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I was in the "Alte Pinoteke" in Munich, Germany, on Sunday. It is a fabulous gallery full of huge and old master paintings. There was a certain 4 frame series

I was in the "Alte Pinoteke" in Munich, Germany, on Sunday. It is a fabulous gallery full of huge and old master paintings. There was a certain 4 frame series with each frame about 5m long by 3m high. Each was an architectural study of Rome with each being from a different view direction. What struck me was the text written below the paintings which indicated that the artist, after *3 years of work*, had been quoted that he was sick of the job and wished that the process would be now over. 3 years to produce 4 images so that some aristocrat could hang it on his wall and be reminded of his holiday adventure. The distance between this state of the world, where to make a representation of reality (unreality) at the highest levels of fidelity would take years to achieve, versus what is now possible with digital cameras and AI image generation is staggering. Now anybody can create a Mona Lisa and have it hung in their own toilet to admire. Is this a bad thing that ordinary people have access to the tools to create content vs the old way where only the very very rich could afford to pay a master for three years to produce a few images? I can only assume that the same arguments and complaints were raised at every stage a new technology was introduced that lowered the cost and time to produce "content".

dtech 4y ago
This seems completely irrelevant. Photo cameras don't instristically rely on painters having existed and continuing to exist to do their thing.
- michaelscott 4y ago
  This is a separate (but important) issue. The development and effect that tech like this will have on the place of the artist or designer in the future is going to be a similarly seismic shift for the industry, just as the camera and printing press were in their time. This is going to happen more-or-less regardless of what the outcome of the copyright issue is.
- Dwolb 4y ago
  Counter example: Cameras often do rely on other professions to have existed to do their thing. e.g. Architects who built city buildings, fashion designers who designed clothes, and engineers who built cars. They don’t get paid every time their work gets put on Instagram, etc.
  - jcelerier 4y ago
    I don't know how it is in other countries but in general in France you cannot just take a picture of a building and put it on Instagram without asking the architect for rights : > the image of a building cannot be reproduced without the authorization of the architect who holds the copyright or of his successors in title. Otherwise, the reproduction of a protected work without the authorization of its author constitutes, according to the provisions of the article L122-4 of the Code of the intellectual property an act of counterfeit.
    - jodrellblank 4y ago
      France must get a lot of money from all the photos of the Eiffel Tower on the internet. Has anyone been sued/convicted of breaking that and paid reparations?
      - luxcem 4y ago
        Fun fact, the Eiffel Tower architecture is not protected since 1990, but the lighting is. So it's illegal to use commercialy a night time photo of the tower[1][2]. I don't think anybody has ever been sued but the SETE (Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel) do make money with the image. [1] https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copy...
    - Dwolb 4y ago
      Interesting I hadn’t heard of that! Is this law often enforced?
    - true_religion 4y ago
      I wonder how they deal with real estate pictures. Do most people get a license to reproduce the images of their house when they buy it?
    - Jiocus 4y ago
      I read some year ago that this kind of thing applies to New York as well, that was in the context of an open-world Spider-Man game featuring NY skylines.
m4lvin 4y ago
Interesting example. Do you remember the name of the 4 frame series of paintings of Rome? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte_Pinakothek https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte_Pinakothek
- injidup 4y ago
  I think it might have been this sequence. https://www.pinakothek.de/kunst/johann-christian-reinhart/blick-von-der-villa-malta-rom-nach-sueden https://www.pinakothek.de/kunst/johann-christian-reinhart/bl... though I suspect I remembered them a bit bigger than they actually were.
alpaca128 4y ago
> I can only assume that the same arguments and complaints were raised at every stage a new technology was introduced that lowered the cost and time to produce "content". Which of those technologies were based on billions of copyright violations? And of course this copyright still exists but is only enforced in one direction, just like on YouTube where random corporations can claim copyright on any video and hurt the income of actual creators without negative consequences. AI will likely not improve this situation. I'll think differently about that comparison if it is possible for random people to legally train models & create images from Disney's intellectual property on affordable hardware. But I don't have any false hope that equivalent enforcement of copyright will be a reality in the foreseeable future.
- pas 4y ago
  What's the infringement? You can't copyright style, no? If artists can look at each others copyright-in-full-force works and then imitate it, why can't AI? Corporations having too much power is different from technology encroaching on previously uniquely human faculties. Of course both are phenomena that ought to be addressed by society. At which point we see that it's a political problem, and of course politics is broken. > I'll think differently about that comparison if it is possible for random people to legally train models & create images from Disney's intellectual property on affordable hardware. ... that's a very strange set of criteria. that said, last year one of my designer friends tried Midjourney, one of the pictures was so and so in Star Wars style. Of course generating pictures is different from using them, let's say in ads.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    > If artists can look at each others copyright-in-full-force works and then imitate it, why can't AI? AI can reconstruct many training images in surprising detail. Show me an artist who can draw you an image they practiced on 10 years ago including the rough shape of the watermark. > Of course generating pictures is different from using them, let's say in ads. Microsoft's Copilot is a paid service, same with OpenAI's upcoming ChatGPT Plus subscription. Nobody here claims that it's illegal to draw Mickey Mouse and hang it on your fridge, but those AI models aren't trained just for fun. If Microsoft is allowed to make money from ignoring countless license terms I should be allowed to make my own short film trained with Disney cartoons and sell it. But we all know how well that would turn out.
jimbokun 4y ago
There is a reason the art you were looking at was in a museum, and images generated by AI tools is not. There is something impressive and inspiring about the process those artists went through, embedded in the physical work itself. Like we are impressed watching someone running a marathon, even though they could cover the same distance much more quickly in a car.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  But you aren't saying that "Google trying to build a self-driving car is the biggest triple-E (Embrace Extend Extinguish) bait-and-switch in its history and completely unfair on marathon runners who, if it had any morals, it would be striving to pay".

dtech 4y ago

This seems completely irrelevant. Photo cameras don't instristically rely on painters having existed and continuing to exist to do their thing.

michaelscott 4y ago
This is a separate (but important) issue. The development and effect that tech like this will have on the place of the artist or designer in the future is going to be a similarly seismic shift for the industry, just as the camera and printing press were in their time. This is going to happen more-or-less regardless of what the outcome of the copyright issue is.
Dwolb 4y ago
Counter example: Cameras often do rely on other professions to have existed to do their thing. e.g. Architects who built city buildings, fashion designers who designed clothes, and engineers who built cars. They don’t get paid every time their work gets put on Instagram, etc.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  I don't know how it is in other countries but in general in France you cannot just take a picture of a building and put it on Instagram without asking the architect for rights : > the image of a building cannot be reproduced without the authorization of the architect who holds the copyright or of his successors in title. Otherwise, the reproduction of a protected work without the authorization of its author constitutes, according to the provisions of the article L122-4 of the Code of the intellectual property an act of counterfeit.
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    France must get a lot of money from all the photos of the Eiffel Tower on the internet. Has anyone been sued/convicted of breaking that and paid reparations?
    - luxcem 4y ago
      Fun fact, the Eiffel Tower architecture is not protected since 1990, but the lighting is. So it's illegal to use commercialy a night time photo of the tower[1][2]. I don't think anybody has ever been sued but the SETE (Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel) do make money with the image. [1] https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Illumination_copy...
  - Dwolb 4y ago
    Interesting I hadn’t heard of that! Is this law often enforced?
  - true_religion 4y ago
    I wonder how they deal with real estate pictures. Do most people get a license to reproduce the images of their house when they buy it?
  - Jiocus 4y ago
    I read some year ago that this kind of thing applies to New York as well, that was in the context of an open-world Spider-Man game featuring NY skylines.

m4lvin 4y ago

Interesting example. Do you remember the name of the 4 frame series of paintings of Rome? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte_Pinakothek https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alte_Pinakothek

injidup 4y ago
I think it might have been this sequence. https://www.pinakothek.de/kunst/johann-christian-reinhart/blick-von-der-villa-malta-rom-nach-sueden https://www.pinakothek.de/kunst/johann-christian-reinhart/bl... though I suspect I remembered them a bit bigger than they actually were.

alpaca128 4y ago

> I can only assume that the same arguments and complaints were raised at every stage a new technology was introduced that lowered the cost and time to produce "content". Which of those technologies were based on billions of copyright violations? And of course this copyright still exists but is only enforced in one direction, just like on YouTube where random corporations can claim copyright on any video and hurt the income of actual creators without negative consequences. AI will likely not improve this situation. I'll think differently about that comparison if it is possible for random people to legally train models & create images from Disney's intellectual property on affordable hardware. But I don't have any false hope that equivalent enforcement of copyright will be a reality in the foreseeable future.

pas 4y ago
What's the infringement? You can't copyright style, no? If artists can look at each others copyright-in-full-force works and then imitate it, why can't AI? Corporations having too much power is different from technology encroaching on previously uniquely human faculties. Of course both are phenomena that ought to be addressed by society. At which point we see that it's a political problem, and of course politics is broken. > I'll think differently about that comparison if it is possible for random people to legally train models & create images from Disney's intellectual property on affordable hardware. ... that's a very strange set of criteria. that said, last year one of my designer friends tried Midjourney, one of the pictures was so and so in Star Wars style. Of course generating pictures is different from using them, let's say in ads.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  > If artists can look at each others copyright-in-full-force works and then imitate it, why can't AI? AI can reconstruct many training images in surprising detail. Show me an artist who can draw you an image they practiced on 10 years ago including the rough shape of the watermark. > Of course generating pictures is different from using them, let's say in ads. Microsoft's Copilot is a paid service, same with OpenAI's upcoming ChatGPT Plus subscription. Nobody here claims that it's illegal to draw Mickey Mouse and hang it on your fridge, but those AI models aren't trained just for fun. If Microsoft is allowed to make money from ignoring countless license terms I should be allowed to make my own short film trained with Disney cartoons and sell it. But we all know how well that would turn out.

jimbokun 4y ago

There is a reason the art you were looking at was in a museum, and images generated by AI tools is not. There is something impressive and inspiring about the process those artists went through, embedded in the physical work itself. Like we are impressed watching someone running a marathon, even though they could cover the same distance much more quickly in a car.

jodrellblank 4y ago
But you aren't saying that "Google trying to build a self-driving car is the biggest triple-E (Embrace Extend Extinguish) bait-and-switch in its history and completely unfair on marathon runners who, if it had any morals, it would be striving to pay".