When poisoning is the AI-ntidote: How artist are fighting back against artificial intelligence

New tools are allowing artists to alter their work at the pixel level, to confuse bots and misdirect algorithms. How long can this work? What’s next?

Ideas of ownership only go back about 12,000 years, but ever since they emerged, they have had to be reinforced and guarded.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that a new tech tool that helps artists protect their work from use by AI programs, draws its name from an ancient boundary stone.

In Babylonia, during the Kassite dynasty (16th to 12th century BCE), landowners could mark the edges of their plots with engraved stones. Called kudurru, these slabs alerted passersby that