Trending: UAE artist behind viral 'Satwa Superheroes' decodes AI-generated art and the ethical concerns it raises

Over the last few weeks, fantastical AI-driven portraits and selfies have been all over social media, with excited users hopping on the trend across the globe. While scrolling through the Instagram feeds, one is bombarded by photos of friends and family members turning themselves into mythical characters — superheroes, medieval princesses, historical figures, movie characters — you name it, it’s there.

The enabler behind this viral trend, however, is not the stroke of a paintbrush but a click of a finger. Users have been flocking to platforms such as Lensa AI and Midjourney that allow them to create AI-generated artwork and ‘magic avatars’ of themselves, through inputting prompts and suggestions.

Amongst the flurry of AI-selfies, a UAE-based artist also hopped on the bandwagon recently but with his own unique twist. An illustrator and creative director by profession, Yohan Wadia has reimagined blue-collar workers from Dubai’s old neighbourhood of Al Satwa as superheroes from the Marvel and DC universe. From Superman on a streetside bench to Spiderman walking across with grocery bags, the artist has created AI-generated artworks to celebrate the unsung heroes of Dubai’s commercial hub, who according to him, make the city what it is.

However, even though his ‘Heroes of Satwa’ series took social media by storm, Wadia, along with other digital artists, has also been on the receiving end of criticism related to AI-generated art. Among other ethical concerns raised by these apps, artists using these platforms have been accused of copyright infringement and oversimplifying the process of creating art.

We spoke to Wadia, who has created part 2 of the viral ‘Heroes of Satwa’ series exclusively for Khaleej Times, to take us through the steps required to create AI-art, while addressing pertinent ethical concerns being raised against this new technique.

Q) How would you describe AI-generated art?

AI art is generated with the help of machine learning. It is developed with the help of computing power that scours the internet, learns patterns, styles, and about any other attribute pertaining to art, and recreates visuals based on the learning with the help of user-input prompts.

Q) What are some of the apps/platforms one can use to create AI art?

The best in the game are Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E. I personally use Midjourney for my art.

Q) Can you briefly explain the steps required to create AI art?

While most people think AI art is as simple as pushing buttons and getting results, it’s unfortunately not. The very first thing one needs to do is visualise with as many details as possible and then punch in the description of the image they have in their mind, to be able to generate something as close to their imagination as possible. The AI then generates some variations based on your prompts and you can go about further fine-tuning the prompts depending on how the AI produces the art until you are able to perfect it.

Q) You need to input data sets to create AI art. Are these data sets derived from copyrighted content?

The AI learns from any and every source on the internet, hence, it is able to reproduce derivatives of content that may be copyrighted, although it doesn’t replicate anything to the absolute detail of falling into copyright infringement. A publication recently reported that using copyrighted material to train AI models might fall under fair use laws.