We wanted to discuss with LaTram, a cartoonist and illustrator, the direct impact that the use of artificial intelligence can have on some typically creative professions, as well as the general environmental implications of this technology's increasingly widespread use. Below is the interview. --- Q. Tell us about your work as a cartoonist and how you've seen it change in recent years with the development of information technology. A. I've been doing this job for about twenty years, as a cartoonist and illustrator, and I also work in graphic journalism. The profession has changed dramatically, in general, and has taken advantage of the many technological opportunities that have arisen over time. The introduction of artificial intelligence, however, has brought about a huge and massive change, constantly and rapidly evolving, making it difficult to metabolize and manage the impact. From one month to the next, increasingly updated and more powerful versions of artificial intelligence are created that work on ever-larger amounts of data sets and that, in an increasingly refined way, are able to understand prompts and better interpret requests.
Personally, I work analogically, that is, by drawing and coloring my works by hand, but I still have to put my productions online to make them known to publishers, as does the entire creative world to which I belong. Well, putting even a craft work on the Internet subjects it to the scrutiny of artificial intelligence.Q. Could you explain, in broad terms, how the AI system works in the specific field of images?
A. In order to function well, artificial intelligence systems must be trained on an organized and structured collection of data, the data set , which software can analyze to perform the search and process the request. The larger the data set , the higher the quality of what the AI produces. The more you feed and "feed" the AI, the more it learns and then produces, in the visual field, highly detailed and professional images. This means that, in the creative field, working with illustrations for example, it can receive very specific instructions and reproduce exactly what is contained in the request. The internet is full of images, uploaded by illustrators themselves to give visibility to their work. With the advent of artificial intelligence, this quantity of data is available for use without any regulation to date. AI, at the moment, can use anything available on the internet for training: original images, edited images, photographs, etc.
A recent case in Spain provides a paradoxical and emblematic example of the indiscriminate use of AI. The poster for the Valencia Comics Festival was "commissioned" to artificial intelligence, which, based on the information received, created a poster virtually identical to the authentic one produced for a literature festival by Paco Roca, currently Spain's most famous cartoonist. A controversy ensued, the copied poster was withdrawn, and so on, but the case clearly demonstrates that if you commission a poster "in the Paco Roca style," you can end up with one identical, perhaps without even realizing it, with all the consequences that entails. Or you can commission a poster with certain characteristics, even without using a specific author's prompt, and the artificial intelligence autonomously decides that Paco Roca's style is best suited for that poster , without the client even knowing that it is Paco Roca's work... In short, it's crazy.
Furthermore, changing just a tiny detail in an image is enough to make it no longer your image but one that resembles it. This means that the originality of the creation is lost, as is all the research that preceded the creation of the work that is, the design, the composition, the choice of graphic language appropriate to the message to be communicated, the choice of palette, etc. AI can't yet reproduce this entire process, but it diligently creates an image that contains everything in the prompt, thus flattening and devaluing the work and, above all, using it improperly.
Q. From your description, it appears that not only is creative ability at risk, but also the very work of a significant number of workers in the graphic design sector.
A. Exactly. The issue of AI is obviously deeply felt by creative workers. To try to introduce protections, EGAIR (European Guild Artificial Intelligence Regulation) was founded, an organization that brings together workers from various fields, not just illustrators and cartoonists, but all image workers (graphic designers, advertising, etc.).
The aim is to demand institutional regulation of the use of images online, and steps have already been taken in the Senate and at the European level.
Among the various requests is the introduction of author consent. Currently, it is not possible to deny consent to the use of images as training sets, i.e., for training artificial intelligence; introducing some sort of consent could already be a first form of protection. Another request is that authors' names or pen names cannot be included in the prompt, thus prohibiting explicit commissioning of an image from AI, specifying that it reproduce the style of that particular author. Furthermore, it should be mandatory to include the words "entirely created with AI" or "partially created with AI" on all images processed by AI. Finally, there is also a lack of a clear distinction between copyrighted material, where the author is clearly acknowledged and identified, and "public domain" material: it is possible that copyrighted material may be used by AI as well. There is no clear classification of images found on the internet, and even copyright protection is insufficient, sometimes because the very definition of copyright is currently subject to potentially confusing interpretations.
EGAIR's proposal is to act at the institutional level, but there are other areas where the same problem could be addressed through sensitivity and solidarity. I'm referring to the fact that, unfortunately, the indiscriminate use of original images, through artificial intelligence processing, is widely practiced even in spaces for movement and in environments that should demonstrate attention to workers' rights, because that's what we are. A category that, moreover, isn't even protected by unions, national contracts, paid holidays, contributions, or sick leave. Nothing.
If we want to have a comprehensive view, if we truly want to bring about social change and overcome exploitation, we cannot ignore the needs ofThe entire workforce. It wouldn't take much to show concrete solidarity by avoiding the use of artificial intelligence when creating graphics, posters, and promotional materials, especially since many artists would be and are happy to lend their art, even for free. I've done it, and so have many of my colleagues.
Q. Beyond the specific impact of AI on the use of images, on a more general level, I'd like to ask you: is artificial intelligence really sustainable, as some claim, emphasizing the potential for optimizing and reducing energy consumption related to the ability to process such a large amount of environmental data?
A. I'm not an expert on the green transition or anything like that, which is all tied to the need to reshape capital, but, according to numerous official sources accessible to anyone, it seems to me that AI is anything but sustainable. Those who claim otherwise maintain that in a relatively short time we will develop a technology capable of minimizing the environmental impact of the data centers necessary for AI to function. In reality, the environmental impacts are there, they are there now, and they are irreparable and multiple; they concern electricity, soil, water, and critical minerals, despite all the reassurances and downplaying.
According to the recent United Nations report on the impact of artificial intelligence, for example, by 2030 it is estimated that electricity consumption could reach up to 945 terawatt hours per year, that is, triple the combined annual electricity consumption of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria (source: Luca Aterini for Greenreport www.greenreport.it/news/scienza-e-tecnologie/62110-intelligenza-artificiale-consumi-naturali-nel-2030-lai-si-berra-lacqua-di-1-3-miliardi-di-persone ) . And it's not "just" an electricity problem. To train and operate AI, enormous data centers are needed , colossal structures the size of several soccer fields, structures that house tens of thousands of ultra-high-powered processors. This means direct land consumption, which involves expropriation and desertification of large geographical areas where the infrastructure needed for AI production is located. It should also be remembered that artificial intelligence chips are powered by critical minerals: these minerals are typically found in geographical areas of so-called developing countries, where mining is less controlled, where land exploitation, drilling, and concessions to multinationals have overtly colonial characteristics and are often a contributing factor to wars. This too is land exploitation, but it's not "only" that: the phenomenon is intertwined with colonialism, militarization, and the exploitation of poverty. The enormous facilities intended for training and operating artificial intelligence are generally located near waterways or aquifers, because the expanses of processors present in gigantic data centers
They require enormous quantities of water for cooling.
Water to produce energy, water to cool the constantly working processors; quantities of water absorbed by AI's operation are then released into the environment, causing pollution, primarily of groundwater, with serious damage to the water supply of the surrounding population and with overall repercussions. The water footprint calculated for AI is enormous: it is predicted that with the increasingly widespread diffusion of artificial intelligence, global water consumption will be equivalent to the annual needs of 1.3 billion people.
Q. In your opinion, how much awareness is there of the fact that data centers generating artificial intelligence have such a strong environmental, as well as social, impact?
A. In my opinion, awareness is still lacking, and we see this, as already mentioned, also in the ease with which artificial intelligence is used even in movement circles, precisely those that should be paying attention to the problems this technology triggers, which are many and deeply interconnected: from environmental pollution, to forms of neocolonialism in the supply of energy resources, to the elimination of workers' rights.
But awareness is also lacking in the individual relationship with AI. A request to artificial intelligence consumes 10 times more energy than a simple search on a simple search engine . And while the spread of AI represents a huge profit opportunity for capital, we must not forget that it is our personal interaction, rather than the training of AI, that determines most of the work of these computers: a conversation with AI that involves continuous interaction, such as "tell me this thing, tell me more about it, etc." It consumes more than 200 times more electricity than a simple online search. If AI is used to generate an image, the consumption is 1,450 times higher, while it's 200,000 times higher to create a short video . So, it's us, with our often pointless interactions, who fuel this vicious cycle.
Q. Returning to the specific issue of using images with AI and therefore to your field of activity: a few decades ago, the experiences created by independent media and the possibilities offered by the internet for downloading videos and music were seen as a positive extension of access to information and the free enjoyment of cultural products. Couldn't artificial intelligence represent a horizontal process of this kind today?
A. Artificial intelligence could certainly be used more virtuously, but the scale the phenomenon is taking makes it very difficult, beyond an attempt at regulation, to envision a "self-management" of the AI technological tool.
With artificial intelligence, we have a manipulated generation, derived from the automatic processing of original images stolen online from real authors. This doesn't seem like a great achievement, either democratic or horizontal.
What need is there? With a sheet of paper and a pencil, or a computer and a graphics program, anyone can create something, expressing what they want, using a personal language consistent with what they want to express. Creativity is nothing more than an urgency; it's completely detached from the final aesthetic result, it has nothing to do with it. It's not that something must be beautiful and therefore made by an AI to be valid; this, in my opinion, is another of those mechanisms that capitalism has instilled in us, whereby if something isn't perfect, isn't beautiful, isn't wonderful, isn't shiny, doesn't have a flawless surface, then it's not valid. In reality, anything you feel the urge to say is valid; that's how it will surely arrive. And that's how communication truly happens.
edited by PN
https://umanitanova.org/si-applica-anche-troppo-ma-non-e-intelligente-le-molte-implicazioni-dellintelligenza-artificiale/
_________________________________________
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten