Brush vs Bot - Will AI Replace Me?

It seems that AI is everywhere now, and many industries are worrying about how it will effect their livelihoods. None more so than the creative arts. Movies, music and visual arts all coming under intense pressure from the ease at which artificial intelligence is able to 'copy' but also manipulate and edit existing works to create new ones and seemingly bypassing many copyright issues.

Serena, like most other creatives, is worried about how it will affect her. She sells her paintings, primarily as art prints. What will happen when her art is used to train AI (if it isn't already) and new pieces are created instantly.

Reproductions in the Age of AI: What’s Still ‘Mine’?"

So what happens when AI recreates Serena's style to the point where it's almost impossible to tell the difference? Most artists rely heavily on their 'unique style' of painting. Serena is no different, she is unique and her art is heavily focussed on humour and local scenes of Cornwall. Maybe that 'locality' will be her saving grace.

But in terms of 'a piece of art', we have already seen how amazing AI can be!

If we mention other well known Cornish artists, such as 'John Dyer'.. instantly we know their work and if we see their paintings, we know it's him. When does AI trained on a million paintings infringe his rights. Is it stealing or just adding?

These are profound questions that we don't know the answers to. One things for sure, AI is here to stay, so we will have to adapt.

Emotional Connections

Will AI be able to portray the feelings of happy Cornish holidays, with your families. Or perhaps you live in Cornwall and the art is a way of enjoying your home. Will it 'get' the humour.. dogs chasing birds, sharks in the harbour, a random periscope?

So many questions!

Value of Human Made Works

With all the fear, perhaps it's good to look at the positives. Surely the value of original human made pieces will increase. Knowing you have a 'real' piece of art from a 'real' person allowing for emotional connections.

Would You Hang a Robot’s Dream on Your Wall?"

We asked ChatGPT to create a painting in the style of Serena's paintings. We chose her painting of 'Riverside at Fowey' as an example.

We first had to find out, if doing this would train the AI on the artwork.. but we were assured it wouldn't. Having said that, we also asked how AI was trained on art, and it seems it 'scrapes' artwork from the world wide web for use in training. So, chances are, it already has used Serena's paintings along with millions of others to learn

Anyway, this was the result of our little experiment.

'Riverside at Fowey' by Serena

AI generated style imitation (from ChatGPT) of Serena's painting for comparison.

Sure, the image is quite dark and simplified, but we know with a few more prompts it could be made to look incredible. That was just from a simple 'create this style' command.

Artificial intelligence is in its infancy, but the speed at which it's progressing is astounding. The irony of this article, is that I asked ChatGPT to help me structure it. What a funny world we now live in.

It'll be fascinating to revisit this page in 5 years time!