Anita Selzer warns AI may leave artists exposed

By AI, Created 11:01 AM UTC, May 20, 2026, /AGP/ – Author Anita Selzer is pushing for a broader debate over copyright, ethics and representation as generative AI reshapes how images are created and used. Her comments come amid mounting artist concerns about training data, attribution and whether existing protections still work.

Why it matters: - Generative AI is changing how visual content is made, credited and distributed. - Artists are questioning whether copyright law, consent standards and ethical norms are keeping up. - Selzer says the issue affects not just ownership, but also fairness, representation and who gets to shape creative culture.

What happened: - Anita Selzer, an award-winning author and researcher, used a public statement to raise concerns about artists’ rights in the age of AI. - Selzer pointed to growing anxiety among artists about how their work may be used to train AI systems and influence generated images. - Selzer said she wants a wider discussion about copyright, ethics and the future relationship between artists and artificial intelligence. - Selzer said more information about her work will appear in an upcoming interview in White Paper By, a Spanish lifestyle magazine focused on fashion, art and culture. - Selzer’s website is available at her official site.

The details: - Selzer said technology can be useful, but it should also come with responsibility, ethics and fairness. - Selzer cited American artist Molly Crabapple, who wrote in The Guardian that AI image generators had scraped her entire body of work from the internet and used it to train bots. - Crabapple said she discovered similarities between her artistic style and AI-generated imagery. - Crabapple also raised concerns about large volumes of online imagery being used to train AI systems. - Selzer cited a Book An Artist survey in which many participating artists said current copyright frameworks are struggling to keep pace with generative AI. - Selzer said artists are asking how creative work is being referenced, how AI systems are trained and what protections may be needed. - Selzer said some artists are curious about AI and are exploring its creative uses. - Selzer also said innovation should not come at the expense of the people whose work has shaped visual culture for decades. - Selzer said AI also raises broader questions about bias and representation. - In The Female Gaze in Art and Photography, Volume 2, Selzer discusses Norwegian photographer Charlotte Wiig’s attempts to create AI-generated self-portraits. - Selzer said the AI repeatedly generated images of men, even when prompted to identify Wiig as a professional female photographer.

Between the lines: - The core debate is moving beyond whether AI can make art and toward whether the system that powers AI is fair to the artists whose work feeds it. - Selzer’s emphasis on representation suggests the argument is also about who designs AI tools and whose perspectives are built into them. - The repeated example of women being misrepresented in AI outputs underscores how technical bias can become a cultural issue.

What’s next: - Selzer is continuing to use public interviews and her writing to press the case for transparency, representation and stronger support for creative workers. - The broader AI-art debate is likely to keep intensifying as more artists, platforms and legal experts weigh in on training data, attribution and consent. - Selzer is available for interviews.