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Gobelins and their AI Scandal
Prestigious art school using and promoting AI art?
Zion Meiko
April 12, 2024
Gobelins Paris, one of the most prestigious art schools known for having one of the best animation programs, was just caught using AI art.
Not only is this a disappointment to the art community and the future of art school, but the lack of respect towards the artist and their work you have as an art school to endorse AI art is just sad.
The situation was this: a group of students launched a website, https://yanjin.fr/, to promote an art project, specifically a children’s book.
Before it was confirmed to be AI, people on X noticed strange and subtle issues in the art which caused the question of who or what made these drawings. For example, the French flag is missing the color red, the classic 6-finger AI hand, and many other odd issues with the drawings.
Now The YANJIN project is separate from the school but Gobelins did endorse this project, and the students do represent the school. They claim to have used AI art to help capture the “essence” of the story. By now, many artists on X have shared their opinions, leading to criticism towards the school and students.
Any art school that uses Ai instead of student work is not a school worth your time or money because this shows they only care for $ and are not even proud of the hard work and creativity their own students have. Do not consider @gobelins_paris for any future enrollments ever.
— Lissy Marlin (@Lazyfishyart)
11:15 PM • Apr 8, 2024
Now the school did recently respond, essentially saying:
“We're not unaware of recent controversies associating AI with practices that threaten authentic artistic creation…First of all, these visuals are in no way the work of animation students or graphic design students at GOBELINS, but prototypes designed by students who are destined for project management in the publishing world. Nor are they definitive works, but simply preparatory concepts…GOBELINS Paris will always place the creator, the gesture, and individual and personal talent at the heart of its teaching and creations.”
🇬🇧 GOBELINS Paris shared a student project yesterday.
The publication featured several visuals created with the help of an AI. Many people expressed their disappointment at seeing artificial work published on our networks. We're not unaware of recent controversies associating AI… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— GOBELINS Paris (@gobelins_paris)
4:10 PM • Apr 9, 2024
The entire discussion of AI art is a hard one because we can’t exactly stop it due to the market, but it is unethical due to it stealing many artist’s original work. Now, do I think it is good and should exist? Absolutely not. However, we as artists should either get ahead of it by learning how to use it to our advantage such as helping us brainstorm or something along those lines. Nevertheless, it should not be called art because it is a COMPUTER stealing art to make it. AI is taking jobs whether you want to admit that or not. Let us not make it something more normalized during such a tough time in the job industry at this moment, and use it in appropriate times and give creativity back to humans.
Happy drawing,
ArtBeat