Starving Artists

The introduction of DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion this year caught artists seemingly off-guard.. For years, we were told that creativity would be the final frontier for human workers. Now, we are faced with the prospect that creativity might not be what we think it is.

There is a saying that “everything is a remix.” The implication is that creativity is simply the act of combining what we already know to generate novel concepts. The idea applies not only to art but life in general. Mark Twain is credited with saying “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”

Claiming generative AI models are “stealing” original art to produce new works demonstrates a lack of understanding when it comes to creativity. Humans are employing largely the same process when producing works of art. The difference is that we know where the machines find inspiration. It is not always clear for humans.

We do not need new standards to govern machine creativity. We have ways of determining whether art qualifies as original. We should hold machines to the same standards. This is a wonderful opportunity to spur innovation and creativity. Let’s make sure credit goes to those who deserve it, but let’s also accept that machine creativity is not much different than our own.