The Authorship Question: Navigating the Divide Between AI Visuals and Human Craft in 2024

In early 2023, an AI-generated image won first place in the digital art category at the Colorado State Fair. The artist who submitted it — Jason Allen, who used Midjourney to create the piece — did not hide the tool's involvement. The response from the creative community was immediate and divided. Some called it a harbinger of irrelevance for human artists. Others argued it was simply the latest evolution in a long history of technology reshaping creative practice.

Nearly two years later, that divide has not resolved. If anything, it has deepened — and grown more nuanced.

The State of the Industry: A Landscape in Flux

The tools have matured considerably. Midjourney V6, Adobe Firefly, OpenAI's DALL-E 3, and Stability AI's latest models can produce imagery of remarkable technical sophistication. Stock photo platforms like Getty Images and Shutterstock have introduced their own AI generation features while simultaneously filing or supporting litigation around training data and intellectual property. The legal framework governing AI-generated visual content in the United States remains unsettled, with the Copyright Office having issued guidance stating that purely AI-generated works — those without sufficient human authorship — are not eligible for copyright protection.

That legal position has significant implications. For commercial clients, it means AI-generated assets may carry intellectual property risks that human-created work does not. For independent creators, it raises questions about how to protect work that incorporates AI tools at various stages of the process.

Professional organizations including the Graphic Artists Guild and the American Society of Media Photographers have issued position statements calling for greater transparency, fair compensation frameworks, and legislative protections for working artists. Their concern is not hypothetical — survey data from 2023 and 2024 consistently shows that a meaningful percentage of creative professionals have experienced reduced client demand for certain categories of work, particularly stock illustration, product visualization, and concept art.

The Skeptic's Case: What Gets Lost

For many practitioners, the resistance to AI-generated visuals is not technophobia. It is a considered defense of craft.

San Francisco-based photographer and educator Maya Contreras, who has taught visual storytelling at the college level for over a decade, articulates the concern clearly: "Photography, at its best, is about being present. It's about the relationship between the person holding the camera and the subject in front of them. An AI image has no presence. It has no relationship. It synthesizes the visual vocabulary of thousands of human moments without having inhabited any of them."

This perspective speaks to something beyond aesthetics. It addresses the experiential foundation of creative work — the idea that authentic visual storytelling emerges from genuine encounter with the world. When that encounter is removed from the process, something is lost that cannot be fully accounted for in terms of image quality or production efficiency.

There is also the matter of economic displacement. Illustrators who once built sustainable practices on editorial and advertising work report that clients are increasingly using AI tools to generate "good enough" visuals at a fraction of the cost. The creative middle class — working professionals who are not famous but are deeply skilled — faces the most immediate pressure.

The Advocate's Case: Democratization and Augmentation

The counterargument is equally serious and deserves fair consideration.

Nick Martinson, a creative director at a mid-sized branding agency in Chicago, has integrated AI tools into his team's workflow in ways he describes as additive rather than substitutive. "We use AI for rapid concepting, for visualizing ideas before we've committed budget to photography or illustration," he explains. "It's made us faster and more ambitious in the early stages of a project. But the final work still requires human judgment, taste, and relationship with the client."

This augmentation model — where AI handles certain stages of the creative process while human practitioners shape direction, refine output, and maintain client relationships — may represent the most pragmatic and sustainable integration path for established professionals. It parallels the adoption of digital editing tools in the 1990s, which initially alarmed many photographers and designers before becoming simply part of the craft.

For emerging creators with limited resources, AI tools offer access to visual production capabilities that were previously cost-prohibitive. An independent filmmaker can now generate concept art for pre-production. A small nonprofit can create polished visual assets without a design budget. These are not trivial benefits.

Ethical Dimensions That Cannot Be Deferred

The ethical considerations surrounding AI visual media extend beyond intellectual property law. The training data that powers most major image-generation models was assembled from the internet at scale — including the work of artists who neither consented nor were compensated. This is not a minor procedural concern. It is a foundational question about whose labor and creativity is being leveraged, and whether that leveraging is just.

Several artists, including illustrators Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz, have pursued legal action against AI companies over training data practices. The outcome of these cases will shape the industry's ethical and legal landscape for years to come.

Transparency is emerging as a practical standard. An increasing number of publications, advertising agencies, and creative platforms now require disclosure when AI tools have been used in the creation of visual content. This is a reasonable and meaningful step — one that respects both audiences and the human practitioners whose work exists alongside AI output.

Where This Leaves the Visual Creative

The visual creative industry in 2024 is not at a crossroads so much as it is at the beginning of a long, complicated road. The tools will continue to improve. The legal frameworks will slowly clarify. The cultural conversation about authorship, authenticity, and value will persist.

What seems clear is that practitioners who engage with these questions thoughtfully — who develop informed positions, adapt their skills strategically, and advocate for ethical standards — will be better positioned than those who either dismiss AI entirely or adopt it uncritically.

At The VME Studio, we believe that visual media at its highest level is always a human endeavor, even when technology is deeply embedded in its production. The question of authorship is ultimately a question of intention, judgment, and presence — qualities that no model, however sophisticated, has yet demonstrated.