The opening salvos have been launched in the nascent war between humans and machines. Not on some Tron-esque virtual battlefield, but in the courts.

A class action lawsuit on behalf of artists against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt alleges that the AI firms and the online art community have infringed their rights in training the technology. The plaintiffs include artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz.

Plaintiffs contend that Stability AI and Midjourney scraped billions of images—many of which are copyrighted—without due consideration paid to the artists. Furthermore, as derivative works, the AI-generated images violate the original artists’ intellectual property (IP) rights.