A client's comment made me rethink my whole approach to AI image generation

I was showing a mockup for a book cover I made using an AI art tool, and the client asked, 'Did you credit the original artists it was trained on?' I had no good answer. That was about four months ago. Since then, I've started paying for a specific subscription to a service that only uses licensed and ethically sourced training data, even though it costs me $30 more per month. It's slower and has fewer style options, but I can't ignore the copyright issue anymore. How do other designers handle this without breaking the bank or their own rules?

4 comments

4 Comments

amy_anderson1mo ago

Man, that question would stop me cold too. Good on you for actually changing your process, that's real integrity. The cost and slower speed must be a pain, but sleeping at night matters. I wonder if there's a middle ground, like using the ethical tool for final pieces and roughing out ideas elsewhere. It's a tough spot for sure.

william_garcia1mo ago

Yeah, sleeping at night is the whole point, isn't it? Reminds me of a client who wanted me to use these cheap, sketchy pipes to save a few bucks. I told him straight up I wouldn't put my name on that job. It costs more to do it right, and it takes longer, but you don't get callbacks at 2 AM for a flood. Some things just aren't worth the shortcut.

uma_williams1mo ago

Ugh, that client's question hits hard. I had a similar wake-up call last year and my cheap workaround was so bad it makes @william_garcia's pipe story sound classy. I tried manually tracking down artists to credit, which took forever and I still felt slimy. Now I just eat the cost for the clean data, but man, my budget hates it. Is there any tool that's both ethical and doesn't need a separate loan?

gracec161mo ago

Honestly, I'm gonna push back on this a little. That whole "you didn't credit the original artists" thing feels like a guilt trap that doesn't really hold up in practice. Most of these tools aren't directly copying anyone's work, they're learning patterns like a human artist does by looking at thousands of pieces. And @uma_williams with that tracking down artists idea, that's a rabbit hole that never ends because you can't credit every single image a model has ever seen, it's just not realistic. If we hold AI to a different standard than we hold human inspiration, we're setting ourselves up for rules nobody can actually follow.