Everyone in this age probably has heard of Generative AI at this point. But remember 4 years ago? In January 2021, OpenAI’s DALL-E was launched. The AI became widespread in popularity as the concept of generative artificial intelligence was still new to all of us.

Looking back at it now, do we regret training the AI with our data? Were things just simply fun and silly to us back then? Let’s have a throwback to 2021 and how AI has been evolving up until now. We’ll also mention the morality and ethics of humans in each section.

2021: The Launch of DALL-E, Beginning of a New Era

When we first heard of this tool, we piqued our interest in it. Everything was fresh and new, and the generated images were still sloppy. People were sharing their generated DALL-E images to family and friends and all over the internet. It started from a short prompt with nine squares for each result.

It was all fun and games. Discussions on social media were sparked every now and then. There were internet users warning others about the AI training, but they didn’t receive much attention.

2022: Hello, Midjourney – It’s Getting More Serious Now

2022 also first went on with the sloppy DALL-E images. One day in July, a new generative AI service called Midjourney launched as open data. This became a game changer for so-called “AI bros” according to the internet. Midjourney was able to generate more complex illustrations in various styles–whether they be anime, realistic, or western cartoons.

The image shown may look imperfect, but it’s a product of the time. People were talking about the Midjourney launch all over the world. Now people are finally getting more serious about generative AI. Here come the questions. “Can machine-generated photos really be considered real ‘art’?” “Don’t they lack human’s soul that made art special?”

AI-generated images of fictional characters started to flood the internet. Some of these prompt generators call themselves “AI artists” and make money from these images through commissions and merchandise. While AI art might look “relatively good” at first glance, errors to little details could still be spotted. You could notice the odd number of fingers and imbalanced body parts. The hunt for AI art begins. Websites to detect AI art began to be created, but they were highly unreliable (and still are today).

The main issue people had was that the AI was trained without prior consent. The data sets were gathered from pictures around the internet. Not to mention the more people use the AI to generate and give feedback to it, the more it improves.

2023: Generative AI Comes to Adobe Creative Cloud!

Everyone sure has heard of Adobe, the company of industry standard software for content creation. In May 2023, Adobe took a huge step and leaned towards Generative AI. The company stated that images were trained using datasets from Adobe Stock images, public domain and openly licensed content.

Photoshop had never been easier than before. Graphic designers and artists no longer had to use their creative skills to craft materials using various layers. Everyone could create or edit something so realistic with just a prompt and a few clicks.

This has caused great controversy among the community. What’s worse is that users spotted the new Terms of Service Adobe had changed at the time. The terms required users to agree to give the company access to their content via “automated and manual methods” to still use its software.

However, thankfully due to the backlash, Adobe revised its TOS to mention that it won’t train the AI from user content, except for content submitted to the Adobe Stock marketplace, and users still own their content. But Adobe has already left users a bad taste regarding its own brand. Do multi-billion corporates care about the money more and not carrying any ethics?

2025: It’s Getting Too “Human-Like” and Indistinguishable

Fast forwarding to the present as we’ve learned most of the common knowledge. The generative AI hate is even stronger than before, but the number of AI users has also gone up significantly from the past four years.

AI art has become extremely human-like. For the past couple months, there have been countless instances where human artists were accused wrongly of using AI. This has become a major problem in the artists’ community.

Let’s discuss about the latest update on generative AI art. ChatGPT unveiled its own Ghibli “art” generator on March 26! I am sure you have family and friends who’ve been sharing AI-generated Ghibli images.

A 2016 interview video with Studio Ghibili co-founder Hayao Miyazaki regarding AI art has resurfaced again. “I feel like we are nearing to the end of the times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” said Miyazaki.

This shows the morality of OpenAI, the one behind DALL-E that we used to play with when we were innocent. An image mocking Miyazaki’s words was even created using ChatGPT by an anonymous user.

Amidst the backlash, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman still defended OpenAI so hard. He talked on Twitter that the company’s GPUs were overworking. He was happy about the jump in active users.

Conclusion: What Really is “Art”? Ethics, Morality, and the Future

According to Oxford Dictionary, “art” means “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”

With how AI has been evolving, it has reshaped how we think about “art.” AI “drawings” are already indistinguishable and people think they were made with human soul, which is very unfortunate.

We’re still at the beginning of the AI era, and it’s a long way to go. The battle between AI and human artists will keep going. The concerns are still arising and labor unions in many countries have been protesting for AI protection.

As for myself, the writer, I still do not condone AI models trained from data sets without consent. The prompt generators should not claim ownership of the AI’s results. While this sounds unlikely to happen, AI models may need a complete restart to train data sets from the beginning again.

I still find AI images useful to illustrate quick images for educational purposes. But human artists need more support, especially in this era without AI protection. AI should not replace humans.

To put in short, we need to utilize AI responsibly by thinking about the consequences for a bright future, and that includes generative AI.