OpenAI offers artists access to unreleased tools, like Sora for New York gallery exhibits.

There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to our nation’s budget deficit – and therein lies its problem! Among many others. OpenAI announced Friday a New York art gallery partnership that grants artists access to unreleased AI tools. “Strada Nuova: New Road” at Strada Gallery runs for three weeks and brings together “diverse group of artists curated to include brilliant researchers, academics and creators working between physical and digital artwork,” according to founder Paul Hill of Strada Gallery. According to CNBC reports Hill reached out to OpenAI regarding this idea for this project. Talks on this plan began several months ago and, once complete, OpenAI provided artists access to tools like Sora video generator, Voice Engine voice generator and DALL-E 3 image generator as well as ChatGPT viral chatbot with educational resources and artist stipends. Minne Atairu has long specialized in using AI in her art – even before ChatGPT had even launched! – using image generation both 2D/3D as well as video generation in her works that focus on “understudied gaps” found within Black historical archives. At this exhibit, she used Sora to produce an AI-generated video called Regina Gloriana that she said was inspired by supernatural horror films produced in Nigeria in the 1990s. AI applications in art has long generated debate, controversy and lawsuits alleging copyright infringement or training data misuse; Anthropic’s Amazon-backed AI startup was recently hit with three author’s class action lawsuit in California federal court alleging copyright infringement by this AI system. Last year, several well-known American authors, such as Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult sued OpenAI on claims of copyright infringement when using their work to train ChatGPT. Last January, artists filed a class action suit against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt over their use of AI image generation tools as copyright infringement tools. When asked by CNBC to comment about AI’s place in art production, Strada’s Hill stated, “All great art pieces tend to provoke debate or controversy.” “I’ve never come across an artwork that wasn’t effective – only those without significance or importance tend to go ignored by society at large,” Hill explained, regarding AI development as something like an industrial revolution in various sectors. Hill stated, “Historically speaking, Black communities and networks tend to be among those last receiving technological tools. With this next industrial revolution underway, we should act like pioneers by making sure marginalized communities don’t become last recipients.” Six of the artists featured here are black; one hails from Kyoto, Japan. Hill’s artists shared Hill’s sentiment regarding access to AI tools or representation within them.Curry Hackett, an award-winning transdisciplinary designer and public artist told CNBC he uses AI to reimagine images produced and sourced. His project for this exhibition builds upon one of his public art projects called “Ugly Beauties,” using Midjourney to manually collage images for an extensive 50-foot scene in Brooklyn Plaza that “explored Black relationships to nature and plants”, according to Mr. LaBaneh. Hackett used Sora to animate these still canvas scenes during his Strada exhibition. “AI presents both environmental, political, ethical, and creative media development concerns; yet I also see potential in it opening pathways towards creative production,” Hackett noted in regards to AI. “For black artists, not every form of media we create appears in models such as these; therefore there can be an argument made for underprioritized groups using such tools in creative ways. “Hackett expressed empathy with creative professionals who feel threatened by AI-trained models; she understands concerns over these being trained without proper consent… “Now is an era where norms and best practices need to be developed in order for people to feel at ease with using digital tools, like Sophia Wilson does with film photography printed manually in her color darkroom.” She told CNBC she already was proficient with Photoshop and other retouching programs like Sora AI tools are used similarly. “There will always be downsides with anything new… But as an artist… this helps me enhance my creative endeavors…” Wilson views Sora more as an editing or retouching tool that enhances her work rather than something to fear: she documented Black women bodybuilders in New York using Sora as part of the Strada exhibit and animated some still images with Sora, such as an antique chandelier swinging gently with wind gusts. Wilson also used OpenAI’s Voice Engine to read aloud some transcribed interviews conducted with her subjects. Wilson explained, “AI is reading as audio part accompaniment,” to create an equal playing ground: Black women often feel judged for the sounds and inflections in their voices, so she wanted it all come from one consistent voice so people would no longer judge based on it.