Karla Ortiz

Karla Ortiz is a Puerto Rican concept artist and illustrator whose work includes film and television projects for Marvel Studios and HBO, video games and Magic: The Gathering cards. She advocates for artists' rights and is one of the named plaintiffs in Andersen v. Stability AI, a copyright lawsuit filed in 2023 against companies behind AI image generators.

What DI has documented

DI has documented statements by Karla Ortiz on Artificial Intelligence, Arts and Culture, and Video Games. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.

Topics in this coverage

Statements by Karla Ortiz

Karla Ortiz

Role at the time: Concept artist and illustrator, replying on X

Condemned

Statement summary

Concept artist Karla Ortiz replied to Sweeney that Epic is using generative AI for art and said all artistic generative AI models were trained on the work of artists like her without credit, consent or compensation, which she said is why artists are suing AI companies.

“Hey, you’re using GenAi for art. Consider this a friendly reminder: All Artistic GenAi models are trained off the works of artists like myself. This was done so without our credit, consent or compensation. Which is why artists like myself are suing GenAi companies.”
Read the original post (opens in a new tab)Karla Ortiz on X: reply to Tim Sweeney on Epic's use of generative AI for artPost 2109763125918720476; complete reply
Why we used this label

The reference point is Epic Games' move to make AI central to its game development, as Tim Sweeney described it on October 12, 2026 and as Bloomberg reported for an unannounced Disney shooter to be made as an AI-first production. Ortiz addresses Epic's use of generative AI for art and objects that the models were trained on artists' work "without our credit, consent or compensation", a criticism of the practice, so we labeled it Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because she frames the post as a friendly reminder; it loses because the reminder states only an objection.

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