HIRAM RISING: Humanity Has to Stop Using AI Generated Images!

At a glance, we live in an era that seems to be getting exponentially better. With strides towards further and further automation through apps and artificial intelligence, our everyday experience is increasingly accompanied by a computer friend of some sort. Countless experts are quick to remind you that you exist in the greatest moment in human history, and yet somehow, it feels like our personal experiences are being slowly stripped away from us.

As we continue to integrate humanity with machine, every once in a while we are met with a form of automation that does more harm than good. I’ve mentioned a few of these “advances” in former columns, like this one or this one, but one in particular does such a disservice to humanity, I want to lock myself in a high school locker for not having mentioned it before. I’m talking, of course, about images generated by artificial intelligence, the one true scourge on humanity that is only going to get worse as time goes on.

“But Hiram,” you say, “what on Earth could be wrong with some images generated by a computer? It’s kind of cool to tell a computer prompt what you want it to draw and then having the image in your mind come to life in a matter of seconds, especially in photo-realistic clarity. I mean, even when it screws up, at least it’s funny, right?” Oh boy, do you have a lot to learn. Let me give you five reasons why this giant “leap forward” for humanity is actually causing us to stumble back towards the stone age.

Reason 1: The Literal Starving Artist

The use of artificial intelligence for generating images directly effects working artists. There are people out there who make money using their honed artistic skills, generating images with their talents to meet the descriptions of writers and advertisers. If these sources of income use AI to fulfill their image needs instead of turning to these hard-working artists, they lose their livelihood and will be forced into another line of work to avoid dying of starvation or being sold into slavery to cover their art school debts.

Much like backhoes put shoveling laborers out of work, and television replaced the medieval jester, the artists everywhere now find themselves on the verge of being completely replaced. What’s worse, AI will do the same job they do for free, and at a moment’s notice. While some would argue that this democratizes image creation, the truth is that it robs a lot of hardworking people of a job they love, and makes them have to get a job they hate like the rest of us.

Reason 2: Plagiarism Is Wrong

Did you ever wonder how AI works? It basically operates as an amalgamation machine, scraping the internet for images to serve as models in their quickly rendered images. This means, the original source that it’s getting its training data from is not being paid for their “borrowed” work.

Some would argue that legally, any original piece that has been altered at least 40% is not considered plagiarism, but those are antiquated views predating AI and the way it operates. Others would argue that this responsibility should fall to the tech companies that manage and profit from the use of the AI generator, but these are very big companies with very deep pockets. In the eyes of anyone that matters, you’re the scumbag for using those images without tracking down the sources that it’s taking from.

Reason 3: AI Makes Some Really Weird Stuff

So I had the last couple of weeks off to go on an annual camping trip with some friends. I ended up getting one picture from that trip, and unfortunately it caught me as I was adjusting the lense before the camera ran out of battery. This resulted in me looking miserable on the camping trip.

*Actually, I*‘*m always a little miserable*

Naturally, I turned to AI to try to spice up my memory of the trip. I typed in my best description of my myself, “middle aged man with thinning hair and glasses”, then simply added “taking a selfie while having a great time camping with friends.” The results not only didn’t fit my needs, they were downright crazy.

I‘*m not sure where the beard came from, but more importantly I don’t remember there being werewolves there. Instead of a campfire, I guess we used candles and oranges?*

*Not a bad version of me, but if you look in the background, you’ll notice something weird. That’s right, there’s no way I would hang out with any of these youngsters.*

*This one was probably the closest one to the actual trip, but the beard is back so it was unusable*

My point is that relying on AI leads to some really weird images, as you’re not dealing with an actual person. Artificial Intelligence has no idea what life actually is, and can only do its best to replicate it from a collection of outside sources. The more we get used to this sort of output, the less we’ll recognize actual reality.

Reason 4: Devolving Artistic Skills

As someone who grew up before AI was able to create images for you, I have been drawing all of my life. I’ve had a lot of practice drawing, and as a result, I’m pretty good at it. Check out this self-portrait I drew for this article.

*These are the skills you could develop if you didn’t rely so heavily on AI for your images*

As AI continues to gain traction in the field of image generation, people will practice drawing for themselves less, and artistic skills as a whole will degenerate to the point they may no longer be done without the aid of a computer. This may be seen as societal progress, in the same way penmanship has degenerated with the prevalence of computers, with but I disagree. Artistic expression is uniquely human, and it would be sad to outsource that to an artificial source.

Reason 5: Corporate Bias In Pictures

Getting back to those big tech companies that run these AI image generators, they’re usually the type of companies to enforce their corporate views on the users of their products. Given that their product is literally the visualization of their user’s prompt, anything that disagrees with their corporate agenda will be blocked, leading to compromise by the user for the image. The end result of this compromise, compounded over time, will be images that are increasingly less diverse (which is actually kind of funny because most of these companies are superficially all about diversity).

Looking at how the internet is currently run, as the large companies continue to absorb the smaller ones, it’s only a matter of time before this service gets worse, and ultimately stops being free. This creates a Wal-mart effect like we saw in the 1990s, as smaller companies are put out of business by the allure of a low price point, then that price point is raised when the competition is gone. Look no further than Youtube to see where this is all headed.

Let’s all Swear To Never Use AI for Image Generation Again!

Please join me in my quest to ensure AI images never get used again. I’m not too proud to beg, so here’s an image of me on my knees, pleading with you to heed my warning.