week to post works online while protecting them against AI models.
Called “Glaze” (“varnish”), the program adds a layer of data on top of the image, invisible to the naked eye, which “confuses the clues,” summarizes Shawn Shan, the student in charge of the project. The initiative is received with enthusiasm, but also with skepticism.
“The responsibility for adopting these techniques will fall on the artists,” laments Matthew Butterick. “And it will be a game of cat and mouse” between companies and researchers. He fears that the next generation will be discouraged.
“When science fiction imagines the AI apocalypse, robots with laser guns arrive,” says the lawyer. “But I think the victory of AI over humanity is when people give up and stop creating.”
Source: BFM TV
