An artist who specializes in creating beautiful and unique artwork has accused two artificial intelligence companies of engaging in a form of identity theft.
The companies, known as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, have developed platforms that use advanced technology to mimic the artistic styles of real artists. However, in doing so, they have not only copied the work of these artists but also created competition for them.
The process used by these AI platforms involves training their machines by analyzing vast amounts of text and images sourced from various places on the internet. This data is used to teach the machines how to generate new images that resemble the styles of different artists.
Legal action against Midjourney and Stable Diffusion
One artist, Karla Ortiz, who resides in San Francisco and is known for her fine artwork and illustrations, believes that her own creations were used without her permission to train these AI systems.
She said, “For these models to generate the imagery that you see today, or anything for that matter, they have to be first trained on massive amounts of data, data that includes image and text.”
In January, Karla Ortiz took legal action against both Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, filing a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement and violations of the right of publicity.
She claims that her artistic work was unlawfully utilized by these companies to train their AI models, which has resulted in unauthorized reproductions of her unique artistic style. This not only undermines her creative rights but also poses a direct threat to her livelihood.
The way Ai imitates the style of artist Sam Yang (samdoesart) is absolutely eery. I‘d be so frustrated & angry.
The worst thing: Sam spoke out against this and tech bros made a contest out of coming up with the best Ai to copy his style.
This madness needs to stop! pic.twitter.com/ebml1qP6D4
— Jonas Jödicke (@JoJoesArt) December 22, 2022
Many other artists, such as musicians, illustrators, and writers, have also expressed concerns about the practices employed by tech companies to train their AI models and the potential risks of data exploitation in machine learning. However, it is important to note that artists cannot copyright their artistic style.
Following the initiation of her legal action, Karla Ortiz stated that both Midjourney and Stable Diffusion ceased using data derived from her artwork to generate images. While this may be seen as a positive outcome, Ortiz’s concerns persist and extend beyond her individual case.
Impact of AI on the job market
A report from Goldman Sachs in March revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to affect approximately 300 million jobs across the globe. The widespread impact of AI on various industries raises concerns about the future of employment.
In response to this growing trend, IBM, a prominent technology company, made an announcement stating that they would temporarily halt their search for candidates whose roles could be replaced by AI.
The decision comes from IBM’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, who anticipates that nearly 30% of non-customer-facing positions, amounting to approximately 8,000 jobs, could be eliminated within the next five years.
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