AI is stealing Indigenous Australian art and churning out ‘Temu slop’, artist says

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Chair of National Gallery’s First Nations advisory group says the technology is undermining artists’ agency and the authenticity of their work…

AI is taking First Nations art and turning it into “Temu slop”, the Pitjantjatjara artist Sally Scales has said.

Scales, the chair of the National Gallery of Australia’s First Nations advisory group, said the technology is undermining the agency of First Nations artists and the authenticity of their work and represents a “a theft” of cultural knowledge.

Despite prime minister Anthony Albanese’s vow to protect Australian creatives from copyright theft, and the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, saying there are “no plans to weaken copyright protections”, AI has already been trained – without compensation –on the works of well known Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave.

But experts are particularly worried about the risks to Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) and in a world where AI companies can hoover up anything that may be found online, including songs and paintings that include sacred and cultural knowledge. AI has altered work, removed names and then been sold, an act the peak body for Australian visual artists said was causing “cultural and economic harm”.