Anyone can now use powerful AI tools to make images. What could possibly go wrong?

人人使用AI工具制作图片，会有哪些隐患？

If you’ve ever wanted to use artificial intelligence to quickly design a hybrid between a duck and a corgi, now is your time to shine.

如果你曾想用人工智能来快速设计一个鸭子和柯基犬的混合体，那么现在是你大显身手的时候了。

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that anyone can now use the most recent version of its AI-powered DALL-E tool to generate a limitless range of images just by typing in a few words, months after the startup began gradually rolling it out to users.

周三，OpenAI公司宣布，现在人人都可以使用其最新版的人工智能DALL-E工具，只需输入几个字就可以生成无数的图像，数月后，这家初创公司开始逐步向用户推广该工具。

The move will likely expand the reach of a new crop of AI-powered tools that have already attracted a wide audience and challenged our art and creativity. But it could also add to concerns about how such systems could be misused when widely available.

此举可能会扩大新一批人工智能工具的影响，这些工具已经吸引了大量用户，并对我们的艺术和创造力构成了挑战。但广泛使用这些系统而导致滥用的行为也加剧了人们的担忧。

“Learning from real-world use has allowed us to improve our safety systems, making wider availability possible today,” OpenAI said in a blog post. The company said it has also strengthened the ways it rebuffs users attempts to make its AI create “sexual, violent and other content.”

OpenAI在一篇博文中说：“我们从现实生活的工具使用中学习，从而改进我们的安全系统，在今天更广泛地应用。”该公司表示，该工具还加强了拒绝用户试图让人工智能生成“性、暴力和其他内容”的方式。

There are now three well-known, immensely powerful AI systems open to the public that can take in a few words and spit out an image. In addition to DALL-E 2, there’s Midjourney, which became publicly available in July, and Stable Diffusion, which was released to the public in August by Stability AI. All three offer some free credits to users who want to get a feel for making images with AI online; generally, after that, you have to pay.

现在有三个知名且强大的人工智能系统向公众开放，这些系统可以理解几个词语并生成一个图像。除了DALL-E 2，还有7月开始向公众开放的Midjourney，以及Stability AI公司在8月向公众发布的Stable Diffusion。这三家公司都对想在网上感受一下使用人工智能制作图像的用户提供一些免费积分；一般来说，积分用完之后，你就要付费了。

These so-called generative AI systems are already being used for experimental films, magazine covers, and real-estate ads. An image generated with Midjourney recently won an art competition at the Colorado State Fair, and caused an uproar among artists.

这些所谓的生成性人工智能系统已经被用于实验电影、杂志封面和房地产广告。最近，用Midjourney生成的一张图片在科罗拉多州博览会上赢得了一场艺术竞赛，并在艺术家中引起了轩然大波。

In just months, millions of people have flocked to these AI systems. More than 2.7 million people belong to Midjourney’s Discord server, where users can submit prompts. OpenAI said in its Wednesday blog post that it has more than 1.5 million active users, who have collectively been making more than 2 million images with its system each day. (It should be noted that it can take many tries to get an image you’re happy with when you use these tools.)

在短短几个月内，数百万人对这些人工智能系统趋之若鹜。超过270万人注册Midjourney的Discord服务器，用户可以在那里提交指令词汇。OpenAI在其周三的博客文章中说，它有超过150万活跃用户，他们每天用其系统制作的图片总共超过200万张。(应该注意的是，当你使用这些工具时，可能需要多次尝试才能得到一个你满意的图像）。

Many of the images that have been created by users in recent weeks have been shared online, and the results can be impressive. They range from otherworldly landscapes to a painting of French aristocrats as penguins.

最近几周，用户在网上分享许多生成的图像，这些图像蔚为大观：从异世界的风景画到一幅法国贵族扮演企鹅的画。

But the popularity of this technology comes with potential downsides. Experts in AI have raised concerns that the open-ended nature of these systems — which makes them adept at generating all kinds of images from words — and their ability to automate image-making means they could automate bias on a massive scale. A simple example of this: When I fed the prompt “a banker dressed for a big day at the office” to DALL-E 2 this week, the results were all images of middle-aged white men in suits and ties.

但是这项技术的普及也伴随着潜在的弊端。人工智能方面的专家表示担忧：这些系统的开放性使得这些工具能从文字中生成各种图像, 自动生成图像的能力意味着它们可能在很大程度上会产生偏见。这方面有一个简单的例子：本周，当我向DALL-E 2输入“为办公室的重要日子而打扮的银行家”的提示词时，结果是所有穿着西装和领带的中年白人男子的图像。

"They’re basically letting the users find the loopholes in the system by using it,” said Julie Carpenter, a research scientist and fellow in the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

“他们基本上是让用户通过使用这个系统找到漏洞，”朱莉·卡彭特说，她是加州理工大学圣路易斯奥比斯波分校伦理和新兴科学小组的研究科学家和研究员。

These systems also have the potential to be used for nefarious purposes, such as stoking fear or spreading disinformation via images that are altered with AI or entirely fabricated.

这些系统也有可能被滥用，例如通过用人工智能改变图片或完全捏造图片来煽动恐惧心理或传播虚假信息。

There are some limits for what images users can generate. For example, OpenAI has DALL-E 2 users agree to a content policy that tells them to not try to make, upload, or share pictures “that are not G-rated or that could cause harm.” DALL-E 2 also won’t run prompts that include certain banned words. But manipulating verbiage can get around limits: DALL-E 2 won’t process the prompt “a photo of a duck covered in blood,” but it will generate images of “a photo of a duck covered in a viscous red liquid.” OpenAI itself mentioned this sort of “visual synonym” in its documentation for DALL-E 2. Chris Gilliard, a  Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council, thinks the companies behind these image generators are “severely underestimating” the “endless creativity” of people who are looking to do ill with these tools.

用户可生成的图像有一些限制。例如，OpenAI让DALL-E 2的用户同意一项内容政策，告诉他们不要尝试制作、上传或分享“非G级或有害”的图片。DALL-E 2也不会运行包含某些被禁止词语的指令。但是变更措辞可以避开限制。DALL-E 2不会处理“一张沾满鲜血的鸭子照片”的指令，但它会生成“一张沾满粘稠红色液体的鸭子照片”的图像。OpenAI公司在DALL-E 2的记录中提到了这种“视觉同义词”。社会科学研究委员会的技术研究员克里斯·吉利亚德认为，这些图像生成器的公司“严重低估了”那些希望用这些工具做坏事的人的“无限创造力”。

To sidestep potential issues, some stock-image services are banning AI images altogether. Getty Images confirmed to CNN Business on Wednesday that it will not accept image submissions that were created with generative AI models, and will take down any submissions that used those models. This decision applies to its Getty Images, iStock, and Unsplash image services.

为了避开潜在的问题，一些图片库服务机构完全禁止人工智能图片。Getty Images公司周三向CNN财经频道证实，Getty Images公司将不接受用户申请用生成性人工智能模型制作的图片，并将删除任何使用这些模型的申请。这一决定适用于其Getty Images、iStock和Unsplash图片服务。

"There are open questions with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models and there are unaddressed rights issues with respect to the underlying imagery and metadata used to train these models," the company said in a statement.

该公司在一份声明中说：“在这些模型的输出图像的版权方面仍有争议，在用于训练这些模型的基础图像和元数据方面有版权问题亟待解决。”

But actually catching and restricting these images could prove to be a challenge.

然而实际上，拦截和限制这些图像可能会是一项挑战。

*材料取自CNN官网