这封信是Seoul Foreign School in Seoul的16岁的贾斯汀·金（Justin Kim）写的，是学习网络学生公开信竞赛的前9名获奖者之一，我们收到了8,065份参赛作品。
Dear Midjourney,
I’m writing this letter to report a crime — one which you’ve committed against me and my fellow artists. Your programs do not create, but merely plunder human creation in order to amalgamate your horrid handiwork.
This is robbery, plain and simple. All artists “take” inspiration, but you seem to have a habit of “taking” entire works and making monsters of them. As artist and illustrator Jackie Ferrentino put it, “A.I. programs scrape human artists’ work to Frankenstein them into a new creation.”
In doing so, your every action disregards artistic convention and robs thousands of their livelihoods. Thus, your current “artistic” practice “devalue[s] the human labor” so inherent to mankind’s God-given gift for creation, as journalists Julia Rothman and Shaina Feinberg aptly described in their 2022 New York Times article.
Of course, this is not to say that your work possesses no potential value. Jason M. Allen of Pueblo West, Colo., claimed that “Art is dead,” and that “humans lost.” His Midjourney-sourced work is certainly impressive: your “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” won Mr. Allen an award at the Colorado State Fair in 2022. Arguments have been made in favor of your creative use.
We all know that art is more than just paint on a canvas. In the early days of photography, then too did artists predict creative expression would perish. Perhaps you are also merely a new medium for artistic creation. But if so, you must be bound by the same code as us. Therefore, we artists declare: if you are here to stay, you will be leashed.
Regulatory action remains in flux, but good people in good governments are already making progress. The European Union has successfully passed the world’s first major act to regulate A.I. Across the sea, the United States Congress is already debating the feasibility of an “A.I. Bill of Rights.”
The E.U.’s resolution demands a clear definition for A.I., dividing your functions into categories of risk. It does not, at least yet, stipulate that you cite your sources like the rest of us. I acknowledge that may be impossible, given the sheer number of works you steal from to assemble your handiwork, but that does not mean you will be allowed to purloin unabated. Even now, laws are being written that will require you to yield your stolen source material.
Certainly, your work improves by the day. You have grown uncannily good at imitating man. Some would argue you could even replace man. But that just means you must be subject to the same laws as the rest of us. So like any other, you have the right to remain silent. Like any other, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
I wish you well in your trial,
Justin
Works Cited
Blueprint for an A.I. Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work For the American People. Whitehouse.gov
E.U. A.I Act: First Regulation on Artificial Intelligence. European Parliament (Website). Updated 18 June 2024.
Kang, Cecilia and Satariano, Adam. Five Ways A.I. Could Be Regulated. The New York Times, 6 Dec. 2023.
Roose, Kevin. An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy. The New York Times, 2 Sept. 2022.
Rothman, Julia and Feinberg, Shaina. Human Artists Take on Their New Robot Competition. The New York Times, 23 Dec. 2022.