about anything else? my mind was blank. docking my family, my wife, my existence became meaningless. fortunately, many friends supported me and slowly recover kinda wanting flu for when i saw my son's former classmates going to school decided to have another child on campus you few and thanks to god, i now have 2 children. these and here i they all year before the earthquake. i love the station often earthquake a stop station. now i devote all my time to my family shows, but i don't want to tell my children about what happened. they are still very young . if i told them how desperate their brother was buried under the rubble and how heart broken we were as parent, there will be depressed and the feel pressure below the i'm giving this to love a never gave to my son. i'm trying my best to give them

a better life. the plug in them for the back to vote with the headlines on allergies, 0 israel s gallery, dot moore, as strikes in the sauce of the gaza strip in the last few hours, at least or 2 on palestinians have been killed since tuesday. israel says it has targeted, seen the lead is all these i'm a jihad onto, but some of the victims out children and brought his son from a prime minister in ron con is appearing in court and is i'm a bond. he faces multiple charges, including corruption. on thursday, the supreme court ruled his arrest earlier this week was unlawful. tomorrow hider has more from his stomach, but swear door that there's been quite an emotional crowd there, especially noise from the bucket. dante, you can solve that, them run. vaughn was brought in to guard, exhibiting to be confident they did not answer any of the questions of the

journalist budget parks are coming out that the complaint that day was not allowed to talk to his wife or the card guy supreme court had ordered the police do should be allowed, grab a to be able to talk to your wi fi. you also said that they weren't apprehensive that day. maybe i acted again a brand new leave. this was the candidates and making their final pictures to voters in the most closely faulty election in took. he is recent history, opposition contented came on the list of order received a potential boost against incumbent for a ship. ty, photo, one after another candidates dropped out 30 lou migraines have been racing to enter the united states from its southern border as fund demik related restrictions expired. the u. s. has boosted troop numbers along the frontier. the legislation known as title 42 has been use expelled 2700000 migraines from the us since it was introduced more than 3 years ago. and so don's warring sides of signed an agreement

to protect civilians and the movement of humanitarian aid. it follows several days of talks in saudi arabia between the army and the power of military rapids support forces. many civilians have been charged by nearly a months of fighting. and those are the headlines. so knowledge is here is always one use on our website that out. is there a dot com coming up next year? it's the stream to stay with us since watch to the 5. the

hello and welcome to the stream. i'm heidi joe castro, filling in for sammy ok. today. artificial intelligence, an artist, the latest influx of a i powered image generators has artist asking, is this technology a collaborator or a rival? here's how to artist see it. the majority is the greatest industry crushing technology ever to be released in the creative world. it has become so powerful that at this point it's dangerous for us with a i don't cute on that

a more bus and a more expensive and more profound image. so i did all day in this, possibly it is. yeah, i office to do something truly unique and you know, meet up to popular image generators can produce seemingly endless amounts of stunning visual art in just a matter of seconds. so where does the technology leave professional artist or programs like mid journey and stable to fusion are trained on data sets, made up of billions of images collected online. and generally, without the knowledge or approval of the artist. users can then prompt the trained a i to create new art work, even in a style of a specific artist. some artist see this as a threat to their jobs and even to their very identities. while others see a i as a powerful new tool to enhance artistic expression and expand human creativity. and

with us to talk about this in the us state of north dakota, we have shane bulk which an artist and photographer from ohio, katherine elkins, professor of humanities. and in a researcher at kenyon college. and from berlin, art photographer, boris l. dodson who recently rejected this here sony world photography prize, which he won after revealing that his submitted photo was made with the help of a i. thank you all 3 for joining us for this really interesting discussion. and of course, i feel like it is fitting to start with you because what captured my attention and many people around the world where these headlines that came out in april. when you won the sony world photography contests. we see in the garden photographer, mit prize winning image was a generated german artist for us. so docs and says entry to sony, world photography awards was designed to provoke debate. and of course,

this is the photography, the if you can call it a photo, which i know is part of the discussion, but that's what we're debating at this moment for us. thank you so much for joining us. tell me more about this entry a while it was a test to find out if for the competitions where that a i don't know it could images, would it be handed in and they have not being ready for it. and because they have not been ready for it, they have no position on the relationship between a i generated images and photography. and i've tried to have a debate starting on this topic. we've to sony would photography you want. but the way to just not willing to, so i had to refuse. and what started, since it's much, much bigger than i could have ever expected it to me. and i'm very thankful for the,

for the community to make it happen. i think it is one that many artists are hoping to have and for you to be the ones that open, that can of worms so to speak. i think that's a good thing. and a shame, i know you are among the other artists who saw this happen and you may have had a different reaction. what did you think of for us as entry? well it, it 1st came to my attention to this. is this a i a concern is when i started seeing people post these images and calling them photographs as a photographer, as an analog photographer i, i knew immediately that these are not photographs who i'm in ordered. the definition of photography is rather clear. it was made about a 180 years ago, and you have to use light and photo sense of materials. and i knew that these a, i generated images aren't using any of that. so i'm, that was my 1st concern with this is that i searched on instagram and i found that there was a 170000 images identifying themselves as photographs. and none of them were

photographs. i see catherine, you are a researcher in this field, so we're going to kind of have you the are neutral orbit or in a sense and you do come at it from academic perspective. how 1st to just tell us how to these a r g a i generate or is even work? well, they definitely don't work the way that some of the lawsuit suggests they do. one thing to understand is they're not storing the data in a traditional sense. they're not taking images that they've scraped from the internet and recombining them. so one of the problems with the lawsuits right now is they are using incorrect definitions to describe exactly what's happening there based on a day fusion model. the best way to think about it is if you have color and you drop it into a glass of water, it di fuses into that water throughout these actually start with noise. they start with that diffused process, and then they gradually take away noise to build up an image. this makes all of the

controversy very difficult because they're obviously not working in the ways that are copyright laws assume they're not working through plagiarism or any of those kinds of things. that's right. so they're not actually storing these images. is that right? and, and i mean, we're talking about like 5000000000 images that are scraped from the internet, aren't we? right? they're not storing it because they are kind of some people say it's like if i went to an art gallery and i looked at art and then i went home and i painted a picture. now some researchers say we shouldn't even with the humanizing it, it is not like a human. on the other hand, a group of researchers led by coline did find that they could recreate a very, very small percentage of images. so i think they found point 03 images that they would could recreate. people are now calling us a soft database. it's not store in all of these images, but it can very, very rarely actually recreate images. i think shane,

i want to come to you next because i know you specialize in a form of art that takes hours of laborious labor to accomplish and we actually have video of you doing this work. how long does it take you to create one images using those wet plate process? when i work on fridays in my studio, i'm in here about 8 to 10 hours and i will make i'm between 8 and 10 plates. so about, you know, maybe even if i'm rushed or you know, i can make a plate in about a half hour. so there's a lot of time invested in composition and, and making sure everything is right. um, so it, it is um, but we're talking about a historic process that, that gets back to $1851.00 and there's less than a 1000 of us in the world are at better actually practicing website today. that is very unique and as an experiment, this is interesting. you posted on your instagram account, you asked in a uh, image creator tool to make an image. and in that style and it took 10 seconds. you right here, after you put in the prompt to generate this,

this picture what he was make of that? yeah, well it's, it's, it's the prompt. it's the, there's very little any very little information that needs to be added to the system in order for it to give you in a rather elaborate outcome. and, you know, to talk about what catherine was talking about is how it uses the fusion and so forth. my argument is that you couldn't get the output without the input so that that color that she was talking about, um, extracting from it relies on over 5000000000 images, including so there it is and including some of you are all images from my understanding here. you found some of yours in this data set where you ever credited i know i sent over 30 of my native american works in this database of over 5800000000 photographs. and so, so can i argue that the output of one of these are a i generated uh images um if you ask for

a native american in the web play process and it gives you something in 5 seconds. can i argue that some of my work is in there somewhere? all right, and let's take a moment to listen to some other concerns from sam yang. he is a digital artist in canada, who found that a i models had been trained on images of his work and were generating new works of art in his style. not only is the collection of copyrighted content of legal concern, but so is this, when a like to innovations are made to look like an artist work. this has the potential for reputation damage for forgery, for fraud, for identity theft. and what's most concerning is that when these models are trained on the images of the artwork, they are unable to forget. so almost all of these models are now working with tainted data through generations. now all involve copyrighted content which has been gathered without the knowledge or permission of the copyright owner. it is directly hurting artists with put their passion and their soul and everything

though they create totally for their work to be scrape from the internet and without their permission and used in training a i models for us. i know you've worked in the fee for over 30 years, right. and you just started experimenting with a guy in the last year or so. so how do you see this collaboration that you've developed as i love to work with a i but i also understand shane and the about this position and they're both slight . yeah, i could add something to this to make it more like complex. but if you ask me about the positive side, ok i it is the ration from restrictions that i had before because i always created out of my imagination. and now there are no restrictions left. and the beauty about it is that i'm using my knowledge to create the image just knowledge that i collected, instead of to use, photographing and making out. and when you use it this way,

you don't need to at a certain style and to copy the style of somebody else. you can create something new. you can create a prompt that is very complex. if you have no idea of this d, i is going to fill in the empty spots and create something that looks good sort of phenomena the half is that the lower end of the image making of people that have no skills before it's now lifted to a higher level by the i pushing it up and the device modes. yes, you mentioned the prompts for us and i think for our viewers who may have never dabbled with a i generating tools. it's interesting just to, to see what you, you enter and i know you, you sent us an example of what you would tell this a i generator in these topics that i have on my screen here. um, how much of you is really going into this creation process?

well, um you see all the black uh pods, and this is directly relating to my knowledge. but you could also just type in from gets arrested. yeah, it is the subject and that's it. you don't to even mention if it should be a photograph or painting or drawing. but if you at all the elements that pos to both you are having delete and you are actually b u r creative. it's a creative act. that is certainly a of the point that many share. kelly, you. sorry, catherine, you had mentioned the last 2. it's that, that artist who disagree with boris, have filed. and i want to just 1st talk about one of those artist kelly mclearnen, who is a plaintive in the last 2 that is against mid journey stabled a fusion and dream up. and they tweeted a i, r is fast, isn't creative. it's literally regurgitating the work of thousands of living and

working human artists like me to death rented from the research perspective is what's happening just to re garza taishan of stolen art. yeah, absolutely not. um, it would be a lot easier if it were. i think it would be a lot more clear cut. i agree that it, it is extremely creative. it's a lot of fun. if you use it, i can tell you personally that i teach all my students how to use it and not all of them create great art. it's, uh, it's a little tricky. it requires skill. it's an iterative process where you revise and keep working on art and it's a lot of fun. so there is the democratizing aspect that now everybody has this at their disposal to create amazing art. but i do want to say that there are implications for all of us, and it's not just artists who make a living. we have a guy that may replace writers. we have a i that may replace coders. so this is really

a huge issue. as far as copyright law goes. uh, catherine. i mean, this is kind of new territory, right? the, they're, they're trying to, the plaintiffs. in this case. the artists are trying to argue that style itself merits a copyright. how difficult would it be to prove that? i think it's going to be extremely difficult that has never been the case if you go back in history. artist used to go to the move and paint all of the masters. and that was very, very typical. so copying other people styles has always been a part of training. copyright wise, i don't think that this is gonna hold up. and it's also the case that they just denounced in march, that they're going to allow copyrighted a i r, if we can show that there is, in fact some human element involved in it. and just exactly how much of that to an element is necessary is going to be a question. i think, yeah, shape or do you want to jump on it? as of right now, the united states copyright department has, is not allowing any of these works to be copied, written because the front door,

that's right they, they have to go into this possibility. yeah, it is a novel, we're sorry, go ahead, worse. and i would like to make that a company wide problem, even larger. everybody is talking about the strapping of the images from the internet and the training material. how i see it's their last thoughts. yeah, it's all on the way and stable diffusion has set up an up in opt out option. so things will be solved possibly next the possibly by the end of this year. but i don't need a person to be in the training material to copy this style. what i can do is i can just ask to describe the style of an artist and words. and if you can do it, you don't need any training material. you just described it and you can really get close to the original. and the 2nd problem is that the training material is just 25

percent of the problem. 75 percent of the problem is that the platforms enabled and in coverage seem to use is to upload images. and that can be taken from whatever. this is the main problem. if you talk about the copyright, but somehow nobody wants to, and it's important to note that these platforms are making money off of users, right? who subscribe to their services and they're not paying the artist with from, for the source material. go ahead really. there was a case, there was a case recently, we are an artist as to how to use the images script from one of these databases. and instead of getting the images scrub, he was sent a $1000.00 bill to do so right out just as a concern, as it's a concern. i know it's, it's not something for you that, that you know is, is personal because you have found, again, you found your own images that you worked on and be used as a source mature. and i actually wanted to show our viewers and example you have

dedicated. what i right is this is your life's work right, to photographic, in a 1000 native americans using the special wet plate technique. if we can put up on our screen, one of these images was made by you shane and the other was made by ai gonna let viewers think about it for just the 2nd. which is, which is shay now tell us which one was your recreation, which one was not the gentleman with a feather and his hair is a very good friend of mine. and i took that porch in about 4 months ago. and this brings up, another concern that i've had about this technology is that it's effect on history . okay. it may be just cute and funding, we're all excited. and then we got this new little shiny thing that allows us to create these images. but when you ask for one of these generators to create a native american web play collodion image that can't be undone,

that's to say you posted on facebook. maybe it gets posted into a website, someone else shares it, and it's out there in the world. and i, i've got works at over 65 museums around the world, and on the curators are, are very concerned about this. because can you about imagine 75 or a 100 years from now? that image pops up and they're going to have a very difficult time. and remember these, this technology is getting better exponentially. boris and i talked yesterday and we had maybe come to a determination by the end of this year. we think that even the trained photograph of guy is not going to be able to determine the difference between um, one of the image on the left versus my image on the right. so you can imagine curators in the future. how may be thinking this image on the left is a historical image and, and putting in a museum or displaying that is something important. we have to understand that this person here never existed and never will exist and never has existed. and

um to have. so what's the point of these port put these portraits? i really want to understand what's the purpose of these portraits? a as i i'm, i'm arguing that it's going to do nothing but confuse history. yeah. confused the future. it's certainly a, it's certainly as trading on that territory of defects and for people who have been marginalized, erased from history in the past. that is absolutely not acceptable. and i know that's the opinion of some of your subjects for waiting on this. catherine, on this great or topic to of just what defines art. you know, people, some would argue that art must be created by humans. stephen count as art, but there appear to be others who now disagree with that. what do you think of as well for quite a while waste and debating this? i mean, you think of marcel duchamp who put a urinal in the middle of the exhibition and call that are right. so this has really been in session for a long time. i think a more interesting question is, does it make us feel a certain way?

and one of the really interesting things about these generated images is they're very successful often in composition, in some kind of emotion that they produce interviewer. so for thinking about what we would call in aesthetic experience, i think that they do actually qualify. again, we also have to think about the public will we accept this as a kind of art? and then we have to think, does it require a human? but i just want to point out that it's trained on human art. so just like chat g p t that has all of this language. there is a human field to it because it has learned from human art. and it has that human feeling. there is a human element in it, and there's also so real on that. i wanted to show our viewers so interesting use of a guy that has been celebrated. this is a twitter post of the artist, christina bell, or a jewelry designer who made this using the journey. so you can see um, and also uh, this was kind of interesting. this is a, by an artist named ben moran,

who posted this article on, excuse me, not been, or an excuse me. this is made by alexander rubbin, who asked a chatbox to describe imagery a to describe an imaginary art piece. and he actually made it in real life. so this is a picture of what he created from the prompt. the sculpture contains a plunder, a toilet plunger, a plunger, a plunger, a plunger, and a plunder. that's what the guy wrote. and of course, his piece is called the plunderers, so it's 3. he sort of turning it back on itself, right. it's, we're kind of in this new serv, hill territory here. it's conceptual. it's a new way of doing good step to out. it's, it's, uh, it's fun. yeah, it's easy. i've done it myself. i also tend to key. can you just invent a new up style and it came up with a new real plastic expression is and was able to describe it. and then if you transform it into an image, why image of items,

you have something which is really interesting, this question found it as of right, which it has a big, it's a feet of experimentation. and this is what i like. yes. and that is, it doesn't, there's that as one of the definitions of art got go ahead. sean chang. i had another question for catherine. i'm one of the other concerns that i've thought about is that, you know, one could argue that eventually or be more of these images than real images online that you could theoretically say that. and at some point these a generators and you know more about them than i do. catherine are going to be training live. that's the same now. they're training on databases that were a couple of years older, however longer dated. they're not, they're not actually live online. i hooked up to the internet. i'm describing as, as we go, as we create throughout the day that that is a big difference once it goes live. you can about imagine that these, these a generators are going to start training on previously generated a i imagery. so we have this cannibalism of previously created the images.

and now we have future a i training on past a i and i just don't know where that leaves us. yeah. and, and catherine, i'll let you ask for that. but i also wanna ask you guys a final question of our show because our time is coming to an end. because it seems like a precarious time to enter the industry for any young artist who are hearing this and asking themselves, will they even have a job, catherine, you teach those artist. so please very assisting to we any words invite a bit of advice, excuse me for them. i mean, right now you still have to have a certain scale to use this well, so i think there is opportunity, but how long that opportunity last? i don't know. a bigger concern for me is not retraining on all of this, ai generated art, but the fact that the art is really defined by the training side. and if it's being trained on a lot of western art, if it thinks that women tend to look a certain way, then we're going to have more and more images produced that way. so when we talk

about last voice is last images, that certainly will be the case with this kind of art as well. right? unfortunately, our time is also coming to an end in the show, as we open up this debate and it's going to carry forward for a long time about what is our, what is a ais contribution, and kind of push the boundaries or is it a threat? thank you so much for watching us on the stream. so your next time the the

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