Yesterday, a student asked how I felt about Gen AI being trained on the works of artists without their consent. I gave a very long answer, and here’s part of my response.
First, I shared these two images of Albert Einstein, both done by me in different ways. I took 8 hours to draw the Einstein on the left, and I took 15 minutes in Midjourney to iterate and generate the Einstein on the right.
The scenario I posed to the class: “Say you need an image of Albert Einstein in 24 hours for a PPT presentation. Will you pay me $XXXX to do it in 8 hours, or will you pay Midjourney $10 to generate a nicer-looking one in 15 minutes? What is the role of ordinary people in adding to the despair of artists today?”
I do not agree with Gen AI being trained on content without the creator’s consent. But I also pointed out that throughout history, most people don’t want to pay top dollar for an artist’s sweat and tears (copyrighted or not).
Now that Gen AI can generate great artwork at rock-bottom prices, will most people fight for the right of artists to have a decent livelihood, or will they continue to look for free stock images and use free Gen AI apps?