Hey art fans! So, artists have been battling it out with big AI companies, claiming these tech giants are snatching their art for AI training without asking. Lawsuits and protests have happened, but now artists are going full-on stealth mode – using some cool tools to confuse the AI systems themselves.
Meet Nightshade: The AI Poison Pill
There’s a new tool called Nightshade that artists can use to add a poison pill to their work. It was thought up by Ben Zhao and his group at the University of Chicago. This is what’s going on:
How Nightshade Works: Imagine an AI model sees a pic of a dog and thinks, “Dog.” Nightshade messes with this by making tiny changes to the dog pic. To us, it still looks like a dog, but the AI gets all confused and thinks it’s a cat. Sneaky, right?
The Master Plan: Nightshade aims to mess up future AI models so much that these big tech companies either roll back their systems or stop using artists’ work altogether. Zhao is like, “Let’s make AI play by some rules, folks!”
More Tools in the Arsenal
Nightshade isn’t flying solo. There’s Glaze, another tool from Zhao’s team, messing with pixels in art to mess with AI’s attempts to copy an artist’s style. Super cool, right? But wait, there’s more:
Kudurru: Created by the company Spawning this tool is still in beta, and it’s like an IP address superhero. It tracks down scrapers (those stealing art for AI) and throws up a middle finger or plays a classic prank on them.
Artist Excitement: Kelly McKernan, an artist on the frontline, is pumped about these tools. “Let’s poison the datasets! Let’s do this!” McKernan has been battling AI since they found out their name and paintings were swiped for AI models.
Artists Fight Back, One Pixel at a Time
Big AI companies are being sued by McKernan as part of a class action. The case says that these businesses used a lot of online art without permission, and McKernan wants them to be punished. Until then, though, these digital tools are like quick shields for artists.
With these new tools, artists can go on the attack in a world where lawsuits and rules move very slowly. Even though President Biden’s recent order on AI didn’t talk about how AI affects artists, these tools make artists feel safe right away. It’s like telling, “Hey, my house keeps getting broken into, so I’m getting some mace and an ax to protect myself!”
AI is being shown by artists that the art world isn’t joking; it’s ready to fight back, one pixel at a time.
