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Friday, November 04, 2022
Invasive Diffusion: How one unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model
Waxy.org: Last weekend, Hollie Mengert woke up to an email pointing her to a Reddit thread, the first of several messages from friends and fans, informing the Los Angeles-based illustrator and character designer that she was now an AI model.
13 comments:
Alex Reinard
said...
I think that this story is every artist's worst nightmare, as technology and AI become more prominent in art. It's terrible that this AI has now made Hollie Mengert's art just all the less unique. Though the AI isn't perfect at recreating her art on a deeper level, as she describes herself, it still must be incredibly distressing to see someone copy your artistic style. I hope that Mengert is able to see some sort of resolution to this problem, but at this point I have no idea what could even rectify this situation. She could, for example, take legal action or sue, but still this AI checkpoint has been released on the internet, and it will now always be around. I hope that the AI industry is able to learn from this, at least, and prevent more artists from ending up in a situation like Mengert's. AI art as a whole has so many ethical questions attached to it, and I think that the entire industry should stop and work out these questions instead of continuing recklessly.
This is such a tricky situation. I think that this is definitely an artist's worst nightmare for Hollie Mengert. Having something that can copy you work in a frighteningly similar fashion for no money or credit to you is rather terrifying to someone who relies on their art for their livelihood. In a strange way it feels almost like using machines in a factory setting rather than people, or robots instead of delivery drivers, or any number of situations where AI and other machines are being put in place to replace a person and their hard work. Once the option is available lots of companies looking for cheap and easy product might take the AI route rather than contacting the person. And this same mindset will undoubtedly effect Hollie and her clientele base. I do really enjoy Hollie's point about how the AI is almost incapable of creating the same unique facial expressions or relatable characters that Hollie is. It was something that I also found in the comparisons of James Dally III comic art to the AI recreation of it. It just almost seems colder when the computer creates it. Regardless the legality of being able to take someone's art that is paid for by a client and is not in any way public property and just run with it is something that should definitely be stopped. Even in writing it is expected that creators cite their sources and give proper credit.
As the discussion around AI powered art and AI technology increases and expands to different areas of the industry, I often think about the limit and power that AI has and the amount of work that they could do for the huma society. The conversation that the author had with the artists in the end of this article also made me think about things that can be replicated and things that AI could not possibly have the power to do so. It also interest and made me think about the functions and abilities that AI models could do and if they could be used in the theater industry. The last part of the interview also make me think about what could be count as inspiration and what could be count as original work when you are using an AI to generate artwork while sometimes it could be hard to think about this for non-AI works.
The emergence of AI-generated art programs, among many, many other new and widely unregulated technologies is a tricky subject to talk about for me. On the one hand, I think it's great that these programs are making art more and more accessible at a lower and lower barrier of entry for people around the world. More people can have the chance to explore their creative passions, even if it might not be them directly doing the drawing, learning, etc. However, the ethics of such technology, especially when it comes to the copying of or basing off of other artists' work, and the risks posed by bad actors who will inevitably use this technology to cause harm are things that make the discussion much more complicated. Ultimately, I think that this technology needs to be regulated, in the exact same ways that copyright, fair use, and licensing already work. A lot of work, both legally (and unfortunately politically) and technologically on the back end, will have to be done before that is possible in any realistic way, but it is necessary to ensure that the technology is used as appropriately and safely as possible.
AI tuning of living artists while a fascinating experiment to test the strength and reliance of an AI program is cool, using the results as work of one’s own or as re-distributed material is wrong. I think what Ogbogu did was fascinating, but in a broader scope of people using the software to copy another artist’s styles is wrong without their consent. I feel like this technology when using someone else’s artwork to make it happen is a form of plagiarism because it requires the programmer to take the work of another and use it as data in their project. Not only is this stealing when the artist is not given an option to consent, but the produced artwork should not be redistributed as one’s own because it took that artist a while to master their style and techniques. A computer ripping them off may look passable as the artist’s own, but it would not hold the same humanistic intent. I think the technology has cool possibilities for animation and artists using it on their own art. However the article’s mentioning of the negative yet inevitable abuses of this emerging technology is frightening.
This article perfectly touched on a lot of the reasons surrounding my many reservations about AI art. I am so sick and tired of the arguments this guy uses too. It does not matter that AI does not patch actual pixels from actual images together into a collage. It does not change the fact that you would not be able to build your tool without the data from the people’s artwork that you stole. The artwork that they themselves may not own and thus could get hurt from you using said work in their name without any party’s consent. Free use is determined by the “amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”, as taken from the US copyright law. You are stealing every color choice, every brush stroke, every hour this artist spent working, all to make mediocre portraits with lifeless eyes. I hope this guy gets sued into oblivion.
This story mostly fills me with disappointment. AI art is quite a tricky subject to talk about since it is full of nuances and complications. I truly believe it poses great potential for future art; however, I also think that it is a slippery slope. While I love certain effects that AI poses, I do think that it is something to use with a large degree of gentleness. I personally think that the artist was right to feel upset. Art and especially art style can be something so incredibly intimate. To have that incredibly intimate part of you cross-examined and made into a no-personal and warped version of you is disturbing. As an artist with a very unique artstyle themselves, I think it would be quite violating to have an AI “replicate” my art style without permission. If I had to be honest. I think that I would have a difficult time with the information and the sense that something so intimate like that is no longer mine as highly tiring.
Recently, my dad picked up working in AI ethics, and I had never thought about it in terms of artists. I really liked this article because I liked thinking about how plagiarism can come from technology and not just copying and pasting someone's essays; I think the best way to describe this AI situation is plagiarism; however, I do think that if the artist had signed off on the creation of the spot that would not be the same, it worries me that people are able to program an AI with anything they'd like on the Internet because I can imagine it's so easily going unnoticed in a professional or educational setting, even if the creator meant well. I think that as technology evolves, it is essential that our view of plagiarism and ethics keeps up and that we do not turn a blind eye and harm artists even if and when it seems like the easy way out.
It's a little haunting to me how often I hear the word AI thrown around. I feel as though we are on the cusp of a serious breakthrough in AI tech. The art thing is a sore subject, but ownership and art has always been a rough road to walk. I don't think AI are going to make these sorts of things any more or less complicated. I just think that it's the accuracy of the AI generated images that is the thing we should be concerned about. Just the other day my advanced fabrication professor wanted myself and my classmates to 3d scan our faces on some totally sketchy free app so we could try and CNC our faces. We all voiced our concerns and basically refused to use ourselves as the subject for the assignment. The professor acted as though we were crazy but just look at what this tech is capable of. It's horrifying and I don't think the cutting edge of this tech will be used for good.
Another news quiz week, another AI comment (it’s interesting how many AI related articles there have been recently). I don’t think that this is an ethical or good move by the creator of the model - there is a difference between drawing from a general art style and a specific artist. What happened to Hollie Mengert sucks, there’s no other way of saying it. In order to create an AI model, you need data (in this case her art) - and I’d argue that taking her art, especially her commissions without permission is to some degree theft. To echo another commenter, there’s a weird line of plagiarism here as well because it’s her style without actually being hers. AI art is such a versatile field but it has such an opportunity to be exploited, and as this article examines, it is actively being exploited. This type of technology being so easy to use is an interesting technological advancement but the ethical and moral line around it is so iffy. We will see where this technology goes I suppose.
I don't fully understand how DreamBooth and Stable Diffusion work, but what I glean is that the program learns as much as it can from the source images, and then creates its own work based on the data it has acquired. While that in itself doesn't bother me, I think the fact that we have technology that can replicate human creativity is rather cool, I am perturbed that some people feel compelled to use this technology to generate work based on an actual person's style. For profit, or otherwise. Hollie was kind in her comments to the author, and I think she hit the nail on the head: it doesn't appear that the people who do use these programs to generate work do it from a malicious place, but that they don't stop to consider the consequences to the person whose work they are mimicking. I also just think that's a huge consequence of the internet and social media in general. Going as far back as DeviantArt, users of that platform would copy each other's styles and original images frequently. I don't necessarily think that imitation is a bad thing, this has been pervasive in art since throughout history, but it takes it to a whole new level when the work is being passed off onto AI. This means a program is doing the artistic labor, faster and cheaper. I don't know, I think we'll be seeing laws come into effect to protect artists from AI. Right now it's legal because it's just so new.
I’ve seen more and more coming out about AI tools and the ethics behind them. Especially when related to working artists. I think situations like these make it so much easier for people to utilize artists’ work without the artist getting proper compensation or recognition (yes, Hollie Mengert’s name was attached to the tool, but it wasn’t her work. It was an AI-generated knock-off). Artists are already undervalued and not appreciated for their work. This isn’t a hobby for Mengert: it is her job. Her skills are something she has worked on for years, and her style is uniquely hers. Getting into copyright laws is tricky (and not exactly something I understand), but this AI stuff makes me upset. Yes, we want art to be accessible to everyone. But ripping off artists' work is not the way to do this! This article presents views from the artist side and the technology side. An interesting discussion for sure, but we need to respect artists’ work.
It sure does feel like AI art has had a dramatic uptick in the last two months. I remember commenting about things like Dall-E and how that could be used to create art inspired by famous painters like Dali and Van Gogh and whether that was legal/ethical. Now we already have services where you can input your favorite artists and generate art in their style. I appreciate Mengert’s eye for detail and that she can point out all the ways that the AI art falls short of capturing her ability. I personally don’t see it. I think the AI is a decent alternative and I think the average consumer wouldn’t be able to tell which was an original and which came from a machine. Now that this door has been open what’s to stop me from finding an artist I like, deciding I don’t want to pay $40 or whatever their rate may be for each commission and just steal their art instead, input it to an AI like dream both and get my commission for like 1% of the cost.
13 comments:
I think that this story is every artist's worst nightmare, as technology and AI become more prominent in art. It's terrible that this AI has now made Hollie Mengert's art just all the less unique. Though the AI isn't perfect at recreating her art on a deeper level, as she describes herself, it still must be incredibly distressing to see someone copy your artistic style. I hope that Mengert is able to see some sort of resolution to this problem, but at this point I have no idea what could even rectify this situation. She could, for example, take legal action or sue, but still this AI checkpoint has been released on the internet, and it will now always be around. I hope that the AI industry is able to learn from this, at least, and prevent more artists from ending up in a situation like Mengert's. AI art as a whole has so many ethical questions attached to it, and I think that the entire industry should stop and work out these questions instead of continuing recklessly.
This is such a tricky situation. I think that this is definitely an artist's worst nightmare for Hollie Mengert. Having something that can copy you work in a frighteningly similar fashion for no money or credit to you is rather terrifying to someone who relies on their art for their livelihood. In a strange way it feels almost like using machines in a factory setting rather than people, or robots instead of delivery drivers, or any number of situations where AI and other machines are being put in place to replace a person and their hard work. Once the option is available lots of companies looking for cheap and easy product might take the AI route rather than contacting the person. And this same mindset will undoubtedly effect Hollie and her clientele base. I do really enjoy Hollie's point about how the AI is almost incapable of creating the same unique facial expressions or relatable characters that Hollie is. It was something that I also found in the comparisons of James Dally III comic art to the AI recreation of it. It just almost seems colder when the computer creates it. Regardless the legality of being able to take someone's art that is paid for by a client and is not in any way public property and just run with it is something that should definitely be stopped. Even in writing it is expected that creators cite their sources and give proper credit.
As the discussion around AI powered art and AI technology increases and expands to different areas of the industry, I often think about the limit and power that AI has and the amount of work that they could do for the huma society. The conversation that the author had with the artists in the end of this article also made me think about things that can be replicated and things that AI could not possibly have the power to do so. It also interest and made me think about the functions and abilities that AI models could do and if they could be used in the theater industry. The last part of the interview also make me think about what could be count as inspiration and what could be count as original work when you are using an AI to generate artwork while sometimes it could be hard to think about this for non-AI works.
The emergence of AI-generated art programs, among many, many other new and widely unregulated technologies is a tricky subject to talk about for me. On the one hand, I think it's great that these programs are making art more and more accessible at a lower and lower barrier of entry for people around the world. More people can have the chance to explore their creative passions, even if it might not be them directly doing the drawing, learning, etc. However, the ethics of such technology, especially when it comes to the copying of or basing off of other artists' work, and the risks posed by bad actors who will inevitably use this technology to cause harm are things that make the discussion much more complicated. Ultimately, I think that this technology needs to be regulated, in the exact same ways that copyright, fair use, and licensing already work. A lot of work, both legally (and unfortunately politically) and technologically on the back end, will have to be done before that is possible in any realistic way, but it is necessary to ensure that the technology is used as appropriately and safely as possible.
AI tuning of living artists while a fascinating experiment to test the strength and reliance of an AI program is cool, using the results as work of one’s own or as re-distributed material is wrong. I think what Ogbogu did was fascinating, but in a broader scope of people using the software to copy another artist’s styles is wrong without their consent. I feel like this technology when using someone else’s artwork to make it happen is a form of plagiarism because it requires the programmer to take the work of another and use it as data in their project. Not only is this stealing when the artist is not given an option to consent, but the produced artwork should not be redistributed as one’s own because it took that artist a while to master their style and techniques. A computer ripping them off may look passable as the artist’s own, but it would not hold the same humanistic intent. I think the technology has cool possibilities for animation and artists using it on their own art. However the article’s mentioning of the negative yet inevitable abuses of this emerging technology is frightening.
This article perfectly touched on a lot of the reasons surrounding my many reservations about AI art. I am so sick and tired of the arguments this guy uses too. It does not matter that AI does not patch actual pixels from actual images together into a collage. It does not change the fact that you would not be able to build your tool without the data from the people’s artwork that you stole. The artwork that they themselves may not own and thus could get hurt from you using said work in their name without any party’s consent. Free use is determined by the “amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”, as taken from the US copyright law. You are stealing every color choice, every brush stroke, every hour this artist spent working, all to make mediocre portraits with lifeless eyes. I hope this guy gets sued into oblivion.
This story mostly fills me with disappointment. AI art is quite a tricky
subject to talk about since it is full of nuances and complications. I truly believe it poses great potential for future art; however, I also think that it is a slippery slope. While I love certain effects that AI poses, I do think that it is something to use with a large degree of gentleness. I personally think that the artist was right to feel upset. Art and especially art style can be something so incredibly intimate. To have that incredibly intimate part of you cross-examined and made into a no-personal and warped version of you is disturbing. As an artist with a very unique artstyle themselves, I think it would be quite violating to have an AI “replicate” my art style without permission. If I had to be honest. I think that I would have a difficult time with the information and the sense that something so intimate like that is no longer mine as highly tiring.
Recently, my dad picked up working in AI ethics, and I had never thought about it in terms of artists. I really liked this article because I liked thinking about how plagiarism can come from technology and not just copying and pasting someone's essays; I think the best way to describe this AI situation is plagiarism; however, I do think that if the artist had signed off on the creation of the spot that would not be the same, it worries me that people are able to program an AI with anything they'd like on the Internet because I can imagine it's so easily going unnoticed in a professional or educational setting, even if the creator meant well. I think that as technology evolves, it is essential that our view of plagiarism and ethics keeps up and that we do not turn a blind eye and harm artists even if and when it seems like the easy way out.
It's a little haunting to me how often I hear the word AI thrown around. I feel as though we are on the cusp of a serious breakthrough in AI tech. The art thing is a sore subject, but ownership and art has always been a rough road to walk. I don't think AI are going to make these sorts of things any more or less complicated. I just think that it's the accuracy of the AI generated images that is the thing we should be concerned about. Just the other day my advanced fabrication professor wanted myself and my classmates to 3d scan our faces on some totally sketchy free app so we could try and CNC our faces. We all voiced our concerns and basically refused to use ourselves as the subject for the assignment. The professor acted as though we were crazy but just look at what this tech is capable of. It's horrifying and I don't think the cutting edge of this tech will be used for good.
Another news quiz week, another AI comment (it’s interesting how many AI related articles there have been recently). I don’t think that this is an ethical or good move by the creator of the model - there is a difference between drawing from a general art style and a specific artist. What happened to Hollie Mengert sucks, there’s no other way of saying it. In order to create an AI model, you need data (in this case her art) - and I’d argue that taking her art, especially her commissions without permission is to some degree theft. To echo another commenter, there’s a weird line of plagiarism here as well because it’s her style without actually being hers. AI art is such a versatile field but it has such an opportunity to be exploited, and as this article examines, it is actively being exploited. This type of technology being so easy to use is an interesting technological advancement but the ethical and moral line around it is so iffy. We will see where this technology goes I suppose.
I don't fully understand how DreamBooth and Stable Diffusion work, but what I glean is that the program learns as much as it can from the source images, and then creates its own work based on the data it has acquired. While that in itself doesn't bother me, I think the fact that we have technology that can replicate human creativity is rather cool, I am perturbed that some people feel compelled to use this technology to generate work based on an actual person's style. For profit, or otherwise. Hollie was kind in her comments to the author, and I think she hit the nail on the head: it doesn't appear that the people who do use these programs to generate work do it from a malicious place, but that they don't stop to consider the consequences to the person whose work they are mimicking. I also just think that's a huge consequence of the internet and social media in general. Going as far back as DeviantArt, users of that platform would copy each other's styles and original images frequently. I don't necessarily think that imitation is a bad thing, this has been pervasive in art since throughout history, but it takes it to a whole new level when the work is being passed off onto AI. This means a program is doing the artistic labor, faster and cheaper. I don't know, I think we'll be seeing laws come into effect to protect artists from AI. Right now it's legal because it's just so new.
I’ve seen more and more coming out about AI tools and the ethics behind them. Especially when related to working artists. I think situations like these make it so much easier for people to utilize artists’ work without the artist getting proper compensation or recognition (yes, Hollie Mengert’s name was attached to the tool, but it wasn’t her work. It was an AI-generated knock-off). Artists are already undervalued and not appreciated for their work. This isn’t a hobby for Mengert: it is her job. Her skills are something she has worked on for years, and her style is uniquely hers. Getting into copyright laws is tricky (and not exactly something I understand), but this AI stuff makes me upset. Yes, we want art to be accessible to everyone. But ripping off artists' work is not the way to do this! This article presents views from the artist side and the technology side. An interesting discussion for sure, but we need to respect artists’ work.
It sure does feel like AI art has had a dramatic uptick in the last two months. I remember commenting about things like Dall-E and how that could be used to create art inspired by famous painters like Dali and Van Gogh and whether that was legal/ethical. Now we already have services where you can input your favorite artists and generate art in their style. I appreciate Mengert’s eye for detail and that she can point out all the ways that the AI art falls short of capturing her ability. I personally don’t see it. I think the AI is a decent alternative and I think the average consumer wouldn’t be able to tell which was an original and which came from a machine. Now that this door has been open what’s to stop me from finding an artist I like, deciding I don’t want to pay $40 or whatever their rate may be for each commission and just steal their art instead, input it to an AI like dream both and get my commission for like 1% of the cost.
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