This is the first of three columns discussing concerns about AI technologies and their development.
In recent months, AI-generated images have exploded in prevalence on social media platforms and the internet at large. Following this rapid increase in coverage, artists have elicited various concerns regarding the implications of AI-generated art. These kinds of images, and the conversation surrounding them, pose serious problems including theft and classroom use.
AI-generated images have two main forms: those where a prompt is entered into the program and images are created — “text-to-art,” and those where images are uploaded and modified to look like a style of art — “AI-edited images.” The text-to-art program Dall-E 2 was released in 2022 and was followed swiftly by several other programs, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. AI-edited images have become popular through websites and apps like Lensa AI — which have been increasingly seen on social media platforms like Instagram and Tiktok. An AI-generated image, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” was…