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A native of Puerto Rico, Ortiz is a California-based designer, a concept artist and painter who has worked for videogaming giant Ubisoft, Marvel Studios, the Wizards of the Coast fantasy game publisher and has exhibited her work in galleries.
But now her profession could be completely disrupted by generative AI, the technology behind apps such as Dall-E and ChatGPT, which in seconds can crank out original content -- illustrations, poems, computer code -- with only a simple prompt.
About a year ago, Ortiz discovered Disco Diffusion, an open source AI-based image generating tool, but it is not easy to use for those less tech savvy.
At first, she thought it was an interesting experiment, but quickly she realized that the program was using the work of many of her friends without them knowing it.
They asked to have their work removed, but to no avail, and they backed down. She told herself art theft is nothing new in their line of work.
"It's weird that this is happening, but whatever," she told herself at the time.
But months later, with the introduction of even more powerful programs such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which can generate images "in the style of" a chosen artist, she was brought face to face with the magnitude of the phenomenon.
Ortiz said she was shocked when she looked at how the programs were trained.
"All the training data, all the training material, it's our work."
In her studio, standing between her easel and her computer, Ortiz puts the final touches of oil paint on her latest work, "Musa Victoriosa," a woman surrounded by eagles, brandishing a laurel wreath.
This muse, which will be used to illustrate a copyright protection app, embodies artists defiant against technology.
To those who argue that human artists also draw inspiration from others' work, Ortiz says they are missing the point.
"Just because I look at a painting that I love, it doesn't mean that I archive that influence and that it automatically becomes a part of how I paint," she said.
"Influences can only get you so far in art," she added.
"The rest is your training, your life, your experiences, your thoughts of the day; that extra bit of humanity that filters inspirations and experiences together and creates your own voice and work," she said.
She worries about young artists who need the time and experience to find their style but will be squeezed out by AI.
- 'Canary in the coalmine' -
"How does a person break in now? And if you break in and you do develop a style, that's wonderful, but what stops anybody from training a model on your work?"
Along with other artists, Ortiz filed a lawsuit in a California court against three generative AI companies, hoping one day to get the industry regulated.
This fight has strengthened bonds between creators, and not only designers, she said.
"I'm seeing more writers and also voice actors being very concerned because of the technology that can take your voice and mimic it perfectly," Ortiz said.
Silicon Valley investors "want to expand to pretty much every creative endeavor," she warned.
"Our profession was automated first so we kind of became the canary in the coal mine."
'Glaze' software aims to protect art from copycat AI
San Francisco (AFP) March 27, 2023 -
Researchers at the University of Chicago have released free "Glaze" software that they say can thwart efforts by generative artificial intelligence (AI) to copy an artist's style.
The program makes tiny changes to digital images that, while invisible to human eyes, act as a "style cloak" when they are posted online, the team behind the project explained on their website.
If generative AI finds a Glaze-guarded image online, it is prevented from correctly analyzing and copying the style, the team said.
Glaze was created at the behest of artists outraged that programs like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, schooled on troves of images available online, could mimic their styles on command.
"AI has been evolving too fast, and there must be some guardrails or regulations around it," said Shawn Shan, the doctoral student in charge of the project.
"The goal of this is to push back from a technical standpoint."
The team behind Glaze worked with artists including the illustrator Karla Ortiz, who is among the plaintiffs in a US court case against several firms with image-producing generative AI services.
"If Karla uses our tool to cloak her artwork, by adding tiny changes before posting them on her online portfolio, then Stable Diffusion will not learn Karla's artistic style," the lab team said.
"Instead, the model will interpret her art as a different style - for example, that of Vincent van Gogh."
The creators of Glaze concede it is not a panacea, given how quickly AI evolves.
The hope, the team said, is that Glaze and similar projects will protect artists at least until defensive laws or regulations can be implemented.
Glaze has been available for free download since March 15.
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