In 2022, Molly Crabapple noticed that several images uncannily resembling her distinctive illustrations of the Aleppo skyline and portraits of protesters had spread across the web. And some artists are hopeful that they can still stop it. Screenshots from Molly Crabapple’s presentation “Artists Against the Slop Beast.”Crabapple has already seen the effects of AI on her industry. Several illustrators she knows have struggled to obtain work as companies and publications seek to lower costs by using AI prompts to create images instead of paying artists or photographers. In 2023, she wrote an open letter imploring publishers, editors, and journalists to reject using generative AI programs, which more than 4,000 people have signed.