Artists Sign Open Letter To Prevent Publishers From Using AI-Generated Work

In the discourse against artificially-generated art, a lineup of artists, writers, and journalists has penned an open letter to stop publishers from using work derived from machines.
 
The petition is in collaboration with the Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting, and is led by American artist and writer Molly Crabapple. Some other names on the list include Vox writer Aja Romano, MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes, and Popular Front journalist Jake Hanrahan, in addition to 1,061 others who have also put their names down in support of the cause.
 
The rise of generators such as Midjourney, DALL-E 2, and ChatGPT has quickly infiltrated the arts and journalistic scene, putting the industry’s craft “at risk of extinction” thanks to the minimal cost and speedy results such systems can pump out, the note asserts. The letter’s authors predict a future where only a group of “tiny elite of artists” would ever be able to make a business out of their craft.
 
Sites like CNET and BuzzFeed have already taken to the integration of AI, and we might be looking at a trend that isn’t about to stop. In other areas of media, rapper Drake and singer The Weeknd have had their voices manipulated via AI, and used to make a song neither of them had anything to do with.
 
Elon Musk and ChatGPT’s creator have also stated that AI might be at a point of no return. However, the letter disagrees and says there is still a chance to turn things around, and protect the art world.
 
Within this are other privacy issues, and problems with data used to train these machines, which essentially take images from the internet without an artist’s permission. 
 
“Media publishing takes intellectual property rights very seriously. Its business would not exist without upholding the laws and values that protect such rights. If newsrooms aim to resist corporate theft, they must commit to supporting editorial art made by people, not server farms,” the letter continued.
 
 
 
[via Artnet News and ArtDependency, cover photo 30165585 © Jeff Wasserman | Dreamstime.com]