I saw my own art style in an AI contest and it felt like a punch in the gut

I was scrolling through an online AI art contest last month, the kind where you vote for the best image. I stopped dead when I saw a piece that looked exactly like my own work from a series I posted on Instagram. The color palette, the messy line work, even the way the eyes were drawn. It was my style, but I didn't make it. Someone had clearly fed a model with my portfolio. I reported it to the contest mods, but they said since the AI 'created a new image,' it didn't break any rules. I felt totally hollow. That style took me years of bad sketches to develop, and now it's just a prompt for someone who spent five seconds typing. How do you even protect something like that when the rules are written for the machine, not the artist? Has anyone else had their specific artistic voice copied by an AI like this?

4 comments

4 Comments

karen_perry3812d ago

That's a brutal spot to be in. I started putting a tiny, hidden mark in my digital pieces, something only I know to look for. When I found a copycat last year, I sent the contest a side-by-side with my original showing that mark. They pulled the AI entry down after that. It's not a perfect fix, but it gives you proof it was trained on your specific work.

eric_murray268d ago

Oh that's clever, but I gotta point out something. The AI wasn't trained on just your work, it was trained on a HUGE pile of images. Your hidden mark is genius for proving copying, but the AI itself learned from millions of pictures, not just yours. Still, @thea_mitchell20, that trick is solid for catching people who directly rip you off.

thea_mitchell2012d agoMost Upvoted

Wow, that's actually a really smart move. I might have to start doing something like that too, because @karen_perry38 is right about needing proof. It just feels so helpless otherwise.

robert_anderson698d ago

My buddy who does watercolor landscapes had that happen. Someone made an AI copy of his birch tree series, even got the paper texture right. He was so mad he didn't paint for a week.