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Do people have the right to stipulate they don't want their original creative works ingested by an algorithm and then regurgitated out on a prompt thereby benef

Do people have the right to stipulate they don't want their original creative works ingested by an algorithm and then regurgitated out on a prompt thereby benefitting the corporation who owns the algorithm and not the original artist? I think they do. And whether or not this particular case is won by Silverman is ultimately irrelevant. Society will have its day in court, and eventually this madness of so-called "AI" stealing our labor will be stopped one way or another.

ars 3y ago
Maybe they should, but so far as I know currently they don't, at least in the US. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights
nkohari 3y ago
I think it's difficult to argue that people have that right today. As a person, I can read creative works and then synthesize something similar. For example, if I were a graphic artist, you could commission me to create art "in the style of $ARTIST" and I would be able to legally do so as long as I wasn't copying the source art exactly. You can prompt Midjourney to do something similar, and it will happily comply. There are obvious ethical questions here, but I'm not sure that would result in a court finding for the copyright holder. We could choose to create new rights which prevent AI from ingesting copyrighted material, but it seems like it would need to be a new law, rather than rights conveyed under existing law.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  > As a person, I can read creative works and then synthesize something similar. Sure, and you'll be sued for copyright infringement if it's too similar. If you've created something new that transforms the original sufficiently and doesn't impinge on the original artists ability to derive benefits from their work, as well as several other restrictions, then you're ok. A mechanical transformation is an entirely different ballgame. Firstly you'd have to convince a judge that the machine was being creative. Given that the code can't do anything without being fed other people's works, you're then arguing that you're not appropriating other people's work just because you're doing it at scale. Machines using other's creativity (at scale) doesn't mean it has its own creativity. Machines are not human and human creativity isn't a fully understood phenomenon. It's a legal minefield.
  - nkohari 3y ago
    I hear you, but at the same time there's nothing in the current copyright law which differentiates fair use afforded to a person from fair use afforded to a machine. There's definitely an argument that we should have laws which govern machines, but we don't today. That's why I said it would likely need to be a new law that specifically does so.
andybak 3y ago
> Do people have the right to stipulate they don't want their original creative works ingested by an algorithm and then regurgitated out on a prompt thereby benefitting the corporation who owns the algorithm and not the original artist? Most times somebody makes this case it's explicitly framed as "AI owned by big corporations". I can see why this makes the argument more compelling but does the argument stand without this? i.e. if we are talking about an open model with no corporate control then do you feel your point is as strong as before? These models indisputably exist. I think there is still a reasonable case to be made but I think it's slightly dishonest to make it in this way when we know that things have moved on.

ars 3y ago

Maybe they should, but so far as I know currently they don't, at least in the US. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights

nkohari 3y ago

I think it's difficult to argue that people have that right today. As a person, I can read creative works and then synthesize something similar. For example, if I were a graphic artist, you could commission me to create art "in the style of $ARTIST" and I would be able to legally do so as long as I wasn't copying the source art exactly. You can prompt Midjourney to do something similar, and it will happily comply. There are obvious ethical questions here, but I'm not sure that would result in a court finding for the copyright holder. We could choose to create new rights which prevent AI from ingesting copyrighted material, but it seems like it would need to be a new law, rather than rights conveyed under existing law.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
> As a person, I can read creative works and then synthesize something similar. Sure, and you'll be sued for copyright infringement if it's too similar. If you've created something new that transforms the original sufficiently and doesn't impinge on the original artists ability to derive benefits from their work, as well as several other restrictions, then you're ok. A mechanical transformation is an entirely different ballgame. Firstly you'd have to convince a judge that the machine was being creative. Given that the code can't do anything without being fed other people's works, you're then arguing that you're not appropriating other people's work just because you're doing it at scale. Machines using other's creativity (at scale) doesn't mean it has its own creativity. Machines are not human and human creativity isn't a fully understood phenomenon. It's a legal minefield.
- nkohari 3y ago
  I hear you, but at the same time there's nothing in the current copyright law which differentiates fair use afforded to a person from fair use afforded to a machine. There's definitely an argument that we should have laws which govern machines, but we don't today. That's why I said it would likely need to be a new law that specifically does so.

andybak 3y ago

> Do people have the right to stipulate they don't want their original creative works ingested by an algorithm and then regurgitated out on a prompt thereby benefitting the corporation who owns the algorithm and not the original artist? Most times somebody makes this case it's explicitly framed as "AI owned by big corporations". I can see why this makes the argument more compelling but does the argument stand without this? i.e. if we are talking about an open model with no corporate control then do you feel your point is as strong as before? These models indisputably exist. I think there is still a reasonable case to be made but I think it's slightly dishonest to make it in this way when we know that things have moved on.