10 ms·

It's rich to see people talk about the commons like AI models aren't a massive tragedy of the commons.

by __loam 3y ago

AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
Can you expand on that?
- __loam 3y ago
  These models will discourage creative work. They exist at the expense of the people who made them possible.
KoolKat23 3y ago
I assume you're referring to copyright. It could be argued copyright is a tragedy of the commons, the individual benefits at the expense of everyone else. Obviously it is intended that the wider impact of incentivising innovation will be beneficial to everyone, but that is not a sure thing, it is a compromise, a balancing act and that applies to AI too. The Luddites did lose their jobs after all.
- __loam 3y ago
  Listening to people bash the luddites without understanding the actual history of the luddites is getting exhausting.
  - KoolKat23 3y ago
    I think you should read my comment again.
thot_experiment 3y ago
Please explain to me how baking all the art into a big tensor and then giving it away to everyone for free to run on any half decent GPU from the past 10 years is somehow anti-commons. Rent-seeking by controlling AI models is anti-commons, the models themselves are not, neither is training them. Don't delude yourself into thinking that Miyazaki didn't study Moebius didn't study Mucha. Even if you got your way and all training on copyrighted material was stopped today and all existing models were deleted it would only be a matter of time before we could synthesize arbitrary styles (at least as well as we can today) by identifying and controlling the correct axes in tensor space using a model purely informed by public domain data. Your art is mostly not yours, your art is mostly an amalgamation of other people's art which itself is also the same, all the way down. You are a sprinkling of flavor on top. Your art is stolen styles, techniques and vibes mashed together. And here you are, trapped arguing about where we draw the line on what's okay. 75 years? now 95? Look at what you're saying! Introspect and realize that your understanding of the context is defined by Disney and Bono wanting to collect rent on ideas. You're just focused on getting your crumbs of the pie in a game that's rigged to centralize power and keep it centralized.
- splitstud 3y ago
  [dead]
- mplewis 3y ago
  We all know that an artist studying the masters to make something original isn't the same as an autocomplete API picking the color of the next pixel. Come on, man.
  - visarga 3y ago
    > studying the masters to make something original original or "original"? maybe AI companies need to hire people to make "original" content for AI.
  - thot_experiment 3y ago
    Whether or not those things are equivalent isn't relevant to any part of my point.
    - __loam 3y ago
      You equivocated them.
      - thot_experiment 3y ago
        I did not. You and GP are missing the point. I'm trying to make you understand how much of art is stealing from others, that you're incorrect about how art works at a basic level. Art is mostly drawing upon the commons and your understanding of artist rights is based on a fiction created by corporations and wealthy rent seekers seeking to retain power in our economic system.
        __loam 3y ago
        You're such a condescending prick. Do you actually know any artists? Have you actually tried making art? You might think I'm being rude or overly hostile to you, but frankly I think you deserve it. Your views are atrocious.
Dracophoenix 3y ago
The tragedy of the commons relates to deletable resources, such as grass feed for livestock. How's that relevant to ML models that create content/resources about as fast as most can think? What's being depleted?
- __loam 3y ago
  Qualifying this statement by saying this is something I've thought about and this is my own bullshit theory. There's a limited amount of "attention" on the internet that's available in online art spaces. I theorize that artists need to maintain a public portfolio to find work, either creative work for advertising or entertainment companies or commissions or patreon subscription. You need to be out there for people to hire you if you want to make a living doing art. AI art is disruptive and harmful to that ecosystem in a few ways. It competes with artists not only for dollars and jobs for commercial art (ie ad agency work), but more fundamentally it competes with artists for attention on the internet, which at a macro scale makes it so there's less money in the system for real artists to practice and master their skills. It's also not necessarily that the AI art is better, it's just good enough to pollute the signal to noise ratio. And as you said, it's fast. That can quickly overwhelm sites like DeviantArt or Art Station, which moves those communities and resources away from their original purpose. Additionally, AI art models need data from the commons to function. I'm skeptical that synthetic data is good enough to use for improving these models, so theoretically, one of the main ways to improve these models is getting more and better data from humans. If the economy of these models is structured in a way that discourages artists from posting their work publicly, or working at all, then the pace of improvement decreases. I think a lot of artists are pretty pissed off that their work is being used to produce commercial software that creates substitutes for their work without their permission or knowledge. So that's what I mean by the tragedy of the commons. The online art ecosystem is more fragile than many people think it is and ai companies are over exploiting it. The content remains but the thing you're actually trying to sample, human knowledge and skill, withers on the vine.

It's rich to see people talk about the commons like AI models aren't a massive tragedy of the commons.

by __loam 3y ago

It's rich to see people talk about the commons like AI models aren't a massive tragedy of the commons.

AnarchismIsCool 3y ago

Can you expand on that?

__loam 3y ago
These models will discourage creative work. They exist at the expense of the people who made them possible.

KoolKat23 3y ago

I assume you're referring to copyright. It could be argued copyright is a tragedy of the commons, the individual benefits at the expense of everyone else. Obviously it is intended that the wider impact of incentivising innovation will be beneficial to everyone, but that is not a sure thing, it is a compromise, a balancing act and that applies to AI too. The Luddites did lose their jobs after all.

__loam 3y ago
Listening to people bash the luddites without understanding the actual history of the luddites is getting exhausting.
- KoolKat23 3y ago
  I think you should read my comment again.

thot_experiment 3y ago

Please explain to me how baking all the art into a big tensor and then giving it away to everyone for free to run on any half decent GPU from the past 10 years is somehow anti-commons. Rent-seeking by controlling AI models is anti-commons, the models themselves are not, neither is training them. Don't delude yourself into thinking that Miyazaki didn't study Moebius didn't study Mucha. Even if you got your way and all training on copyrighted material was stopped today and all existing models were deleted it would only be a matter of time before we could synthesize arbitrary styles (at least as well as we can today) by identifying and controlling the correct axes in tensor space using a model purely informed by public domain data. Your art is mostly not yours, your art is mostly an amalgamation of other people's art which itself is also the same, all the way down. You are a sprinkling of flavor on top. Your art is stolen styles, techniques and vibes mashed together. And here you are, trapped arguing about where we draw the line on what's okay. 75 years? now 95? Look at what you're saying! Introspect and realize that your understanding of the context is defined by Disney and Bono wanting to collect rent on ideas. You're just focused on getting your crumbs of the pie in a game that's rigged to centralize power and keep it centralized.

splitstud 3y ago
[dead]
mplewis 3y ago
We all know that an artist studying the masters to make something original isn't the same as an autocomplete API picking the color of the next pixel. Come on, man.
- visarga 3y ago
  > studying the masters to make something original original or "original"? maybe AI companies need to hire people to make "original" content for AI.
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  Whether or not those things are equivalent isn't relevant to any part of my point.
  - __loam 3y ago
    You equivocated them.
    - thot_experiment 3y ago
      I did not. You and GP are missing the point. I'm trying to make you understand how much of art is stealing from others, that you're incorrect about how art works at a basic level. Art is mostly drawing upon the commons and your understanding of artist rights is based on a fiction created by corporations and wealthy rent seekers seeking to retain power in our economic system.
      - __loam 3y ago
        You're such a condescending prick. Do you actually know any artists? Have you actually tried making art? You might think I'm being rude or overly hostile to you, but frankly I think you deserve it. Your views are atrocious.

Dracophoenix 3y ago

The tragedy of the commons relates to deletable resources, such as grass feed for livestock. How's that relevant to ML models that create content/resources about as fast as most can think? What's being depleted?

__loam 3y ago
Qualifying this statement by saying this is something I've thought about and this is my own bullshit theory. There's a limited amount of "attention" on the internet that's available in online art spaces. I theorize that artists need to maintain a public portfolio to find work, either creative work for advertising or entertainment companies or commissions or patreon subscription. You need to be out there for people to hire you if you want to make a living doing art. AI art is disruptive and harmful to that ecosystem in a few ways. It competes with artists not only for dollars and jobs for commercial art (ie ad agency work), but more fundamentally it competes with artists for attention on the internet, which at a macro scale makes it so there's less money in the system for real artists to practice and master their skills. It's also not necessarily that the AI art is better, it's just good enough to pollute the signal to noise ratio. And as you said, it's fast. That can quickly overwhelm sites like DeviantArt or Art Station, which moves those communities and resources away from their original purpose. Additionally, AI art models need data from the commons to function. I'm skeptical that synthetic data is good enough to use for improving these models, so theoretically, one of the main ways to improve these models is getting more and better data from humans. If the economy of these models is structured in a way that discourages artists from posting their work publicly, or working at all, then the pace of improvement decreases. I think a lot of artists are pretty pissed off that their work is being used to produce commercial software that creates substitutes for their work without their permission or knowledge. So that's what I mean by the tragedy of the commons. The online art ecosystem is more fragile than many people think it is and ai companies are over exploiting it. The content remains but the thing you're actually trying to sample, human knowledge and skill, withers on the vine.