Have Emily Carr University of Art and Design Issue a Statement Against AI

This month, the ECUAD instagram and website made a post promoting faculty member Jess MacCormac’s AI “art” as featured on the cover of a German magazine. AI, as many people have noted since the medium has gained popularity this year, is incredibly unethical towards artists. AI pulls from sources across the web and produces “new” images by combining and averaging the intellectual property of other creators. There is no way to revoke consent for the use of one’s art in these generators, and oftentimes the distinct styles of popular creators are reproduced.

Regarding plagiarism, ECUAD’s website claims: “ Plagiarism is the intentional misrepresentation of someone else’s work as one’s own.” Yet when stolen images are used within a faculty member’s work, their plagiarism is celebrated. Though the work is transformative, consent is not given by the original creators and there is no credit received by those who are feeding the image generator. At the very least, I feel that this is level 1 plagiarism, if not level 3 (depending on the number of images Midjourney ‘learned’ from and based only on ECUAD’s guidelines).

The rise of AI has threatened to replace real people within multiple creative industries, and I feel that this is something ECUAD should be keen to combat, seeing as they are training the humans entering impacted industries. The goal of this petition is both to create a representation of the distaste for AI within this institution, and to have ECUAD issue a written statement in opposition to AI. This statement may be posted to the ECUAD website and/or social media, and it must acknowledge the harm that AI is causing to animation, illustration, fine art, design, as well as countless other creative fields. This statement must also promise not to promote AI works on the website, social medias, or any exhibitions based in the school. The ethics of this issue are important to countless artists and may be a factor to those planning to study at this university, as well as those planning to exhibit at the school.

If you are a student or faculty member who is worried about losing your career to AI, against plagiarism, or just interested in work created by human artists, please consider signing and spreading this petition. Thank you.