Can AI Destroy Racism? - Part II
In part two of his new thinkpiece, The Robot and I Fight Racism, Vietnamese visual artist Thành Trần evaluates ethical questions surrounding the rising popularity of AI art, and discusses collaboration and competition with robots.
THE FUTURE
It’s 3am, and I was staring at my phone screen when a post of a “medieval-style-digital-painting-of-Batman-in-knight-armor” popped up and stared back at me. The painting looked like it could easily have been someone’s days worth of work. Reading the title, “AI generated art,” I quickly realised that the world I’d become used to was about to drastically change.
The conversation around the ethics of AI is not new, but it’s becoming harder to ignore as technology advances in this area. A huge number of artists immediately protested against AI generated art online following its rise in popularity. This is largely due to the fact that most AI programs “learn” to generate art by being fed works from thousands of artists, which are then imitated in aspects of their artistic style without the artists’ knowledge or consent. It’s now possible for everyone who has the tech to “paint” using techniques that would have taken years for others to develop and master – and without ever having to make a single brush stroke. With this knowledge, it’s arguable that AI art shouldn’t be considered “real art”, since it can be seen as nothing but hollow vessels of stolen ideas.
“I felt conflicted by a spark of excitement amidst the hopelessness I felt.”
I didn’t know where I stood with this. On the one hand, someone with a decent computer and no education, or even desire for art, could produce the same outcome as I could, and possibly even do a better job than me – which just felt unfair. But, on the other hand, “better” is subjective, and who was I to be so entitled as to what art is and isn’t?
Beyond this, I felt conflicted by a spark of excitement amidst the hopelessness I felt. I didn’t want to support anything that steals from others, but eventually curiosity got the best of me; would it be possible to use this robot to challenge the problem around representation that I now realised had informed a lot of my flawed, early thinking? I was determined to find out, so I started looking into it and trying to get the hang of how to create an AI generated piece of art myself.
THE JOURNEY
After some dozen YouTube tutorials and online articles, I managed to install a software that allowed me to produce anything ranging from realistic photography to digital paintings, solely from a few “prompts”. Even though the result wasn’t perfect for my first attempt, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. With this newly acquired power, it was time to create “real art”.
What makes art, art, is often the context behind it. The story, or lack thereof, is as important as the work itself, so I needed a purpose to give life to these soulless creations. And what other purpose could be more befitting than my original plan to incorporate racial diversity into my art?
In an attempt to insert myself into the process in a more meaningful way than simply repeatedly clicking the “Generate” button, I decided I would “collaborate” with the bot. I first fed the initial draft of my painting to the software as the base guideline and then left it to come up with some interpretations of its own.
Thành Trần and The Robot / film_photography_portrait_of_a_knight_in_heavy_ medieval_armor_white_flowers_in_his_hair version / 01-06, 2023 AI Generated
As scary as the process was, the bot impressed me with how accurately it understood my base sketch. I then used these AI generated photos as references to finish my painting. I was quite content with this workflow; instead of going through Pinterest or setting up a photoshoot, I could make hundreds of references in one click. No other humans needed, The Robot and I were the perfect team.
Thành Trần and The Robot / Knight with flowers in his hair, 2023 / Digital Painting
For my next painting, I spent less time at the initial stage and sketched even more loosely. I was happy with the end result from this painting, but something started to feel wrong. Did The Robot actually need me at all?
Thành Trần and The Robot / Knight with flowers in his hair under blue light, 2023 / Digital Painting
For my third painting, I didn’t use any base sketch, instead jumping straight into the AI software, and demanding what I wanted from the bot through oddly phrased prompts. After that, I chose the one I thought was the best candidate, and then used that result as a base.
The Robot / film_photography_portrait_of_a_knight_in_futuristic_armor version / 01-20, 2023 AI Generated
Thành Trần (?) and The Robot / Knight in futuristic armor, 2023 / Digital Painting
“It was like the machine was making a guess at what would be perceived as beautiful or aesthetically pleasing based on what already existed on the internet, then feeding these visuals back to me instead of the other way around. Was I making myself a victim of mass media again?”
Was this even what I wanted, or was it just what The Robot told me to want? I didn’t have any vision of this painting to start with. These colours, compositions and shapes weren’t really mine. I had borrowed them from a computer, and the computer had probably stolen them from hundreds of 80s sci-fi clips and portrait photographs.
This didn’t feel like “making” to me. I found myself acting like a spoiled CEO, demanding my assistant to invent new toys to entertain me, and then taking all the credit for innovation.
The more I pressed the “Generate” button, the less I felt like a boss. It was like the machine was making a guess at what would be perceived as beautiful or aesthetically pleasing based on what already existed on the internet, then feeding these visuals back to me instead of the other way around. Was I making myself a victim of mass media again?
What was stopping me from having the bot create the finished work by itself, then sugar-coating it in some fancy context afterwards? Was fighting racism just an excuse to make my work seem noble? If I really cared about the cause, then why didn’t I confront my parents and try to explain these concepts to them, instead of awkwardly staying on the call in silence? When was I going to admit that it’s much more difficult to put in the actual work, than to paint imaginary Black people and then pat myself on the back for being so thoughtful? My paintings suddenly seemed so empty that I felt they might as well have been AI generated.
I lost my enthusiasm to do any work, and couldn’t even look at my paintings out of guilt and shame. What was the point in making anything anymore? I was no better than The Robot, and soon it would replace me.
THE WORLD
To celebrate the first time I’d left the house in a week, I treated myself to a pair of trousers that weren’t even on sale.
I’ve been quite depressed again the past couple of days, maybe weeks. I couldn’t even look at art, let alone paint or draw anything. The world, to no one’s surprise, is still quite racist. AI is getting continually better at stealing people’s identities. I’m afraid of change, and at the same time I’m scared I change too slowly.
But as I’m walking down Oxford Street, I itch to create something new, and my excitement is slowly reignited. Could it be that, despite everything, I did learn how to better paint Black skin tones while experimenting with AI art? That in itself would be a victory. And while it took me far too long to realise, the process taught me just how beautiful Black skin is to paint.
Read part one of Thành’s article, here.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Thành Trần is an animator living in London. When he is not animating, he takes photos, does tattoos, writes poems, makes music and learns how to play Chess.