On Artificial Intelligence (AI/CGW)

We recently completed our submission for the UK government’s Open consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence). This consultation is open until February 25th 2025.

The consultation refers to Generative AI as CGW or Computer Generated Works which kind of waters down the AI aspect and attempts to up the human aspect in order to make it seem more appealing.

It is not appealing, and because a human types in some text does not make them the creator of whatever the compute spews out the other end, whether that’s a static or moving image, or sound. Generative AI, or CGW as the UK government refers to it is trained on stolen images scraped from the internet. The firms responsible claim that because the images are on the internet then they are fair game, which is the exact opposite of what every copyright law around the world states. Just because something is accessible publicly, does not make it public domain.

For example, we may put images up on here or other social media sites. Those images are public, but we retain the rights and control what happens with those images. Those images cannot be used by anyone else without our permission. It’s as simple as that.

When a GenAI image is created, it’s not made up of one stolen piece of work, it’s made up of the millions of pieces stolen from artists who have spent hours/weeks/months creating them. It is an insult that someone can claim ownership after putting a query string in to a program. It’s the equivalent of you putting a search query in to Google, and then claiming that whatever is the top result is your own original work. Sounds ridiculous right?

Art Swansea is fundamentally opposed to Generative AI images. Our aim is to encourage people to create physical works of art using traditional methods and their own creativity. AI does not have a place in anything Art Swansea does and we do not knowingly accept anything that has been created using AI.

Everything we do, from graphics, images, to text are all created by humans for humans.