4 ms·

I'll care a little more about the creatives' arguments when they start paying royalties to every drawing, painting, illustration, tv show, or movie they've ever

by xscott 3y ago

I'll care a little more about the creatives' arguments when they start paying royalties to every drawing, painting, illustration, tv show, or movie they've ever seen. Until then, it's just a cash grab. No individual is all that creative, and anyone accomplished is standing on the shoulders of past giants to get there. The "what will we do for jobs argument?!?" would've applied to stage actors when movies came out a century ago and farm workers before the invention of tractors. Audio records, printing press, and so on. The world keeps getting better as technology advances, and people will adapt to the new changes. And if you think art created by real people is more valuable, then there will be a market for the creatives. Focus on that.

metacritic12 3y ago
And the genie is already out of the bottle. As we've seen with LLMs, soon there will be open sourced versions of this essentially trained on everything. And with transfer learning the training will probably promiscuously propagate to inform future models. In essence in the limit case, all future models 5 years from now will have been "influenced" by nearly all work on the publicly accessible web today. And there's no problem with that really -- all humans are a bit influenced by everything they've seen in their lives like you said, including tons of heavily copyrighted and trademarked stuff.
photoGrant 3y ago
I'll start caring about my fellow humans rights when I see each and everyone one of their tax returns. Until then my assumptions will appease my ability to remain ignorant.
- xscott 3y ago
  I don't understand what you're saying. Am I the uncaring ignorant one? It seems unlikely that you're really referring to yourself there, and maybe you're using a rhetorical trick to try and skirt HN's policy about being civil to each other.
  - photoGrant 3y ago
    My recommendation, civil or otherwise is to at least feign a moment of empathy and understanding for your fellow man in order to balance an otherwise repeat cliche that fundamentally argues for self. An inability to empathise first stops any ability to listen to, or accept alternative opinions to your own. I'm not sure what's more insulting overall, my sarcasm or your immediate jump to insult any artist based on the fact they're outraged about the financial fall out of this situation and not take them on the merit of every other argument included. Philosophical, moral and otherwise. It's fingers in ears and it's assuming the only thing artists care about is the money leaving their pocket. We can think a little beyond that cave. It's inclusion in the argument is because it is the guiding star for the greedy to nullify the realities. Visual AI has revealed the trickster. > No individual is all that creative It's nice to meet you too. I promise, you underestimate your neighbours.
    - xscott 3y ago
      Ok, now that you've clarified: My take was correct, right? Your first instinct was to attack my character instead of discussing the topic, and you knew you had to be sneaky about it to not obviously break the rules. Your empathy isn't showing so clearly, and honestly I have more friendly discussions with ChatGPT than I am having with you. As for what artists care about - nobody is taking away their cameras or brushes. They can keep creating all they want. It really seems like it's about money to me.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        To clarify, the 'caring about money' mentioned here refers to millions of humans genuinely worried about how they'll continue to survive and support their families in the society in which they live, as their profession is decimated over the course of a year or two, a fraction of the time it takes to learn a new one.
        xscott 3y ago
        Once upon a time there were millions of people working the fields to make enough food. Nothing has been decimated in the last year or two, and I don't think anything will be in the next two either. But yeah, the world is changing, and some current careers won't be viable in a decade or two. I'm not sure we could find a point in the last century where that wasn't true.
skepticATX 3y ago
We don't have to treat humans and machines the same. Even if it were true that these models learn exactly like humans (which is patently false), we can still differentiate between the two. Society is built by and for humans. If we want to empower humans over machines, that seems perfectly acceptable.
- gfodor 3y ago
  This will be a major point of contention if machine learning continues to go the way it’s going. In the future if the Turing test is fully passed I think morality will boil down to preferring humans if and only if it’s a situation of competing scarcities. In the case of “showing pictures to computer people”, showing pictures to a computer doesn’t prevent you from showing it to a human so this framework imply no moral justification for a human preference.
- xscott 3y ago
  We don't have to treat them the same, but that's the direction I'm leaning. As for society, that's another topic. People really aren't all that nice to each other very often.
- csnover 3y ago
  > Society is built by and for humans. These machines are also built by and for humans. > If we want to empower humans over machines, that seems perfectly acceptable. But that’s not what’s happening here. This is a faction of humans fighting to maintain their power and control over how the rest of humanity is allowed to produce artistic works. Creatives who fight against generative AI are trying to empower themselves over everyone else. Corporations who develop closed-source AI like OpenAI are also trying to empower themselves over everyone else. The main problem in both cases is the way a select few are trying to amass power for themselves. Generative AI has fundamentally shifted the scope of what it means to be creative, and prohibiting it from being trained on the collective works of humanity doesn’t empower humans over machines. It empowers some humans at the expense of other humans. Big AI companies acting exploitatively and trying to figure out how to build their own moats so only they are allowed to control the technology does the same thing, so this shouldn’t be allowed to happen either. This is not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that a major disruption happened in creative arts due to technology. The invention of the phonograph decimated live musicians. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in cinemas, radio stations, and restaurants were permanently lost[0], but I don’t think anyone today would argue that we’d be better off if record labels hadn’t been allowed to reproduce the works of other artists. Instead of retreading the same tired arguments about generative AI itself, let’s instead focus on how to ensure creatives can adapt and not end up homeless and penniless, and on how to ensure a few giant tech companies don’t monopolise an otherwise democratising technology. That, more than anything, will ensure that we are empowering humans over machines. [0] https://slate.com/transcripts/RS94QUlwS0ZsSnZnakE4UVUzR2loUVB5OWpGaHg1VzFFZTNCV0p5OWZmaz0= https://slate.com/transcripts/RS94QUlwS0ZsSnZnakE4UVUzR2loUV...
Throwaway1746 3y ago
[flagged]
- pasquinelli 3y ago
  > because it competes with their work. it really doesn't
norir 3y ago
> No individual is all that creative, and anyone accomplished is standing on the shoulders of past giants to get there. Are you seriously going to argue that, say, Bach or Shakespeare were not all that creative?
- xscott 3y ago
  You're reaching pretty far back to find outstanding examples, and I'll agree they are way above average. However, I'll assume you know that most of Shakespeare's works were based off of earlier works. And I doubt Bach taught himself from scratch either.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    Not just based off, but in some cases blatant ripoffs. Shakespeare was famous for swiping the plots of Italian plays. Ever notice how many of his plays are set in Italy? This was before "remix" was a word. Shakespeare's specialty was writing clever dialog (and to give credit where it's due, he was very, very good at that), not coming up with totally original plays. If copyright as we know it had existed in Shakespeare's time, he would have been sued into a smoking crater.
- atrus 3y ago
  They're saying that creativity isn't in a vacuum. Both Bach and Shakespeare were both inspired, and drew upon many things in their life. Just like how anyone who makes anything or does anything leans at least a little on past experiences. And I really think that line of arugment is a dead end, and only hurts, or we'd have to round up and arrest every highschooler making shitty anime fan art.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Neither Bach nor Shakespeare had copyright over their works, as the very concept of copyright didn't exist until the Statute of Anne in 1710. Germany (really, Saxony, as Germany wasn't even a unified country at the time) was much later. Shakespeare got paid by people buying tickets to the Globe Theatre, of which he was part owner. Bach got paid by various princes and the church, and was expected to compose new music every week in return for his pay. Neither argued that they should continue to get paid for the same work for 90 years.
cageface 3y ago
The world keeps getting better as technology advances, and people will adapt to the new changes. That's making the very large assumption that there are no qualitative differences among our various leaps in technology. It's not hard to make the argument that AI is a different and larger and more disruptive leap than the invention of the tractor. This is a complex issue that people on both sides of the argument tend to oversimplify. Figuring out how we should regulate and integrate this new technology is going to take time and a lot of back and forth.
w______roy 3y ago
People do pay to see movies, to read books, to go to the museum, and for formal education… Do you think the ratio of cost to go to film school per video made for an individual is the same ratio as the cost for stock video library per video made for an AI? >The world keeps getting better as technology advances Will it, forever? Is that a given? Technology might also destroy the planet.
fithisux 3y ago
You seem to mix a lot. The first part is pseudo-argument. You compare apples and oranges. You treat education and massive steal of IP the same. The second part seems to be a religious rehash of "The world keeps getting better as technology advances" this is not something guaranteed to continue and the world is not getting better from everyone. You seem to "overfit". The third part does not guarantee a sustainable income for human creativity. Again your argument is shallow at best.
- photoGrant 3y ago
  I'll simplify this for everyone; (misquoted you originally, sorry!) If you take a box and fill it with dog shit. You're more than welcome to chop, blend, dilute, fling or even eat this shit. But in the end, it's still Pepper's Poop. Sell it like it isn't. Add sprinkles. It's Pepper's Poop. When Pepper dies. Do you think the model is going to invent Gold all of a sudden?
- xscott 3y ago
  IP is a fiction we created to encourage artists to create. Arguably it was a trade off where we encourage producers of creative works by giving them a limited monopoly for the benefit of the consumers. IP is a price we paid for the benefit of consumers. It's not an inalienable right. As for sustainable incomes, I'm sure you heard the arguments about buggy-whip manufacturers going out of business when we got trains and cars. It really wasn't that much of a tragedy in the big picture of things.
  - photoGrant 3y ago
    Who is 'we' in your arguments. Master? And why do you think laws exist? It's to protect the rich from being burned at the stake by reality. Societal agreements go both ways. You think it's to feign appeasement to the little piggie complaints and get them back to growing for your market day? You continue to dehumanise 'them' -- your neighbour into nothing more than an idiot who takes from your bottom line. Humans aren't a one way street to a compute problem, friend.
    - 3y ago

by xscott 3y ago

metacritic12 3y ago

And the genie is already out of the bottle. As we've seen with LLMs, soon there will be open sourced versions of this essentially trained on everything. And with transfer learning the training will probably promiscuously propagate to inform future models. In essence in the limit case, all future models 5 years from now will have been "influenced" by nearly all work on the publicly accessible web today. And there's no problem with that really -- all humans are a bit influenced by everything they've seen in their lives like you said, including tons of heavily copyrighted and trademarked stuff.

photoGrant 3y ago

I'll start caring about my fellow humans rights when I see each and everyone one of their tax returns. Until then my assumptions will appease my ability to remain ignorant.

xscott 3y ago
I don't understand what you're saying. Am I the uncaring ignorant one? It seems unlikely that you're really referring to yourself there, and maybe you're using a rhetorical trick to try and skirt HN's policy about being civil to each other.
- photoGrant 3y ago
  My recommendation, civil or otherwise is to at least feign a moment of empathy and understanding for your fellow man in order to balance an otherwise repeat cliche that fundamentally argues for self. An inability to empathise first stops any ability to listen to, or accept alternative opinions to your own. I'm not sure what's more insulting overall, my sarcasm or your immediate jump to insult any artist based on the fact they're outraged about the financial fall out of this situation and not take them on the merit of every other argument included. Philosophical, moral and otherwise. It's fingers in ears and it's assuming the only thing artists care about is the money leaving their pocket. We can think a little beyond that cave. It's inclusion in the argument is because it is the guiding star for the greedy to nullify the realities. Visual AI has revealed the trickster. > No individual is all that creative It's nice to meet you too. I promise, you underestimate your neighbours.
  - xscott 3y ago
    Ok, now that you've clarified: My take was correct, right? Your first instinct was to attack my character instead of discussing the topic, and you knew you had to be sneaky about it to not obviously break the rules. Your empathy isn't showing so clearly, and honestly I have more friendly discussions with ChatGPT than I am having with you. As for what artists care about - nobody is taking away their cameras or brushes. They can keep creating all they want. It really seems like it's about money to me.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      To clarify, the 'caring about money' mentioned here refers to millions of humans genuinely worried about how they'll continue to survive and support their families in the society in which they live, as their profession is decimated over the course of a year or two, a fraction of the time it takes to learn a new one.
      - xscott 3y ago
        Once upon a time there were millions of people working the fields to make enough food. Nothing has been decimated in the last year or two, and I don't think anything will be in the next two either. But yeah, the world is changing, and some current careers won't be viable in a decade or two. I'm not sure we could find a point in the last century where that wasn't true.

skepticATX 3y ago

We don't have to treat humans and machines the same. Even if it were true that these models learn exactly like humans (which is patently false), we can still differentiate between the two. Society is built by and for humans. If we want to empower humans over machines, that seems perfectly acceptable.

gfodor 3y ago
This will be a major point of contention if machine learning continues to go the way it’s going. In the future if the Turing test is fully passed I think morality will boil down to preferring humans if and only if it’s a situation of competing scarcities. In the case of “showing pictures to computer people”, showing pictures to a computer doesn’t prevent you from showing it to a human so this framework imply no moral justification for a human preference.
xscott 3y ago
We don't have to treat them the same, but that's the direction I'm leaning. As for society, that's another topic. People really aren't all that nice to each other very often.
csnover 3y ago
> Society is built by and for humans. These machines are also built by and for humans. > If we want to empower humans over machines, that seems perfectly acceptable. But that’s not what’s happening here. This is a faction of humans fighting to maintain their power and control over how the rest of humanity is allowed to produce artistic works. Creatives who fight against generative AI are trying to empower themselves over everyone else. Corporations who develop closed-source AI like OpenAI are also trying to empower themselves over everyone else. The main problem in both cases is the way a select few are trying to amass power for themselves. Generative AI has fundamentally shifted the scope of what it means to be creative, and prohibiting it from being trained on the collective works of humanity doesn’t empower humans over machines. It empowers some humans at the expense of other humans. Big AI companies acting exploitatively and trying to figure out how to build their own moats so only they are allowed to control the technology does the same thing, so this shouldn’t be allowed to happen either. This is not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that a major disruption happened in creative arts due to technology. The invention of the phonograph decimated live musicians. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in cinemas, radio stations, and restaurants were permanently lost[0], but I don’t think anyone today would argue that we’d be better off if record labels hadn’t been allowed to reproduce the works of other artists. Instead of retreading the same tired arguments about generative AI itself, let’s instead focus on how to ensure creatives can adapt and not end up homeless and penniless, and on how to ensure a few giant tech companies don’t monopolise an otherwise democratising technology. That, more than anything, will ensure that we are empowering humans over machines. [0] https://slate.com/transcripts/RS94QUlwS0ZsSnZnakE4UVUzR2loUVB5OWpGaHg1VzFFZTNCV0p5OWZmaz0= https://slate.com/transcripts/RS94QUlwS0ZsSnZnakE4UVUzR2loUV...

Throwaway1746 3y ago

[flagged]

pasquinelli 3y ago
> because it competes with their work. it really doesn't

norir 3y ago

> No individual is all that creative, and anyone accomplished is standing on the shoulders of past giants to get there. Are you seriously going to argue that, say, Bach or Shakespeare were not all that creative?

xscott 3y ago
You're reaching pretty far back to find outstanding examples, and I'll agree they are way above average. However, I'll assume you know that most of Shakespeare's works were based off of earlier works. And I doubt Bach taught himself from scratch either.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Not just based off, but in some cases blatant ripoffs. Shakespeare was famous for swiping the plots of Italian plays. Ever notice how many of his plays are set in Italy? This was before "remix" was a word. Shakespeare's specialty was writing clever dialog (and to give credit where it's due, he was very, very good at that), not coming up with totally original plays. If copyright as we know it had existed in Shakespeare's time, he would have been sued into a smoking crater.
atrus 3y ago
They're saying that creativity isn't in a vacuum. Both Bach and Shakespeare were both inspired, and drew upon many things in their life. Just like how anyone who makes anything or does anything leans at least a little on past experiences. And I really think that line of arugment is a dead end, and only hurts, or we'd have to round up and arrest every highschooler making shitty anime fan art.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
Neither Bach nor Shakespeare had copyright over their works, as the very concept of copyright didn't exist until the Statute of Anne in 1710. Germany (really, Saxony, as Germany wasn't even a unified country at the time) was much later. Shakespeare got paid by people buying tickets to the Globe Theatre, of which he was part owner. Bach got paid by various princes and the church, and was expected to compose new music every week in return for his pay. Neither argued that they should continue to get paid for the same work for 90 years.

cageface 3y ago

The world keeps getting better as technology advances, and people will adapt to the new changes. That's making the very large assumption that there are no qualitative differences among our various leaps in technology. It's not hard to make the argument that AI is a different and larger and more disruptive leap than the invention of the tractor. This is a complex issue that people on both sides of the argument tend to oversimplify. Figuring out how we should regulate and integrate this new technology is going to take time and a lot of back and forth.

w______roy 3y ago

People do pay to see movies, to read books, to go to the museum, and for formal education… Do you think the ratio of cost to go to film school per video made for an individual is the same ratio as the cost for stock video library per video made for an AI? >The world keeps getting better as technology advances Will it, forever? Is that a given? Technology might also destroy the planet.

fithisux 3y ago

You seem to mix a lot. The first part is pseudo-argument. You compare apples and oranges. You treat education and massive steal of IP the same. The second part seems to be a religious rehash of "The world keeps getting better as technology advances" this is not something guaranteed to continue and the world is not getting better from everyone. You seem to "overfit". The third part does not guarantee a sustainable income for human creativity. Again your argument is shallow at best.

photoGrant 3y ago
I'll simplify this for everyone; (misquoted you originally, sorry!) If you take a box and fill it with dog shit. You're more than welcome to chop, blend, dilute, fling or even eat this shit. But in the end, it's still Pepper's Poop. Sell it like it isn't. Add sprinkles. It's Pepper's Poop. When Pepper dies. Do you think the model is going to invent Gold all of a sudden?
xscott 3y ago
IP is a fiction we created to encourage artists to create. Arguably it was a trade off where we encourage producers of creative works by giving them a limited monopoly for the benefit of the consumers. IP is a price we paid for the benefit of consumers. It's not an inalienable right. As for sustainable incomes, I'm sure you heard the arguments about buggy-whip manufacturers going out of business when we got trains and cars. It really wasn't that much of a tragedy in the big picture of things.
- photoGrant 3y ago
  Who is 'we' in your arguments. Master? And why do you think laws exist? It's to protect the rich from being burned at the stake by reality. Societal agreements go both ways. You think it's to feign appeasement to the little piggie complaints and get them back to growing for your market day? You continue to dehumanise 'them' -- your neighbour into nothing more than an idiot who takes from your bottom line. Humans aren't a one way street to a compute problem, friend.
  - 3y ago