In most cases, I don’t have much idea of what’s going on in the world other than what I see people talking about on social media. I simply don’t go out of my way like I used to, to seek out information and the happenings in the world as I occasionally did in the life before children. However, over the last few days, the topic of some AI art generator, Lensa, has been noticeably a hot topic as far as my digital eyes can see.
Mostly because it’s been determined that Lensa’s art database in which it pulls its art generation from has been built up from billions and billions of images of photos and artwork from the internet, mostly with no sense of consent or permission, which ultimately concludes with the notion that they are using a fuckload of stolen artwork to feed the database.
In this debate, I’ve noticed that there are two very prevalent sides, both of which like in so many cases, have their feet firmly implanted in the mud and neither seemingly willing to yield a single digital e-inch on their opinions. There’s the side of the creators, the people who have been creating, artwork, or rather content, whose creations have been absorbed and usurped into Lensa’s database without any sort of authorization, and feeding a machine that is spitting out AI-generated results at the beck and call for its increasing base of users. This is the side of the equation that is unhappy, angry and calling for the cancellation of a service that has stolen the work and creations of countless artists, for use in a, for now, trendy art generator.
On the other side are, what I like to call, are the consumers. These are the people who have been using Lensa to entertain themselves by creating all sorts of modified images of themselves or whomever they want to process through the Lensa AI. All of these people are pretty much completely okay with Lensa and where they get their content from, and wish for people to leave Lensa alone and let them have their fun photo generator, regardless of negative perception of what their database is being fed from.
From what I’ve been witnessing, creators are furious because in most cases, many of them can cite examples of their work having already been fed into the Lensa database. Understandably, they are very unhappy with some AI hoovering up the things they’ve created, and really wish that people, including their friends who fall into the other side to stop using Lensa, and try to educate them to why they shouldn’t.
However, the consumers, are in no rush to stop being Lensa, because regardless of education and regardless of how their artist friends may feel about it, they’re in no rush to stop using it. It’s giving them entertainment, it’s giving them amusement, but most importantly, it’s giving them content in the form of digitally altered images of themselves in fun and kooky ways, in a variety of art styles generated by AI. I’ve noticed that these people aren’t the types to just quietly use Lensa and hope nobody judges them for it, but instead are usually the ones who defend it, tell their artist friends to let it go and chill, and we all know how well that goes with people, especially on the internet.
If it wasn’t obvious, I’m of course on the side of the artists. Out of curiosity, I floated some example images of photos of mine that I’ve known are pretty well seen, and sure enough, they’re populating in the Lensa, which means that I’m also “a victim” of AI theft. I don’t want to delve deeper, because I know of the thousands of photos and images that I’ve uploaded onto the internet over the last 24 years, lord only knows just how much of my shit has already fed some AI.
I’ve concluded that it’s not really a situation where it’s artists versus Lensa, but really artists versus the narcissism of consumers, and when the day is over, that’s truly an unwinnable battle for those who create. It’s like cockroaches, you can kill 99 out of 100 roaches in a home, but as long as that 100th cockroach lives, infestation is inevitable to occur again. Artists can beg and plead with all of their friends and followers to stop using Lensa, but as long as they have the few people who will quietly use it, they’re never going to get any sense of victory in the matter.
Because that’s really all it is, at the root of things. Consumers like getting fun pictures of themselves and they don’t really care where they’re coming from, and Lensa has, whether by design or not, tapped into a human behavior that is their biggest ally in getting their service off the ground. The consumers are doing the defense for them, and the artists are exhausting themselves screaming into the aether, and Lensa is quietly growing and spreading without any consequence.
Whether it was intentional or not, it is an ingenious, albeit shithead execution.
