A Stuttgart-based visual artist named Eveline Fröhlich has been feeling “helpless” as she has witnessed the emergence of new artificial intelligence technologies that threaten to eliminate the need for human artists.
The fact that many of these AI models were trained using the creations of real artists by covertly stealing photos of their work off the internet without permission or payment is an insult to injury.
Fröhlich, who makes a living by selling prints and creating book and record covers, said, “It all felt very gloom and doom to me.” We have never, ever been questioned about the usage of our photos, she said. It was just saying, “This is now mine; it’s on the internet; I get to use it,” which is absurd.
However, she just became aware of a program called Glaze, which was created by computer scientists at the University of Chicago, that thwarts AI models’ attempts to perceive an artwork by making minor pixel-level adjustments that are essentially invisible to the human eye.
When Glaze was made public, Fröhlich said to CNN, “It gave us some way to fight back.” Since there wasn’t really a viable method to protect ourselves from it up until that moment, “that was really the first thing that made me personally aware that: Yes, there is a point in pushing back,” the author writes.
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Balancing Art and Automation
Since a new wave of tools has made it simpler than ever for users to edit photos in ways that might sow chaos or upend artists’ livelihoods, Fröhlich is one of an increasing number of artists who are fighting back against AI’s overreach and seeking to discover methods to secure their works online.
By entering brief instructions and letting generative AI take care of the rest, these potent new tools enable users to produce realistic visuals in only a few seconds. In order to trick the internet before it is revealed that the image is phony, a user may, for instance, ask an AI program to construct a picture of the Pope looking drenched in a Balenciaga jacket.
The power of generative AI technology to produce artwork in the manner of a certain artist has also astounded users. You may paint a painting of your cat that resembles Vincent Van Gogh’s vivid brushwork, for instance.
But these technologies also make it extremely simple for criminals to take pictures from your social media accounts and manipulate them into something they are not (worst-case scenario: deep fake porn that inappropriately utilizes your appearance).
Additionally, these technologies pose a danger to the employment of visual artists by enabling AI models to copy their distinctive styles and produce artistic output on their own. However, some researchers are already retaliating and creating fresh strategies to shield people’s photographs and images from AI’s reach.
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Source: CNN
