This Artist Uses AI to Imagine Famous Characters In Different Worlds And Settings, And It's The Entertainment We Never Knew We Needed (45 Pics)

"AI doesn't 'steal' anything," Milan Jaram said. "It creates based on the input it is given. It can, however, copy styles. So yes, you can ask it for an image to be produced 'in the style of Bob Smith', and it will try its hardest to imagine the prompt you gave it, in that style. [But] that isn't 'stealing' from artists."

"We wouldn't have the myriad of awesome movies, games, music, architecture, art, fashion, and so on if it wasn't for people copying each other. And if you're an artist who actually sells art — both AI and artists can live together. Why? Because if someone wants to buy your art, they are buying it because they love it and maybe they love you or your style too. Art is subjective. Are AI images actually 'art'? That's completely subjective. Two people will never agree on what is or isn't art, and it isn't for you or me to dictate what is. If someone finds AI imagery as 'art', then good for them. If you don't, that's fine ... You can [see] a piece of bubble gum on the sidewalk as 'art', I might think you are crazy, but that decision is not up to me, it's up to the eye of the beholder."

Style has proven difficult, if not impossible, to protect with copyright.

"Style is an idea, style is a technique, it's a process," University of Kentucky law professor Michael Murray told Bloomberg. "These are things that are not protected by copyright."

Given an AI generator's ability to draw directly from the works of art it's trained on, however, there are circumstances in which "the line between emulating style and wrongful copying is not always apparent," Columbia Law Professor Jane Ginsburg added.

The circumstances may require a reckoning with current copyright standards.

Milan Jaram also highlighted that, "a very cool thing is that AI will use its best to give you things or styles that don't exist. For example, I did a TikTok with some prompts that included a 'scene from the movie Diablo 2 from 1985' ... and it gave me some scenes that looked exactly what you'd think it would look like."

"A Diablo 2 movie doesn't exist, but a game franchise does [and regardless] it did a very good job of putting all of that together." Here's a TikTok of a similar idea the artist tried out with The Legend of Zelda.