This is an AI-generated image, resulting from a prompt on Bing's Image Creator. Allow me just a few paragraphs about the hot topic, before I move on. Microsoft does not permit images generated via its browser app to be used for commercial purposes, but I happen to like this particular image, and, besides using it to brighten this post, am currently using it for the face of my Apple Watch. It reminds me of my days playing "Blasers & Beasties". (Search this blog for more about B&B)
I do not advocate using cheap and expedient AI-generated art as a substitute for original human artwork in commercial publishing, and personally, I'll never do it. However, I'm not convinced it's always reprehensible. If it were, then all computer-modeled shapes, characters, and effects sold as original artwork deserve our scorn.
As a former college art major and one-time, award-winning illustrator, such snobbery sometimes comes easily to me. But until persuaded otherwise, within certain boundaries, I think an AI and a computer are just two more tools in an evolving kit available to artists. The boundaries I mean? Well-established artists with truly distinctive styles (and not yet in the public domain) deserve control over whether their artwork is used to train AIs. And when and if they permit it, every time their name or style is used as a generative prompt, they deserve to be compensated.
The controversy is new and my opinions may yet evolve on their own. I welcome your opinions.
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