By Michael Israel
Heck, I already have hundreds of humans trying to copy my work. I’ve managed to sleep through that. I expect I’ll sleep through AI, too.
I do sell prints, and I usually hand-embellish them. That’s art-world talk for “I get the paint out again.” Each one starts as a print, then I add real paint by hand. Put two of them side by side and you can see where I took a different turn with the brush. Each one leaves my studio as a one-of-a-kind work.
My favorites are still the big originals I paint in the studio and at live events. At a show, a few hundred people can watch me paint Einstein. Half of them can take a picture. I hope they do. At the end of the night, only one person gets to take Einstein home. Everybody else has him on their phone.
So why would I lose sleep over AI? Somebody can type my name into a box and ask for a painting that looks like mine. Meanwhile, there’s a collector standing three feet from the canvas, looking at a streak of paint they saw me put there. They can point to it years later and say, “I was there when he did that.” That’s a pretty good reason to own the original.
I do think artists deserve a say in how their work gets used. And if you make your living illustrating book covers, I understand why you might feel differently. The publisher who loves your work today could ask a computer to imitate it tomorrow. That’s a job you wanted.
If you’re worried about AI using your art, here are a few things worth doing.
- Keep the best file for yourself. Post a clear, smaller photo and keep the full-size scan in your files. Then click the image on your website. You might be surprised by how big a file your visitors can download.
- Tell AI companies to leave your work out of training. Ask whoever runs your website to add that request to a file called
robots.txt. Have them keep regular search open so people can still find you. This helps with companies that honor the request. Anyone can still take a screenshot. - Keep a record of the work being made. Save dated sketches, original photos, and a few shots along the way. I happen to like the kind of evidence where you can see me holding the brush.
- Put your name on the work and give people a way to reach you. If someone shares your image, you want the next person who sees it to know who painted it. And if a company wants to use it, make it easy for them to ask.
As for me, I’m going to keep showing the paintings. Somewhere out there is somebody with a big empty wall who’d love one of my originals. They have to see the damn thing first.