  Since the launch of applications such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable
Diffusion, generative artificial intelligence has been controversial as a tool
for creating artwork. While some have presented longtermist worries about these
technologies as harbingers of fully automated futures to come, more pressing is
the impact of generative AI on creative labour in the present. Already,
business leaders have begun replacing human artistic labour with AI-generated
images. In response, the artistic community has launched a protest movement,
which argues that AI image generation is a kind of theft. This paper analyzes,
substantiates, and critiques these arguments, concluding that AI image
generators involve an unethical kind of labour theft. If correct, many other AI
applications also rely upon theft.
