‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI

‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI

AI art generators may provide five minutes of fun for most users, but the blurring of creative and ethical boundaries is leaving many artists raging against the machine

‘Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere,” I type into Deep Dream Generator’s Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I’ve described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don’t go beyond drawing stick figures.

AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It’s already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway “due to production constraints”.

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