Selina Jiang, Period 1, 09/28/2023

Selina Jiang

Period 1

Blog#1


Socio-political Consciousness


Some might say Artificial Intelligence(AI) is great and will make our daily lives a lot easier, while others say that AI should not be used because it’s taking jobs from humans. A lot of the manufacturing processes can be done by machines and greatly decreases the amount of manual labor which has it’s benefits and drawbacks. Things such as making sure products can be used and match the standards because machinery isn’t always accurate, and still need workers to do the task. AI being used in art has been getting increasingly more popular.


The main concern for people is the fact that artificial intelligence will take over jobs and make it hard for people to benefit from their crafts and hobbies such as art. The concern has been increasing the past couple of years as a lot of people have recently started to claim that whenever art is too beautiful, it is made by artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, there was this AI art trend where a filter automatically changes the picture you put in, into art. The AI art app Lensa uses “ Stable Diffusion, a model ‘trained’ to learn patterns through an online database of images called LAION-5B…it then ‘learns’ your facial features from the photos you upload and applies them to that art.” The concern people have is that LAION-5B takes images from the internet, including art made by artists that got used without credit or consent. The app price increased from $3.99 to $7.99 for 50 pictures, clearly benefiting from the trend. As the details of how the AI art apps and filters work spread, people started to try and inform anyone that they saw participate in the trend about it. They talked about how AI art was made from stolen art that artists spent time and effort on, some about how the artists could’ve gotten commissioned and paid their bills for the art.


Another problem AI art brought was that even though the art generated looks nice, it’s not as capable as humans in terms of details. One sign that shows an art piece was AI generated is if the art has extra fingers or toes. AI generalizes features as well and it often exaggerates and sexualizes pictures. An activist, Brandee Barker claimed that the AI apps were “perpetuating misogyny as her generated pictures had sexualized poses and exaggerated features. One twitter user stated “the fact that it depicts femme bodies completely nakes with zero prompt is creepy and can absolutely be detrimental to you one day when someone claims the art is based on '' an intimate picture of you. The skin color of the generated pictures aren’t accurate either as women of color had their skin turn paler as well as inaccurate facial features and body types.


Many art related crafts have been made easier with AI but that has caused people to talk down on people who do it manually. Things such as photo editing has been getting easier thanks to AI, however there are still people who are making a living from their art that they do manually even with all the different kinds of tools easily accessible. Especially recently, in the comment section of any art related videos that I’ve encountered, there are always a few people stating that the process can be done easier and faster on a certain app. Most people have been informed of how to tell whether something is AI generated or not, but some of them end up processing the information as if something looks unreal enough, they don’t believe it is drawn by a person. AI has caused people to question actual art made by artists because they simplify parts of the process too much.


AI generated art is only a small portion of what artificial intelligence is capable of. Artificial intelligence is capable of a lot of things, such as helping solve crimes, making healthcare facilities more efficient and less costly, and many other possibilities. New technology is constantly being created and used, artificial intelligence will continue to help aid humans with tasks more than impacting us negatively as a society.








Works Cited



“Human + Machine: A New Era of Automation in Manufacturing.” McKinsey & Company, 7 Sept. 2017, www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/human-plus-machine-a-new-era-of-automation-in-manufacturing.

Weekman, Kelsey. “Here’s Why People Are Speaking Out Against AI Art Apps Like Lensa.” BuzzFeed News, 8 Dec. 2022, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kelseyweekman/ai-art-app-lensa-instagram-photo-trend-problems.


Marr, Bernard. “What Is the Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Society?” Bernard Marr, July 2021, www.bernardmarr.com/what-is-the-impact-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-on-society/