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Regarding the ethics. Thought experiment: I look at a copyrighted image, get inspiration, and then draw a new image (which is not the same as the copyrighted im

Regarding the ethics. Thought experiment: I look at a copyrighted image, get inspiration, and then draw a new image (which is not the same as the copyrighted image). Is that ethical? But if I do this millions of times, after looking at millions of copyrighted images, is it still ethical (as long as I don't recreated copyrighted images)? Tough questions!

prox 4y ago
If it sufficiently different from the original. So no one would confuse your new idea with the old. That’s how I was taught anyway. So Donald Buck who is a duck is too derivative, but Ronald Cluck who is a bear might be fine.
jcelerier 4y ago
> Is that ethical? Depending on how close it is it may not even be legal. To give a music analogy: at least in my country, if you take a melody, change all the notes' durations, and transpose it you'd still infringe
michaelt 4y ago
The ethics partly depends on the analogy you choose. I can write a book about a boy wizard's adventures wizard school and that's legal, but if I call them Harry Potter it isn't. I can create Harry Potter fanart and distribute it online pretty freely - but slap it on a mug and sell it, and that's illegal. I can record an audio description of a painting that's as detailed as I like and it's legal to distribute - but take a photograph of the same painting and it's a derivative work, no matter how artistic my choice of camera settings. We don't really have any prior examples that are precisely like these huge ML models trained on copyrighted data - and depending on which imprecise analogy you choose, you can come to a different conclusion.
- abigail95 4y ago
  Harry Potter is a trademark. It protects and distinguishes identity and authority. It is much harder to get a trademark, and is also harder to fairly use one. Different issue. If your fan art is infringing, it was infringing whether or not it was on a mug or on dropbox. Photograph one is not true. For commentary it can be by audio, or printed on a mug or whatever, commentary is transformative. Go out and take a photo of the world outside, if you live in a city you've captured thousands of copyrighted materials in your image. Maybe it captures someones painting, maybe it doesn't. Whether its fair or not is if it's transformative, the format doesn't matter. I'm not seeing an ethical difference from any of this. Or did I miss the point?
  - michaelt 4y ago
    > Harry Potter is a trademark. It protects and distinguishes identity and authority. Perhaps I should have said Darth Vader, then - the point is you can copyright a character independent of the copyright on a book's text, and the trademark on the series name, and the fact that broad concepts like "black-clad masked evil overlord" are uncopyrightable. And that copyright can persist even if you transform a book character into an engraved coffee mug. > I'm not seeing an ethical difference from any of this. Or did I miss the point? The difference is: If a person says "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as an audio description is to a painting" or "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as the concept of boy wizards is to harry potter" they would probably say it's ethically fine. If a person says "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as a photograph of a painting is to the painting" or "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as video lecture is to a single image in its slides" they might well say it's not ethical.
- frameset 4y ago
  Is your third example correct? Andy Warhol was famous for using photographs of existing art and transforming them only slightly. Roy Lichenstein literally took panels from DC comic books and magnified them and became celebrated in the art world for it.
colordrops 4y ago
Isn't this how the human brain works as well?
wruza 4y ago
In my opinion it’s just a technical side of ethics, which has much less value than the main side: what it does to an author. If they suffer from these copies (morally, financially, spiritually, etc) without a way to offset it, then it is not ethical.
- selestify 4y ago
  > If they suffer from these copies (morally, financially, spiritually, etc) without a way to offset it, then it is not ethical. So since automated driving will result in financial suffering to those working in trucking and Uber and whatnot, automating driving is not ethical?
  - Symmetry 4y ago
    No need to bring AI into it. What if someone chooses to open a Wendy's in a town that already has a McDonalds. The competition will defintely reduce the McDonalds's business. And many would argue (famously Rockefeller) that competing with another business isn't ethical when businesses could band together into trusts or similar structures to limit competition.
- stdbrouw 4y ago
  Well, but that's hardly a universal rule either. If we have a magic cure for bad eyesight, that'll be pretty terrible for optometrists, lensmakers and so on, but nobody would think it unethical that we're taking away their jobs.
  - wruza 4y ago
    To me it’s a different situation, because no previous hard, unique, “ownership” work of these people was used without consent to make this cure. Think of this instead: a doctor collects a big volume of symptoms and analyses and creates a statistical way to cure people more easily. They publish many examples of their work without licensing anyone (legally and morally) to use it freely. Now some algorithm collects their data and many others data and transforms it into a better method. A doctor suffers from going out of business. Is that ethical? On one hand, the algorithm invented something new and easier to access. On the other, it basically stole parts of their and similar researches on a previously unthinkable scale. We humans copy ideas all the time and this is somewhat normal, but this enormous at-scale capability was never a thing. Personally I don’t care for optometrists, uber drivers or designers. Nature will find a way. But when we talk about fundamental social contracts like property or accumulated knowledge protection, I think it is unethical to break them, regardless of technicalities. If it’s such a great advancement benefiting everyone, why can’t AI creators just ask permission for 2.3B of datapoints they used?

prox 4y ago

If it sufficiently different from the original. So no one would confuse your new idea with the old. That’s how I was taught anyway. So Donald Buck who is a duck is too derivative, but Ronald Cluck who is a bear might be fine.

jcelerier 4y ago

> Is that ethical? Depending on how close it is it may not even be legal. To give a music analogy: at least in my country, if you take a melody, change all the notes' durations, and transpose it you'd still infringe

michaelt 4y ago

The ethics partly depends on the analogy you choose. I can write a book about a boy wizard's adventures wizard school and that's legal, but if I call them Harry Potter it isn't. I can create Harry Potter fanart and distribute it online pretty freely - but slap it on a mug and sell it, and that's illegal. I can record an audio description of a painting that's as detailed as I like and it's legal to distribute - but take a photograph of the same painting and it's a derivative work, no matter how artistic my choice of camera settings. We don't really have any prior examples that are precisely like these huge ML models trained on copyrighted data - and depending on which imprecise analogy you choose, you can come to a different conclusion.

abigail95 4y ago
Harry Potter is a trademark. It protects and distinguishes identity and authority. It is much harder to get a trademark, and is also harder to fairly use one. Different issue. If your fan art is infringing, it was infringing whether or not it was on a mug or on dropbox. Photograph one is not true. For commentary it can be by audio, or printed on a mug or whatever, commentary is transformative. Go out and take a photo of the world outside, if you live in a city you've captured thousands of copyrighted materials in your image. Maybe it captures someones painting, maybe it doesn't. Whether its fair or not is if it's transformative, the format doesn't matter. I'm not seeing an ethical difference from any of this. Or did I miss the point?
- michaelt 4y ago
  > Harry Potter is a trademark. It protects and distinguishes identity and authority. Perhaps I should have said Darth Vader, then - the point is you can copyright a character independent of the copyright on a book's text, and the trademark on the series name, and the fact that broad concepts like "black-clad masked evil overlord" are uncopyrightable. And that copyright can persist even if you transform a book character into an engraved coffee mug. > I'm not seeing an ethical difference from any of this. Or did I miss the point? The difference is: If a person says "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as an audio description is to a painting" or "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as the concept of boy wizards is to harry potter" they would probably say it's ethically fine. If a person says "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as a photograph of a painting is to the painting" or "Stable diffusion is to its copyrighted training data as video lecture is to a single image in its slides" they might well say it's not ethical.
frameset 4y ago
Is your third example correct? Andy Warhol was famous for using photographs of existing art and transforming them only slightly. Roy Lichenstein literally took panels from DC comic books and magnified them and became celebrated in the art world for it.

colordrops 4y ago

Isn't this how the human brain works as well?

wruza 4y ago

In my opinion it’s just a technical side of ethics, which has much less value than the main side: what it does to an author. If they suffer from these copies (morally, financially, spiritually, etc) without a way to offset it, then it is not ethical.

selestify 4y ago
> If they suffer from these copies (morally, financially, spiritually, etc) without a way to offset it, then it is not ethical. So since automated driving will result in financial suffering to those working in trucking and Uber and whatnot, automating driving is not ethical?
- Symmetry 4y ago
  No need to bring AI into it. What if someone chooses to open a Wendy's in a town that already has a McDonalds. The competition will defintely reduce the McDonalds's business. And many would argue (famously Rockefeller) that competing with another business isn't ethical when businesses could band together into trusts or similar structures to limit competition.
stdbrouw 4y ago
Well, but that's hardly a universal rule either. If we have a magic cure for bad eyesight, that'll be pretty terrible for optometrists, lensmakers and so on, but nobody would think it unethical that we're taking away their jobs.
- wruza 4y ago
  To me it’s a different situation, because no previous hard, unique, “ownership” work of these people was used without consent to make this cure. Think of this instead: a doctor collects a big volume of symptoms and analyses and creates a statistical way to cure people more easily. They publish many examples of their work without licensing anyone (legally and morally) to use it freely. Now some algorithm collects their data and many others data and transforms it into a better method. A doctor suffers from going out of business. Is that ethical? On one hand, the algorithm invented something new and easier to access. On the other, it basically stole parts of their and similar researches on a previously unthinkable scale. We humans copy ideas all the time and this is somewhat normal, but this enormous at-scale capability was never a thing. Personally I don’t care for optometrists, uber drivers or designers. Nature will find a way. But when we talk about fundamental social contracts like property or accumulated knowledge protection, I think it is unethical to break them, regardless of technicalities. If it’s such a great advancement benefiting everyone, why can’t AI creators just ask permission for 2.3B of datapoints they used?