AI: A Threat or a Tool for Creative Fields?

 Jason Allen’s A.I.-generated work, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” took first place in the digital category at the Colorado State Fair, attracting controversy

• As more and more things are to be automated, the more it would come at someone’s expense
• Machine generated works aren’t generally copyright protected and this can also lead people to wonder who deserves their copyright
• Defenders of AI say that it would actually be a tool for all traditional artists, writers and all kinds of creators
• Defenders also say that the demand for human creativity would thrive more than before since people would grow bored of copy-pasted, automated AI products

“I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI. I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” said AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton to the New York Times. Hinton is also considered as the “Godfather”

of artificial intelligence and has recently resigned from Google.

 With artificial intelligence finding its way to every nook and corner of the digital space and improving with rapid speed as of lately, the world of AI is seemingly becoming more and more advanced and closer to our everyday life. People are coming across several websites and applications with AI features that could mimic and interact with people in a highly articulated manner. The latest trending Snapchat “My AI” feature and Google’s “Bard” with their almost human-like and self-learning AI conversations even caused controversy among some users as they revealed on social media that this AI feature made them feel uncomfortable and paranoid about their digital safety. Some users even complained that Snapchat’s AI feature was difficult to remove once they added it as well.

What does this mean to creators?

 But what this sudden uprising of artificial intelligence caused the most stirring and debate was its rising involvement with creativity which used to be something that couldn’t be replicated by AI. But with these new advancements in artificial intelligence, people are seeing millions of AI generated art, books and other creative work circling the internet. These generative AI tools are seen to be working with the goal of producing something close to the original, real-world input data. Several artists thus stood up for themselves on social media complaining that they have come across several AI generated “art” that has stolen their style of artwork or their arts in general. Another such controversial AI tool that is trending these days is ChatGPT which generates texts after studying millions of web pages and scientific papers on the internet and structuring their answers according to the question asked. While this can be used by many people to make their work easier, it also raised concerns as several people wrote entire novels and stories as well using these ChatGPT features. Writers came forward on social media explaining how this made them feel insecure about their livelihood, skills and the overall quality of literary work, whose importance is largely based on its original human experience and creativity.

AI is stealing artworks and creative jobs?

 Many artists including digital artists have come forward on social media complaining about how AI has stolen their art styles and finished products to generate art for users worldwide and how they were completely unaware of this. According to them, this could possibly lead to losing their jobs as more and more art will thus be automated and copyright concerns would get thrown away. As these ethical concerns rose, thousands of artists, writers, designers, photographers and other creators have posted “Do Not AI” signs on their social media accounts in protest against it. Recently AI voice-cloning technology has also sparked fear whether it would throw out real-life voice actors off their jobs as well. It has been noted by many creators that as more and more things are to be automated, the more it would come at someone’s expense.

 Moreover, it is noted that machine-generated works aren’t generally copyright protected and this can also lead people to wonder who deserves their copyrights. Is it the one who created the AI generator? The one who fed the information to it to create the AI product? Or the ones whose original works were studied by the AI to create the end product which is more than one person? The answer seems obscure.

 A digital artist shared her opinion on Twitter saying, “Artists don’t dislike AI art because it’s ‘not real art’ etc. Artists dislike AI art because the programmes are ‘trained’ unethically using databases of art belonging to artists who have not given their consent. This is not about gatekeeping. This is about theft.”

 On the other hand, the lives of professional writers seem to be at risk as well. Professionals have noted that it’s not just low-skilled jobs like content writing that are at risk of being automated by AI but even high-skilled jobs like journalism and novel writing are also at risk of being replaced by AI. This was confirmed by a Japanese company that has already developed an AI system that can write novels better than humans. 

 Award-winning British author Susie Alegre, a recent victim of AI plagiarism, asked: “Do we really need to find other ways to do things that people enjoy doing anyway? Things that give us a sense of achievement, like writing a poem? Why not replace the things that we don’t enjoy doing?”

 AI writing can be also seen widely among students for their academic writing as well. One student explained on social media how he could easily get an A pass by simply entering the question prompt for his essay on an AI writing website. Discussions have risen that this has decreased critical thinking skills, brainwork and time management skills in students as AI overshadows their potential. 

 Maybe AI is actually a useful tool?

 While the fear and turmoil boil over one side, defenders of AI all over the internet say that AI would actually be a tool for all traditional artists, writers and all kinds of creators and that they would find that working with it would only be more interesting and exciting. According to the Washington Post, defenders say that there is little reason to consider AI as a threat when it comes to the health of art and instead would help artists to build up on their imagination and creative plans.

 French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard explains, “The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.” Defenders assure that artificial intelligence would not be able to replace or compete with creativity since all its ideas are copy-pasted from original human ideas anyway. Their argument is that the complexity of human emotions and imagination is something that AI so far cannot do as long as humans stay creative and innovative.

 Defenders also say that the demand for human creativity would thrive more than before since people would grow bored of copy-pasted, automated AI products and crave for original and different content and would even pay premium prices for it due to its scarcity. They believe that the human instinct and yearning for refreshing and new creations would always keep creators afloat and protected.