Spotlight on Controversial AI-Generated Paper Art
AI (artificial intelligence) has been in the news quite often recently with good reason... it's both intriguing and perplexing to many of us. And definitely controversial. Will it replace human talent or enhance it? AI images abound as text-to-image generators such as DALL·E 2, Midjourney, and Lensa AI, all of which can be tried for free at this time, are being put to the test by millions of people around the world.
In my newsletter last week I included the image you see below that was created and posted by paper sculpture artist Polly Verity in Wales on her Instagram feed (@polyscene). (Polly's art was previously featured here.) I then shared it to the All Things Paper Facebook page where it captured an immense amount of attention, however, it quickly became apparent that many viewers didn't grasp that Polly had created the images virtually despite the posted description.
Yes, AI created the human face too.
Polly's transparent Instagram description of the collage images was as follows:
This is all fake! I asked AI to make paper artist folding paper faces in their studio. It did rather well, I can sit back now and let it run!
The last sentence was facetious, of course, as what she does is sculpt paper by hand. I'm quite sure most everyone would agree that creating dimensional paper art in that manner is more challenging and requires far more talent than commanding a computer program to generate a result by typing in a phrase. (How do these programs work? In simple terms, by searching the internet for images that match a request, and then compiling them into a new image.)
actual paper sculpture
Polly Verity
A person commented on Polly's post to implore others to not utilize AI because the images are taken from artists across the internet without consent. I appreciated Polly's thoughtful response:
Yes, I worry about that too.
I hope that in the future artists will be somehow either paid oeuvre
royalties or have a right to deny use. I just wanted to find out a
little about how it works, the process etc so that it doesn't seem like a
scary thing but rather to imagine how this technology could be used in
the future in positive creative ways. For example an artist interacting
with their own bank of archival images, collaborating with A.I. in real
time. My creative flow is often following idea threads offered up by my
previous works and building on these ideas. If I had a handy algorithm
to intelligently offer up likely leads and suggestions based on my past
choices, that could be extremely helpful for me.
I then asked versatile artist Marina Talamaska in Tashkent, Uzbekistan whose paper art was featured previously on the blog for her thoughts on AI paper art. She has been posting examples of art via Instagram (@talamaskanka) for which she used Midjourney to assist in their creation.
This is her reply:
I don’t think AI will replace the real artist soon, although I see some digital illustrators are furious about having their art used without credit, etc. Actually, I think they are possibly the first to be hurt as AI is a tool that can give great results - fast visualisation of an idea - in sixty seconds. When working with a client it will save a lot of time on the idea approval stage.
Marina Talamaska
For my recent art, I used Midjourney to generate some simple ideas imitating paper art techniques like quilling or kirigami. As I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the results, I made the needed changes in Photoshop using AI images in a collage. I have also used Procreate when I want a more illustrative result, like matte-painting. This approach is seen in Water Dragon art.
I see AI as a revolution in visual art that one can’t deny. It expands the professional horizons and raises the visual art quality request. We will have a visual boom soon that will blow up the industry and change it, but the more effective this wave becomes, the sooner our eyes will tire of digital noise. When the tide has turned, handcrafted art will be as valuable as ever.
Chi Michalski, @ChiChiLand on Instagram, a freelance 3D artist and art director in Seattle, Washington, created these playful geo-folded birds via Midjourney. I contacted Chi to ask her thoughts on AI-generated art and its ramifications on the industry:
All Things Paper is an Etsy affiliate.
I am a lifelong researcher in AI (Phd in Computer science, lots of papers etc.). I see the potential of AI art, but also that it is hardly art without the artist who has experience and can judge when an image is worth retaining and also can supply sample art to begin with. I also am quite concerned about the use of images without approval of the artists involved. I am also a potter and photos of some of my work are online. I don't take that to mean that I have given away copyright. But so far, none of the AI algorithms are set up to consider that at all. And hence it's all a lot of plagiarism. So far Microsoft, Open AI, Google etc are not commenting on this matter. And they won't unless our legal system constrains them.
ReplyDeleteCandy, thank you for offering your perspective. Yes, fine AI art needs an artist's eye in its conception and realization. We're in for a wild ride until the legalities are worked out.
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