Some might have noticed, but I'm using AI-generated art in The Last Dragon and I know that among game developers, in particular artists, there are a lot of discussions about the impact and ethics of AI art, not to mention the discussions globally about the legality of AI-generated art.

I feel almost obligated to address this because it's something of a hot topic and my decision to use AI art for the portraits of my game, I struggled with to a certain extent early on.

My need was simple.  I have a dynamic system that creates characters for my game which includes a random name generator and randomized attributes.  These represent the various princesses, generals, wives, and advisors that I want to populate my game with, of which there are hundreds possible and I wanted to have a large library of portraits to support this.  Creating hundreds of unique and original portraits would take hundreds of hours and to commission something like that would also take a very long time and be very expensive.  AI art was a very efficient option for this part of the project.

Of course, that means I have to deal with the AI dilemma, so I thought I would put my thoughts in a Dev Blog.

Is AI Stealing?

This was of course my first dilemma as a creative person, I don't want to have anything to do with "stealing" from anyone.  I believe in original works and I think people should be paid for their creative endeavors, but ... and this is a big but... I think there are limits on what you can expect to protect.

So here is the thing.  Most art, music, and other creative endeavors are in fact to some degree a replication or duplication of something that came before.  The concept of "original" is a bit wonky and mostly a fallacy, because it's impossible for any creative person to proclaim their work "truly original", when in fact it's rarely the case.  We are influenced by things we love and it's in our nature to borrow from those influences to create our own work.  The Last Dragon is heavily influenced by a wide range of games, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms for example, one of my all-time favorites.  In a lot of ways, this game is a love letter to that series.  Am I stealing?  Is my game somehow lesser or devalued, less original just because it's based on something that came before?  Do I owe the original creators some sort of compensation for creating my game? I don't think anyone would argue that.

More to the specific point of AI art, I'm not sure that I buy the idea that sampling and basing a piece of art on someone else's work can be quantified as stealing.  Take for example Van Gogh's influences, chief among them the work of Guillaumin.  It's very clear that Van Gogh thought a great deal of Guilaumin as so much of his works have uncanny similarities to such a degree you might even argue replication.  But Van Gogh had his own style and though he was clearly influenced by Guillaumin, I doubt anyone would accuse him of theft.  

For example, Van Gogh's "Oleanders" has a striking resemblance to Guillaumin’s "Still-life with a Blue Box".  In fact there is no denying that Van Gogh was mimicking one of his favorite artists, making a painting as a love letter and perhaps even a thank you, but was it stealing?  Was sampling it to such a degree a theft?  Should such tribute be made illegal or discouraged?  I would argue not.

So what happens when we ask the AI to do exactly the same thing to Van Gogh, that Van Gogh did to Guillaumin?  Well, that's exactly what I did.  I asked an AI to create a piece of art that is a tribute to Van Gogh's Oleanders and here is what the AI came up with.

I ask you, did the AI steal?  Clearly the piece is heavily influenced, and certainly, many aspects and similarities are unquestionable, but had an art student instead of the AI created this piece, would Van Gogh have a valid legal or ethical complaint?

I just don't see how anyone could claim that.  Whether human-made or AI-made, this art piece stands as a testament to creativity based on the works of people and the art that came before it.  It might not be good, perhaps it is, I don't know, art is subjective, but so far as I'm concerned nothing was stolen, nothing was copied, this is just art influencing art, the fact that its AI-generated rather than human-made does have relevance, but only in its value perhaps but I don't see much in the way of an ethical or legal dilemma here.

Is AI art bad for Artists, does it steal your job?

This is where I think there is no question that AI's are going to claim a lot of jobs, as so many technologies that came before it.  Take me as an example, if I really wanted the 100+ portraits, without AI the only thing I could do is either make them myself or pay someone to make them.  There really is no other option.  

The question however is, did I just put an artist out of a job?  Well, this again is where I have to really question the logic here.  There was absolutely no way I was ever going to pay anyone to make me 100 portraits, that was never on the table, if it were not for the option of the AI tech, I would simply not have my 100 portraits.  Hell, I wouldn't do it, even if I had unlimited funds, it would just be silly to commission someone to make 100 portraits for a hobby project I'm doing just for fun. No one lost anything as a result of the AI here, but someone, specifically me, did gain something.  

The AI tech allowed me to generate the portraits that I wanted and continue with my own creative endeavor which is developing The Last Dragon.

The thing, however, is that this AI art simply doesn't hold the same value as it would if it was hand-made by a human artist and it's in this that I think artists really only have to be marginally concerned about AI art.   The truth is that the value of art is a kind of intangible thing, there is a quality to it that has value to people for many abstract reasons that are not really quantifiable.  We see art and if we like it, it has value, but more often than not the value is in the history, the culture and the story behind the art.  

Van Gogh's paintings are worth millions today but back when he was painting them, his art was not worth much and he was a broke artist.  The value of his art formed largely from the story behind the art and that value was associated with his name, which in turn raised the value of anything else he did.

The point is that I could sign a urinal and call it art and demand a million dollars for it and I'm 100% sure I would be laughed out of the art world, but if your name is Marcel Duchamp, the urinal you signed is called "Fountain" and sits in an art museum in Indiana as a prized piece of art.

What I'm driving at here is that I personally would have much rather have original art crafted custom for The Last Dragon by some brilliant independent artist, that would have a lot more value, it would raise the profile of my game and it would in a word, be awesome.  I'm unwilling however to pay for it, the AI art is good enough for my hobby project and frankly, I don't feel much guilt over it at all.  I'm not putting someone out of a job, because It was never going to be a job for anyone anyway, I just needed some portraits.  I definitely agree that, in business, in the corporate world, in-game publishing, AI art will replace artists, there is no question, but that is the way of technology.

With any technology, there is an inevitable closing of doors for some and an opening of doors for others.  You could argue the merits and ethics behind these closing and opening doors, but the reality is that technology is an unstoppable force, a storm that rushes forward relentlessly.   You can try to stand in its way and create obstacles be they legal or otherwise, but inevitably it will crush everything and everyone that stands in its wake. Those who jump on board and go with its flow will be rewarded with its perks, but there are not going to be any winners among those who stand against it.  You can't stop AI tech any more than you can keep a Blockbuster open and nothing anyone does or says will change that.

To put it plainly, I choose to ride the wake and enjoy its benefits.