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> but the act of training a neural network on datasets like this has already been decided to be legal ? Has it? Look, you can argue about whether it’s morall

• jabits 4y ago
  it’s only legal because there are no laws specifically making it illegal currently. This is case with anything…anything not illegal is legal, at least in the US…
  • vorpalhex 4y ago
    That is not quite correct. The question is undecided. It could be illegal and have been illegal this entire time.
    • BobbyJo 4y ago
      Which makes it legal. When the courts interpret law it addresses a case and informs going forward. I don't believe, for instance, people can be retroactively tried for abortions during the period Roe V. Wade stood.
      • aidenn0 4y ago
        I'm not sure this is true; it addresses a case, which means the interpretation already is ex-post-facto. I don't know the answer, but it wouldn't surprise me if, in states with anti-abortion laws standing for which the statute of limitations has not expired, abortion providers could be held legally liable.
        • fritztastic 4y ago
          Ex post facto laws are forbidden by the US Constitution, both at federal and state levels. [1] At least, at this time, with current interpretation- "the Supreme Court has explained that people must have notice of the possible criminal penalties for their actions at the time they act" [2] (See also Weaver v Graham[3]) This might be subject to change. [1]https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C3-3-1/ALDE_00013192/ https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C3-3-... [2]https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C3-3-3/ALDE_00013193/#ALDF_00020335 https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C3-3-... [3]http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep450/usrep450024/usrep450024.pdf http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep450/usrep450024/usr...
          • aidenn0 4y ago
            The laws are not ex post facto. They have been on the books, on some cases for over 100 years. States were not enforcing them, because they believed they were constitutionally prohibited from doing so.
      • oneoff786 4y ago
        Roe v. Wade is a ruling that people have a right to abortions. Removing it removes the right. It doesn’t retroactively remove the right. A new law that is passed doesn’t have retroactive power A court ruling that the thing you’ve been doing for a year has been breaking an existing law can absolutely punish you for it. But it’s unlikely to punish random individuals doing things on a non noteworthy scale when a clear understanding of the law in a new context has not been established.
      • 4y ago
    • astrange 4y ago
      The fact there’s multiple companies with lawyers on staff already doing it should suggest you shouldn’t claim it’s illegal based on no evidence. (It’s legal the same way Google Image Search is.)
      • Retric 4y ago
        Why would you assume companies only do legal things? Companies break the law constantly it’s consequences law departments care about not legality. This is why we do heath inspections etc, it’s all about shifting the risk vs reward calculation.
        • BobbyJo 4y ago
          > Companies break the law constantly That's obvious hyperbole and not a useful, or even factual, rebuttal.
          • Retric 4y ago
            It’s factual in much the same way the average person breaks multiple laws as written every day. Much of this is simple ignorance and many thing aren’t particularly relevant. 14 states still had sodomy laws in 2003 when the Supreme Court reversed its stance and declared them unconstitutional. At this point there are hundreds of years of crap at the federal, state, and local level much of which changes based on where you happen to be. What percentage of the US laws have you actually read?
          • PhasmaFelis 4y ago
            I don't think it's hyperbole at all. Wage theft alone costs American workers billions of dollars every year.
            • BobbyJo 4y ago
              I see two ways of interpreting "companies break the law constantly". One, that there is always a company out there somewhere acting criminally. If that's the intended meaning, it is a factual statement, but doesn't not carry the original implication that companies do not try to avoid breaking the law. For instance, the fact that there is always a human out their somewhere committing crime doesn't not mean most humans do not actively avoid such. Two, that any given company breaks the law often. This carries the implication that companies do not worry about breaking the law, but is also factually incorrect.
  • wokwokwok 4y ago
    > This is case with anything…anything not illegal is legal, at least in the US… I think you're dancing around with words here. Let me be super specific: There's no law specifically saying I can't use a jelly coated toasted to beat someone to death... but there are existing laws that cover 'beating someone to death'. If you beat someone to death with a jelly coated toaster, you might argue for some obscure reason, your actions are not covered by the existing legal framework around beating people to death, but mostly likely you will not be protected by the claim you 'didn't know it was illegal' to do that. ...because the courts have not ruled that beating people to death with jelly coated toasters is legal. ie. a) There is no specific legal precedent or law around something but other laws related to it exist and b) Something has been determined to be legal by some precedent / law / whatever Are not equivalent. Regardless of what people want to believe, or have opinions one way or another, the assertion, made in the original article, that (b) was true, is not true. Only (a) is true, and that is, legally, a much weaker statement.
• majewsky 4y ago
  Two disclaimers: 1. IANAL 2. I can only speak about German law. I have investigated this a few months ago while researching a radio show segment on AI art. In German law, the relevant statutes appear to be section 23.1 and section 44b of the copyright code. The original text is at https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__23.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__23.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__44b.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__44b.html and below is a Google Translate result that I have proof-read. > Section 23 (Adaptations and rearrangements): "(1) Adaptations or other rearrangements of a work, especially a melody, may only be published or used with the consent of the author. If the newly created work is at a sufficient distance from the work used, it does not constitute an adaptation or rearrangement within the meaning of sentence 1." This amounts to the same as what TFA says about derivative works in general. If it's too close to the original, it may be infringing copyright. Gauging the boundary between "too close" and "not too close" is the bread and butter of copyright courts. > Section 44b (Text and data mining): "(1) Text and data mining is the automated analysis of one or more digital or digitized works in order to obtain information, in particular about patterns, trends and correlations. (2) Duplications of legally accessible works for text and data mining are permitted. The copies are to be deleted when they are no longer required for text and data mining. (3) Uses according to paragraph 2 sentence 1 are only permitted if the right holder has not reserved them. A reservation of use for works accessible online is only effective if it is in machine-readable form." Again, IANAL, but in my opinion this covers neural networks. "Obtaining information about patterns, trends and correlations" is as close to a literal description of the purpose and function of artificial neural networks as you're going to get in legalese. Paragraph 2 just means that you have to delete your data-mined stash if you ever deem your model complete (but it should not be too hard to argue that ML training is always an ongoing process and thus the mined data will always be required). Regarding Paragraph 3, if I'm not mistaken, the "machine-readable form" part of paragraph 3 is very very very specifically aimed at robots.txt. That is, if you allow your art to appear in search results (which most artists want), then it's also fair game for data mining. Once again, IANAL, and this is only German law. But I think it's very easy to make a case here that this existing code of law covers AI training as well, as long as measures are taken to ensure that source images cannot be reproduced with any sort of fidelity (and obviously that's a big "if").
  • 4y ago
• roenxi 4y ago
  Yeah, we'll see how the courts come down on this one. But If we follow exactly the same process as you describe using a human instead of a computer it seems like that would be fine. Artists copy each other all the time. Also, this looks to me like a situation where generating art is suddenly so cheap and easy it doesn't matter what the courts decide. People can and will ignore the law, because it is trivial to generate new pictures and it is cost ineffective to enforce any restrictions. We're going to see this tech take off. Who knew that art would be the next thing software took out?
  • gonehome 4y ago
    This is basically my take - I'm mostly confused by the people up in arms about this (except that it likely makes their work more of a commodity, so I get that fear). People look at art and make art in that style all the time, now a machine exists that can do that. Why is that unethical? Because they didn't consent for the machine to look at it/learn from it, but they did for humans? I don't think this argument will be able to hold the wave of change that's coming from this new capability. They'd be better off long term learning how to use it. Nobody creates purely original things in a vacuum, machines won't either.
    • MomoXenosaga 4y ago
      Automation is okay if it is about taxi drivers or warehouse workers. But when it targets artists some people turn Luddite. My brother is an artist by the way who does a lot of work with AI, 3D printing and internet. Art will always survive and adapt. If memory serves it took decades before photography was socially accepted among the art world.
      • athrowaway12 4y ago
        The question now is what value can (human) artists bring besides merely producing images of a certain subject in a certain style. Software has clearly just solved that problem, although the buildup was the last 10-20 years (cnns, gans, style transfer, and now generative language-based models). But when I think of the value and interestingness of art, there's a lot of intention and meaning in choosing what to draw, the form, etc. For example, look at The Death of Socrates and then compare it with the three other paintings of the same scene here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates. Even from a first glance, the one by David is clearly superior. The scene is so much more striking and interesting to look at. You can see the emotions of the characters, and overall the composition underscores the significance of the philosopher's death, especially in the context of the enlightenment/romantic period. (This is my opinion as a pleb; not an art expert.) But what I do understand, as a computer person, is that these concepts are still beyond what a model can encode in an image as of today. So although humans are no longer superior in the mechanics of producing images, I think in the higher-level/psychological aspects of "art", there's room for humans, at least for now.
• tiahura 4y ago
  IAAL. Regardless of how the Copilot case develops at the trial court level, anyone who thinks the Roberts' Supreme Court is ultimately going to kneecap this technology needs to reboot.
  • williamcotton 4y ago
    It’s not even getting out of the ninth district.
  • lost_tourist 4y ago
    YEah, I think people also need to give up on saying "well precedence says" with the current SCOTUS roster. They don't actually care about precedent when it doesn't jive with their agenda. It's hard to believe that the mightest lawyers in the land think precedent is unimportant but we've already seen it a few times and this SCOTUS is just getting started.
• egypturnash 4y ago
  Yes. When artists say things like "this really feels like it should not be fair use" we are dismissed with "well it's legal!". Changing what "fair use" covers is a possibility. Unfortunately art is a hard business to make a lot of money in and the vast majority of the people unhappy about this do not have the money to mount any kind of legal challenge to the corporations developing these databases, so we are basically fucked. Which is in some ways nothing new, the average Internet user has no concept of creator's rights and will blissfully assume that if something's not behind a paywall, it's free for any use. It feels even shittier and worse when this is being done on an industrial scale by these AIs, though.
  • dmix 4y ago
    Even if artists could sue this is assuming there is someone making enough money to sue. Open source models will likely be dominant (this was how Stable Diffusion got popular, it's not clear their new neutered 'safe' model will be as popular or a successful business). This is the new reality even if the bigco gets sued out of business. Artists need to accept that reality eventually. Just like all "panics". Fortunately AI generators are not a direct replacement for artists, I've seen it used as part of the design process, but that still takes talent. Maybe it will get better but it's not a one-stop shop for business use-cases. More likely it will be AI+artist, not AI replacing artist.
    • egypturnash 4y ago
      If an open-source model gets DMCA'd, then getting a copy becomes a hassle. This does not entirely stop things - people still have massive collections of Nintendo ROMs and downloaded films, but it's work to get it running in a way that, say the Stable Diffusion tool that Clip Studio Paint just announced is not. A real open-sourced model trained on images that were explicitly licensed for such uses would be interesting. It would cost money but it would also not be hiding a ton of its actual cost by training it on images whose creator never imagined that "being dumped into a vast dataset" would be a thing that would happen, as well as images that were fine in their original context as "fair use" but got sucked in by the web crawlers feeding the dataset. You want to train an image-generating machine on my work? Ask my fucking permission and if I say "pay me" then you either negotiate a price we can both live with, or you do not put it in your dataset. I do not accept your reality. Sue 'em all until you've gotta train your own damn datasets, or buy ones that have worked out the proper licensing. If Photoshop can be made to refuse to scan currency, then these things can be made to be fair to the artists whose shoulders they rest upon.
• marcosdumay 4y ago
  AFAIK, from the discussion here, training the network has been established as fair use on the US. But that doesn't apply to use the network's results in any way.
  • VanTheBrand 4y ago
    As far as I know that hasn’t been established yet but is presumably what would be decided (especially in an academic environment). But yes the output is a totally different question.
• rfrey 4y ago
  Although not being explicitly illegal does make something legal, the phrasing "has been decided to be legal" suggests a debate, a conscious decision, and perhaps an overturned law. That is not the case as far as I know. It is legal (because that is the default), but no decision has been made.
• gnopgnip 4y ago
  There is a lot of case law on what a derivative work is. A model that outputs an identically image to the training doesn’t mean the trained model is infringing or a derivative work.
• jagged-chisel 4y ago
  > ... it’s only legal because there are no laws specifically making it illegal currently. One might argue that any unlicensed use of copyrighted material is misuse (unless the courts have ruled it is fair use.) Only the copyright holder may bring action against a potential misuse. Typically, individuals tend not to have deep enough pockets to hire the lawyers to bring the action. And during discovery it may be found that the model was trained on works-for-hire made by humans replicating the original style. Or appeals may continue on at more legal cost, without guarantee of recompense. Most will decide it’s just not worth it. Until a company similar Getty buys up all the copyrighted material and, in addition to sensible suits, brings spurious legal action against individuals and turns the tables.
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  In a lot of ways, whether it has or not is moot in the medium-term. Court cases / legal clarification may outlaw Stable Diffusion or DALL-E for having been trained without the consent of the original artist on their copyrighted artworks. But if this technology proves valuable and viable, the likes of Disney, WPP, and Omnicom Group will pay a few dozen artists to create enough work to seed an engine that can generate 50 million wholly-owned lookalikes. Copyright protection will ultimately shield the megacorps from competition by the common folk, not artists from competition by corporations.
• lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  > it’s only legal because there are no laws specifically making it illegal currently. No, it's only legal because nobody has litigated a case all the way to the Supreme Court. We all thought that APIs weren't copyrightable, and then, suddenly they were (or worse, were "assumed to be" but not explicitly ruled upon).
• kmeisthax 4y ago
  In the EU, training a model on copyrighted data does not infringe copyright. This is explicit, codified law as of the latest EU Copyright Directive[0]. In the US, AI researchers are more or less hoping that Authors Guild v. Google forms controlling precedent against lawsuits against the AI companies. While this is not done-and-dusted case law, I can see the logic. The model is capable of, and is intended to be capable of, creating novel art. In neither case is it legal to use outputs of an AI that infringe an already-existing copyrighted work. This means anyone using it to generate production-ready artwork is exposing themselves to potential legal liability if their AI winds up regurgitating training set data. This is what I worry about way more than just "are the model weights infringing copyright". As for morality: - Absolutely none of the current generative art systems are trained from scratch on ethically-sourced datasets. The AI companies just assume that because they need ungodly amounts of training set data, that they are morally entitled to get it, because they spend more time staring into the eyes of a basilisk[1] than worrying about the world they already live in. - Multiple companies getting into generative art have gone above and beyond in giving human artists the middle finger. DeviantArt decided to blow all their good-will from defending against NFT nonsense by making their AI training program opt-out, which is NOT HOW CONSENT WORKS. Mimic[2] and Dreambooth are basically artistic impersonation tools that have specific moral implications beyond the general practice of AI art. Whether or not this becomes actual law is... well, I'll put it to you this way. Stability AI's Dance Diffusion is actually trained on an ethically-sourced, public-domain dataset. Why? Because they're afraid of being sued by the RIAA. Despite the name, copyright maximalists are less about maximizing the rights of artists and more about building moats around large publishers. And generative art does not threaten[3] those publishers, so it will not be banned. [0] Yes, the same one that mandated upload filters on video sites. [1] Roko's Basilisk posits the idea of a superintelligent AI - one that can eat everyone's brains and emulate them perfectly - constructing a perfect hell for people who didn't build it as a way to threaten those people in the past to build it. Longtermists can burn in computer-generated hell. Time discounts exist for a reason. [2] https://illustmimic.com/en/ https://illustmimic.com/en/ [3] Specifically: even in a world where AI completely outperforms humans on all artistic endeavors, publishers will just buy the AI companies.
• tluyben2 4y ago
  What I find weird is that humans do the same and no one mentions that; I have 2 professional (they have lived of it for decades) artist friends; one makes Giger art (paintbrush, exactly the same style but no copies, original but if you see it you are going to say Giger) and another one Vermeer, same thing. There is no discussion if that’s moral or legal, what’s the difference? The Giger one has bought a farm of GPUs a few months ago and is adding training to models for animations. He loves it. Same with copilot; people copy shit from GitHub and SO all the time without mentioning copyrights and a lot of code people cough up is just ‘stolen’ from someone without remembering who/where it was; what’s the difference?
  • JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I'd say there's a good chance both of those artists are going to grow "beyond" the artist they are emulating (and by "beyond" here I don't mean better than but rather grow into something unique). Lots of bands (nearly all?) learn their craft by playing covers. At some point the artists in the group start to find their voice. I suspect AI never will.
    • tluyben2 4y ago
      > grow into something unique They are both end 50s, so I rather doubt it.
• spookie 4y ago
  Still waiting for the moment when somebody uses image/video AI for some real nasty incident in world politics.
• PhasmaFelis 4y ago
  > that stability has nerfed the most recent mode release they’ve done. What does this mean?
  • nickthegreek 4y ago
    Sd2 removed nsfw, artist names and celebs from training set. It’s a worse experience for the end user.