By Molly Crabapple
Publication Date: 2026-04-12 11:00:00
IIn 2026, it’s easy to see why generative AI is bad. The Internet has nicknamed his droppings “Slop.” The CEOs of AI companies prance around the stage like supervillains, boasting that their products will eliminate large chunks of labor. Generative AI requires sacrificing the world’s water to power its hideous data centers. Across the world, chatbots are fueling schizophrenic delusions and urging teens to kill themselves — all while turning users’ brains into mush.
Who could have predicted that? Artist, that’s who.
I am an artist and 2022 was the year I first saw counterfeits of my work. It wasn’t necessarily my job. Instead, it was a strange facsimile, as if made by a none-too-talented teenager under sedation, all my lines and marks memorized. I quickly learned the reason for this. AI image generators had scraped my entire work from the internet and fed it to their bots to eliminate it as a product. And it wasn’t just my work; it was everyone’s business. Billions of…