Thousands of artists call for boycott of ‘mass theft’ AI art auction More than 3,000 artists are demanding a major auction house axe its first-ever AI-only sale, branding it ‘mass theft’.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid] A petition launched by artists opposed to the auction says many of the pieces ‘were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a licence’.
British composer Ed Newton-Rex, who also signed the petition, said at least nine of the auction pieces appeared to have used models trained on other artists’ work.
‘These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them,’ the petition says.
‘The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work and in most cases AI is being employed in a controlled manner, with data trained on the artists’ own inputs.’.
