Foregrounding Artist Opinions: A Survey Study on Transparency, Ownership, and Fairness in AI Generative Art

TL;DR

This survey study explores artists' perspectives on the utility, risks, ownership, and fairness issues related to AI-generated art, highlighting the need for transparency and equitable practices.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into artists' opinions on AI art training disclosure, ownership rights, and fair compensation, informing ethical AI development in art.

Findings

Majority support for disclosing AI training data

Artists oppose ownership of AI outputs by model creators

Concerns about AI's impact on art employment and profit distribution

Abstract

Generative AI tools are used to create art-like outputs and sometimes aid in the creative process. These tools have potential benefits for artists, but they also have the potential to harm the art workforce and infringe upon artistic and intellectual property rights. Without explicit consent from artists, Generative AI creators scrape artists' digital work to train Generative AI models and produce art-like outputs at scale. These outputs are now being used to compete with human artists in the marketplace as well as being used by some artists in their generative processes to create art. We surveyed 459 artists to investigate the tension between artists' opinions on Generative AI art's potential utility and harm. This study surveys artists' opinions on the utility and threat of Generative AI art models, fair practices in the disclosure of artistic works in AI art training models, ownership and rights of AI art derivatives, and fair compensation. Results show that a majority of artists believe creators should disclose what art is being used in AI training, that AI outputs should not belong to model creators, and express concerns about AI's impact on the art workforce and who profits from their art. We hope the results of this work will further meaningful collaboration and alignment between the art community and Generative AI researchers and developers.