BSERVED The importance of identity based clubs Why AI art needs to go

Jordyn Rossmeisl Staff Reporter

By now, most of you have probably heard of AI art, and some of you have used AI art generators, Heck, even I am guilty of trying it out. However, as this new and improving technology becomes more popular, it also brings up some questions.

As an artist myself, I wondered what AI-generated art means for the art community, and if it is ethical. After some digging, I am here to tell you that AI art is not as innocent as it seems.

Zileni Milupi Staff Reporter

Cultural and identity-based clubs are the heart and soul of extra-curricular activities on campus.

When I came to the U.S. in 2019 to pursue my undergraduate studies, I had a somewhat decent idea of what college here would be like. Despite my immense exposure to American media, specifically regarding college life, I still experienced culture shock in a variety of aspects.

When I attended Cascadia College in Bothell, Washington, the first thing that stood out to me was the identity-based clubs. Some of these clubs included the South Asian Student Association, Japanese Culture Club, Korean Language Club and Bridges International.

As someone from a predominantly mono-racial country, I was quite intrigued by these clubs. Of course, I had known that the U.S. is one of the more diverse countries in the world, but seeing different people celebrate and share their identities with each other is something beautiful to witness.

At Cascadia College, I was a member of Bridges International, as I identify as an international student. Being a part of that club gave me a sense of belonging and community. Despite members of the club having different cultural backgrounds, we all shared a similar experience navigating life in a new country.

When I transferred to CWU two years ago, I was curious to see what kind of cultural clubs there would be. I anticipated that CWUwould have more clubs because Cascadia College, as a community college, is obviously smaller. To my satisfaction, there were even more cultural cubs than I expected. About a month before I was set to arrive on campus, I did some research on CWU clubs on Instagram. I came across the Black Student Union (BSU) and African Student Association (ASA). During the time I’ve been at CWU, I’ve only attended a handful of meetings of both clubs. I would attend more if it wasn’t for my schedule. Nevertheless, the few times I have attended, the clubs provided me with a feeling of comfort and solidarity.

There’s just an indescribable feeling of joy you get when you’re around people with shared experiences and identities.

I’ve also had the chance to attend a meeting at CWU’s Filipino American Student Association (FASA). Although I don’t identify with Filipino culture, I had the desire to support a different identity club and learn more about their culture.

An article in Campus Times from the University of Rochester explains that cultural clubs tend to invite people who don’t identify with that culture.

“When cultural groups explain what their club is, they make sure to emphasize that all are welcome, and they genuinely do want people of other identities to join their club.” (Campus Times, University of Rochester).

Attending at least one cultural club is something I think everyone should try to do before they graduate. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend attending a meeting or event hosted by an identity based club on campus, it’s an experience you don’t want to miss out on.

There are two main issues with AI art. The first is that AI art generators are producing work faster and cheaper than actual artists, so artists are in danger of losing their jobs to this technology.

According to The New York Times, people have already begun to use AI art instead of hiring artists. They spoke with Mr. Waldoch, a young game designer, who did just that.

The NYT article said: “Initially, Mr. Waldoch planned to hire human artists through the gig-work platform Upwork to illustrate each day’s rhyming word pair. But when he saw the cost — between $50 and $60 per image, plus time for rounds of feedback and edits — he decided to try using A.I. instead. He plugged word pairs into Midjourney and DreamStudio, an app based on Stable Diffusion, and tweaked the results until they looked right. Total cost: a few minutes of work, plus a few cents. (DreamStudio charges about a cent per image; Midjourney’s standard membership costs $30 per month for unlimited images.)”

Now, AI stealing jobs is not a new problem. As technology continues to improve, many people are at risk of losing their jobs to AI. But it is much worse if the AI that is being credited and taking the jobs of artists, is also stealing the data from those artists in order to make its creations.

This brings me to the second issue: AI art generators are stealing from artists to produce images, essentially plagiarizing and profiting from it. How do we know that the AI is stealing from artists? Well, this is where the laws get complicated, and where the fight begins.

AI art generators cannot create original work. They have to be fed pre-existing images and artwork.

According to sciencealert.com, “When Stable Diffusion was being built, machine-learning algorithms were fed a large number of image-text pairs, and they taught themselves billions of different ways these images and captions could be connected. … it’s far from a streamlined process.”

At first, the companies that created these AI art generators argued that the AI learns from these images, but creates something new, just like an artist would. However, since AI art’s emergence, more and more proof has come out that AI is taking bits and pieces from artists’ work and directly incorporating it into the images.

According to Levelup.com, some artists have found bits and pieces of their work, and their signatures, in images concocted by AI generators.

One of the AI art generators, The Lensa app created by Prisma Labs, has generated portraits that seem “to have hints of artist signatures.” This has led to people suspecting that the AI is indeed taking many artists’ work without their consent.

AI art generators are stealing artists’ work to learn from it and profiting off of the images that they generate for little cost, and the artists whose work fed these machines get nothing. If that doesn’t sound wrong to you, I don’t know what will.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Artists have begun to stand against these tech companies, and fight for their work.

According to news.artnet.com, “A group of artists has filed a class-action complaint against the companies behind a trio of A.I. art generators, saying the services violated copyright and unfair competition laws.”

In addition to the lawsuit, artists all over have begun talking about AI art and its impact. It may be tempting to use AI art, but now that you know the consequences, please consider supporting an actual artist instead. It may take a little longer, and cost a little more, but the result will be worth it.