Do you think AI is going to take artist jobs? Why have you faced backlash for your use of AI? Is AI overhyped? Welcome everyone to Real Talk with Shutterstock. In our first conversation, we're tackling the difficult questions surrounding AI. We're being joined by Jah, visual artist and storyteller, to get his perspective on the topic. I'm a filmmaker and visual artist based in L.A., originally from New York. I always say that my style is when I snuck into my uncle's room reading his comic books while people outside in Brooklyn, which is playing Biggie and stuff through their cars, like that's my artistic style. I like to have playtime. I'll sit down at the computer and I'll just start writing out prompts based off things that I liked as a kid, you know. Like, my favorite show as a kid was Power Rangers, and I recently just did a project called Helmet City where I took those experiences in Brooklyn, New York, and tied them together. So, for me, it's just let's see how we can merge that all together with film and 2D, you know? Welcome, Jah. There's a lot of conversation happening around A.I. and its use in art and its use in storytelling and whether AI is art or whether it's science. And, so we're here to kind of address that elephant in the room and get your perspective as someone who's doing some really amazing things in the space. So, we've got some questions for you. Are there any concerns that you have with AI image generation and using it in an art form? Yeah. I'm an artist, so I do think about fair use and I think the first thing that comes to mind is like a royalty system and like making sure that those artists that the AI is pulling from, they're being reciprocated in some kind of way. And, I think the other thing too, is learning the balance in the relationship. I look at AI as a collaborative tool. I don't want the AI to work for me. I want to work with it, you know, and making sure that there's that human element in the process that's just always there. Because it's feeding all the information that it gets. It's from us, right? We're feeding that to it. So, it's like continue to walk side by side with it and just continue to create that way. I think that's very important. What are your thoughts on generating images in the style of artists? I think if it depends on how it's used, I feel like. If someone wrote a prompt that said, “Darth Vader in space,” you can't do that. It's a character that already exists. And, I think that that's more of a copy. But as opposed to something like, “Space Warrior, filmed in the style of George Lucas,” added with other things. Right? Put it all together then. That's something different. You just made something transformative in a way. Right? And I think a lot of art is based off that process. Like, there's a transformative process. As long as there's credit being given to the original source, I think that's fine. And, for me, this is nothing new. If we look at music industry and sampling, particularly in hip-hop, is the medium, right? You find samples, you use them every decade, but you're giving credit and homage and royalties to those original artists. Yeah. So, I view this as an emerging opportunity to have that conversation. So, let me ask this question. You know, I'm gonna go to market with a campaign and I put in “in the style of Jah” as part of my prompts. How are you going to feel if that shows up on a billboard somewhere? I will feel a way. I will feel a way. Negative? Positive? Proud? If it wasn't me, I'd be like, “Man, that's crazy. I don't like that.” And, let's get into that. Why? Why wouldn't you like that? I wouldn't like that because, I think it's because I just got into this realm and I really started to articulate my creative language through this space. And, I didn't get a chance to receive that level of attention, you know? And like, I would naturally feel, because I sat down and I put in the time to articulate my vision in that way, I would probably be upset. But, would I be upset 20 years from now? Thirty years from now? Probably not. I'll probably be flattered, you now? So, yeah, proximity to timeliness of the artist and also the exposure of the artist. I think what you just articulated is interesting is the sense that you feel ownership over the work that you're producing as a result of AI. Right. Yeah. And, I'm sure that many artists feel ownership of their styles or blood, sweat, and tears of their mediums. And, so it is a fine line that we walk. And, I won't assume to sit here and say that I have the answers. But, some of those ethical questions I think we need to have as a community, right? For sure. 1,000%. 1,000%. Do you think AI is going to take artists' jobs? I think, in a way, yes. And, in other ways, no. I won't lie to you like it made a lot of situations for me easier, and I could see how people would rely on that more so than anything else. But, I think it leaves more room for ideation. You know? It'll open up more opportunities for more people because I always believe that that human element has to just be involved in the process. And, I would agree. And, I think from my perspective as someone in the creative space is, you know, if we look at the evolution of art over time, like and I love to use this example of, you know, before cameras and photography, there were paintings. Right? And so painting was looked at as the authentic way to capture a portrait. Right? And then suddenly cameras come, and generally the mass audience did not like photography as a medium. Right? Still, after the camera, which is capturing an instant, would revert back to the painters. And so, I think there are numerous examples across artistic mediums, whether that's music and the introduction of the synthesizer. Right? Didn't necessarily take away a pianist job, but it allowed musicians to have a different sound and a different way of being. And I do think that AI, we've reached a moment where AI is an additional tool with which artists can create more. Right? And so, I do think that, you know, AI is here and I don't feel like it's going anywhere. It’s just my personal opinion. It's been here for a long time. It's been here. Right? So, I think it is a new tool and essentially it opens more doors or maybe it provides people who maybe weren't thought of as artistic or creative, access into the world. Right? And so, we talk about new access points, new opportunities, new mediums, new forms of expression. I think our role as artists and creators are to leverage those tools. Yes. Yeah, totally, totally agree. Across 2D, 3D, and now AI, I wonder if you’ve come into contact with any artists who are either fearful or have negative opinions of AI and its use. Yes. What are some of those opinions hanging out there? I'll tell you a story like when I first started, when I did my, when I did the first set of prompts that I really liked, and I shared it through my social media outlets and, at first, I got a lot of praises coming in and I was like, okay, cool. This is cool. And then, it just went to the other side of it. And it was a lot of, it was mainly fearful, but I think the one thing that stuck out to me the most, which kind of like maybe double down and stay in the space even more, was there was a comment from another Black artist that said, you know, it was weird for them to see a Black person make Black AI characters. And, it puzzled me at first. I was just like, I don't understand, like, why that was so weird. But, I think there's just a normalcy of, you know, us not being involved in the technology. I think that's just normalized. And when you say us, you mean Black people? Black people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's expected for us not to be there. And so, for me, I just took that as I think the sense of responsibility then came in at that time where I was just like, “Oh, so I have to be here, because I have to be a voice or representation,” that yes, not only can we be here, but we can like be like really good in this space too, you know? You know, even beyond art, but, you know, within the technology space and I think this is the convergence of creativity and technology to form a new medium, or at least a new tool kit. There is the larger conversation of equity and inclusion within the technological space. And a lot of, you know, technology companies are struggling with a lack of representation. So, you bring up an interesting point to say, how do we be more inclusive in creative spaces where there is this new art form taking shape? And I would say, you know, as someone in the creative field myself, you know, I do feel this is an additional tool. I don't think that this is a replacement of everything that's come before it. Is AI overhyped? No, I don't think so. I think it's excitement, but I don't think. I think hype dies down. It's already been integrated in our lives in ways that we didn't even actually realize. And I think it's just, we've just hit a point of exposure now where people who didn't naturally think about it are thinking about it. And, I think that would calm down. But, I don't think there's a hype. You know, I went to get a haircut and I'm in a barbershop and then like I hear people get a haircut talking about AI. And I was like, "Oh, okay, it's here." Yeah, when it reaches the barbershop. Yeah, when it got to the barbershop. It was like, “Yeah, you know, I use ChatGPT for law.” I was like, “Yeah, okay.” That's interesting, you know? That was like the first time outside of my space where I heard people just talking about it just naturally. And so, yeah, that hit me differently. I was like, “Oh, it's really expanded quickly.” I got to say, at least in the visual arts, yeah, AI is having a moment right now, but in everyday life we use AI. You know, I write a ton of text, right? And so, I use Grammarly. I speak into Siri, right? We are using AI to do everyday things. We're just not branding it as AI. Right. And so, it's really not a foreign concept to most of us. But then, when we get into these, you know, discussions of ownership and ethics and really expanding, you know, what we think of in terms of creative output, you know, it does warrant a conversation. Yeah, definitely. It's benefiting us with our knowledge and our understanding of the world around us. And then, creatively, it's taken us into another layer of imagination. Why have you faced backlash for your use of AI? I faced backlash for my use of AI because of assumption. You know, “This isn't real art because, like, you didn't actually physically just sat down and just you didn't make it.” I believe that a lot of people didn't know what the process looked like behind the scenes. They just thought it was just, you know, I put in a picture or something and then this would come out. They weren't way after the prompt writing and everything that came with it. There was an assumption that you hadn't done the work exactly. For me, I do think that art requires thought and process and toiling over this color, that color, that texture, this size, that shape. Right? And, so there's a lack of understanding that through the use of AI, you're still running that process. Yes, I think even more so in a sense, because you have to articulate that through words, especially with prompt writing. Like you have to be able to articulate. You know, you may put out an image and it doesn't come out the way you want. You have to go back in there and write out what you want the AI to help you generate. So, yeah, it's a lot of that. That's an art form in itself to me. So, in the beginning, you know, I wasn't really hitting it because I was just using basic prompts like, “Man standing by a river.” The thing is, you want to keep refining it. And so, how would you take “Man standing by a river” and refine it? So, you have the basic prompt there: “Man standing by a river.” But then, you would want to go in. What does this man look like? So, I'll say, “Black man, standing by a river.” Right? What is he wearing? “Black man wearing street apparel, standing by a river.” Where's this river? “In Colorado.” You just keep refining. And then if you want, like film language, you want to look a certain way, you can say, ”Shot on a 50 millimeter lens.” “Shallow depth of field.” And it’ll give you more. So, it's just continuously just adding on to that basic prompt and just embellishing it. Cool. So, essentially, you're writing a story within a prompt, right? Okay. To get you closer to the result or the vision that you have in your mind. Do you think that AI artists will be looked at as second-class citizens within the art community? In the traditional art spaces, I definitely feel that. Will it be like that for some time? I don't think so, because I don't think photographers are looked at that way anymore, you know? Now, you see photography's in museums and everything. So, I think at some point that won't be the case. But, now because it's new and because it's divisive, you know. So, I think yeah. Because generative AI technology is new, you know, we've had to have ethical conversations about what compensation looks like for the artists that are feeding the models that allow you to do what you do. Shutterstock is forging the path towards equitable and responsible AI integration and compensating its artists. So, we've launched the Contributor Fund really focused on if your image or your data has been used to train these models, right, you will get compensated. Similar to how artists having from our organization for more than 20 years. I want to talk about how AI is opening up new revenue streams for you and how you have essentially padded your pockets with the use of AI. Yeah, through Web3 I've been able to sell my pieces on different marketplaces. And, if you're not familiar with Web3, it's utilizing blockchain technology. So, I've sold pieces on the blockchain. Another way is like you mentioned with Shutterstock, just being able for an artist to create models and do model training. Astronauts eating pizza on Mars would garner a lot of attention. Yeah. Just being able to stretch the imagination in that way will attract a lot of people's attention. How would you describe the value of AI in your process? It's extremely valuable. Being able to conceptualize ideas in ways that I wasn't able to before at a speed that I wasn't able to before has been really, really, really helpful. What do you like about Shutterstock’s AI tool over others? Shutterstock’s AI Image Generator is super intuitive. The models they're trained are just really like really, really strong models. Really good. I think one of the things that caught my eye was how I was able to upscale. It was really, really cool. I had all these different options. One of the bits of feedback we received from the artist community is like, when you are generating portraits, right, you may need more space. Right? So, recently, we've launched Zoom Out feature, which allows you to take the image that you generate and really add more kind of negative space or context behind it, right? Because you may not need this up close portrait. You may need somebody that's sitting back. Right? And so, I think those are some of the innovations from our product team that are really helpful for artists, in terms of when you mentioned upscaling or getting the exact thing that you want with AI image generators, is that not being locked into just that one image, but how that image can suit your actual purpose. Right. Exactly. Are there any areas that you think we can improve on? The last project I did, Helmet City, used hip-hop, streetwear, the Japanese genre tokusatsu. And, I remember through that I had a little bit of difficulty just getting those images right. So, I think opening up to different categories, or maybe I think maybe that's model training, just having more artists come in and just having more models within the database will probably help. I think that's very important. We talked about inclusivity, but it's also inclusivity and training the models, right? And making sure that there's representation of all of those different mediums that inform the output that you experience as AI. So, particularly as we're talking about equitable access, it's also about equity and feeding those models to make sure that when you are putting in those prompts, essentially those reference points, that we have enough data to inform the output that you want. And so, that goes for skin tone, that goes for gender identity, expression, cultural references, globalization, all of the things. The more data and the more information that the models have, the better the result on the other side. And so, it is the responsibility of a Shutterstock, a leader in this space, to make sure that we have data and models that are representative of the world that we live in, right? Not just a slice. Yeah, totally. Totally. So, Jah, we're fortunate to have you as a Create Fund winner and some of your art is featured as part of a collection on Shutterstock. And, I wanted to get your thoughts on having some of your art train the AI Image Generator. That would be amazing. That would be really cool. I'm teaching myself on training models right now. Yeah, being able to use my art as a reference to include in that database would be like, really, really, really, really dope. And what excites you about that? I think the most exciting part is that it's models trained from my imagination. I think that's just the coolest part, you know, just being able to help other people create worlds like based off that will be really cool knowing that, like, I'd be compensated. Cool. So models, plus the imagination, plus compensation. Compensation. So, you know, if I see it on a billboard, oh, no, I'm good. I do think that is a value, right? You want a responsible ethical partner who is compensating artists. And, to me, I feel like for a contributor, there's an opportunity to open up a new revenue stream in addition to expanding the creative toolset. Right? And so, for me, I feel like it's an opportunity. It's a win-win. There's just, you know, if we get in early enough, we could really blow this thing up. In many periods, we kind of shy away from technology or we are fearful of it. And so, we don't actually get to take advantage of it as quickly as we could to actually drive benefits and also policies and procedures. Right? And so, I do think it would behoove us to learn more and to move forward responsibly. But, you know, to recognize that this is a new day. Right. 1,000%. I totally agree. Yeah. Are there any advancements that might change your opinion on AI and its use? I think advancements, I wouldn't say necessarily change my opinion, but one of the things that concerns me with the advancement of AI, is like making it overly convenient to the point where we just like relying on it, you know, over relying on it to be honest. I think that's the one thing that probably concerns me. What's your hope for AI? My hope is that it's used responsibly and that all the contributors that are using this technology are compensated and that we don't become over reliant on the technology, that we remove ourselves from it. Awesome answer. What is art? Expression. What is love? Everything. What is culture? Identity. What is AI? The future. All right, Jah. Well, thanks for joining us on this important conversation. I'm super happy to have, you know, anytime I have the opportunity to speak to artists and creators like yourself to get the actual real perspective of community is super valuable. So, thank you for being here. Can you tell us where we can find more about you and your art and where we can get in contact? Yeah, I have a website, www.byjah.art, and through there, it has all my social channels and you can see all the art that I’ve made. That would be the best way to contact me and get in touch and see everything that I'm doing. Thanks for joining us everyone. We tackle the difficult questions surrounding AI. We invite you to explore our AI Image Generator and the rest of our creative solutions at Shutterstock.com.