If Good Artist Borrow and Great Artist Steal...What Happens When An AI Does It?

“Vincent Van Doge, in the style of Van Gogh” - IG @ openaidalle

Earlier this year, I started getting random images from colleagues showing me their artistic skills using the new Dalle-2 program from OpenAI. Some were good, others were alright, yet others were just downright weird.

I came across this image and thought, geez, this is pretty cool. Only to find out that Dalle-2 made it with the following instructions:

"a frustrated sloth trying to fix bug in code while sitting at a coffee shop, digital art" - IG @ openaidalle

This brought up a whole new question for me that had been theoretical in 2021. Back then, most AI artworks looked like bad acid trips in a low-budget indy film. But now, I have to ask, what happens to creatives when AI can produce "artworks" that are genuinely compelling and unique?

As Picasso says, "Good Artist Borrow, Great Artist Steal," what happens when AIs start doing the same and generating works that compete with humans? What rights do the creatives have when these models are trained off of artists' works who are currently alive and living off the income they generate from their artwork?

Are you interested in this topic? Are you working on the subject matter? Or do you have some thoughts on it as an artist, collector, or reader? I'd love to hear your thoughts.