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We drastically need copyright reform for text, imagery, video. It was never designed for this AI era. If you take a concept like "fair use". Let's say I embed

We drastically need copyright reform for text, imagery, video. It was never designed for this AI era. If you take a concept like "fair use". Let's say I embed your photo and express an opinion about it. That's what fair use was designed for. In-context relatively harmless usage of the content of others, for the sake of expression, culture and education. That's not the same thing as "let me suck up all content ever created without permission, attribution or compensation, mangle it and sell it via the backdoor whilst making you obsolete". You can't call that fair use, they are wildly different usages at wildly different scales with wildly different impact. We need a new copyright category specifically for AI usage. If nothing is expressed, no training permission is given. One can opt-in and allow for training, allow for training under conditions, etc.

nabogh 4y ago
In my opinion copyright is a law that is always at odds with the free flow of information. I'd hate for that law to start influencing how I interact with user generated text on the internet. As we see on YouTube, nuance for copyright loses to erring on the side of enforcing copyright even when the use is fair.
burtonator 4y ago
Honestly, I think it's completely unfair for AIs to train on this data. I work in ML so I'm aware of the consequences but society wasn't. My step-daughter is finally crushing it as an graphics artist and she is really pissed at tools like Midjourney. I asked her about it and she said "yes, they steal the artwork of real artists and generate fake knockoffs" ... and I don't think her opinion is invalid.
- dahwolf 4y ago
  Fully agree on everything you said. In addition, we're all kind of forced to hop on to AI whether we're a programmer or artist just to buy ourselves a little more time, delaying the inevitable. Actually, perhaps accelerating the inevitable by contributing to it. Even in an utopian world where we would have an economic model to support this (UBI), the outcome still sucks. It wipes out human culture. There's no point in creating/producing anything as almost anything can be produced by anyone, at incredible quality, at no cost and with little skill. Hence, your daughter being or becoming an incredible artist would have no meaning, except perhaps for herself enjoying the process of creating art.
  - trifurcate 4y ago
    > Hence, your daughter being or becoming an incredible artist would have no meaning, except perhaps for herself enjoying the process of creating art. There are lots of points and arguments to be made in this general area, but I have to ask, is this really so bad? I mean, what is the point of our lives and everything we do, other than to generally spend the rest of our time doing things we enjoy for their own sake? If we're comparing "your daughter is an incredible artist, and here's a job for her designing product packaging for a multinational conglomerate" to "your daughter is an incredible artist, and the multinational conglomerate is using a diffusion model to design their packaging", I think it's really hard to say that the former is better than the latter. Of course, it all depends on the economic model, but the line I am quoting is within that assumption you made of the economic model being able to support this. In that case, I am for the latter wholeheartedly. Economic incentives are great to get people "hustling", but they are rarely aligned with the human values you wish to protect, and mostly by chance if they are. Your daughter's artistry is better "spent" on art for art's (and personal enjoyment's) sake than on drawing clip art for an obscure HR form somewhere, IMO.
    - plutoh28 4y ago
      I wonder what would happen to a world where AI runs the economy. Not everyone has some hobby or passion that brings meaning into their lives. Some people just work, come home, and spend their free hours consuming some form of entertainment. Without work, would those people just have more free hours? The elimination of human labor could be disastrous to mental health.
      - dahwolf 4y ago
        A good point, and I've been puzzled by how hard this split in characters is between individuals. I know several people that without external force (work, duty) would have absolutely no idea what to do with themselves. Even their free time they organize around work-like chores or spend it on passive media. These people seem to lack any sense of wonder, of curiosity or exploration. And it seems a permanent and fixed state. This is who they are. You can't change it. I would not worry about this problem though because surely in the hypothetical situation of no commercial work, there's plenty of other work we can make up.
- qumpis 4y ago
  Are there artists who create in isolation? I.e. the ones who somehow can prove that their art is not based on what they've seen?
  - klabb3 4y ago
    No, it’s not in isolation. Doesn’t matter, because fair use applies to humans, not robots. When you go from “human that does X” to “human that operates machine that does X” you’ve changed the situation. We’ve already been through this with cameras, which are technically just the same as using your eyes and your memory. Yet both legally and morally we all feel that operating a camera doesn’t grant you the same rights as you have by just being and looking. Strolling through the park and seeing the kids playing is very different from bringing a zoom lens and a camping chair. That said, society could agree to a fair use that applies to ML-trained models. It could simply cover all non-commercial applications, or at the very least research.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art is probably the closest
  - eviks 4y ago
    Are there artist who are capable of viewing gazillions of art works like computers can? And the copy&paste with little effort?
    - qumpis 4y ago
      Not sure, maybe there are some savants with photographic memory. But likely people remember references to certain art and can look them up and then 'copy paste' stylistic elements (but with a lot of effort!)
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Artists don't generate art in a vacuum. Everything is a fake knockoff of everything else. I believe the cream will still rise to the top, and the best artists will still create something totally different, and/or use AI tools to generate something better than they could create otherwise.
- x-complexity 4y ago
  > My step-daughter is finally crushing it as an graphics artist and she is really pissed at tools like Midjourney. > I asked her about it and she said "yes, they steal the artwork of real artists and generate fake knockoffs" ... and I don't think her opinion is invalid. Creativity doesn't exist in a vacuum. New creations are based on long-term absorptions of existing concepts & discoveries, & the decision to advance or rebel against any combination of said concepts & discoveries. The nature of the work will change to focus more on the final product, wherein humans still hold an advantage over art generation models in terms of errors in the produced artwork. There's the possibility that such errors will be corrected with the use of an additional model down the pipeline that's solely focused on correcting said errors, but they're not foolproof either. There will also be a larger emphasis in some niches over the documentation of the creation of said artworks, as it currently exists in some niche circles I'm in. Reductively, it's the knockoff Gucci handbag problem, wherein the remedies towards it will be the same here: - (Tech) Serial imprinting / rollover keys / embedded signatures for verification - (Social) Shaming & ostracization of individuals that buy knockoffs I'm hesitant on using the legal system to solve such a problem, as the way the current copyright system is set up, it makes it near impossible for a new artist to NOT step on an existing artist's style in some form or another, even if unconsciously doing so.
- CrimsonRain 4y ago
  She's doing the same. We all are (stealing stuff, blending with randomness that moves us towards the goal).
verall 4y ago
Hey dahwolf I finally got a chance to skim through The Witch Trials of JK Rowling based on your recommendation and I thought it was pretty bad.
breck 4y ago
There's no better thinker IMO on this topic than Stephan Kinsella. (C)opyright law started in the 1500's as a form of censorship. There is no reason for it, other than censorship (or if you are in the top 1%, a great way to extract monopoly profits from the rest). https://www.stephankinsella.com/paf-podcast/kol236-intellectual-nonsense-fallacious-arguments-for-ip-libertopia-2012/ https://www.stephankinsella.com/paf-podcast/kol236-intellect...

nabogh 4y ago

In my opinion copyright is a law that is always at odds with the free flow of information. I'd hate for that law to start influencing how I interact with user generated text on the internet. As we see on YouTube, nuance for copyright loses to erring on the side of enforcing copyright even when the use is fair.

burtonator 4y ago

Honestly, I think it's completely unfair for AIs to train on this data. I work in ML so I'm aware of the consequences but society wasn't. My step-daughter is finally crushing it as an graphics artist and she is really pissed at tools like Midjourney. I asked her about it and she said "yes, they steal the artwork of real artists and generate fake knockoffs" ... and I don't think her opinion is invalid.

dahwolf 4y ago
Fully agree on everything you said. In addition, we're all kind of forced to hop on to AI whether we're a programmer or artist just to buy ourselves a little more time, delaying the inevitable. Actually, perhaps accelerating the inevitable by contributing to it. Even in an utopian world where we would have an economic model to support this (UBI), the outcome still sucks. It wipes out human culture. There's no point in creating/producing anything as almost anything can be produced by anyone, at incredible quality, at no cost and with little skill. Hence, your daughter being or becoming an incredible artist would have no meaning, except perhaps for herself enjoying the process of creating art.
- trifurcate 4y ago
  > Hence, your daughter being or becoming an incredible artist would have no meaning, except perhaps for herself enjoying the process of creating art. There are lots of points and arguments to be made in this general area, but I have to ask, is this really so bad? I mean, what is the point of our lives and everything we do, other than to generally spend the rest of our time doing things we enjoy for their own sake? If we're comparing "your daughter is an incredible artist, and here's a job for her designing product packaging for a multinational conglomerate" to "your daughter is an incredible artist, and the multinational conglomerate is using a diffusion model to design their packaging", I think it's really hard to say that the former is better than the latter. Of course, it all depends on the economic model, but the line I am quoting is within that assumption you made of the economic model being able to support this. In that case, I am for the latter wholeheartedly. Economic incentives are great to get people "hustling", but they are rarely aligned with the human values you wish to protect, and mostly by chance if they are. Your daughter's artistry is better "spent" on art for art's (and personal enjoyment's) sake than on drawing clip art for an obscure HR form somewhere, IMO.
  - plutoh28 4y ago
    I wonder what would happen to a world where AI runs the economy. Not everyone has some hobby or passion that brings meaning into their lives. Some people just work, come home, and spend their free hours consuming some form of entertainment. Without work, would those people just have more free hours? The elimination of human labor could be disastrous to mental health.
    - dahwolf 4y ago
      A good point, and I've been puzzled by how hard this split in characters is between individuals. I know several people that without external force (work, duty) would have absolutely no idea what to do with themselves. Even their free time they organize around work-like chores or spend it on passive media. These people seem to lack any sense of wonder, of curiosity or exploration. And it seems a permanent and fixed state. This is who they are. You can't change it. I would not worry about this problem though because surely in the hypothetical situation of no commercial work, there's plenty of other work we can make up.
qumpis 4y ago
Are there artists who create in isolation? I.e. the ones who somehow can prove that their art is not based on what they've seen?
- klabb3 4y ago
  No, it’s not in isolation. Doesn’t matter, because fair use applies to humans, not robots. When you go from “human that does X” to “human that operates machine that does X” you’ve changed the situation. We’ve already been through this with cameras, which are technically just the same as using your eyes and your memory. Yet both legally and morally we all feel that operating a camera doesn’t grant you the same rights as you have by just being and looking. Strolling through the park and seeing the kids playing is very different from bringing a zoom lens and a camping chair. That said, society could agree to a fair use that applies to ML-trained models. It could simply cover all non-commercial applications, or at the very least research.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art is probably the closest
- eviks 4y ago
  Are there artist who are capable of viewing gazillions of art works like computers can? And the copy&paste with little effort?
  - qumpis 4y ago
    Not sure, maybe there are some savants with photographic memory. But likely people remember references to certain art and can look them up and then 'copy paste' stylistic elements (but with a lot of effort!)
brokenmachine 4y ago
Artists don't generate art in a vacuum. Everything is a fake knockoff of everything else. I believe the cream will still rise to the top, and the best artists will still create something totally different, and/or use AI tools to generate something better than they could create otherwise.
x-complexity 4y ago
> My step-daughter is finally crushing it as an graphics artist and she is really pissed at tools like Midjourney. > I asked her about it and she said "yes, they steal the artwork of real artists and generate fake knockoffs" ... and I don't think her opinion is invalid. Creativity doesn't exist in a vacuum. New creations are based on long-term absorptions of existing concepts & discoveries, & the decision to advance or rebel against any combination of said concepts & discoveries. The nature of the work will change to focus more on the final product, wherein humans still hold an advantage over art generation models in terms of errors in the produced artwork. There's the possibility that such errors will be corrected with the use of an additional model down the pipeline that's solely focused on correcting said errors, but they're not foolproof either. There will also be a larger emphasis in some niches over the documentation of the creation of said artworks, as it currently exists in some niche circles I'm in. Reductively, it's the knockoff Gucci handbag problem, wherein the remedies towards it will be the same here: - (Tech) Serial imprinting / rollover keys / embedded signatures for verification - (Social) Shaming & ostracization of individuals that buy knockoffs I'm hesitant on using the legal system to solve such a problem, as the way the current copyright system is set up, it makes it near impossible for a new artist to NOT step on an existing artist's style in some form or another, even if unconsciously doing so.
CrimsonRain 4y ago
She's doing the same. We all are (stealing stuff, blending with randomness that moves us towards the goal).

verall 4y ago

Hey dahwolf I finally got a chance to skim through The Witch Trials of JK Rowling based on your recommendation and I thought it was pretty bad.

breck 4y ago

There's no better thinker IMO on this topic than Stephan Kinsella. (C)opyright law started in the 1500's as a form of censorship. There is no reason for it, other than censorship (or if you are in the top 1%, a great way to extract monopoly profits from the rest). https://www.stephankinsella.com/paf-podcast/kol236-intellectual-nonsense-fallacious-arguments-for-ip-libertopia-2012/ https://www.stephankinsella.com/paf-podcast/kol236-intellect...