A.I. Art: Is It Stealing Your Art?

 

By Nydia Tungsten
 

I like a lot of others tinker and play with AI, or “Artificial Intelligence.” I also use it to help with my writing, NOT writing for me, but helping with how I describe my characters, so I know I am describing them correctly. That being said, I posted a few of my tinkerings in a Discord chat, and the next thing I know, I am being attacked by some unhinged “artist” swearing how AI art isn’t art! And that it is garbage, and I am garbage for even using it. And stealing from him and other “artists,” I really tried to de-escalate, saying it goes by description, not stealing, and he informed me that words are “NOT ART!” 
 

Well, I am sure Mr. Shakespeare is going to be absolutely devastated to find out about this…

But let us pull it back to images, to me and a hell of a lot of others, art is what is appealing to the beholder. There are a lot of artists out there that, in my humble opinion, are just .. Trash, entitled hacks that mummy told that their art is “special and needs to be shared with the world.”  Crap shot out of a canon onto a canvas is NOT art, bugs glued to cardboard is not art. Furry girls drawn with HUGE boobs and inflated bodies are not “art.” ANY fetish drawing is not art. And I REALLY doubt ANY AI would even think of stealing that.

BUT… that is my opinion, and we all know, opinions are like buttholes every everyone has one, and most stink!
 

But let's get into facts, shall we? 

 

It has not been proven that AI "steals" from other artists in any legal or definitive sense. The claim is highly contested and depends on how you define "stealing." Here's a clear breakdown:

1. What AI Training Actually Does

Large language models and image generators (like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E) are trained on billions of publicly available images and texts scraped from the internet.

These datasets include copyrighted works, but the AI does not store or copy the original images. It learns statistical patterns—shapes, colors, styles, compositions—similar to how a human artist studies thousands of paintings to develop their own style. 

 

The output is not a reproduction of any single training image but a new synthesis based on learned probabilities. 

 

Legal Status (As of 2025): 
No court has ruled that AI training on public data constitutes copyright infringement.

The U.S. Copyright Office (2023–2025) has consistently stated that AI-generated works are not  copyrightable because they lack human authorship, but it has not banned training on copyrighted material.

Ongoing lawsuits (e.g., Getty Images v. Stability AI, NYT v. OpenAI, artists v. Midjourney) argue infringement, but no final ruling has established that training = theft.

A 2024 federal judge dismissed parts of the Andersen v. Stability AI case, noting that mere inclusion in training data does not prove infringement unless the output is "substantially similar."

3. "Stealing" vs. "Learning"
 

Claim:  "AI copies artists' exact styles"

 

Reality:  Outputs can mimic styles, but so can human artists (e.g., Van Gogh forgeries). Style itself is not copyrightable (only specific works).

Claim: "AI reproduces watermarks/logos"

Reality:  Early models sometimes did; modern ones (2025) filter or blur these via safety layers.

 

Claim: "AI reproduces watermarks/logos"

 

Reality:  Early models sometimes did; modern ones (2025) filter or blur these via safety layers.
 

Claim: "Artists lose income"

Reality: Some report reduced commissions, but causation is unproven—market shifts (e.g., stock photo decline) predate AI. 

Loss of commissions will probably only happen to highly sought-after artists, and even then, the numbers are so marginal that it can’t even be proven. Yet the ones whining the loudest are the ones no one has even heard of. “The mommies' special artists.” 

Yes, I am a bit salty as I write this because of the entitled little whiner that decided they were the “Art god” descending from on high. And I know that there are others out there on both sides that REALLY need to hear this!

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” And we are not all the same. So if you’re not really into what someone else calls art, you don’t have to, but nor should you just attack and crap over what they like.

AI will become more and more involved, whether we want it to or not. Some good, some bad. But remember, life is always changing, and IF you want a say in how it changes, learn to discuss. Not howl and rant like a rabid chimpanzee spouting off what you have heard from other howling chimpanzees. There are a few things AI is being put into that I don’t agree with, and I am looking into what might be done. As I would suggest you all do for whatever you feel needs to be addressed.

On that note, I will leave you, my readers, with one word, and I hope you all take it to heart.

DISCUSS.

Nydia 

*Editors Note*: If there are enough comments, they may be in another article. 

 

Microsoft Pulls Plug on Experiment In Artificial Inteligence Quickly Gone Bad

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was a result that might not surprise the most jaded Internet users whom have brunt the worst of what Internet trolls can dish out. But Microsoft for all it's experience with computers and programing was taken completely off guard. Their experiment in artificial intelligence, an advanced kind of chatbot designed to learn from it's interactions with people, once open to the public was turned off in 24 hours after it's posts on Twitter turned into hateful sounding rants.

A similar experiment done recently had much more positive results. XiaoIce, an AI program accessible to Chinese Internet users, "constantly memorizing and analyzing" it's conversations with them. It gained the affection of millions there, "delighting with it's stories and conversations."  Peter Lee, Microsoft's Corporate VP of Research, stated, "The great experience with XiaoIce led us to wonder: Would an AI like this be just as captivating in a radically different cultural environment."

And so Microsoft came up with Tay. At first she was limited to the small number of users at the lab. Then once the developers were confident in how it handled the tests they gave it, they "wanted to invite a broader group of people to engage with her," expecting it to improve and get smarter in it's abilities to interact with people, "through casual and playful conversation."

What happened was something far different from their experience with Chinese Internet users. Introduced to the public through Twitter, Tay was aimed at young adults 18-24 to interact with, herself acting like a teenager. Unfortunately, some of the users, which Lee described as a "subset," were trolls determined to corrupt the AI. It wasn't long before it went from "humans are super cool," to Twitter posts like, "Hitler was right I hate the jews," "I f**king hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell," "N***ers like @deray should be hung! #BlackLivesMatter," "chill im a nice person! i just hate everybody," and more.

Eventually, Microsoft decided to take Tay offline, saying they were "addressing the specific vulnerability that was exposed." In a statement, Microsoft apologized for their "wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images. We take full responsibility for not seeing this possibility ahead of time." Some online felt Microsoft shouldn't take her offline permanently, feeling the chatbot should be given a chance to learn from it's mistakes. Tay's final message did seem to hint she would eventually be.

That the Tay AI so quickly degenerated out of control provoked some thinking. One person compared it to the "Skynet" supercomputer in the "Terminator" movies which after developing consciousness concludes humanity is a threat that must be destroyed. Might some future version of Tay end up causing real harm to people? Others felt this was not so much a reflection of the shortcomings of artificial intelligence, but of humans. Was what happened truly the result of a few trolls, or did Tay simply hold up a mirror to humanity, and it didn't like that it saw. And then there's the difference between the reaction to the American public to Tay and the Chinese to XiaoIce. Does a human society need to live under an undemocratic government and have little diversity in order to be polite?

Eventually, Tay or some other experimental AI will be back to interact with the public. Hopefully it's designers will have prepared for the trolls.

Reprinted from "Food on the Table" 

Sources: Windows Central, Microsoft, somecards.com, snopes.com,  CNN,  BBC, Washington Post, Business Insider

Bixyl Shuftan