AI Art as Civil Disobedience: Rejecting the AI Stigma

Imagine this: a customer comes to you, excited about a piece of art. They love the colors, the vibe, the way it speaks to their personality. You’ve spent days discussing the details—talking about their favorite colors, animals, the essence they want captured. You put hours into crafting it. The idea was yours, the prompts were refined again and again, and then it all culminated in the hands-on labor of turning that concept into a finished button, ready to be worn and loved. And then, because you’re honest, you mention that you used AI as part of the process, and suddenly, the excitement fades to nothing. They vanish.

Or take another scenario: someone buys a tarot deck at a flea market, enamored by its stunning artwork, the care in each card’s design. Until, that is, they read the accompanying booklet and find out that the artist used AI to help create it. Immediately, the deck—which they loved moments ago—becomes offensive to them. They take to the internet to rant about it.

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re part of a much larger wave of backlash against AI art—a wave that’s deeply misinformed, hypocritical, and often just plain hurtful. AI artists are being asked to disclose their methods in ways no other artists are. If you do a hand painting, and then digitally tweak the colors or adjust the composition in Photoshop, no one is telling you to label it “hand-modified with digital tools.” You don’t have to explain your process step-by-step. But AI art? AI art gets treated like it’s a different beast altogether—a lesser one. It’s almost like wearing a scarlet letter, declaring yourself an outsider in the creative world.

But here’s the thing: refusing to disclose that you’ve used AI isn’t about dishonesty. It’s an act of civil disobedience. It’s a rejection of an unfair stigma placed on artists simply for using modern tools. It’s about standing up against the narrative that says some art is “real” and some art isn’t, based purely on whether it fits into a traditional, romanticized idea of how art should be made. AI isn’t magic. It doesn’t dream up images from nothing—it works with you, helping bring your vision to life. The idea is yours, the prompting is yours, the refining is yours. It’s labor, and it’s art. Dismissing it because of the tool you used? That’s not criticism—it’s gatekeeping.

In the context of history, artists have always used the best tools available to them. We celebrate photographers who pushed the limits of their cameras, sculptors who innovated with new materials, digital artists who transformed what could be done with a computer. None of these artists were told to apologize for their methods, or to disclose the brand of their paintbrushes, the type of camera film, or the software version they used. So why should it be different now? Why should AI artists be forced to bear that extra burden, especially when it’s really just about pandering to an uninformed and fearful public?

This push to label AI art as somehow “less-than” isn’t just about transparency. It’s about control—about forcing artists who use AI to identify themselves so they can be scrutinized, criticized, and yes, sometimes attacked. We’re the ones bearing the brunt of all this noise, all this anger, while companies cave in to a loud but misguided audience, asking us to disclose our ‘secret’ methods. And yet, when it comes down to it, these customers love the art until they know how it was made. That’s how you know this whole thing is about perception, not quality. They love it, and then they’re told it’s AI, and suddenly the same piece loses its value. That’s a problem with their understanding, not with the art itself.

Choosing not to disclose your use of AI isn’t about tricking anyone. It’s about refusing to participate in a system that devalues your creativity because it doesn’t conform to outdated norms. It’s about refusing to let other people define what is and isn’t art based on their own misconceptions. It’s about insisting that your work deserves respect, regardless of the tools you used to make it.

This is civil disobedience in the art world—a concept famously discussed by Henry David Thoreau, who argued that individuals should resist unjust systems even if it means breaking the rules. Thoreau once said, “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.“—a small but meaningful stand against the forces that want to keep creativity in a tiny, comfortable box. It’s a refusal to let the fear of new technology dictate what is and isn’t acceptable. It’s declaring that art is about ideas, connection, and craft, not about how much you “suffered” or what tools you used to make it. 

In the next piece, we'll dive into how misinformation and misconceptions around AI are creating a smokescreen that distracts us from the real issues. We'll look at why people are so quick to condemn AI art, and how this fear-mongering is keeping us from seeing the bigger picture.

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