National

As generative AI tools like Dall-E and MidJourney become more mainstream, some illustration competitions are banning the submission of AI-generated artworks.

Why it matters: Debate in the art world around the impact of technology is nothing new. But AI's unique legal and ethical considerations have prompted some organizations to take a definitive public stance.

Zoom in: Of the nine major illustration competitions Axios reviewed, only three allow AI submissions. 

 The ADC Awards told Axios via email that the competition "is the advertising and design industry’s first global awards program to establish a separate discipline with a dedicated jury for AI work."

 The Society of Publication Designers allows submissions created with AI, but clarified over email that they "are absolutely against art theft, but support artists who use [AI] legally and ethically." 

Society for News Design currently has no guidelines or bans on AI submissions: "Everything is moving so quickly," says executive director LeeAnn Mandrillo over email.

Generative AI tools are currently under legal scrutiny for their use of licensed imagery in their training models. Several lawsuits have already been filed against major AI art tools over copyright infringement. 

Complex questions over how the legal system will view human/AI collaborations will need to be settled by the courts.

Mark Heflin, director of American Illustration-American Photography, says that his organization’s stance on prohibiting generative AI is consistent with existing guidelines. 

In the case of generative AI, artists wouldn't be able to say the work is entirely their own — a requirement for the competition.

“Even if we wanted to change our rules, the concern is the way that some of these generative AI tools have been built by scraping licensed material.” Such training models make confirming authorship of the work precarious, Heflin says.

The onset of people sharing AI-generated images via apps like Lensa and Dall-E on social media prompted the Society of Illustrators to ban such images in its competitions.

“The gluttony of the sharing was startling. I saw the harm in this, and what it could mean to illustrators and artists," says Tim O’Brien, who served as president of the Society of Illustrators and worked with colleagues to issue a statement against allowing AI submissions. 

"This was a pro-human effort to celebrate what humans can do," he says. 

Yes, but: Technological controversies in the art world have sprung up in the past, including with the advent of photography. 

More recently, the use of stock imagery to create photo-composited work or even switching from physical to digital submissions for competitions have generated debate among art organizations, according to Heflin. And for a brief time, the Society of Illustrators did not include digitally constructed artwork in their annual competition.

But for now, says Heflin: “I don't know where the copyright lives and that's not for me to say. It's going to have to go to Congress.”

Between the lines: Congress has rarely moved quickly enough to keep up with new technologies' impact on intellectual property rules, and the odds are very high that these conflicts will arrive in the courts before new legislation can help untangle them, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg notes.

Disclosure: Shoshana Gordon served as a juror for American Illustration 41 in 2022.

Illustration competitions grapple with generative AI

AI's unique legal and ethical considerations have prompted some organizations to take a definitive public stance.

Illustration of a red ribbon with a "no" symbol on painting in a frame with binary code 

Artificial intelligence

Automation and AI

As generative <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="AI tools like Dall-E" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/12/ai-images-ethics-dall-e-2-stable-diffusion" data-vars-content-id="08411dc8-65dd-4ab5-a36d-74767542a696" data-vars-headline="Illustration competitions grapple with generative AI" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/12/ai-images-ethics-dall-e-2-stable-diffusion" target="_self">AI tools like Dall-E</a> and MidJourney become more mainstream, some illustration competitions are banning the submission of AI-generated artworks.Why it matters: Debate in the art world around the impact of technology is nothing new. But AI&#x27;s unique legal and <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="ethical " data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/31/chatgpt-ai-arms-race-ethics-competition" data-vars-content-id="08411dc8-65dd-4ab5-a36d-74767542a696" data-vars-headline="Illustration competitions grapple with generative AI" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/31/chatgpt-ai-arms-race-ethics-competition" target="_self">ethical </a>considerations have prompted some organizations to take a definitive <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="public stance" data-vars-click-url="https://societyillustrators.org/statement/" data-vars-content-id="08411dc8-65dd-4ab5-a36d-74767542a696" data-vars-headline="Illustration competitions grapple with generative AI" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://societyillustrators.org/statement/" target="_blank">public stance</a>.

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Confederate holidays include Robert E. Lee's birthday, Confederate Memorial Day, Confederate Heroes Day (Texas), Nathan Bedford Forrest Day (Tennessee), Jefferson Davis' birthday; Data: State government calendars, Axios research; Cartogram: Shoshana Gordon and Jacque Schrag/Axios Visuals

Ten states — all in the American South — celebrate Martin Luther King Day and observe at least one confederate holiday during the rest of the year.

Why it matters: All U.S. states honor MLK every year. But the number of states also honoring the Confederacy highlights the country's struggle to reconcile its racial past.

What's happening: Alabama and Mississippi celebrate MLK and Robert E. Lee, the losing Confederate general and slaveholder, on the same day.

Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all have at least one day commemorating the Confederacy on other days of the year, the Axios analysis found.

Mississippi and Alabama each celebrate a total of three confederate holidays every year — Robert E. Lee Day, Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis' Birthday — all paid holidays for state employees.

Last February in Alabama, a bipartisan group of state senators introduced legislation to split up Robert E. Lee Day and MLK Day, but the bill is "indefinitely postponed."

The intrigue: In 2000, when South Carolina became one of the last states to honor MLK with a state holiday, the legislature also voted to create "Confederate Memorial Day," celebrated annually on May 10.

Tennessee has a day of "special observance" for Nathan Bedford Forrest, another Confederate general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Though Arkansas split up Robert E. Lee Day and MLK day in 2017, the state still commemorates Lee on the second Saturday in October, as well as Jefferson Davis on June 3.

For years, Georgia listed Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee Day on its official state holiday calendar. Since 2016, the state has changed both holiday names to the innocuous-sounding "State Holiday."

Georgia state law requires the governor to pronounce at least one day dedicated to honoring the Confederacy.

Zoom out: Defenders of the confederate holidays and monuments say removing them would erase history.

Reality check: Historians and scholars say the confederate holidays and monuments in the South mostly appeared well after the Civil War as confederate apologists pushed the Lost Cause narrative downplaying slavery.

What they're saying: "It is a diminishing reality that people even recognize and celebrate those Confederate days," NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson told Axios.

"We must completely do away with any concept that the Confederacy and those who participated were patriots."

DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of The Center for Popular Democracy, said it was hypocritical for any state to honor King while celebrating those who defended enslavement.

"There's no way that you can compare someone who literally fought for the highest ideals of human beings ... to someone who was like, 'I think these humans are checkbooks, they are cow, they're like animals.'"

Don't forget: While many remaining historic sites in the South dedicated to confederates are well kept, many sites linked to civil rights and the victorious Union North sit abandoned or in disarray.

The states that celebrate both MLK Day and confederate holidays

Two states celebrate MLK and Robert E. Lee on the same day.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A cartogram that shows Mississippi and Alabama will observe both Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and a confederate holiday on the same day in 2023.

Ten states — all in the American South — celebrate Martin Luther King Day and observe at least one confederate holiday during the rest of the year.Why it matters: All U.S. states honor MLK every year. But the number of states also honoring the Confederacy highlights the country&#x27;s struggle to reconcile its racial past.

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

San Francisco

Clarence Gatson made thousands of photos of San Francisco’s African American community while working as a photojournalist and production manager for The Sun-Reporter from 1975–1992. After his death in the early '90s, his images —and the stories contained within them — vanished from the public eye. 

Why it matters: The struggle to share his work is part of a larger effort to preserve Black visual history.

Flashback: In 2013, Gatson's sister partnered with historian John William Templeton; Naomi Jelks, then-librarian at the San Francisco Public Library's African American Center; Dr. James Lance Taylor; and Gado Images to digitize, research, and caption 5,000 prints.

Templeton, Jelks, and Taylor spearheaded the community engagement strategy, creating in-person events for local residents to identify photos.

Ten years later, Gado Images' researchers are still working to annotate the full set of prints. Currently, 572 photos have enough metadata to be searchable and licensable through Getty Images. 

African-American boy sitting in a park, wearing a cape and holding drumsticks.

1985. Photo: Clarence Gatson/Gado/Getty Images

The big picture: Jelks, who now works as the Racial Equity Manager at SFPL, tells Axios why she values the collection: 

"Our lives are not just consigned to managing poverty, incarceration, or just the negative things that people sometimes associate with being Black and Blackness ... there's lots of moments of joy, and so [Gatson's ability] to capture that on camera to offer a fuller sense of Black life is super important."

What's next: The growing demand for images of African American history will determine how quickly Gado Images can process the entire collection. 

Gado Images CEO Tom Smith tells Axios that over the past three years, he's seen a shift away from customers seeing Black history as a "niche topic."

"More and more companies, more and more publications, are realizing that depicting the everyday life of this community and communities is essential." 

Go deeper: See more moments of Black daily life in San Francisco.

In photos: Black joy and dignity in San Francisco

The struggle to share his work is part of a larger effort to preserve Black visual history.

African-American college students wearing caps and gowns during a graduation ceremony.

College graduation ceremony, 1991. Photo: Clarence Gatson/Gado/Getty Images

Black History Month

Clarence Gatson made thousands of photos of San Francisco’s African American community while working as a photojournalist and production manager for <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="The Sun-Reporter" data-vars-click-url="https://thesunreporter.com/" data-vars-content-id="2a2cf019-d28c-4377-b95f-0809ef7f1a47" data-vars-headline="In photos: Black joy and dignity in San Francisco" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://thesunreporter.com/" target="_blank">The Sun-Reporter</a> from 1975–1992. After his death in the early &#x27;90s, his images —and the stories contained within them — vanished from the public eye. Why it matters: The struggle to share his work is part of a larger effort to preserve <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Black visual history" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/politics-policy/black-lives-matter-movement" data-vars-content-id="2a2cf019-d28c-4377-b95f-0809ef7f1a47" data-vars-headline="In photos: Black joy and dignity in San Francisco" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/politics-policy/black-lives-matter-movement" target="_self">Black visual history</a>.

News

Denver

Denver is the birthplace of a prominent grassroots organization, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), that uses civil disobedience and mass arrests in the fight for disability rights.

Why it matters: 40 years after its official creation in 1983, ADAPT's nonviolent, direct action tactics have inspired a nationwide movement, with 36 active chapters in 25 states.

Go deeper: See iconic photos from the last four decades of ADAPT's struggle for disability rights in Denver and nationwide.

1978, Denver: Members of the "Gang of 19," which would become ADAPT, blockade Denver city buses for two days to protest the lack of wheelchair lifts. Photo: Dick Davis/Rocky Mountain News via Denver Public Library's Western History Collection

A group of people in wheelchairs bludgeon a sidewalk curb with sledgehammers.

1980, Denver: George Roberts, left, and Les Hubbard strike a sidewalk curb as other members of the Atlantis Community look on. Members of Atlantis, an independent community living center, formed the "Gang of 19" and would later start ADAPT. Photo: John Sunderland/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Why representation matters, according to movement photographer Tom Olin:

Most "look at people with disabilities like 'poor thing'; it's real important for groups to say, Hey we're strong! We need photos [that show that]," Olin tells Axios.

"I was at an action and there were three photographers taking the same shot. When I saw the newspaper and I saw their shots, [for] one photographer, the chair was the most important thing, [as] the symbol of disability. I was more focused on that person's face, how he exuded that power that came from being oppressed for so long."

People in wheelchairs protest outside of a McDonald's restaurant.

1984, Denver: ADAPT members Mike Auberger, Bob Conrad, David Sheckles and other demonstrators call on McDonald's to make current and future restaurants wheelchair accessible. Photos: Bill Wunsch/The Denver Post via Getty Images; Brian Moss/Rocky Mountain News via Denver Public Library's Western History Collection

A group of people in wheelchairs holding protest signs in front of the American Airlines airport terminal.

1986, Denver: At Stapleton International Airport, a picket line protests the Supreme Court’s ruling that only airlines receiving direct federal funding must follow a disability nondiscrimination statute. Photo: David Cornwell/Rocky Mountain News via Denver Public Library's Western History Collection

Tom Malone and Shaila Jackson (below, left photo) and 8-year-old Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins (right), were among the protestors who crawled up the U.S. Capitol steps to persuade Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Years later as an adult, Keelan-Chaffins mused "it was the image of me climbing those steps that was the final decision to get the ADA passed." 

1990, Washington D.C.: The Capitol Crawl. Photos: Tom Olin

A diptych: on the left, a crowd of people in wheelchairs riding down the street. On the right: a person uses braces to walk down the street.

2003, Yeadon, Pennsylvania.: Over 200 ADAPT members, including Adam Nielson (right), trekked 144 miles in the "Free Our People" march and ride from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., to push for legislation that would help fund long-term home care. Photos: William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

In 2017, the group made headlines when their actions across the country helped defeat the GOP's attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid's budget by over $800 billion.

In Denver, local ADAPT members held a sit-in at U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner's office for 58 hours before being arrested.

A group of people in wheelchairs, with one person lying on the ground, sits in a room surrounded by police.

2017, Denver: ADAPT members, including local longtime disability rights advocate Carrie Ann Lucas, who died in 2019, hold a sit-in at Sen. Cory Gardner's office to pressure him to vote against the health care bill that would shrink Medicaid. Photo: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A group of protestors wearing the same outfit shout and hold protest signs outside.

2017, Denver: ADAPT activist Jose Torres-Vega leads protesters in a chant at the Save Medicaid Rally near Sen. Cory Gardner's office. The week before, 10 ADAPT protesters were arrested after refusing to leave his office during a sit-in. Photo: Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A crowd of people in front of the U.S. Capitol at night hold up an illuminated sign that reads "Care Can't Wait".

2021, Washington, D.C.: Disability rights activists and caregiving advocates hold a vigil in front of the U.S. Capitol to urge Congress to include full federal funding for home- and community-based care services in the Build Back Better Plan. Photo: Larry French/Getty Images for The Arc of the United States

40 years of Denver's disability rights movement inspire nationwide action

Denver is the birthplace of a grassroots group that uses civil disobedience and mass arrests to fight for disability rights.

A woman looking down with ADAPT's flag hanging above her.

Dawn Russell, a member of ADAPT's Denver chapter, in front of ADAPT's flag in 2005. Photo: Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Disability

Denver is the birthplace of a prominent grassroots organization, <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today" data-vars-click-url="https://adapt.org/" data-vars-content-id="7a0cbeac-ca90-45af-82db-73c3944466a2" data-vars-headline="40 years of Denver&#x27;s disability rights movement inspire nationwide action" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://adapt.org/" target="_blank">American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today</a> (ADAPT), that uses civil disobedience and mass arrests in the fight for disability rights.Why it matters: 40 years after its official creation in 1983, ADAPT&#x27;s nonviolent, direct action tactics have inspired a nationwide movement, with 36 active chapters in <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="25 states" data-vars-click-url="https://adapt.org/adapt-groups/" data-vars-content-id="7a0cbeac-ca90-45af-82db-73c3944466a2" data-vars-headline="40 years of Denver&#x27;s disability rights movement inspire nationwide action" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://adapt.org/adapt-groups/" target="_blank">25 states</a>.

Politics

Axios Denver, anchored by John Frank and Alayna Alvarez, is here to help readers get smarter, faster on the most consequential news and developments unfolding in their own backyard.

Axios Denver

Houston

Axios Houston

Houston state Rep. Jarvis Johnson is once again trying to abolish Confederate Heroes Day. 

Why it matters: In the same week that the country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.'s racial justice and civil rights legacy, Texas continues to honor the Confederacy with a holiday. 

Catch up fast: Confederate Heroes Day, also known as Confederate Memorial Day, has been a state holiday since 1973 and is observed every year on Jan. 19, which is also Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's birthday. 

It's a partial holiday, so state offices remain open and a skeleton crew is required, but employees can either take the day off or use the paid time off at a later date.

Some years, like 2015, the holiday falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

Driving the news: Johnson, a Democrat, has filed House Bill 51, which seeks to abolish Confederate Heroes Day. 

At 8:30am Wednesday, Johnson along with Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson and state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer will speak on how the holiday celebrates white supremacists and slaveowners.

"This is a holiday that kind of defines who Texas is .... We should not continue to embrace an ideology that is harmful to half the population of the state, so we want to change that narrative by getting rid of those things that open up old wounds," Johnson told Axios. 

Flashback: This is Johnson's third time filing a bill to abolish this holiday. 

In 2019 and 2021, Johnson's bill never made it out of the House State Affairs Committee.

Johnson said the committee chair in 2021 "feared that putting up a bill like this, and even having a conversation, was not the right thing to do."

In 2020, Johnson told Texas Monthly, "A hero is somebody that's done something noble. There are no heroes in the Confederacy."

Zoom out: 10 states — all in the South — celebrate MLK Day and observe at least one confederate holiday during the rest of the year.

Alabama and Mississippi celebrate MLK and Robert E. Lee, the losing Confederate general and slaveholder, on the same day.

Texas, along with Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee all have at least one day commemorating the Confederacy on other days of the year, an Axios analysis found.

Context: Historians and scholars say the confederate holidays and monuments in the South mostly appeared well after the Civil War as confederate apologists pushed the Lost Cause narrative downplaying slavery.

What we're watching: Whether Johnson can be successful this year.

"Every year we get closer and closer," Johnson said. "I think the message resonates."

Another push to eliminate Texas' Confederate holiday

In the same week of MLK Day, Texas continues to honor the Confederacy with a holiday.

holidays

Houston state Rep. Jarvis Johnson is once again trying to abolish Confederate Heroes Day. Why it matters: In the same week that the country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.&#x27;s racial justice and civil rights legacy, Texas continues to honor the Confederacy with a holiday.

Shoshana Gordon

Stories

Illustration competitions grapple with generative AI

In photos: Black joy and dignity in San Francisco

Another push to eliminate Texas' Confederate holiday

The states that celebrate both MLK Day and confederate holidays

40 years of Denver's disability rights movement inspire nationwide action