﻿Did you hear about the AI-generated replacement for Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring
at the Mauritshuis Museum? And the AI-generated portrait of Edmond de Belamy that sold for over
$400,000 at an auction? AI image generators have become more skilled at producing artwork,
raising questions about the ethics and legality of their use. As we continue to shape the
development of AI, it’s crucial to consider how we can use these tools ethically.
AI image generators use diffusion models, trained on millions of images and captions,
to learn the meaning of words and concepts like style and mood. They add Gaussian noise to add
randomness to the training data and then reverse the process to create a high-resolution image
from a low-resolution image created by a text prompt. Diffusion models generate images from
scratch instead of modifying existing ones. While AI image generators do not copy existing images,
many consider this plagiarism and copyright infringement. How so?
Many AI models have been trained on billions of images taken from
the internet without permission from the owners. A group of artists has
filed a class-action complaint against companies behind three AI art generators,
citing copyright violations and unfair competition laws. Getty Images has also
claimed that Stability AI unlawfully scraped millions of images from its site.
On that note, I’ve invited Michael, a seasoned designer in the print-on-demand industry,
to share his thoughts on AI image generators. I think it’s valuable to hear a working
artist’s insights on the ethical and legal considerations surrounding AI image generators
in print-on-demand product design. Anyone taking finished art that has been
produced directly from the AI and uploading that to a product will have some bumps along
the way because there are legal cases going on right now asking questions about whether
stuff produced with AI is legal. Anyone who’s creating or using AI in
that way is probably going to struggle to build a truly long-term business.
Because they don’t understand a lot of the fundamentals of art and design and, in particular,
how a design goes from a digital file to a product, and if you’re simply typing words and
getting a design and whacking it on a product, I’d be concerned about the long term possibilities for
a store like that. Print-on-demand
store owners can use AI ethically right now as a brainstorming tool to help them generate
variations and concepts and even slight variations of existing designs. There are already tools
out there that can help you do that. I agree with Michael. AI image generators can
provide a good starting point, but your own personal touch is crucial. Take the time to
review and modify the designs or use them as inspiration. As we’ve learned, it’s not just
artists that are affected by the rapid development of AI. I’ve invited Matias, the CEO of Vexels,
to share his thoughts on AI image generators. Vexels is a platform that supports creators with
their merchandise designs. Like many companies, they’ve decided to adapt to this new change and
have developed an AI tool of their own. AI is a very, very disruptive technology. So
for Vexels, it was a big revolution internally. Vexels is a very customer-centric company. So we
started asking ourselves how we can benefit our users using AI. Today we are developing new tools
based on aid to streamline the challenges that merge sellers encounter when they launch their
own brand lines. Merge Product. We are releasing new tools related to finding the right needs for
them. Create the right quotes for design. The designs are a mix of all technology and
assets created by AI and everything that helps them automate the whole process of launching,
maintaining, and being successful with their merch business.
I’ve left the link to their tool in the description. Make sure to check it out
It will affect artists in a couple of different ways. There’s the good side, and there’s the bad
side. On the good side, AI art is helpful for brainstorming. It helps come to a problem from
different angles. And to do that quicker than you would be able to do in any other way.
On the bad side, there are even cases where, of course, artists are being actively ripped off,
where people are using the artist’s name to create work in their style,
which is obviously a big negative for working artists right now.
We are entering a new era of AI-generated images. AI tools will develop more and more
and be more sophisticated and will be able to create and really develop designs. So for
those who understand the market, this will be a big advantage for their industry.
We’ll see some really practical and useful tools for artists that will hopefully allow
artists to integrate into their workflows without feeling too icky about the whole process.
What’s YOUR take on AI image generators? We’re eager to hear your thoughts on this topic,
so please share your experience and opinion in the comments. Thank
you for watching. See you in the next video!