Will Humans Retain Originality?
By: Keenan Billings
75% of adult US residents believe that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will decrease the number of American jobs over the next decade. However, the new and rapidly evolving technology, pioneered by online ‘generators’ like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Adobe’s Firefly, has a plethora of different uses and applications, which can be used to both enhance the artistic job market and lead to its downfall. On a broader scale, art created by self-taught intelligence with access to billions of online documents must be recognized as a tool that could render human creativity and input insignificant. Just one AI art ‘generator’ pulls from billions of online images, mixing and matching countless types of media to create an original image within seconds. Although artificial intelligence’s long-term impact relies largely on its ability to adapt and change, in the short term, art created by artificial intelligence will have destructive consequences for all artists, especially those working in sectors that already value individual influence little, such as graphic design or digital marketing.
Along with AI art’s detrimental effects on creativity and diversity, the technology also has major implications regarding the artistic sector’s economic health and viability. In 2023, China saw a 70% decrease in illustrator jobs, combined with a 40% spike in productivity. Artificial intelligence’s ability to cut back on employment costs while vastly increasing a company’s content output makes it a dangerously lucrative option for individual investors and businesses. AI-generated art also provides an economic safeguard for large companies by removing copyright law from the equation. On August 18, 2023, United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell denied copyright protection to art generated by artificial intelligence, specifying the absence of a “guiding human hand” in the AI-generated artwork’s creation as a driving force behind his ruling. By putting all AI-generated art in the public domain, Judge Beryl’s ruling is career-ending for many graphic designers, concept artists, advertisers, and more. This is because, with billions of images in the public domain, the demand for individual consumers and companies to contract graphic designers to do a job becomes low.
Along with its massive financial implications, the rise of AI-generated art has larger significance for all art and society as a whole. Humanity is now faced with an issue: within the reach of our fingertips, we hold the ability to create any digital image imaginable. As a species, do we have the maturity to cast our new, shiny tool aside to ensure we continue to innovate and be original? In 2006, acclaimed scholar Thomas Friedman announced that “the world is now flat.” He meant that, as the result of advances in technology, our world is as “flat” and easily traversable as humans believed it to be thousands of years ago. With artificial intelligence, humanity now has the opportunity to change Friedman’s flat world once again into one with a completely unchanging and uniform landscape, devoid of diversity and individual perspectives.
Although artificial intelligence has many disastrous consequences, there is still hope for those whose jobs it could disrupt. AI can be used to automate certain tasks for artists, increasing productivity greatly while still holding the same value in the voice of the artist. AI also lets millions of people, specifically those unskilled with a pencil or paintbrush, create art simply by using the power of their words. AI art provides new creative and financial opportunities for both individuals and businesses alike, but it is up to the human race to decide to what level it consumes our workforces, businesses, and, ultimately, the originality of our species.
