Since its invention in the 1950s, artificial intelligence has only grown in popularity. This year, AI has boomed, becoming the most talked-about tech phenomenon in 2024: an exciting development for some and a cause of concern for others. As AI becomes less of a faraway fantasy and more of an increasingly unavoidable part of everyday life, digital artists like Abbie Argo are concerned about the threats AI poses to their livelihoods.
Argo is a disabled queer artist working in digital art, acrylics, and mixed media under the name Sedangogh Studios. Their work focuses on accessibility and seeks to find humor and whimsy in the face of the challenges facing their community. Argo told Georgia Voice that while AI has a role to play in accessibility for disabled and neurodivergent people, they believe it has no place in the world of art.
“In terms of artificial intelligence as a whole, I do believe there may be a place for it from a purely utilitarian, accessibility standpoint — summarizing long pieces of literature or assisting with tone adjustment for emails, for example — but I do not believe AI belongs anywhere within the creative space,” they said. “Also, the environmental impact certainly is a cause for concern. We definitely don’t need any more ways to kill the Earth; I think we’ve already got that covered.”
According to the United Nations Environment Program, the resources necessary to power AI take a serious toll on the environment. The data centers that house AI require copious amounts of water and electricity to run, as well as critical minerals and rare elements that are often unsustainably mined.
Argo said they “absolutely” fear AI will threaten their work as a digital artist, and that fear is not unfounded. The indie IFC Films/Shudder film “Late Night with the Devil,” a horror movie released earlier this year but filmed before the WGA and SAG strikes, received flak for using AI to produce three still images used in the film instead of paying a graphic designer.
Beyond taking jobs away from artists, the proliferation of AI, Argo says, has already changed the culture around art, regarding the work of artists as even less valuable than it already was.
“I believe that the landscape [of art] has already changed [because of AI], even in the brief time that AI in this capacity has been available to the general public,” they said. “Capitalism already subjugates art as nonessential, despite it being fundamental in every aspect of life. By removing the effort that comes with creation, I fear that this will create a confirmation bias of that ideology, further removing art and those that create it from the respect and appreciation they deserve.”
This is ironic, given that the training of AI depends on the work of real-life artists posted online — something Argo finds “insulting.”
“I believe AI will threaten my livelihood by sourcing my own work and the work of so many other creatives who have shared their work online — something that, at this juncture, is essentially required to make any sort of income as an artist,” they said. “AI co-opts years of practice, stylizing, and technical ability from these artists and amalgamates it into something that is fundamentally lesser than any of the individual artists it stole from could have created on their own.”
While AI doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, we can still support human artists. Argo recently ran a digital portrait sale to benefit the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, an organization assisting disabled people during natural disasters like the recent Hurricane Helene, and regularly does custom portraits.
Follow Abbie Argo on Instagram @sedangogh or online at sedangogh.com.