GenAI and Ownership

When an algorithm makes the micro-decisions, is the final work even mine?

My love for design started in 2014 when I was just a little motion designer, creating my first keyframes. And making something move took a lot of effort.

crafting a story -> defining a style -> making a frame -> making it moooove -> 🙂

Fast forward to 2024, I’ve been playing with Midjourney, Stable Diffusion (with much of its animation + 3d model generation wowness), and more recently, Suno AI. It makes life so efficient if used well. Even in Singapore, if you look hard enough, GenAI-assisted design is becoming more and more common in the commercial sector. Somehow it feels like the process above became:

crafting a story -> [ AI Magic ] -> 🙂

Heck, if I wanted I can even skip the first step with ChatGPT. I see a very real, recent future where these small sections and steps get more and more simplified/automated by generative tools… and I start to think… Damn is this final output even mine? This article is my attempt to meander through that question to hopefully reach an answer.

the role of an artist.

To me, an artist weaves his thoughts onto a medium.

A medium that can then be interacted with its audience. It lets the viewer ponder, feel and maybe even inspire – with love or with hate. Traditionally, this action of “weaving a thought into a medium” has taken considerable time, effort, investment and skill to be done well.

Thankfully, technology comes around and equalizes the playing field for many of us, lowering the barrier of entry so more people can be an artist. But what happen when a machine helps with the weaving and the form making? When does it stop being the artist’s work, and when does it become the machine’s?

degrees of ownership.

I feel like the best way to communicate this is through examples. So lets start with an easy one.

thought -> actions by artist -> artwork

This is straightforward. The artist made that work. Now, what if the action was split? Say a machine fabricated it (e.g 3d printing)?

thought -> design (CAD) by artist -> [fabrication by machine] -> artwork

To me this still really feels like the artist’s work. What if the design was generated by a code written by the artist (eg procedural designs)?

thought -> procedural code by artist -> [design (CAD)] -> [fabrication by machine] -> artwork

To me, this still feels like the artwork is the artist’s. Sure it is probably just a derivative work generated by the artist’s code, but it is still the artist’s work. I’m referencing Refik Anadol’s procedural AI artworks, where the machine dreams based on the code – but its still his work. Let’s push this one last step further.

thought -> [online code/software] + minor artist edits -> [design (CAD)] -> [fabrication by machine] -> artwork

And this is where I thought I drew the line. Where the artist’s work and effort pales in comparison to the effort of the other collective processes. I thought – past tense because as I wrote this, a thought just hit my mind.

We have all been using Photoshop. A software that collectively has taken years and a lot of effort to build. And even if we paint a masterpiece on Photoshop that takes 3 weeks to complete, that effort is minuscule in comparison to the effort it took to build Photoshop itself. And yet, when we make a painting in PS, whether we use other plugins or other people’s brushes… there’s this sense of accomplishment to this final artwork – as the artist says, yeah that’s mine.

So contrary to what I thought, the accomplishment/sense of pride/ownership is not based on the effort that is being put in, in contrast to the whole output.

The accomplishment kicks in just cus there was effort put in.

the ego driven nature of this question.

Let’s be completely honest – that’s what this is. Every artist (me included ofc) has a certain level of ego / attachment to what they create. Heck, add a bit of group dynamics and throw GenAI into the mix and this whole thing is a mess that hits the fan. Somehow, everything becomes a blend of the artist’s identity with the machine’s output.

which, mind you, I doubt is very healthy .-.

Honestly, after going through so many design critiques in school, I thought I was over ‘owning’ my work – and that when it’s done, it’s just a work that I had a part in making. But I’m an hour into writing this article, so I guess I have some growing to do as well.

solo projects -> collaborations

This whole schpiel about effort, in relation to the whole made me think of something that happened while we were studying film in polytechnic. When we first wrote, shot, and edited our own short films, it really felt like my film.

But as the teams grew bigger, as more moving parts aligned, and the production value increased, everyone’s individual contribution added to the whole outcome of the project.

It became less of I made this, and it became more of,
I worked on this.

And I think that’s where I am on this “is it mine” saga when it comes to GenAI/(assisted) artwork. To me it feels disingenuous to claim an AI artwork as fully mine. That said, the work wouldn’t exist if my intention and actions didn’t work in collaboration with the GenAI tool to make it happen. So from now on the words I use will be,

“I worked on this”.

some questions to further reflect on

Does using advanced tools like StableDiffusion or Photoshop diminish the value of an artist’s contribution, or does it simply change how we define creativity?

At what point does a project stop feeling like “yours” and start feeling like a collaboration—whether with other people, technology, or AI?

Do you feel a stronger sense of accomplishment when you control every part of the process, or is contributing to something bigger just as rewarding?