Can artists and AI coexist?

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0:57something i learned from doing an early ai experiment kind of back in 2015-16 was that just like any tools if the intention behind them is not correct or supportive of the artist then And the tools that you're using won't be either. Chantal Martin is an artist, performer and philosopher. Her work sits at the intersection of art and technology. And after nearly a decade of incorporating AI into her work, she's learned some valuable lessons. I think the more of us that ask ourselves, how are we finding our way in life, the better kind of outcomes we have. because, you know, I'm finding my way in life through this language of words and lines and drawing and connecting.

1:48If you're finding your way in life through stealing and being egotistical, that doesn't lead anywhere good. It doesn't manifest good in your body, in your relationships, in your, yeah, maybe in your bank account, but at the end of the day, like, why are we all here?

2:08Chantelle's art often features bold graphic line drawings. Her work has scaled gallery walls and has traced paths across Times Square. She's collaborated with iconic brands like Tiffany & Co, as well as leading artists like Kendrick Lamar. On this episode, Chantelle and I talk about creative control in the age of AI, how AI can unlock new potential for artists, and why we need AI-enabled solutions to protect artists' IP. I'm Rana El-Khalyubi, and this is Pioneers of AI, a podcast taking you behind the scenes of the AI revolution.

2:54Hi, Chantel. Thank you for joining us on the show. Thanks for having me. So first, I want to congratulate you for being honoured with an MBE for your contribution to arts and charity. And for our listeners who are not familiar with what an MBE is, it's member of the Order of the British Empire. And it's a pretty big deal, right? It sounds quite serious. It's basically a award that you get now from King Charles III, you know, before it would have been Queen Elizabeth. And, you know, it's something which in the UK and the Commonwealth is, you know, it's a serious deal. You know, not a lot of people get it.

3:27And I'm, you know, very grateful and honored for this because I haven't lived in the UK for 22 years. So to be recognized as an artist for the work that I've done with the arts and charity, you know, for me, that's pretty amazing. People in America keep congratulating me on my MBA. I might keep telling them it's not an MBA. You know, you can buy an MBA, but you can't buy an MBA. Yeah, that's amazing. Very cool. Congratulations. And then you and I share the MIT Media Lab connection. Yes, we do. Yeah. And you have this amazing mural that you did for the lab. What inspired you to do that mural? And also, what was your experience like at the lab?

4:06I've always found the lab to be this very interesting playground for adults, right? So I love my time there. So I was a visiting scholar at MIT Media Lab, I think for 2013-14. And I was in a lab run by Sepp Kavmar called Social Computing. And essentially, we were, you know, an oddball group of people from different disciplines that came together to help build social systems that had benefit to the world. So we were building Montessori schools, looking at different types of maps, looking at parks. And for me, you know, it was a really amazing time as an artist to be there and be surrounded by people with such obsessions from different kind of places and perspectives.

4:47You know, I, I drew that mural at the lab and, you know, after I drew it, I was like, I wonder how long the combined amount of line in this mural is. And, you know, my friend next to me was like, Chantel, I can tell you, you know, how high is the wall? How long is the wall? How thick is the pen that you used? And then she calculated, okay, the combined amount of line in that drawing is about 1 ,664 feet long. And I was like, okay, thank you. So, you know, for me to be in a place like that where you can think out loud and there's someone with perhaps the skills and the expertise to answer those questions.

5:25That was amazing. Yeah, I love that. So I want to give our listeners kind of a little bit of an idea of the art you create. So how do you best describe your art and just bring it to life for us? It depends who I'm speaking to, but in general, I just like to say I draw. I would mostly describe it as mostly black and white, not always, but mostly black and white, bold line work at different scales. And there's a lot of space and it's playful and whimsical, but sometimes in there there's deep, serious phrases. Let's take Chantel's mural at the MIT Media Lab. It fully covers a huge wall and the wall is all white with black painted lines that could be a map or maybe a landscape of rolling hills.

6:13But some of the sections have faces, so perhaps the hills are bodies? It's fascinating to look at, and there are fragments of text. They're familiar words, but somehow mysterious, like this day, one day, someday, we can. and essentially I like to say that I'm a philosopher before I'm an artist you know so philosophers back in the day were people who thought about things observe things question things and so that's what I do I observe things I think about things for a long time I question them and then the byproduct of that is me kind of going out there in the world and creating these different projects that take different mediums and forms.

7:01And it could be the form of an installation or the form of a walking path or the form of a collaboration or product or a project. So, you know, I like to say I'm essentially someone that thinks about things and I'm using drawing as a medium to bring that thinking into a place where we can all see it. Are there some recurring themes that you like to explore in your art? You know, the themes and perhaps change as I change, but there's an underlining theme and current of permission, you know, in interweaving permission within the work in places where people don't need permission. But these things give benefit to people.

7:39So, you know, walking, drawing, breathing, talking, being still, doing nothing. These are themes like I like to incorporate within the work. And you don't need permission to any of that. But by me creating it, that perhaps re-inspires something within you. You know, I notice in a lot of your art, you kind of incorporate lines and, you know, bold drawings, but also faces. And I've spent like 25 years of my career studying faces. And how do you use, yeah, how does the face express emotion in the world? And yours are, you know, it's line drawings of faces, but the eyes have like different gazes. And I'd love to hear what inspires you to bring in kind of that human element into your art.

8:23It's interesting because, you know, when I look back at my work, I can see that there's, you know, kind of characters or phrases or landscapes that are connected to people or places. and the faces are very interesting because I didn't really draw faces in the way that I do today until I moved to America so you know they're they're very much this like American chapter within this body of my work and before them you know before moving to America I lived in Japan and and the faces or characters that I drew were you know kind of more formed that had bodies more detailed. And then when I moved to America, they kind of became much lighter and less.

9:05And a lot of the faces that I draw today is just four lines, you know, nose, mouth, eye, eye. And I think it's really fascinating with just four lines, you can create such expression, such personality. And so, you know, to answer your question, I think the faces I do today are very tied to this American chapter. So if I perhaps leave America, maybe they will disappear or turn into something else. But I am also always fascinated by how four lines have such expression. And once someone pointed out, you know, you know, Chantel, like, why are your faces always pointing left? And I was like, oh, they don't, you know, and then I look back at this big mural that I did at the time.

9:48I'm like, oh, they are all facing left. And I think it's because they're facing me. You know, as I draw, Or when I draw those eyes, they're looking at me. And so there's that sense of they're keeping their tabs on me. You know, are you being real? Are you being true? Are you being you? And then there's that occasional conversation where they're not looking at me. They're looking at each other. And they're kind of, you know, perhaps discussing all sorts of different sorts of themes. That's amazing. So fascinating. I would love to hear more about your journey. You said you grew up in a very different world than the one you're in today.

10:26So tell us a little bit about your journey becoming an artist. Yeah. So where does that start? I think we all start as artists. I love to ask people when I do conferences or talks, if you can draw, put your hand up. And it's always amazing, even in a creative environment, people are very hesitant to put their hand up. And it's like, how can you not do something as an adult that you did naturally as a two, three, four, five year old? You know, we're all born as artists because it's a way that it helps us, you know, that natural young artist is able to collaborate with the world. You know, it calibrates themselves with the world.

11:07It's a way that they can extract and connect their head to their heart, to their hand, to the outside world. And there's so many benefits to drawing and line making. and so we're all given this gift as children to be artists not all of us need to do it within our careers professionally but I think you know we're all born that way for a reason and then over time you know your teacher or your parent says you know that's not how you do it and that's not how you do it or or is that this and then they think no it's not that and then you know you start to believe that you can't and someone else can and I think for myself you know I never got to that phase where I'm like, oh, I can't.

11:46You know, I've definitely had those moments later in life, but for the most part, early on, you know, I drew because it was a mechanism that allowed me to be okay with the world that I was in that I didn't have control over. You know, I think sometimes as a young person, if you don't have control over your environment, you can draw and those drawings or words or things that you imagine give you agency over yourself and your environment. And so that's kind of how I started in my earlier age. And also, you know, being different, I didn't look like anyone that I grew up around. You know, I grew up in a very kind of white working class council estate in London.

12:30And no one was like really brown with an Afro like me. So already I look very different. And so drawing was this place where I'm like, well, I can be me here and figure out me. And that eventually led me to art school. And that was amazing because you get to art school and actually difference is celebrated. And then that one path led to another and eventually moved to Japan and then America. But all along the way, I was always drawing, always writing. Never knew at that time, even today, I think it's bizarre that I'm an artist. Why? Why is it bizarre? Why? Because I never imagined this path for myself, you know, and I think sometimes when you're putting one foot in front of the other, you can only see right in front of you.

13:17It's like when I'm drawing a mural, you know, I'm just seeing the one line in front of me. And it's only when you step back and reflect that you see the bigger picture. And I think, you know, the way that I've led my life is by pulling that one foot in front of the other, only really seeing that one line in front of me, not knowing that when you step back, you're an artist you know you're just saying hey I want to say yes to yes and no to no and you know I'm going to do what it takes to survive to get to this next line this next foot this next kind of path but you don't know what that path looks like until you have that moment to reflect and and it's the same today I don't know what the next five ten years look like for me you know yes I'm an artist but what does that really mean to me what do I want to make what do I want to create?

14:03What do I have the freedom to do as an artist now? Chantal's work is rooted in the physical world, but technology has pretty much always been an important layer to her art. We'll get to how after a short break. Stay with us.

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15:25so you've always been at the forefront of technology and art and we're going to dive specifically into ai but before we do that you were a video jockey in japan way back when you know people didn't really understand what that was you did a collaboration with google i want to hear more about these experiences and how do you see technology's role in your artistry it's interesting i've always been naturally inclined to explore technology you know as a kid you know i'm someone taking my my you know nes apart with screwdrivers and like looking at all the pieces and pulling it back together and you know being younger like growing up in london you know kind of that then going to drum and bass raves and you know kind of being in awe about the the sound systems and then when i moved to japan i became a visual jockey as you mentioned and you know a visual jockey in the sense that you're creating the visuals for the space.

16:22You know, a disc jockey, a DJ is creating the music, a visual jockey is creating the visuals. And, you know, in the early 2000s, living in Japan, I got very interested in how I can take drawing and use technology as a medium for visuals in clubs and avant-garde spaces. And through kind of natural collaborations, you know I would be working with circuit benders people who are making their own instruments I'd be working with people who coded and you know made music with static and I would be drawing and using mixers and software to create layers and you know kind of fading in between and layering dvds with my drawing and you know for me it was just kind of a natural way of exploring drawing as a medium, but having technology kind of layer it and add to it and kind of give it motion and movement.

17:19I'd be drawing live. So I'd be drawing on a Wacom tablet. And actually I was one of the first people to alpha test the Bluetooth Wacom tablets in a nightclub in Japan. And so I'd be drawing into a software like Sketchbook Pro or Photoshop or something like that. And that drawing is influenced and kind of persuaded by the audience and the people in that room. Amazing. So let's talk about how AI specifically can amplify art. And, you know, there's a lot of concern around how AI can be a threat to artists, and we'll get to that in a minute. But I also see a lot of potential in how artists can harness AI to, say, for example, bring this interactive element and whatnot.

18:05How do you think about the role AI could play in art in general, but also your artwork specifically? You know, I think with AI, it's definitely, it's an addition to a toolkit, you know, it's a tool. I think, you know, where we start to get into tricky waters is, you know, what's the fine print behind that toolkit? What's the intention behind that toolkit? But I think there is so much potential there, but we need to make sure what's behind the hood is, you know, transparent, accountable, responsible, ethical, and all of those things. I want to double click on your use of the word intention, because I think that's a very interesting framing for how to use AI, not just in art, but in general.

18:51What do you mean by that? Maybe you can give us an example of how that intention can matter and be in alignment or misalignment. Yeah. So when I draw, you know, I love that when I create these large drawings, they feel good. You know, it doesn't feel like they were forced. It doesn't feel like they were coerced. It just feels like it was meant to be. And I think it feels like that because there was good intention behind the creation. And so intention is almost like the glue or the fabric that makes something work. And if that glue is good, the work is good. If that glue is a little bit icky and a little bit misguided, then what comes out is going to be a little bit icky and a little bit misguided.

19:42If that intention is about greed and ego, then, you know, kind of the product of that is going to be reflective of that. And so I think the intention is almost like those kind of emotional directives that have been put into the fabric of the product, the tool, the platform, the company, etc. That's like fascinating. I love that visual. I'm going to, that's going to be one of my takeaways from this interview for sure. So I want to kind of anchor some of that conversation in the project you referenced where I think this was about a few years ago where you I guess you trained a model on your art um tell us more about why you embarked on this project what was the outcome and I know that you know there was disagreements at the end so just walk us through that story yeah so a few years ago you know I think uh 2012 13 I was very interested in this idea of you know as an artist most of my drawings start with a skeleton they start with a DNA and this DNA is the structure of the drawing.

20:50And I was very curious, for example, is there an underlining blueprint that I am fulfilling as an artist that is unspoken to me? And so, you know, 2015, 16, I met a couple of people who were at MIT at the time and they were like, well, you know, we can, you know, train a model. We can deep learn a model on your art, essentially what I did is I drew, I think, 400 different DNAs. And then over a period of time, every day I filled in a random one. And after we had those drawings, my collaborators would manually trace the different elements, be like, this is a face, this is a landscape, this is a phrase and then we created some new dna's outside of that set and had a robot arm kind of with this trained model fill in the blanks the idea that this would all work towards a show you know we're going to have a show at a gallery in boston but then i find out that my collaborators are you know using this robot arm to do drawings using the output on t-shirts and canvases other things and like wait what are you doing like that's not a part of the show what are you doing that for and the response i got was well we own the output because we trained the model and i'm like what like right but the day the input data is yours right you know the output is a derivative of the input.

22:24But at that time in 2016, no one really kind of had a president or kind of, you know, AI wasn't really a big word then. And so my collaborators went to the Berkman Center, the cyber law clinic at Harvard, got two lawyers on their side to try to come after me to say that now they own the output because they trained the model. And so, you know, this was such a blind sight for me because I'd been someone that had been collaborating for over 20 years and had never come across any individual or collaborator with like such ego in the sense that, okay, well, we did this now, we own this because we want to, you know, set some name for ourselves.

23:11And it's such a like icky way to do it so this is where that kind of descriptor comes from earlier of like the intentions of of the people or the intention the tools and and those intentions being transparent or ethical or accountable and essentially in the end we ended up getting a license to say that you know i owned every all the the the inputs so therefore i owned the outputs and it was a derivative but like just that couple of years where someone was almost taking your livelihood instead of being a good collaborator and seeing how far collectively can we take this. So, you know, that distilled in me this idea of like, if as an artist, if you're going to use any platform, kind of any tool with AI and you're using your livelihood, AI, your IP, your artwork, your identity as a training model, you need to be very clear of the intentions of the people, the platform that you're working with and make sure that those are transparent and accountable and visible because, you know, there are a lot of bad actors out there who unfortunately are just trying to get ahead, set a name for themselves, get a job in a private sector, etc.

24:29You referenced this story and it's almost a decade ago and in a very interesting way, the same issues around attribution still exist. And so I want to kind of dive into some of this. So I'd love to get your thoughts on OpenAI's image generator. Users are able to generate images in specific art styles like Studio Ghibli, for example. And, you know, that created a lot of controversy online. Some people thought it was no big deal. And a lot of other people felt like it really did plagiarize these artists' works. What are your thoughts on that? you know my thoughts on that it comes back again about the you know the intention seems to be the theme of this but you know when you look at open ai's intentions beforehand you know it's like when facebook you know build these tools and then later you find out that all of your data's been stolen and or you've basically given it away and you were never given the opportunity to opt out you know but they could have built it from the beginning and built in kind of responsible mechanisms.

25:32And I think it's the same with open AI. You know, when we started to use this technology, now everyone's forgotten the rules that existed already. You know, we've forgotten that, you know, when you go through academia, any kind of paper or book or thesis that you write, you, you know, you have footnotes and you give attribution and you credit your sources. And, you know, suddenly we've forgotten systems like Creative Commons where you can give attributions, you know, with commercial rights or not commercial rights and, you know, you can get credit. And so in the real world, you know, just kind of like the example I used with when I was at MIT, we were essentially, you know, if you take that to a physical standpoint, we were cutting up my drawing, photocopying it and then you know replacing it in a different form and if that was a physical thing on paper you just call it a derivative but now you're using technology so we don't know what it is anymore and it's just it's the same with this it's like you are taking work so there should be attribution there should be credit we have things like creative license um you know there's the technology out there to have fractional attributions or credit.

26:50And these are things that could have been built in from the beginning, from the bottom, so that we build up a kind of a reflex to understand that these things are just a part of the system. So OpenAI could have built these things from the ground up with attribution, with creative commons licenses, with a way to credit sources with a way to kind of, you know, acknowledge that. And so I think that's where the floor is, is because there wasn't the right intention there from the beginning to protect, to credit, to attribute. The intention was to build fast, to make money, to expand, you know, to acquire other companies.

27:31That was the intention. So I think, you know, it's hard now to work backwards because we've built these machines that didn't have those mechanisms built in to credit, to attribute, to credit the sources. And for some reason, we've just pretended that those mechanisms didn't exist in the real world. So I think that's the issue is, you know, now we're left with kind of the messy results or the aftermath. Instead of building a muscle over a time where it's just normal that these tools we use have credits and sources and attribution built into them. These kinds of attributions aren't built into a lot of the mainstream consumer-facing models out there.

28:17But Chantal is trying to build a platform that's different, one that supports artists and puts them in control of their work. That and more after a short break.

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