Following on from my thoughts in my previous blog post on “Sketchbook,” I looked into the topic of AI and illustration in more detail and came across Eileen Isagon Skyers’ TED Talk. I found her ideas very interesting and similar to my own, which is why I would like to share them here.
What does originality mean when machines can generate images?
That’s the question she is asking the audience. Eileen Isagon Skyers explores how AI is changing art and creativity. Her key points are:
- Originality may now be collaborative, layered, and concept-driven rather than purely hand-drawn.
- AI produces images that are both familiar and uncanny, blurring lines between human and machine creativity.
- Artists working with AI often act as curators, shaping output by selecting, refining, and guiding the machine.
- Questions arise around authorship, emotion, representation, and bias: who defines originality, and whose stories are told?
Why this matters for Illustrators
Originality in art is changing. It is not just about drawing perfectly but about showing your own voice, making choices, and putting intention into your work. Illustrators today often guide ideas and improve the results instead of creating every detail by hand. What really matters is emotion and story. AI can make pictures, but it cannot capture real experiences or true feelings. It is also very important to think about representation, to consider whose stories are shown, which visual traditions are included, and which are left out.
AI aka creative thief
When talking about the originality of AI artworks, one must of course also ask where AI gets its references from. That’s right – from all of us. Caught up in the AI and art bubble, I came across two more TED Talks that deal with precisely this topic. One by Ed Newton‑Rex on how AI “steals” creative work and another by Melody Liu on the ethics of AI art. Both show that AI can create impressive images, but it raises serious questions about originality, authorship, and fairness.
AI learns from existing artworks, often without permission. This means that styles, images, and ideas created by real human artists are used to train machines that can then produce new work. On one hand, this can inspire new creativity and speed up the illustration process. On the other, it risks taking away recognition, income, and the personal voice of artists.
Another issue is emotion and story. AI can combine shapes and colors perfectly, but it cannot capture lived experience, personal feelings, or the soul an artist puts into their work. Without that human element, art can feel empty. Finally, representation is also a concern: AI reflects the biases of its training data, so some voices and cultural traditions are left out, while others dominate.
How to protect your art
Ed Newton‑Rex also talks about how artists can protect their work from being used by AI without permission. One important step is to be aware of where and how you share your art online. Artists can use copyrights and licenses to make clear how their work can be used. Another idea is to add signatures or branding so people can see which work is original. Newton‑Rex says it’s important for artists to have a say in how their art is shared online, so they can protect both their voice and their income.
My take away
Of course, everyone knows by now that AI steals from real artists, but it’s easy to ignore and these talks really made me realize that I need to keep it in mind before posting anything online, especially on Instagram or Pinterest. My opinion on AI hasn’t really changed since my last blog post, it feels like most people talking about AI in a good way as “art” aren’t really illustrators or working artists. Still, I’m sure there are positive ways to use AI creatively without losing the soul of art, and I probably need to explore that side more. All three TED Talks I watched were really interesting and raised a lot of important questions. There are definitely many more talks out there on this topic for anyone who’s interested. I’m not sure if I want to explore this topic more deeply at this point, but maybe it could be part of a research.
