A friend and I use a website for a tabletop role-playing game (like Dungeons & Dragons). When creating a character for the Lord of the Rings game, I found what seemed to be the perfect piece online. It’s a Celtic-style warrior in the style of Alphonse Mucha.
We try to attribute art whenever possible, but avoid or pay to purchase anything that is only for purchase. This particular piece appears to be only available on the Etsy shop, and the author apparently uses AI prompts to generate the image. The price is nominally a few dollars. But I can’t help but think that the people who create AI-generated art are taking other artists’ work, essentially recreating it, and profiting from it.
I don’t know what is the best course of action. One of the justifications for AI art is that humans create the AI prompts that generate the images, so the resulting work is novel. That seems wrong. You can take your favorite AI-generated images to a human artist and have them “re-humanize” them. But that doesn’t feel right either — name withheld
From an ethicist:
AI image generators such as DALL-E 3, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion have a sense of tapping into the intellectual property of the artists whose work they were trained to do. But the same applies to human artists. The history of art is a history of people borrowing and applying techniques and metaphors from previous works, with occasional moments of deep originality. Alphonse Mucha’s Art Nouveau poster art influenced many people. I was also influenced by many people.
Would a generative AI system that subtly adjusts the weights of a model as it is trained on new material do the same thing as copying and pasting an image it finds? A closer example might be studying old masters. , artists learning how to express faces. In effect, the system learns how to identify the abstract characteristics of an artist’s style and create new works with those characteristics. Copyright protects an image for a certain period of time (Mucha’s work is now in the public domain), but it does not seal off the ideas used in its creation. If your work exhibits a certain style, others can learn from, imitate, and develop your style. We don’t want to stop this process. It is the lifeblood of art.
Maybe you’re worried that AI image generators will diminish the value of human-made art. Such concerns have a long history. In his classic 1935 essay “Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” critic Walter Benjamin pointed out that techniques for reproducing works of art have been invented throughout history. In ancient times, the Greeks had foundries for replicating bronze. Over time, woodblock prints became widely used to create multiple copies of an image. Later, etching, lithography and photography added new possibilities. These technologies raised questions about what Benjamin called the “aura” of individual works of art. Our concerns about the painting’s authenticity — is it really Da Vinci? — are tied to the idea that it is the unique product of a historical individual. Benjamin believed that mass duplication would diminish the aura of the original. But despite the hundreds of millions of photo reproductions of the Mona Lisa, that hasn’t deterred people from flocking to see the actual painting.
The replica itself can be given an aura. The value of an “original” photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron remains intact when it is reproduced in a book or magazine. Alphonse Mucha himself specialized in illustrations intended to be mass-reproduced, and in 1894 a poster he created for a play starring Sarah Bernhardt attracted widespread attention in Paris. She made thousands of copies of it. Collectors appreciate older color lithographs. In the digital age, devices like “NFTs” (non-fungible tokens) have been used to ensure similar effects of scarcity and exclusivity. Do not consider aura.
Don’t exclude people either. As forms of artificial intelligence become more and more popular, we need to get used to the so-called “centaur” model, the collaboration of human and machine cognition. If you look through the credits of a Pixar movie, you’ll see the names of hundreds of people who were involved in the film you’re obsessed with. They use highly sophisticated digital systems to code, coordinate, and curate. Their judgment is important. On a smaller scale, the same may be true for the person who sold this digital file for a nominal fee. Perhaps he considered various detailed prompts, generated different images, generated variations of those images, and, after careful evaluation, chose the one that came closest to what he expected. No. Are his efforts and expertise worth nothing? I know that there are many people who deny that AI systems can help with that, thinking that they are simply a parasite on human creativity. I am suggesting that there is something wrong with this photo.
Reader reaction
The previous question came from a reader who was wondering whether to donate on behalf of her sick mother. He writes: “My mother has terminal dementia. I manage her finances, including making annual donations in her name. My aide asked me to donate to a church. I said I wanted to, but when I looked into the church I found out they don’t perform same-sex marriages and believe homosexuality is a sin. As a gay person, I will not support any organization that does not support me. My mother’s money is not mine, but is it wrong to refuse her inner circle’s request?”
In their response, the ethicist stated: “Your job as a trustee is to represent the mother’s values and interests. In general, at least within reason, you can use her money to support causes that she would like to support. You should have discussed this issue with her and expressed your deep personal concerns before she got into her current state. Unfortunately, you have to proceed without consulting her. If you’re not sure if she wanted to donate, you’re free to think twice and decline to add it to the church’s collection plate.If you’re sure she wanted to donate anyway, it’s worth your while. It is not enough to raise ethical objections to future beneficiaries; many controversial issues divide our society. , people on either side have ethical objections to the other side. I’m not saying that any donation is OK. Unless you adhere to minimal notions of what is legally acceptable, you may simply be substituting her opinion for yours, and to your credit, you are (Read the full question and answer again here.)
⬥
As always, great answer from an ethicist. While it’s good to consider the good that charity can bring, there are also many charities that are more “charitable” to others. What if the aide had asked the letter writer to contribute to an anti-abortion group, or to an NRA or white supremacist group that might actively oppose the views the mother might have held? Or? – fine art
⬥
As an experienced fundraiser and long-time carer, I take issue with the advice provided. It is not appropriate for a caregiver to ask the letter writer for funds for a church. This puts him in the awkward position of having to say yes to avoid alienating her. I recommend making a very small donation to your aide and explaining that you are donating out of respect for her, but that you will not be making any more donations. — Claudia
⬥
When I started caring for a man with Parkinson’s disease dementia, he was already past the stage where he could recognize me and communicate with me. I work under the direction of my wife. Given that the aide in question had no relationship with the letter writer’s mother before the dementia set in, it seems to me presumptuous for her to ask for anything other than a paycheck. — Gregory
⬥
Having recently served as a trustee for my incapacitated sister, I think you should also consider how difficult it would be to find another assistant. When I was helping care for my sister, we searched long and hard in the community to find paid helpers in addition to the help provided by hospice. It turned out to be impossible. The letter writer may not approve of the caregiver’s church, but if not giving a gift means losing the entourage that provided comfort and confidence, consider the decision very carefully. It should be done. — Victoria
⬥
It’s disconcerting that we resort to philosophical arguments just to avoid talking to people. The letter writer should discuss his or her views with the aide and see if a compromise can be reached on a contribution that is satisfactory to both parties. If honest conversation doesn’t work, and I’m sure it will, then and only then will he have an ethical dilemma. — Tom
