Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal Volume VII
Editor-In-Chief Lily Jandrisevits
Editorial Board Patricia Devine
Adam Freda Cara Orcutt Ivory Unga
Faculty Advisors Dr. Sasha Biro Dr. Joseph Campisi
Cover Design Ava McCann
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Marist College Poughkeepsie, NY 2024
Table of Contents
A Letter from the Editor
1
“Ethical Implications of AI-Generated Art”
2-19
Patrick Davis, Marist College
“Developing Double-Consciousness in the Work of W.E.B. Du Bois”
20-31
Maeby Ingram, Bard College
“Contradictions of the Transmission Theory of Art”
32-40
Aliana Lloyd. Syracuse University
“The Immorality of Ecosabotage”
41-51
Izzy Simon, Bard College
Interview with Dr. Carolina Sartorio
52-54
A Letter from the Editor
Dear reader,
I am excited to present to you, volume VII of Diotima. First and foremost, congratulations to the editorial board for their work on another great volume. I am always thankful for their contributions and advice; the journal would not be possible without them. When brainstorming ideas about our cover design, some of our board members talked about their in-class discussion about the muses. They are a point of inspiration and representation of so many different fields and forms of knowledge. Thus, we were in turn inspired and thought that a muse would be a great starting point for this volume. Ava McCann, a fine arts student at Marist, created our cover. She took inspiration from Ancient Greek pottery in her design. Thanks to her, our original vision was put to beautiful use and turned out better than we imagined. Furthermore, thank you to Dr. Carolina Sartorio for her insight. Please, read to the end to hear some of the questions she answered for us. It is always nice to hear the opinion of a professional philosopher paired with the inspiring work of undergraduates. This issue has an interesting breadth of topics, from art to ecosabotage, exemplifying the great work of current students, and the voices of philosophy majors today. Thanks to our great contributors for sharing their knowledge with us. I hope you enjoy reading our seventh volume!
Sincerely,
Lily Jandrisevits
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Ethical Implications of AI-Generated Art
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF AI- GENERATED ART Patrick Davis Marist College
Abstract Increasingly , we see the delegation of tasks fall into the metaphorical hands of automation. One cultural sphere in which this is rapidly occurring, perhaps outside the purview of the public, is art. An array of artificial intelligence programs can now generate images according to user inputs, raising significant ethical concerns about the practice, decried as a detriment to art and artists. In this paper, however, I shall outline why I believe the most prominent of these arguments cannot withstand detailed scrutiny.
T
1. Introduction
he modern world looks more and more like a science fiction illustration. Cell phones, self-driving vehicles, drones, and virtual reality are all technologies of our time, and how past generations would have reacted to such magnificent technological achievements should be more than conceivable. Yet we consistently fail, it seems, to see the marvelous advances that have delivered us to this modern science-fiction world. Nevertheless, one technology that seems to have caught the public eye is artificial intelligence. Perhaps films such as The Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey have specifically pushed artificial intelligence into popular culture. Yet it remains a controversial subject, with concerns about its potential sentience, 1 its 1 Tamlyn Hunt, “Here’s Why AI May Be Extremely Dangerous--Whether It’s Conscious or Not,” Scientific American , May 25, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-ai-may-be- extremely-dangerous-whether-its-conscious-or-not/.
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ability to produce deepfakes, 2 and even racial discrimination, 3 all embroiling public dialogue. Increasingly, we see the delegation of tasks fall into the metaphorical hands of automation. One cultural sphere in which this is rapidly occurring, perhaps outside the purview of the public, is art. An array of artificial intelligence programs can now generate images according to user inputs, raising significant ethical concerns about the practice, decried as a detriment to art and artists. In this paper, however, I outline why I believe the most prominent of these arguments cannot withstand detailed scrutiny. 2. What is artificial intelligence? What do you imagine when you read the words “artificial intelligence”? Maybe you see Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, or the loveable automaton WALL-E, or Ava from Ex Machina . Perhaps you have avoided these influences altogether. Regardless, it is conceivable that these are the images that arise in many minds when asked what, precisely, artificial intelligence is. These depictions of artificial intelligence have their roots in the early half of the 20th century but were solidified by the 1927 German silent film Metropolis , wherein an animatronic simulacrum impersonates a key character. 4 Yet, these depictions of artificial intelligence, while entertaining and thought- provoking, are not faithful to what AI is at this stage of development. To anthropomorphize AI is a folly. Artificial intelligence, while designed by humans, does not, and cannot, experience human emotions. Whatever social cues AI may seem to display are merely faux constructs; it remains a machine adherent to its
2 Kevin Stacey, “New Report Assesses Progress and Risks of Artificial Intelligence,” Brown University, September 16, 2021, https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-16/ai100. 3 Cade Metz, “Who Is Making Sure the A.I. Machines Aren’t Racist?,” The New York Times , June 23, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/technology/artificial-intelligence-google-bias.html. 4 Rockwell Anyoha, “The History of Artificial Intelligence - Science in the News,” Science in the News, April 23, 2020, https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-artificial-intelligence/.
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function and inflexible in its tasks, unlike a human. 5 These substantial cognitive limitations should preclude anthropomorphization. 6 Yet, this inflexibility allows us to categorize an AI system based on its utility. Take the example of a text-to-image model called DALL-E 3. A text-to-image model is a type of generative AI. Principally, a generative AI “creates content — including text, images, video, and computer code — by identifying patterns in large quantities of training data and creating original material with similar characteristics. Examples include ChatGPT for text and DALL-E and Midjourney for images.” 7 Essentially, a program such as DALL-E 3 uses a considerable collection of images as a dataset and then generates similar images based on that dataset. 8 3. Can artificial intelligence create art? Now, here is where some may say this argument is already moot. Many artists and art enjoyers argue that artificial intelligence cannot create artwork for a few reasons: Principally, an AI does not experience emotions and, because of this, it is incapable of creating art at all; secondly, the capabilities of artificial intelligence cannot possibly compare to the expertise and ability of a professionally trained artist; thirdly, the images produced by artificial intelligence are not art because AI merely mimics human works. 9 5 B.J. Copeland, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Definition, Examples, Types, Applications, Companies, & Facts,” Encyclopedia Britannica , November 14, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence. 6 Arleen Salles, Kathinka Evers, and Michele Farisco, “Anthropomorphism in AI,” Ajob Neuroscience 11, no. 2 (March 31, 2020): 88–95, https://doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2020.1740350. 7 Adam Pasick, “Artificial Intelligence Glossary: Neural Networks and Other Terms Explained,” The New York Times , March 27, 2023, accessed November 14, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/article/ai- artificial-intelligence-glossary.html. 8 “Generative Models,” June 16, 2016, accessed November 14, 2023, https://openai.com/research/generative-models. 9 Sarah Shaffi, “‘It’s the Opposite of Art’: Why Illustrators Are Furious about AI,” The Guardian , January 23, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/23/its-the-opposite-of-art- why-illustrators-are-furious-about-ai.
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First, let us address the idea that art is constrained to humans because only we possess the emotional prerequisites to create it. This objection is fundamentally flawed because it assumes that the AI is the chief architect in this process – but it is not. The human that feeds in the prompts is. This objection mistakenly anthropomorphizes AI, trying to cast it as an actor in this scheme. But this is not the case; artificial intelligence is merely a tool the artist can utilize to produce a work that would otherwise be beyond their means. Like a paintbrush, artificial intelligence is an implement to be applied. No one (or, at least, I presume, very few) would say the artist’s brush has its own will that is violated or satisfied by the will of the artist; they are extensions of the work’s overarching architect. The brush conducts the emotions and can make them into reality, and artificial intelligence accomplishes the same. Even in cases where the artificial intelligence requires no user input, i.e., they have been programmed to automatically generate images, there is still a human factor in that the AI and its task would not exist without human input. Now, this is a complicated aesthetic problem, and I do not have the tools to address it, but I think it is worth considering the fact that art is a two-way experience. One part is the artist, the creator of the work, but the other part is the viewer, the audience. Should the sentiments of the audience not have some part to play in this debate? Next, there is the claim that artificial intelligence could never generate artwork that is of the same quality as a human. This is a complicated question because what even constitutes art is an unanswered question. Some believe that art has objective criteria, based on something such as harmony or unity, while others staunchly say it is all subjective. If art has objective criteria, there seems to be no reason that it could not meet such standards. As Mark Coeckelbergh writes: If what counts as art is a matter of objective criteria, it seems that machines may have a good chance to qualify as genuinely creative and as producing, especially if these criteria can be formalized. If there are objective criteria, we can try to program machines in such a way that they make things that meet the criteria. We can make code, based on the rules. Someone who evaluates whether machine art is really art, then, will ascribe art status to the product when it is clear in the product that the
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rules have been followed (note again that the distinction breaks down: unless one has access to the code of the machine, the product is evaluated by process). For instance, if a drawing is made according to the rules of good portrait drawing, and if one assumes that there are such rules and that they can be formalized, then there is no barrier to calling that drawing a work of art. 10 However, others yet believe that art has no objective criteria. There are no, by this view, necessary qualities that determine a work as artwork . Art is whatever we decide to call art. Coeckelbergh elaborates on the consequences if we use subjective criteria to define art. Using subjectivity as a model makes stronger the case that AI- generated images are, indeed artwork; if art is centered around fundamentally subjective criteria, then anything, including images generated by an artificial intelligence, could qualify as art: [I]f there are only subjective criteria, it seems that the machine gets an even better chance to be seen as an artist having created a work of art. If the only thing that counts is subjective decision or social agreement, then if these are in place, this is all the machine needs. If what constitutes art is open, then it may also be open as to whether machines could join the community of artists. For instance, if a neural network creates something we (humans) call art, then it is art—end of the matter; the artistic status of the product is clear. 11 Further, if it is the case that artificial intelligence cannot compete with the acumen of artists, how is this at all problematic? It seems like a common argument that artistic products brought about by artificial intelligence are inferior, nowhere near human craftsmanship. So, if these images categorically do not represent art, then traditional artists should have nothing to worry about. That, however, is not the case. Rather, artists are alarmed at the presence of AI in their profession, claiming it represents a unique threat to their livelihood and trade. The next argument is that the images generated by artificial intelligence are not art because these programs simply mimic the work that humans have already made. This would, indeed, present a significant problem if it were true. When artificial intelligence generates art, it analyzes internet images, generating a final
10 Mark Coeckelbergh, “Can Machines Create Art?,” Philosophy & Technology 30, no. 3 (September 24, 2016): 292–93, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0231-5. 11 Coeckelbergh, “Can Machines Create Art?”
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product based on the patterns it observes in those images. 12 Now, this does, perhaps predictably, present potential legal issues that will be discussed later in the paper, but for the moment, however, let us resolve this argument. How is this process, in which an artificial intelligence analyzes other artworks to generate its own, significantly different from how professionally trained traditional artists learn the craft? Artificial intelligence, as previously outlined, does not copy/paste the work of an artist but takes inspiration, if you want to call it that, from what it observes. 13 Are art students not instructed by use of the artworks of other traditional artists? Are we to look past the obvious inspiration that traditional artists find in the works of each other? Take, for example, Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper , which was directly inspired by Leonardo di Vinci’s own art. 14 Is Warhol’s impressive work somehow cheapened by the fact that it takes its inspiration from another work? Some would probably argue in the affirmative. Yet others, many of whom are artists themselves, say no, proclaiming it a valuable piece in art history.
Figure 1. Di Vinci, “The Last Supper” (left). Figure 2. Warhola, “The Last Supper” (right).
Interestingly, in art, there is a term called appropriation , and it sounds eerily similar to how artificial intelligence generates art. Appropriation is the concept that imagery from another work is taken and recontextualized, creating an altogether
12 “Generative Models.” 13 “Generative Models.”
14 “Andy Warhol: The Last Supper | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation,” The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation, n.d., https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/andy-warhol-the-last- supper.
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new piece of art. 15 An excellent example of appropriation, for our purposes, is the artist Richard Prince, whose famous, or, perhaps, infamous, work Untitled (cowboy) is a cropped photograph of a Marlboro advertisement, featuring the famed Marlboro Man, heroically riding his gallant steed across the American West. 16 Is this work, contrary to widely held belief, not, in fact, art at all? Such a work seems like more flagrant mimicry than any work produced by means of artificial intelligence, yet it is considered artwork.
Figure 3. Prince, “Untitled (cowboy).”
This section shall close with a quote often attributed to Pablo Picasso (though it should be noted that there appears to be no basis for this attribution). 17 Nonetheless, however, it is a quote that captures the attitudes and tactics that have been discussed in this section of the paper: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” 18
15 Tate, “Appropriation | Tate,” n.d., https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/appropriation. 16 “Richard Prince | Untitled (Cowboy) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283742.. 17 Quoteresearch, “Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal – Quote Investigator®,” March 6, 2013, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/. 18 Jason Farago, “‘Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal,’” BBC Culture , February 24, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20141112-great-artists-steal.
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4. Is using AI to make art problematic? What makes a given act or practice unethical is a considerable question and not a problem this paper aims to solve. Instead, this paper will address the ethical concerns about the use of artificial intelligence to generate art and why the author believes these concerns are unwarranted and their arguments invalid. 4.1. Artificial intelligence takes jobs? An objection of singular importance is that AI-generated art will displace artists, leaving them unemployed. Certainly, this is a fear with which any could sympathize, and it is a looming threat over other industries as automation replaces human labor. 19 However, this has regularly occurred as the United States has developed. An excellent example is telegram operators. When was the last time you asked someone what they do for a living, and they responded, “I’m a telegram operator”? One could reasonably assume never. In economics, the concept is called creative destruction , in which old methods or processes are overthrown in favor of, theoretically, more efficient or satisfactory methods or processes. 20 While this may sound callous, creative destruction allows for innovation and new opportunities. Perhaps you find this entire concept of creative destruction repulsive and believe it is a mechanism that must be curtailed or halted. You may think that, but if we are to treat art in this way, if we shield art from innovation to bulwark the prospects of artists, then we must also surely apply these same protections to all other vocations, if only in the name of fairness. If we were to take such action, if we were to freeze innovation in favor of reactionary protectionism, however, would that not also halt innovation in all
19 Steven Greenhouse, “US Experts Warn AI Likely to Kill off Jobs – and Widen Wealth Inequality,” The Guardian , February 8, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/08/ai-chatgpt- jobs-economy-inequality. 20 Sohvi Leih and David J. Teece, “Creative Destruction,” in Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks , 2018, 370–75, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_59.
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respects? Is not the more condemnable path that we might cease to improve the quality of life for future generations?
4.2. Does artificial intelligence devalue artwork? A less common, though nonetheless concerning, worry expressed by professional artists is that using artificial intelligence to generate artworks will devalue art. “Devalue” here is, as far as I can tell, applicable in two different contexts. The first is a monetary context: AI-generated works will flood the market with cheaper alternatives, causing artists to lose job prospects, relating back to the previous objection, “Artificial intelligence takes jobs?” Indeed, it does. Indeed, it will. However, the second context is an artistic one. The proposition is that artificial intelligence will cause artwork to lose its artistic value. Yet, in a study conducted by Joo-Wha Hong and Nathaniel Ming Curran, participants concluded that artwork created by artificial intelligence did not hold equivalent artistic value as those made with traditional tools by human hands. Indeed, the AI-generated art was believed to hold less overall artistic value. As written in the article, “The result from the equivalence test was non- significant… Hypothesis 2, which stated that AI-created artwork and human- created artwork are equivalent in artistic value, was not supported. The results indicate that human-created artworks had higher evaluation scores compared to AI- created artworks in both circumstances in which participants were told that attributed artworks are created by AI artists and human artists.” 21 In conducting this study, the authors outlined several variables that would determine artistic value. These were originality, degree of improvement or growth, composition, development of personal style, degree of expression, experimentation and risk-taking, aesthetic value, and successful communication of ideas. “Only the variable ‘Development of Personal Style’ showed a significant difference in answers
21 Joo-Wha Hong and Nathaniel Ming Curran, “Artificial Intelligence, Artists, and Art,” ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications 15, no. 2s (April 30, 2019): 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1145/3326337.
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between those who were told the images were created by AI artists… and human artists…. The other variables used in the scale showed non-significant results.” 22 Thus, at the least, traditionally-created art and artificial intelligence-created art are held to be equivalent in every category laid out by the authors of the paper. Additionally, if we take artificial intelligence to be merely the tool of the artist, as proposed in this paper, it is not AI-generated art that is facing objection but the inclusion of more artists into the field. These artists simply produce work like any others, and yet they are deemed anathemas because of the tools they decide to use. It also does not seem entirely clear that traditional artists will be undesirable in the future, excommunicated from their field. As Anne Ploin of the University of Oxford says, “They [AI] aren’t going to create new artistic movements on their own – those are PR stories. The real changes that we’re seeing are around the new skills that artists develop to ‘hack’ technical tools, such as machine learning, to make art on their own terms, and around the importance of curation in an increasingly data- driven world.” 23 Indeed, Ploin says that AI will not replace artists, maintaining that artificial intelligence will remain a tool for artists. “The main message is that human agency in the creative process is never going away. Parts of the creative process can be automated in interesting ways using AI (generating many versions of an image, for example), but the creative decision-making which results in artworks cannot be replicated by current AI technology.” 24 4.3. Legal complications? Now, here we come to the potential legal hurdles. As mentioned previously, there is a type of art called appropriation art. It is, essentially, artwork that aims to
22 Hong and Curran, “Artificial Intelligence, Artists, and Art.” 23 “Art for Our Sake: Artists Cannot Be Replaced by Machines – Study,” March 3, 2022, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-03-art-our-sake-artists-cannot-be-replaced-machines-study. 24 “Art for Our Sake: Artists Cannot Be Replaced by Machines – Study.”
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recontextualize pre-existing images to create a new piece of art. For decades, there has been tension between appropriation art and US copyright law, and it could certainly be said that the courts have delivered inconsistent outcomes, depending on the situation. 25 Around 1984, photographer Lynn Goldsmith took a photograph of rockstar Prince. The picture was licensed to the magazine Vanity Fair, which would later commission Andy Warhol to create a new piece of art using Goldsmith’s image. Warhol, however, used the picture to create fifteen unlicensed works that became known as the Prince Series . Following Prince’s death, Goldsmith learned that Warhol had used her photograph and initiated a lawsuit against the Warhol Foundation, resulting in a protracted legal battle. Ultimately, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with Goldsmith. This verdict was based on the determination that the Prince Series lacked new artistic character when compared to the original photograph. The Court also clarified that it made no difference whether the Prince Series was recognizable as Warhol’s work, as it believed that this would create a plagiarist advantage to celebrities. 26 So, it would seem that a precedent has been set, and it is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that courts will rein in generative artificial intelligence. However, this ruling seems to run contrary to a previous court decision in Cariou v. Prince . In this case, the chief work of concern was Richard Prince’s Canal Zone Series , a collection of paintings that incorporated photographs taken by French photographer Patrick Cariou. In 2009, Cariou brought a copyright infringement against Richard Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Lawrence Gagosian, and the catalogue publisher Rizzoli, and in March 2011, the courts ruled against Richard Prince, ordering the defendants to destroy remaining copies of the catalogue and any 25 Azmina Jasani and Emelyne Peticca, “The Tension between Copyright Law and Appropriation Art: Where Is the Line between Artistic Innovation and Stealing?,” The Art Newspaper - International Art News and Events , September 29, 2021, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/09/29/the-tension- between-copyright-law-and-appropriation-art-where-is-the-line-between-artistic-innovation-and- stealing. 26 Jasani and Peticca, “The Tension between Copyright Law and Appropriation Art: Where Is the Line between Artistic Innovation and Stealing?”
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unsold paintings that used Cariou’s photographs. However, the case was, effectively, later overturned, finding that all but five of the thirty Prince works did not violate copyright law: “We conclude that the district court applied the incorrect standard to determine whether Prince’s artworks make fair use of Cariou’s copyrighted photographs,” writes Judge B.D. Parker in the decision, which was released this morning. “We further conclude that all but five of Prince’s works do make fair use of Cariou’s copyrighted photographs. With regard to the remaining five Prince artworks, we remand the case to the district court to consider, in the first instance, whether Prince is entitled to a fair use defense.” 27 To say that copyright law is dense, then, is like saying that the Library of Alexandria contained books, but there is a central premise that glues it all together. Principally, it is that ideas are not protectable under copyright, only the expression of an idea. “The idea/expression precept is reflected in different ways depending on the type of creative work…. [i]n art and literature, two people can create a work with the same themes and subject matter, provided that newer work depicts the themes with the artist’s own specifically original imagery or words.” 28 Ultimately, whether or not AI-generated art constitutes an idea or expression has not been established, but legal precedent continues to unfold; a Washington, D.C. court recently ruled that images generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted, under the basis that only works created by a human author may fall under copyright law. 29 This ruling should be questioned, however. To start, artificial intelligence programs themselves are created and improved upon by human actors. With that in mind, the fact that these same humans may not necessarily be responsible for works or ideas that come from these 27 Brian Boucher, “ARTnews.Com,” ARTnews.com , August 30, 2013, https://www.artnews.com/art-in- america/features/richard-prince-wins-major-victory-in-landmark-copyright-suit-59404/. 28 Ned T. Himmelrich, “Copyright Protects the Expression, Not the Idea | Gordon Feinblatt LLC,” November 17, 2022, https://www.gfrlaw.com/what-we-do/insights/copyright-protects-expression-not- idea. 29 Blake Brittain, “AI-Generated Art Cannot Receive Copyrights, US Court Says,” Reuters , August 21, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art-cannot-receive-copyrights-us-court-says- 2023-08-21/.
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intelligences seems incidental, particularly when many generative artificial intelligences do require user inputs in order to form an image. Treating artificial intelligence as a tool that is conducive to the creation of art would also seem to run against the justification for this ruling. Adding a final layer to this complex issue, generative artificial intelligences learn how to generate images from works created by traditional artists. Should this not affect whether AI-generated art pieces are entitled to copyright protection? Regardless, at this point in time, it is impossible to judge how the courts will rule in these cases in the future, simply because the various court decisions have not been particularly consistent. However, currently, the use of generative AI is legal, and thus, at the present moment, there should be no ethical concerns brought about due to its relation to legality. 5. Overlooked Benefits? Thus far, this paper has been rather dour. Now, I would like to present some potential benefits to the presence of artificial intelligence in art. It seems that many traditional artists fail to see the potential utility in AI. For instance, the anatomy of a figure can now be generated in moments. Not all artists are made equal; if an artist struggles to illustrate a particular animal or character, artificial intelligence can assist in that endeavor, delivering what the artist may need to see their creative vision fulfilled. AI could also, in its generation of the piece, provide a different perspective on the work that the traditional artist could derive inspiration from. Character appearance, setting coloration, orientation – all can be modified by the traditional artist once the AI has rendered a composition. Artificial intelligence can automate tedious processes that would otherwise take a significant amount of human-borne labor. “For example, AI technology can be used to automate things like photo realistic rendering, shading, and other complex
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3D tasks. AI technology can automate tedious tasks such as coloring or texture mapping, allowing you to create your artwork faster and with less effort.” 30 Historically, as well, art has been a commodity and luxury of the rich and elite. It takes, for many, painstaking training to create something truly great, in any field, and this training has, and, arguably, still is, a luxury that everyday people cannot afford to invest in. Artificial intelligence can help narrow that gap, making art more accessible to more people. Now, anyone can be an artist with the utilization of artificial intelligence. We could reasonably speculate that this has the potential to breed more love and admiration for art, and perhaps inspire aspiring artists to pursue further training in the craft. 6. Conclusion Despite the contentious conversations surrounding artificial intelligence and its use in art, none of the arguments presented against its use seem valid. At the very least, they are perilously questionable. Not only do the images generated by artificial intelligence constitute art, but the artificial intelligence itself is not the chief agent in their production. Caution toward burgeoning technologies may very well be prudent, but we need not be fearful of art that is generated by artificial intelligence. Indeed, the arguments against its use, or, at least, the arguments presented in this paper, are perilously questionable at best. Indeed, they do not seem as bulletproof as their proponents may like to believe. Everything occurring within this cultural snapshot has happened before; the only difference is that machines are doing it this time around. In an economy like the United States, jobs are created and destroyed over time, and this has occurred many times over already. Artists take inspiration from other artists; just as artificial intelligence learns from their magnificent works. And the demand for traditionally made art still seems present in our society. For these reasons, the
30 Teodelyn, “Benefits of AI and Art Creation - Your 7 Essential Art Tips!,” New York Art Life , February 17, 2023, https://nyartlife.com/benefits-of-ai-and-art-creation-your-7-essential-ai-art-tips/.
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arguments against the use of artificial intelligence in art do not hold up to scrutiny. 31
31 As a final but important note, I would like to confer no small amount of credit and thanks to Darren Hick, whose work served as a guide for this entire paper. Hick, Darren. “A.I. Art Looks Familiar.” Unpublished Manuscript, n.d.
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Bibliography Anyoha, Rockwell. 2017. “The History of Artificial Intelligence.” Science in the News . Harvard University. August 28, 2017. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-artificial-intelligence/. “Art for Our Sake: Artists Cannot Be Replaced by Machines – Study,” March 3, 2022. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-03-03-art-our-sake-artists-cannot-be- replaced-machines-study. Brittain, Blake. “AI-Generated Art Cannot Receive Copyrights, US Court Says.” Reuters , August 21, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/legal/ai-generated-art- cannot-receive-copyrights-us-court-says-2023-08-21/. Boucher, Brian. “ARTnews.Com.” ARTnews.Com , August 30, 2013. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/richard-prince-wins-major- victory-in-landmark-copyright-suit-59404/. Coeckelbergh, Mark. “Can Machines Create Art?” Philosophy & Technology 30, no. 3 (September 24, 2016): 292–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0231-5. Copeland, B.J. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Definition, Examples, Types, Applications, Companies, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica , November 14, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence. Di Vinci, Leonardo. “The Last Supper.” Britannica, n.d. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Last-Supper-fresco-by-Leonardo-da-Vinci. Farago, Jason. “‘Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal.’” BBC Culture , February 24, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20141112-great-artists-steal. “Generative Models,” June 16, 2016. Accessed November 14, 2023. https://openai.com/research/generative-models. Greenhouse, Steven. “US Experts Warn AI Likely to Kill off Jobs – and Widen Wealth Inequality.” The Guardian , February 8, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/08/ai-chatgpt-jobs- economy-inequality.
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The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. “Andy Warhol: The Last Supper | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation,” n.d. https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/andy-warhol-the-last-supper. Hick, Darren. “A.I. Art Looks Familiar.” Unpublished Manuscript, n.d. Himmelrich, Ned T. “Copyright Protects the Expression, Not the Idea | Gordon Feinblatt LLC,” November 17, 2022. https://www.gfrlaw.com/what-we- do/insights/copyright-protects-expression-not-idea. Hong, Joo-Wha, and Nathaniel Curran. “Artificial Intelligence, Artists, and Art: Attitudes Toward Artworks Produced by Humans vs. Artificial Intelligence.” ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications 15 (July 19, 2019): 8-10. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3326337. Hunt, Tamlyn. “Here’s Why AI May Be Extremely Dangerous--Whether It’s Conscious or Not.” Scientific American , May 25, 2023. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-ai-may-be-extremely- dangerous-whether-its-conscious-or-not/. Jasani, Azmina, and Emelyne Peticca. “The Tension between Copyright Law and Appropriation Art: Where Is the Line between Artistic Innovation and Stealing?” The Art Newspaper - International Art News and Events , September 29, 2021. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/09/29/the- tension-between-copyright-law-and-appropriation-art-where-is-the-line- between-artistic-innovation-and-stealing. Leih, Sohvi, and David J. Teece. “Creative Destruction.” In Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks , 370–75, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_59. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Richard Prince | Untitled (Cowboy) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” 1989. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283742. Metz, Cade. “Who Is Making Sure the A.I. Machines Aren’t Racist?” The New York Times , June 23, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/technology/artificial-intelligence-google- bias.html.
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Pasick, Adam. “Artificial Intelligence Glossary: Neural Networks and Other Terms Explained.” The New York Times , March 27, 2023. Accessed November 14, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-glossary.html. Prince, Richard. “Untitled (Cowboy),” 1989. Quoteresearch. “Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal – Quote Investigator®,” March 6, 2013. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/. Salles, Arleen, Kathinka Evers, and Michele Farisco. “Anthropomorphism in AI.” Ajob Neuroscience 11, no. 2 (March 31, 2020): 88–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2020.1740350. Shaffi, Sarah. “‘It’s the Opposite of Art’: Why Illustrators Are Furious about AI.” The Guardian , January 23, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/23/its-the-opposite-of- art-why-illustrators-are-furious-about-ai. Stacey, Kevin. “New Report Assesses Progress and Risks of Artificial Intelligence.” Brown University, September 16, 2021. https://www.brown.edu/news/2021- 09-16/ai100. Tate. “Appropriation | Tate,” n.d. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art- terms/a/appropriation. Teodelyn. “Benefits of AI and Art Creation - Your 7 Essential Art Tips!” New York Art Life, February 17, 2023. https://nyartlife.com/benefits-of-ai-and-art- creation-your-7-essential-ai-art-tips/. Warhola, Andrew. “The Last Supper.” Huckleberry Fine Art, 1984. https://huckleberryfineart.com/exploring-the-history-and-whereabouts-of- andy-warhols-iconic-last-supper-painting/.
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Developing Double Consciousness in the Work of W.E.B. Du Bois
DEVELOPING DOUBLE-CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE WORK OF W.E.B. DU BOIS Maeby Ingram Bard College Abstract W. E. B. Du Bois conceives of race as both a social structure and an individual, psychological experience. Race is thus not an inherent or biological fact but is constructed socially and “realized” individually. In this essay I provide a review of Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness as proposed in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and then delve into aspects of Du Bois’ theory of the unconscious as it relates to the act of “merging.” To make my argument, I pull from Du Bois’ books Souls , Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920), and Dusk of Dawn (1940), tracking the evolution of Du Bois’ theories of double consciousness and the unconscious over time. I conclude, in this analysis, that consciousness includes the unconscious “habits”—that is, actions —of individuals, which also has implications for overcoming racial oppression. Introduction argue that W. E. B. Du Bois conceives of race as both a social structure and an individual, psychological experience. Race is thus not an inherent or biological fact but is constructed socially and “realized” individually. For example, when a Black American experiences discrimination in public as a result of being “recognized” as their race, racial differences come into being—it is not, then, “racial differences” that lead to discrimination, but social behaviors and classifications that lead to the social fact of “race.” Part of the realization of race in the individual, for Du Bois, is the development of “double consciousness.” Double consciousness is defined as “a concept in social philosophy referring, originally, to a source of inward ‘twoness’ putatively experienced by African Americans because of I
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their racialized oppression and devaluation in a white-dominated society.” 1 Because double consciousness is developed in the individual’s consciousness as a result of social interactions, “double consciousness” is, like race, not an inherent fact, or rather, inherent psychological state from birth, but rather, a state that results from social interaction. True consciousness, according to Du Bois, involves a merging of the two consciousnesses in a process of self-realization. This step is the spiritual or conscious side of overcoming racial oppression, which has a material existence. In this essay I provide a review of Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness as proposed in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and then delve into aspects of Du Bois’ theory of the unconscious as it relates to the act of “merging.” To make my argument, I pull from Du Bois’ books Souls , Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920), and Dusk of Dawn (1940), tracking the evolution of Du Bois’ theories of double consciousness and the unconscious over time. I conclude, in this analysis, that consciousness includes the unconscious “habits”—that is, actions — of individuals, which also has implications for overcoming racial oppression. Because white prejudice is rooted in unconscious beliefs challenging these beliefs consists in changing one’s “habits” to affect one’s conscious thoughts. Thus, a merging of the double consciousnesses is not the only step in combating racial oppression, as working with the unconscious is also necessary in the psychological—and material—project Du Bois sets forth. Developing Double Consciousness in Du Bois’ Lifelong Body of Work Du Bois first introduces the concept of double consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk . In the chapter “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” Du Bois writes the following passage, which introduces both double consciousness and the concept of the Veil:
1 John Pittman, “Double Consciousness,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/double- consciousness.
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Developing Double Consciousness in the Work of W.E.B. Du Bois
After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,––a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, ––an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 2 In this quote, Du Bois outlines the grouping of peoples of the world based on race. He defines Black Americans as “born with a veil and gifted second sight.” In the next line, Du Bois writes that the world “only lets [the seventh son] see himself through the revelation of the other world.” Important to understanding the workings of double consciousness at the individual level is an understanding of Du Bois’ concept of the Veil, which is a motif used by Du Bois to illustrate “the problem of the color line” and the experience of living as a Black American. The Veil, too, operates at an individual psychological level, with some looking out beyond the Veil, and some living under it. Perhaps the Veil is, then, what prevents true “self-consciousness” for Black Americans, as they must look through it to “measure one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” However, this brings us back to second sight: though the American world may not allow Black people to see themselves alone without a comparison of inferiority to white people, the Veil is indeed a gift , where they may see this American world as fabricating a racial hierarchy, rather than affirming any sort of innate one. The Veil may also be a gift in the sense that it is a form of self-knowledge and knowledge of the other. Further, it is also, as Du Bois writes of it in the forethought to Souls , a condition , one that Black Americans operate
2 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), 8.
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within: “need I add that I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live within the Veil?” 3 This brings us to double consciousness: “One ever feels his two-ness, ––an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” Here, we get a preliminary understanding of double consciousness as one consciousness, “an American,” and the other, “a Negro,” being at odds with one another. Double consciousness is not being able to see oneself as one or the other side; neither is it “true self-consciousness,” for the moment one may try to escape from one identity, it reaffirms itself. In fact, Du Bois argues that attempting to escape from either identity is for one, impossible, and in addition, undesirable. The struggle inherent to double consciousness is not one of attempting to escape from either identity—rather, it is one of attempting to merge the two. Du Bois writes that the Black American experiences a “longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self” which does not include a wish for either “of the older selves to be lost.” 4 He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. 5 It is clear, from this passage, that Du Bois values racial and cultural differences. On a societal level, he believes that different groups have different wells of knowledge that they may teach each other and be taught by one another. And, on an individual level, for the Black American, there exists a desire to acknowledge both one’s Blackness and one’s American-ness.
3 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , 4. 4 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , 9. 5 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , 9.
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Developing Double Consciousness in the Work of W.E.B. Du Bois
How, then, might Black Americans escape measuring their souls by the tape of the white, American world? To this problem, and in the wake of Emancipation, Du Bois writes that Black Americans must come into a process of self-realization and respect. Du Bois writes that post-Emancipation, the struggle to find place within society changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself, ––darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. 6 Escaping the mental burden of discrimination thus involves both action and mental fortitude. Part of the development of mental fortitude for Black Americans, as explained by Du Bois, is “self-realization”; seeing oneself “darkly as through a veil.” This is not mere self-realization, but realizing oneself as Black , and more specifically, as Black in America —this realization is necessary in order to prepare for the “mission” of addressing the problem of the color line and to understand where identities place one in terms of the social landscape. Thus, we can here interpret Du Bois as arguing that acknowledging one’s own double consciousness is necessary in the larger project of fighting against racial oppression. Of course, this process is not easy. Du Bois later writes, in Souls , that, From the double life every American Negro must live, as a Negro and as an American, as swept on by the current of the nineteenth while yet struggling in the eddies of the fifteenth century,––from this must arise a painful self-consciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self- confidence.… Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretense or to revolt, to hypocrisy or to radicalism. 7 In this way, double consciousness also describes a psychological struggle undergone by Black people in America.
6 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , 11. 7 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk , 135.
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From our analysis thus far, double consciousness consists of the following elements. First, it is a twoness in consciousness, one essentially Black, or African, and one American. Second, it is a striving for unity between these two consciousnesses. Third, it is a tool for self-realization and a means of measuring oneself that is not by a white American standard which is discriminatory and prejudiced. Now, we may move on to an analysis of the unconscious in Du Bois’ work—we will go over Souls and Darkwater but mainly focus on Dusk , where the most implications for double consciousness are to be found. The Unconscious: A Du Boisian Interpretation As mentioned, a large part of Du Bois’ theory of consciousness involves his identification of the unconscious as the locus of habits and forces of mind. In outlining how Du Bois conceives of this aspect of consciousness, I hope to create a clearer path for understanding his theory of double consciousness. In particular, we may come to view double consciousness as not just a social metaphor but as an experienced psychological condition. This latter interpretation of double consciousness is important to understanding Du Bois’ work—as we have seen in the language of Souls , this is how Du Bois views double consciousness. In Darkwater, Du Bois contends with white unconscious prejudice and begins to interpret racism as a system of beliefs that is ingrained by habit. These beliefs are resistant to change; there is no appeal to facts that may alter the minds of most people, and the unconscious is the greatest barrier to solving “the problem of the color line”: One cannot ignore the extraordinary fact that a world campaign beginning with the slave-trade and ending with the refusal to capitalize the word "Negro," leading through a passionate defense of slavery by attributing every bestiality to blacks and finally culminating in the evident modern profit which lies in degrading
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