Have you seen the latest AI and machine learning trends setting TikTok and Instagram thumbs tapping, swiping and re-posting like crazy? It’s based around creating your very own Barbie Doll style character complete with accessories and packaging. It’s created through ChatGPT with some really simple steps, and that is a cause for concern among creatives. Substituting the freedom to think for yourself based on how YOU feel is vitally important for not only creating, but it’s what makes us human! Constantly turning to our AI-generating sidekick whenever we hesitate over an idea or information, strips us of our confidence and leads down the road to dependency, instead of discovery! So go and be creative, and don’t be afraid to get things wrong! Don’t be scared to make mistakes because you might just find something new and wonderful in the process!
In today’s blog it’s my goal to learn more about why AI is bad for society, and I’ll do that by exploring how AI is disrupting the creative industries, consider how ethical implications are impacting artists, what this means for the future of digital design jobs, and how humans will always be a larger creative force than any form of technology.
How AI is Disrupting the Creative Industries
There have been many controversies surrounding AI, from Amazon’s AI recruitment bias, to Tesla’s AI autopilot issues and unfortunately art is without exception. The recent Studio Ghibli controversy has sparked a lot of creative backlash, as has the Barbie Doll AI trend currently doing the rounds on TikTok and Instagram. So let’s explore why these trends have created a cause for concern in the Digital Art world.
Firstly, the wheel is already turning on jobs that AI will replace, as we have seen a shift in factory work, data entry clerks and telemarketers being shut out in favour of live chat automation. We also know that automation is being implemented more and more in the Creative Arts, as Music, Graphic Design and Gaming Industries have all been hit with significant layoffs as it has become easier than ever to mimic professional-grade content. I use the word mimic because when you use AI to create anything, typically it’s because you are in a position where you are unable to create something of that standard, naturally. AI may be able to generate a base level of ability, but it is still missing the crucial ingredient; experiential competency.
A great analogy for this would be asking a tour guide who is limited in what services can be recommended through their company’s printed materials and brochures, versus asking a native who has worked in the area, and knows the very best places to go for food, transport, nightlife, museums and everything in between. You still gain a solid insight from the tour guide’s professional training, but natives will have an unmatched authenticity to what they know. This contrast can also be applied to industry expertise, as the difference between mimicry and mastery is knowledge depth.
Will AI Replace Graphic Designers?
In a word, no. There will be creative positions that are streamlined and adapted to AI-management roles for Content Creation as a time and money-saving measure. Companies that feel the need to reshape their business structure to include AI over designers should clearly be avoided. If employers believe that AI can replicate your contribution to their company, you may need to rethink your prospects as a designer, and pursue more reputable companies.
One of the largest Video Game Developers, Activision (makers of Call of Duty) recently admitted they are using generative AI in their latest game. The franchise has generated over $30bn in revenue since inception back in 2003. It begs the question: As a business, why would you cut corners in an attempt to save time and money after being such a driving force over the last 20 years? Profit margins are more important to stakeholders than creative integrity. That’s why. And it’s awful to see.
By prioritising profit margins in these companies, the knock-on effect will negatively impact the next generation of experts if they are unable to land Junior roles and gain valuable experience and insight within their chosen industry.
Instead, entry-level roles will be ‘reskilled’ away from creative control and focus more on AI management and AI collaboration to maximise output for those stakeholders and their idolised profit margins. This contradicts the whole point of the creative industry in the first place. Or rather, it focuses on the ‘industry’ rather than prioritising the ‘creative’ element of the sector. Junior roles are under serious threat of becoming ‘algorithm management’, rather than learning the field, working with clients and gathering vital industry insights. Forcing creative experts to become problem-solving critical thinkers certainly sounds like the quickest way to extinguish an employee’s passion to create.
Leveraging AI for Employee Support and Career Growth
Where I can understand that automation could be used for repetitive tasks such as batch editing or for auto-response messages, the issue we currently face is that we are feeding the machine too much of the workload. AI needs to be tuned to cater for auxiliary tasks, instead of handling the principal tasks which they are currently being faced with.
Employers have a duty to limit their dependency on AI based on how creative their business is. Ensuring job safety through self-regulation is essential, instead of streamlining all creative aspects to save time and increase profit margins for stakeholders. Going ahead with as much AI as possible will surely strip the heart out of any creative role, turning creative experts into data-driven delegates.
And we must not forget the self-employed and the start-up businesses, as that’s where all businesses sprout from. These grassroot businesses need all the help they can get to grow their creative passion into a fully fledged business model and they can’t compete with the machine-learning of larger scale companies, so they may miss out on opportunities. Integrity should always come first, and using AI to generate content strips away the essence of being able to create something from nothing. Bringing a completely original idea to life that others can relate to is a wonderful experience.
How Ethical Implications are Impacting Artists
AI is programmed with loose fitting parameters to attempt to stop plagiarism. OpenAI explained they “Added a refusal which triggers when a user attempts to generate an image in the style of a living artist.” but also accept that wider styles such as studios are not refused, which is what sparked the Ghibli controversy earlier in the year.
The reality is there is a grey area surrounding the ethical responsibility of how AI finds source materials. Currently AI is programmed to trawl millions if not billions of sources online as references. Every image, dataset or text that is being fed into AI are being logged, and fine tuned based on user feedback. For the corporations that are backing AI, this is important while they harvest as much data as they possibly can for the purpose of optimisation. Once they have a set standard for AI and machine learning, expect more industry changes, such as premium subscriptions for services. This is where the house of cards falls down for companies who are currently trying to save time and money with their over-dependent use of AI. You cannot substitute hard work.
The main issue with regulating such a broadly used tool, is the costs associated. AI usage is currently considered a grey area. This means that the lines are blurred between what is considered copyright infringement and what is legal. As AI is globally accessible, each territory will need to find a way to regulate their adoption of the tool. This will cost a fortune to create a system to log artwork ownerships and copyright of creative works. Graphic Software Developers are not currently interested in regulating AI integration into their software. In fact the reverse is true, as they are encouraging AI features as more reason to subscribe to their services, rather than take a responsible role in resolving the issue looming overhead.
Generative AI tools have developed options for artists to opt out and be excluded from training datasets, but this should not be the framework for moving forward. There should be an opt in option, as artists should absolutely not need to jump through hoops to avoid having their work stolen, copied, exploited or mimicked by machine learning.
The Music Industry had a moment similar in the early 2000’s by the disruption caused by music piracy and music copyright. There are clearly parallels between both creative industries.
The disruption was so significant that the Music Industry took several years to react and work towards a competent solution. The likes of Spotify and iTunes worked for the most part, but the mp3 boom in the early noughties is certainly similar to the disruption experienced by digital designers currently.
How AI is Damaging the Environment
We’ve spoken about the effects that AI have on copyright, but we also need to consider the environmental damage that is occurring. There are many AI generators, each with thousands of requests each day.
To give you a rough idea of the number of users, around 10% of the population of the UK use AI each day, with approximately 30% of the US population using the service a few times per week.
These requests are handled by data centres with huge amounts of high end electronics each requiring exorbitant levels of water cooling.
“AI is projected to reach 4.2 – 6.6 billion cubic meters in 2027, which is more than the total annual water withdrawal of 4 – 6 Denmark or half of the United Kingdom… GPT-3 needs to “drink” (i.e., consume) a 500ml bottle of water for roughly 10 – 50 medium-length responses, depending on when and where it is deployed.” - S. Ren, University of California, Riverside.
Data Centres typically house 5,000 servers in a physical space of 10,000 square feet (minimum), and the amount of Data Centres has risen from approximately 500,000 in 2012, to over 8 million in 2025.
What Needs to Change:
Tech firms need to take on the responsibility to ensure they are carbon positive, but also need to be contributing positive action to offset the huge water footprints that the high performance computers and servers rely so heavily on. The harsh reality is that data centres can negatively impact local water resources, particularly in regions where electricity is cheap, but drinking water is scarce.
Energy efficiency, water consumption, resource extraction and other environmental, economic and societal issues need to be resolved if machine learning is to be sustainable.
Speaking of sustainability, we continue our pledge to fight the good fight with our print materials!
Why is AI So Popular Now?
The speed of how AI has not only exploded in popularity since 2023, but how fast the technology has developed is frightening, and is a major problem as the Industry is left reacting to the problem rather than getting ahead of the issue. The machine-learning is still considered to be in its developmental phase, where results are experimental, but it is clearly improving.
Many tech firms are adopting AI as a time-saver for their customers, or as a super-convenient way to complete tasks without using the processing power of your mind, even to the point of making it the sole focus of advertising campaigns.
Other firms believe that they would be able to reduce working hours to a four day (or even three day) working week, offering additional compensation to their workforce, but realistically, the concept would be used to reduce the workforce where necessary. The option to hand pick team members who have transferable skills and offer redundancy to those who do not. Having read articles on this perspective, knowing the greed of capitalism along with the ruthlessness of business, I’m positive that productivity is the priority, and not a work-life balance. I’ve had corporate roles, and I’d avoid them like the plague if you enjoy your work-life balance and enjoy being valued by your employer!
Will We Become Dependent on Even More Subscription Paywalls?
Once AI inevitably reaches the standard where they no longer fuel nightmares with their results, they may convert into freemium vs. premium models that we’ve witnessed in other digital markets. This means that companies that have been relying on AI instead of creative personnel, will be forced to rethink their approach as subscription fees eat into profit margins, and the individual using AI may hit paywalls or be forced to watch adverts to continue using the service. Adding to the existing subscriptions that the average person pays for, and the fees start scaling.
How About a Subscription Service That Works More in Favour of the Artist?
If we return to the Music Industry for a moment, the issue with copyright was for the most part resolved by streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. There was a time period where artists were exploited, and that’s the parallel we are currently seeing, but there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps there is a software service solution similar to Spotify, but for Digital Art. The premise would be that royalties are collected when a member’s art is used or referenced through AI, allowing artists to earn some revenue from usage, if they have allowed content to be shared through their service provider. I could envision Blockchain being useful, where the original artwork has meta tags, so can be traced back to the owner, and Google ‘image search’ has similar functionality to search by image, so the tools are available to be developed and tailored, but there would also need to be a database of contacts, artworks and a history of receipts to track current ownership and licensing on artwork. It’s far easier said than done, but surely there’s a tech firm willing to speak with studios, design teams and encourage freelance individuals to sign up to build up a network of portfolios and ensure that royalties are paid to artists.
The Future of Digital Design Jobs
Businesses need to re-tune their expectations with AI and the intended workload it is being used for. Measures need to be implemented by employers to ensure job security is paramount, and that career growth is still a prospect for employees. While reducing staff may appear to be a quick fix, eliminating creative positions to cut costs will create significant challenges if future tech shifts or AI advancements demand innovative human perspectives.
Professionally, you simply cannot rest on short-term gains, particularly when the next tech disruption could massively impact your team or your workload if you rely heavily on volatile tech such as AI.
You may see short term success, and may cause a stir on Social Media when you adopt trends such as the Studio Ghibli or Barbie Doll trend, but by constantly creating AI generated content, you lose sight of the essence of your own art style.
Returning to the Ghibli controversy, not only are the concerns limited to the use of copyrighted materials, but also the soul of the content. AI-generated content loses authenticity, artist innovation, intent and the core of what makes art special. If you begin to see Ghibli-style artwork drenched all over Social Media, it waters down the integrity of the art style and in time becomes sterile. The essence of what makes artwork so special is how it resonates with an infatuated audience. How a community has the patience and the excitement when the next special moment is released from their favourite creator.
You simply cannot fake passion. The creative vision and the out-of-the-box thinking cannot be made artificially. The emotional attachment of culture, music and visual elements and the ability to tie it all together with such harmony. The irony, the sarcasm, the endearing comment which came from a loving place. The camaraderie, the showmanship, the nuance, the symbolism, the body language. The care, the love. The soul. All elements that make being human stand out. There’s nothing quite like it, and there never will be.
There’s a long way to go in the battle to make AI sustainable, and right now it seems as though obtaining data and making money is a bigger priority for the companies involved. We’ve heard that before, the whole ‘profits before people’ mentality and it never ends well. That’s why we are creators afterall!
And if you are a business looking to use AI for your graphics, hopefully I’ve convinced you to contact a graphic designer for your branding needs instead. Not sure where to start? Check out our guide on how to write a Design Brief!
