Finders Keepers - My Subconscious Garden

Annabel Kajetski

2023

140 x 61cm

Oil on Canvas

This painting is made with found material. The canvas is made by another person than me. I think someone had started it a just a bit, but it would have been thrown away. I painted on top of it with old, partly dried up paints, that my friend had donated to me.  

Programs that mine the internet for training their AI, use photographs from artists websites without their permission. I learnt this through discussions with a lawyer, and she stated that artists should have a text under each picture on their website, that says: “this work cannot be used as material for an AI”. But it might not work. The pictures might still be used for training purposes. Also, companies that train their AI do not have to tell anyone how they do it.  

There are a lot of lawsuits, where artists have stated that AI generated pieces are noticeably in their artistic style. 

My painting “Finder Keepers - My Subconscious Gareden” is something AI can't do. AI does not have a consciousness (yet). But the first viewer of this painting is a program using AI.  Not people at an exhibition. This, because when I make a proposal with an uploaded photograph to a gallery or museum, an AI would mine that photograph before the jury even sees it.