--- title: "Artists Mass Protest Against AI Stealing Their Work By Sharing Anti-AI Logo" description: "Over the past week, human artists across the internet have risen up to protest the proliferation of image-generating AI, particularly on ArtStation." date: "2022-12-16" modified: "2022-12-16" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/artists-protest-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai art" - "ai generated images" - "the digest" --- # Artists Mass Protest Against AI Stealing Their Work By Sharing Anti-AI Logo ![Artists on the online community ArtStation have flooded the website with anti-AI logos in a mass protest, potentially screwing with future AI models.]() *\Image: Getty Images/Futurism\* ## Butlerian Jihad The artists are not happy. Over the past week, human artists across the internet have risen up to protest the proliferation of image-generating AI — particularly on ArtStation, a website which has also been a popular source for generators to scrape from. Until recently, the backlash was widespread but not particularly organized. Now, though, artists and enthusiastic allies have rallied behind a no-nonsense, anti-AI logo: a red prohibition circle over the uppercase letters "AI." It appears the logo was first shared by artist Alexander Nanichtkov in a [tweet]() on December 5, after which it began to spread on ArtStation, [*Ars Technica* reports](). By the time Zakuga Art shared a version of the logo in a [viral tweet]() a week later, the movement had catalyzed, and ArtStation soon found its home page dominated by anti-AI sentiment. "AI creates the 'art' you see on the backs of artists being exploited," reads the tweet, which broadly summarizes the grievances of artists. "AI 'art' is currently scraping the web for art and uses it in datasets. No artist gave consent to have their art used. We were not compensated." https://twitter.com/joysilvart/status/1603138150028775424 ## Draw This! Seeing the logo spread so prolifically is a striking display of solidarity — you don't even need to specifically search for it on ArtStation. Its trending, latest, and community pages all prominently feature the logo. However, contrary to what some have been [spreading as disinformation](), spamming the logos will not affect the images generated by current models like Stable Diffusion, since they have already been trained on older data sets which are not updated. Still, the real kicker here is both the solidarity and the [creativity]() exhibited by artists in their protests, something that the AI models that cynically mine their works may always struggle to replicate. The protests, which are still going strong, have succeeded in getting Stability AI, Stable Diffusion's creator, to budge on its AI policy, [allowing artists to opt out]() of letting their art be used to train future versions of its generators. That likely won't be enough to appease artists, but it's a start. Overall, it's remarkable just how quickly the tides have turned on the use of AI art, and artists are drawing a bloody line in the canvas to let those that unfairly profit off their hard work that enough is enough. **More on AI generated images:** *[Artists Furious About AI That Draws Stylized Portraits of People]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()