Can we talk about the AI art booth at the Portland tech fair?

I was at the Portland tech fair last weekend and saw a booth where you could get a portrait drawn by an AI in 30 seconds for $5. The guy running it said the AI was 'trained on the whole internet', which made me wonder whose art it actually learned from without paying them. How do we even start to make rules for something like that when the tech moves so fast?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaretramirez1d ago

Trained on the WHOLE internet? That's literally every artist's work for free.

rowanhernandez1d ago

The whole internet for five bucks a portrait is a wild thing to say out loud.

aaronsullivan1d ago

Saw a similar setup at a county fair last month. The trick is asking them to name the specific data set or license. If they say it's "open source" or "public domain," that's usually code for scraped artwork. Most of these operators fold when you press for details.