Brandon Sanderson vs. AI Art

Late last year, the fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson gave a talk at Dragonsteel Nexus, an annual conference organized by his media company. It was titled, ​“The Hidden Cost of AI Art.”​ As Sanderson explains, early in his address: “The surge of large language models and generative AI raises questions that are fascinating, and even if I dislike how the movement is going in relation to writing and art, I want to learn from the experience of what’s happening.” Sanderson makes it clear that he disapproves of AI-generated art (“my stomach turns”), but he wants to understand better why this is the case. To do so, he begins considering and then ultimately dismissing a series of common objections: Does he dislike AI art because of the economic and environmental impacts? “Well, those do concern me, but if I’m answering honestly, I would still have a problem with it even if AI were not so resource hungry.” Does he dislike AI art because it’s trained on the work of existing artists? “ Well, I…