Abstract

The recent swell of public interest in AI image generating software, such as Midjourney, DALL-E 2, and Stable Diffusion, has led to a great deal of consternation among conventional visual artists. Understanding that the process through which these machines generate images depends ultimately on a machine learning process that involves the use of copyrighted artworks, has led many artists to allege that AI art is theft. There has already been a substantive debate in the literature concerning whether this use of copyrighted material by AI image generating software constitutes copyright infringement in the United States. However, the artists’ complaint appears to be a moral claim, rather than a legal one. In this paper, I will argue that these artists are essentially mistaken. Their copyrights should not protect them from this use of their art by AI image generating software. While I am sympathetic to the claims that this technology will harm visual artists, and that there should be some kind of protection afforded to artists against that harm, that harm is not caused by anything analogous to theft.