Articles

Brendan Paul Murphy's article appeared in The Conversation in December 2022 and is supplied here in an abridged version. Its immediate subject is Lensa, an app that generates stylised portraits. Its larger question is how readers should understand the relationship between an appealing new technology and the artists whose work helps make it possible.

The supplied question asks: How and to what effect is figurative language used in shaping the meaning of this text? Keep that focus while reading the whole article. Murphy does more than decorate a technical explanation: familiar images help readers understand the technology and consider its consequences.

Trace the movement from public excitement and artistic alarm, through explanation, to an uncertain future. The article challenges the label of theft while retaining concern about disruption. Its technical and legal statements belong to its 2022 context; this reading examines how those statements are presented, rather than treating them as current advice.

The headline opens with the direct answer “No”, as if replying to a question already circulating among readers. Yet “technically” limits that correction, while “but” introduces consequences that the correction does not settle. The colloquial “majorly shake up” makes disruption sound both substantial and easy to grasp. Before the body begins, readers are asked to separate a legal label from wider effects.

Look at the supplied image and caption as a pair. The vividly colored, polished portrait shows the kind of visual appeal that makes the technology attractive. Its caption turns attention toward artists' uncertain future and the possibility that copyright law may need to “catch up”. That personification presents law as lagging behind a moving technology. The image demonstrates appeal; the caption prevents appeal from becoming the whole story.

This is useful context for the question about figurative language. Keep the main argument focused on the wording rather than drifting into a separate essay on portrait color.

In the opening, the technology has “left the labs” and begun “colonising our visual culture”. The movement takes it from a specialist setting into shared everyday life. “Colonising” suggests expansion and occupation, making that arrival more forceful than a neutral word such as “entering”. It does not by itself establish a complete historical comparison with colonialism.

The repeated fire image then divides the response. Lensa has “lit a fire” among influencers but “a different kind of fire” among artists. The first suggests excitement or enthusiasm; the second, in the context of recognized styles and compromised work, suggests anger and alarm. Reusing the image makes the groups' reactions directly comparable: the same development that attracts one group troubles another.

“Warning bells” extends the sense of danger, while “perhaps a bit of their soul” makes the perceived loss personal as well as commercial. Murphy attributes this feeling to artists, then asks “But has it?” The turn prepares his legal distinction without erasing the emotional stakes he has just established.

The question heading “If it’s not direct theft, what is it?” anticipates the gap left by the opening answer. The inclusive “us non-computer-scientists” places the explanation alongside readers who may feel uncertain. “Taking a couple of steps back” makes understanding sound like a manageable change of perspective.

The “black boxes” image acknowledges that the system's internal workings are difficult to see or understand. Later, “injects” presents the user's photographs as an input entering a system, while “capture” makes the preservation of recognizable features easier to imagine. These expressions give non-specialists ways to picture an abstract process. They are explanatory images, not literal accounts of what software does.

Notice the limits of this abridged version. Terms such as “latent diffusion” remain relatively compressed. You can explain how the article welcomes readers without claiming it fully teaches the underlying technology. The longer original includes material not present in the exam text; it is not evidence for this response.

The distinction between borrowing “ideas” and taking “actual snippets” supports the article's account of why imitation of a style differs from copying a particular work. Naming the Australian Arts Law Centre gives that account an identifiable source. In your analysis, attribute the legal claim to the article rather than turning it into your own general ruling.

The heading “What about the artists?” returns to the group most affected. “Nonetheless” matters: the writer's preceding explanation does not make their difficulties disappear. “Immensely disruptive”, “extremely upsetting” and “ripped-off” restore the practical and emotional cost. The last expression recalls the opening accusation while distinguishing a feeling of exploitation from the legal category the writer has discussed.

The next “However” qualifies the threat in turn, arguing that a specific subject, context and the artist's personality still matter. Track this movement between explanation and concern. Calling the tone simply “neutral” would miss the writer's sympathy and evaluation; calling it simply “anti-AI” would miss the appeal and capabilities he also recognizes.

The suggestion that artists might “borrow a page from the influencer’s handbook” makes adaptation sound like learning a practice from another group. “Borrow” also echoes the earlier description of AI borrowing ideas. Here, however, it refers to artists adopting promotional methods, not to the software's use of artwork.

The ending shifts from cautious possibilities—“may”, “early days”—to “one thing is for sure”. The familiar idiom “the genie is out of the bottle” presents the technology as a released power that cannot simply be contained again. Its force lies in that change from uncertainty about outcomes to confidence about lasting disruption.

The idiom does not prove that every consequence will be harmful or that regulation is impossible. It leaves readers with a sense that the issue will require a response. Read it alongside the headline: the opening corrects a label, while the ending insists the consequences remain.

An argument can follow what the figurative language helps the article do: make the dispute vivid, make the system approachable, and present change as lasting. Those are connected functions, not a compulsory three-part plan.

Possible thesis: Murphy uses familiar images to explain AI image generation and the disagreement around it. These comparisons show both its appeal and artists’ concerns, while his discussion of copyright complicates the claim that the technology is simply theft.

One achievable model paragraph:

Murphy repeats the image of fire to show how differently influencers and artists respond to Lensa. The app has “lit a fire” among influencers, but “a different kind of fire” among artists. For influencers, the image suggests excitement about the portraits. For artists, the account of recognizable styles makes it suggest anger and alarm. The same image therefore links opposing reactions to the same technology. “Warning bells” adds to the sense of concern before Murphy questions whether the app has broken the law. This sequence lets readers understand the artists’ response without treating that response as legal proof of theft.

The paragraph develops one relationship, uses short quotations and follows their place in the article. It does not need a separate label for every phrase or a claim that all readers respond identically.

Write a paragraph connecting “black boxes” with one other image from the explanation. What does each help a non-specialist reader picture? Where does the comparison simplify rather than fully explain the process?

Then return to the ending. Connect its final idiom with either “technically” in the headline or “Nonetheless” in the final section. Explain how those details complicate a claim that the article simply reassures readers about AI.

For transfer, choose another article from your practice texts. Identify its central question, one moment where it helps readers understand, and one where it encourages a judgment. These may be the same moment. Build your analysis from that relationship rather than searching for the same metaphors again.