One of the constant refrains I hear in defense of imitative AI systems is that they democratize creativity and should therefore be allowed regardless of the implications for artists and society. While I understand the impulse to label it so, I don’t think imitative AI actually democratizes creativity or art. At least, not in a meaningful sense.
First, it is important to note that these systems are taking copyrighted material from artists and regurgitating them. That statement is not an exaggeration. Marcus on AI has a very good post detailing both the plagiarism examples in the New York Times copyright lawsuit and examples of how easy it is to get generative AI system to output replicas of copyrighted material. These systems are taking the work of other artists and reproducing them without recompense.
That is not democratization. That is theft.
At their heart, imitative AI systems cannot do anything else. They need to be trained on oodles of data (a technical term) and that means they need copyrighted material — there just isn’t enough data otherwise. The people behind these systems figured they could take that material and use to make themselves rich and the artists poor. But any pretense of claiming that imitative AI somehow puts creativity in the hands of non-artists must deal with the fact that said creativity consists significantly of the copying of others work for no payment.
Imitative AI is not creative — it just copies. And it is not true that all art copies. Every artist, unless they are deliberately trying to duplicate a specific work, brings something different to their work. A picture of a fruit bowl is not the same if I do it (not the least because I can’t paint to save my life) and someone else pants the same fruit bowl. Prompt engineering is just being a boss — giving a set of requirements and letting a machine find previous work that it can Frankenstein into an output that satisfies you.
That is not creativity. Ideas are easy. I have a list of over a hundred log lines/descriptions of stories I could write (including “Zombies taste of chicken”. I think I know what I was going for there, but pro-tip: a bit of extra description never hurt anyone’s notes.). Some of the are clearly derivative, some of them are in direct response to other works (like the “F*ck English magic” note. I know exactly what that one is, and I am coming for you, Ms. Clark. Okay, no, no I am not going to “come for” a modern classic of fantasy, but still. You get the point.) but that doesn’t matter, because the ideas don’t matter. Almost every idea has been done before. What matters is the execution. Imitative AI just regurgitates previous execution — there is no creativity there.
Maybe people mean that they can get art for free for their own commercial purposes. (I am more ambivalent about things that you will keep to yourself. Playing with these systems on the free mode and generating an imitation you don’t intend to use in anyway doesn’t really hurt artists that much.) But that means willingly accepting that you are using a system that takes, without payment, works of other people and regurgitates them for you. I don’t know about you, but exploitation does not mean democratization to me.
Look, creating art is hard. I have been writing for almost my whole life, and seriously trying to get published for about four years now with no luck. I cannot draw, despite trying to learn more than once, and I cannot sing or play an instrument despite my parent’s best efforts. Handing the process, the work, of artistic creation to a regurgitation machine is not a short cut to creativity. And I get that it might be tempting to use imitative AI to get you something cheap, but that’s just exploitation.
If you want to democratize art, then make sure you live in a society where people have the free time and resources to learn artistic skills. Make sure you have a society where artists can earn a living from their work. Make sure you have a society where survival is not so precarious. Do those things and you will have truly democratized art.
But don’t pretend that taking other’s creativity for your own is art or democratization. It’s just wrong.
Leave a Reply