Artistic Legitimacy in the Age of AI

Written By Adriaan Doering

Let’s be honest,

tools aren’t the problem…

The real problem artists face in 2026 is the exploitation, extraction and devaluation of their labor. Art has always evolved with tools and technology. Its been a relatively short time since the days photography was treated as a ‘lesser’ medium by aesthetes due to the novelty and accessibility of its offerings. Preposterous! When systems, scrape, design, build, repeat, improve, react, that’s not innovation. The production of such a cycle in rapid pace does nothing but unnaturally increase speed of demand for the same ‘static’ product. As social media still has massive reach and market potential for independent and emerging artists, they are facing some steep opposition in the war for attention.

It only takes one look at the recent viral megahit: “Fruit Love Island” to understand the ‘attention’-al arena in which art is called to compete. The AI- generated micro-soap opera ‘Island’, where anthropomorphic bananas and strawberries flirt, cheat and spiral in hypercompressed melodrama, is preying on the sensationality of a trailer preview for a movie that will never be made. It takes the idea of a sizzle reel, (originally meant to be marketing for a main broadcast) and makes it into the whole show. The ‘hook’ is structural; familiar reality-tv tropes mixed into surreal, low fidelity content that is optimized for infinite scrolling.

If you feel you’ve spent too much time already reading about it, please accept my deepest apologies for bringing it up, it just shows depth at which ‘virality’ operates. In esssence; the algorithm thrives on not needing to discern between a viewer watching ironically or sincerely. As effective as this lowest-common-denominator style marketing may be, it all amounts to a less costly way to sell drama; where art, for better or for worse, has been a medium to convey emotion. We’ve compiled several ideas about the topic, and why and how your art is important, if its important art.



1. Anchor Your Legitimacy in Process, Not Output

—Starting its broadcast on March 13th this year, Fruit Love Island gained ~3m subs in 9 days, and racked up around 300m total views before being ?temporarily?taken off the air on March 28th

AI can generate output. It cannot live your life, nor does it have your soul. Your artistic legitimacy can come from a whole host of sources ready to be tapped. Whether you are coding/prompting your lived experience, cultural context, iterative experimentation, or moral intent, it's the idea that legitimacy grows where transparency lives. Bjork has a great quote that goes, to paraphrase, ‘people first heard electronic music, and said wheres the soul in that?!? and she goes, if something coming out of a computer doesn’t have soul…its because a human didn’t put it there!’

The soul of the thing, or from a more data analysis position, when you take notes—when you document your process (share drafts, show influences, archive revisions…etc), you are working to establish the framework necessary for further sourcing. It would be foolish to assume no AI outputs were based on appropriated IP, but the opposite should also be as valid a statement…It is possible to create AI outputs without stolen input. We think if greater time is spent better understanding the ‘conditional’ natures of prompting, the more work can exist with humanity at its focus.


Code/Prompt:

Final Output:

  1. Time investment (‘code→output’)

  2. Research (#iterations)

  3. Involved physical practice (editing)

  4. Emotional labor (curation and narrative)

  5. Cultural lineage (final output vs. expectation)

    < return to code/prompt >


2. Practice Ethical Tool Use (Not Tool Worship)

Monetary benefit is currently valued over cost, but comes first in the equation, and AI makes a great tool to this effect. In the Fruit Love Island example where, presumably(# impressions x ad monetization > cost of potential usage claim on socials, and/or copyright claim on “Love Island”). Thus monetary value can be raised and extracted without ever really paying cost of scale. As AI serves in advancing network connectivity, it also represents an all-too-too lucrative way to maximize benefit while only counting costs in fractions of a cent instead of ethical and emotional toll. When big corporations see $10 worth of AI marketing outperform a traditional $1m ad campaign…yeah they’re going to go with the 10$ dollar model…at least until the 5$ model comes out. The lack of morals in that chase to retain profitability in an ever shifting creative landscape is exactly why such ethics must be applied for AI to be seen as anything but a tool.

An ultimately positive analog of this instance from history can be seen in 1978, Y.M.C.A. vs. The Village People, where the Young Mens Christian Group sued the young men’s group for trademark infringement…later to settle the case out of court only after noting a significant boost in membership rates among associations following the hit-song’s debut.

If you make or use AI systems, you 1000000% MUST do so intentionally and transparently. With the cacophonous strength of AI’s capabilities, it is ever so crucial that we are diligent in setting ourselves up for success; its tough to know where you want to go if you don’t know where you are. Using A.I. to brainstorm is different from using it to impersonate, replicate, or erase another artist’s style. ETHICS isn’t about purity, it’s about honesty, accountability, and reconciliation. Ask yourself, was the training data I used consent-based? How does this system compensate creators? Am I using this to replace labor or extend capacity? And for whom? basically…

WOULD I FEEL COMFORTABLE EXPLAINING THE VIABILITY OF THIS USE PUBLICLY?‍ ‍


3. Protect Your Labor Economically

Cheap automation often drives down perceived value. AI makes anything possible relatively cheap…semantics aside. Its important to see how easily AI upsets older laws of economics; where once was supply and demand, AI in the context of social media is successful at pinning supply and demand to the same side of the scale while consumers take up the other more generous ‘half’. Its exactly due to the rapid pace AI is able to ‘sorta give you what you think you might want to see’ that prevents other creativity to be recognized. Economically, there is not much for the artist to do…but there are existing frameworks to make discussing work with a potential client easier. Within such a space, the industrial logic of AI champions ‘faster, cheaper, more more more’ contends with the artistic logic ‘saying ‘deeper, truer, human’ So it is crucial that, as responsible participants, value is redefined beyond speed and volume; metrics that never were built for art. Remember, efficiency is a perk but it does not determine worth…meaning does.

• Price based on skill, not speed, if not skill…then make a realistic formula for your hourly based on client need (and pleeeease remember to think of the data centers too!!! They cost!)

• Educate clients about your process… consistency in output paired with consistency in code forms a accessible narrative as to your capability

• Contractually specifying human authorship when relevant, every artist should read more about AI or anti-AI legislature in their locality. For the most part laws are meant to keep the honest people honest, but in this case the laws may not necessarily apply to your country. The ethical conversation with any collaborator only begins at what the current law will allow.

• Licensing your work clearly…not necessarily publicly, but its key to be able to justify your actions, and that starts with doing your own work to figure out how an output was generated. Ignorance seems to hide as dissonance whenever theres a hot new thang in town. If AI is truly the innovation it’s reputation suggests, we all should get used to learning and working more intimately on the details.


4. Cultivate Community Over Competition

Isolation weakens artists. AI currently is not explicitly designed to keep pace with the emotional sway of the consumer in the same way a human would convey the human experience. While it masks algorithmic dominance as a stand in for universality in its messaging, not enough is said about how it further hollows out the human experience. In that, reaction replaces emotion, and the nuance of emotion is flattened by the lack of profitability in a more three-dimensional realm of idea. When a constructive and responsive community is added to the equation, the adherence to an ‘ethical rule of law in usage’ becomes that much easier to abide since it measures value beyond clickable conversion…and in the same step requires the viewer to do the same. Community builds legitimacy through an appreciated common goal. Some ways we can work towards that community is by crediting collaborators openly, sharing resources about workflow, and forming cooperative efforts around common themes. Its certainly recommended to support unions and advocacy groups surrounding the matter so the process of publicly discussing ethical standards can occur.


5. Develop a Personal Ethical Code

Seriously, and write it down too! This isn’t just for your records, think of it as an open declaration of digital purpose. This provides reference point to which you can return for clarity. What tools will you or won’t you use? How do you deal with inspiration vs imitation? Attribution? This section is short, because mostly it is subjective to each and every artist. Is there a commitment to accessibility? How do you respond to audiences? With ‘virality’ being more fleeting now than ever, it should not be looked at as the mark of legitimacy. Legitimacy grows from consistency, and so on from mindful practice.

Legitimacy isn’t just a personal moral dilemma, it’s rapidly becoming a systemic debate with the addition of exponential amounts of data. There is no hard reset button, so the best result will be in learning and advocating for ways to support different systemic perspectives. By advocating for structural change, we work towards ethically modernizing content-based training standards in order to build AI development policies more transparent. Every contribution to fair compensation frameworks work toward reforming copyright legislature designed to protect creators and ultimately build public funding for the arts.


6. Context over Content

Take every chance to show your work. When we work within systems that naturally obscure labor, it is the artists responsibility to reveal it. Getty Images, for example, curates output ‘respective of rights of publicity, privacy, trademark, and other IP rights whenever it licenses works for use in a commercial text-to-image model.’ (2025, Kadrey v. Meta Platforms). Openly showing the work behind the result reframes the ‘art’ as relationship, not just content; it establishes a point and time in space; a modality that contextualizes the cause and effect of the creativity involved. Such context is necessary in discussing the nature of an agent as augmentative or a substitution. As an augmentation, AI is primarily used to organize notes, test variations, or generate references. As a substitution, however, AI is allowed to completely replace creative judgement, authorship, or craft…*think-like all hallucinations, and no brakes. AI is already extremely adept at convincing common users the output fits the input; not only through the echo chamber of personal use, but also the very algorithm putting it in your FYP. It remains a feedback loop though, that users always have the option of unplugging. Or should resign to watching slop that gets made only because we watch it? If users take more responsibility steering, the AI as a “tool” ethos remains that much more sustainable for organic growth…just please please no more anthropomorphized fruit.


7. Remember What AI Cannot, or Should Not Do

AI does not experience grief, fall in love, or navigate oppression. It can not embody a culture, or take moral responsibility, or care about anything its not designed to. Human flourishing depends on the meaning involved in consciousness and accountability. By placing AI at the center of the future, we unknowingly invite it to learn about our conscious self…so it is key to respond in conversation responsibly. Used carelessly, AI can cheapen art; from both the manufacture and consumption perspective. The focused-agent use of AI ethically (augmentation) can lead to reduced administrative burdens, and increasing market accessibility; they can translate across languages, expand collaboration, and lower the barrier to entry. The fight is not against tools.
It is against systems that extract without consent and profit without reciprocity. Artistic legitimacy comes from integrity, contribution, and responsibility. If we center dignity, consent, transparency, and community, these tools and technology can serve creativity instead of cannibalizing it.


‘Four-head’ (prod. by WONDERai, retouching by AdobePS, MB ‘24)

Make it stand out

Adriaan Doering