Last week I wrote about how some people might try to scam you by passing off creative work generated by artificial intelligence as original art, designs, or writing. I offered some tips for making sure you get the original creative projects you want and are paying for. This week I want to tackle the problems creators (both legitimate and not) face when using AI in commercial work. Some or all of this may make you think twice before trusting your livelihood to artificial intelligence just yet.
The Problems for Creators
If you’re a creative professional who wants to use artificial intelligence in your work, there are many potential pitfalls for you, even if you’re not attempting to scam or make quick money off of gullible people. Most of the problems you might encounter stem from one thing: AI is new and the law in this area is far from settled. Until issues surrounding copyright, ownership, model training, and attribution are resolved, you may be putting your work and reputation in legal and ethical jeopardy if you lean too heavily on AI. (At the very least you may find your work “cancelled” if word gets out that it’s AI-derived and not human work.) Here are some things you should consider:
How was the AI trained?
Most current AI models were “trained” by scraping data from the web. That means that they just cruised existing websites, picking up art, writing and other work and feeding it into the AI model. While this is efficient, it may or may not turn out to be legal. Why? Because much of the data fed into the models was obtained without the original creator’s consent. The law has not yet resolved this problem, so any work rendered from models trained in this way may ultimately become illegal and subject to lawsuits.
Who owns the work?
You need to read the fine print on the model you’re using to make sure you even own the work it outputs. In many cases, the fine print grants ownership to the owner/creator of the model, not to you as the user. You may be granted a right to use the output, but you don’t own it. This can create sticky legal problems down the road as you try to resell the output.
Be aware that many AI platforms also require that you consent to giving them the rights to use any output for training purposes, or they may have rights to use anything created for any purpose. In other words, your content may be used to further train the AI, meaning something will one day come up looking or sounding like what the AI created for you, and may be used by a competitor.
Make sure the AI tool you’re using grants commercial use rights.
Even if a tool says you can use its output for commercial use, many AI tools don’t indemnify the user or warrant the output to be non-infringing, leaving you on the hook if you’re found to violate copyright or patent law. If the tool references or links other licensing sources (say they got some images from websites that use Creative Commons licensing, for example), prepare to dig through those licenses, as well. They may have restrictions that the AI tool does not. Rights always carry upstream, so make sure you’re clear all the way down to the license governing the original work.
Make sure you attribute correctly.
Some AI platforms require attribution and, again, rights travel upstream so dig deep to make sure any original artists don’t need to be credited, too. Follow any attribution guidelines exactly.
Beware IP, trademark or personal privacy violations.
If your project comes up looking or sounding like a protected property, you can be in trouble. Also, if your work uses real people, even if you didn’t ask it to, you can be in trouble for violating privacy rules. Make sure your work is ambiguous enough to keep you out of trouble.
You can be accused of plagiarism or stealing another person’s designs.
If a creator sees your work and says, “Hmm. That’s exactly like the thing I created six years ago,” you can be accused of plagiarism or theft. Those charges can carry serious legal jeopardy, so if you can’t prove that you created the work from scratch and that any infringement is purely accidental, you can be in trouble. Again, this stems from whether the model trained on other’s work without consent and where the law ultimately settles on this point.
Eventually, AI work might be less desirable.
This is a problem for the long term, but you might want to think about it now. As AI begins to use older AI projects for new projects, will the outputs become, well, boring? The human touch will completely erode and might make such work less desirable. (On the other hand, human-made creative projects might become more niche and valuable, so if you have artistic skills, prepare to capitalize on that.)
Some Solutions/Protections for Creators
If you really want to use artificial intelligence in your creative work, take some steps to protect yourself, both now and in the future. With the law so unsettled, nothing is a guarantee at this point, but you can at least try to reduce your legal exposure. (Note that I’m not a lawyer, so nothing here is legal advice.) Here are some ideas:
Always disclose if/how your project uses AI.
How much of the project was AI generated? How much tweaking did you do? If your client is paying you for original work, be clear with them about exactly how much you relied on AI. These are things you can put into a contract so that both you and the client are protected from unpleasant surprises and disputes.
Try to choose an ethical AI tool.
Try to find a model that was ethically trained and that paid or compensated the original creators. Right now those are almost impossible to find, but they may be more available in the future as the law forces companies into “ethically training” their models.
Run an online image search or plagiarism checker.
These can help make sure your AI work does not copy something else. You can find out whether other images or texts look similar or use similar phrasing. These tools are never a guarantee because they’re not perfect at detecting infringement. However, it’s a place to start to rule out some of the most obvious infringements.
Do your own work to make the final product different from the base output.
If you do use AI in a project, do your own work to make it “yours.” Rewrite the article in your own words. Use tools and filters to alter any images. Don’t just sell the base output without alteration. Put your own style and spin on it so you can legitimately claim to have done the work.
Don’t use specific names or styles in prompts.
When you use an AI tool, you generally have to tell it what you want. Don’t say, “Artwork in the style of Famous Person,” or, “Text like Famous Author.” Using the name of an artist or author, or requesting something “in the style of” is likely to lead to more trouble than generic queries. This is because, depending on how the AI was trained, it may serve up near duplicates of a famous artist’s work, or a writer’s novels. If those are in its brain, it’s entirely possible you will be served up infringing (or near enough) work. Stick to generic prompts like, “Art with blue and gold color scheme, spaceship, and alien.”
Don’t put anything private or proprietary into the AI tools.
Don’t put your logo, slogan, picture, or any trademarked property into the AI tool. Anything you put into a tool might be used to train that tool, meaning that your (or your company’s) proprietary/private information may be used to create things going forward. You don’t want other people ending up with projects that use your private information.
None of this means that you should never use AI in your projects. It can be a great starting point, or a way to get past a creative block. Just tread carefully when using it for commercial use and try to act ethically and communicate honestly with your clients.
Read More:
- How to Utilize Artificial Intelligence to Make Money
- How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping The Job Market
- Will ChatGPT Take Over Freelance Writing Jobs?
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Jennifer Derrick is a freelance writer, novelist and children’s book author. When she’s not writing Jennifer enjoys running marathons, playing tennis, boardgames and reading pretty much everything she can get her hands on. You can learn more about Jennifer at: https://jenniferderrick.com/.
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