In the past years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been gradually increasing in its use –from quick searches to voice identification– it has been one of the subtle technological advances that has been integrated into our everyday lives. It’s to the point of being shocked when AI is being used for basic critical thinking such as ChatGPT, many of the math AI apps (though I really don’t want to hate on them). Many uses of AI are accepted especially when used as a tool to help others or themselves, but I believe that the AI used to generate art is something that shouldn’t have been created.
AI’s code when making ‘art’ is something that not many people understand. Generative AI uses a database of real people’s art and interprets the works to generate an ‘artwork’ that looks similar to what is in its database, though it reflects whatever prompt the user inputted. Those who use AI should be told that claiming such graphics would be the same as tracing another person’s work.
You can see the difference in the quality of AI’s work compared to a human’s if you look closely enough. AI art usually ends up with shadows that look off, limbs of living creatures being out of place, lines doubling in weird places and overall, a bit strange after giving it a second look.
An example of this would be when my brother noticed an image of a Youtube video. At first glance, it looked to be a normal cup of coco adorned with gingerbread men. There was a soft glow that covered the whole image that looked to be snow, but that was where the observation went before I saw oddities that didn’t make sense. The cup’s handle was a bit crooked, the gingerbread’s face was unclear, and the red cup was merged with the white snow that covered the bottom of the image making me double guess what the ‘cup’ was supposed to be. It was subtle, but made a difference no less.
If the problem stopped there, it would have been nice, but lately, there are people who use AI art to make their own ‘artwork.’ The work, of course, is all done by the computer, but people seem to like it more than what actual artists make, even if some of the parts look a bit odd. This might be due to the fact that the art styles used are aesthetically pleasing to many.
I admit, I do feel a bit bitter when I see users online getting more likes on AI generated art than the artwork I made myself. My feelings and effort involved are being pushed away by artificial intelligence, which can only deduce and create similar works. Then again, there are also other uses of AI that I’ve seen digital artists utilize: for example, using and taking advantage of the AI generated artwork as inspiration and trying to remake it even better. If AI is using our art, why can’t we? The results vary depending on the person, but there is a distinct difference that makes it all the more better.
Like this, we can use AI to help us make illustrations, not making it do the creative process for us, because the way we are using them currently is stunting our abilities and opportunities. If we can use AI this way, I believe that it will benefit everyone, especially talented artists around the globe, in the long run.
