In December of last year, variations on a simple image — a general prohibition symbol crossing through the word AI with “NO TO AI GENERATED IMAGES” beneath it — began popping up on my Instagram feed. I had just written my last piece for Hyperallergic, looking at Artificial Intelligence’s capacity to relay and become part of art history, and I realized that the interviews I had conducted for the article had all been with pro-AI voices. I had not spoken to the group being hurt at the hands of AI image generation: digital artists. The recent popularization of AI software such as OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT has made AI the topic of the moment. AI-generated images, from quirky profile pictures showing…
