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I think it's even simpler than that: incentives. The entire premise of copyright law (and all IP law) is to protect the incentive to create new stuff, which is

I think it's even simpler than that: incentives. The entire premise of copyright law (and all IP law) is to protect the incentive to create new stuff, which is often a very risky and highly time or capital intensive endeavor. So here's the question: Does a person reading a comment destroy the incentive for the author to post it? No. In fact, it is the only thing that produces the incentive for someone to post. People post here when they want that thing to be read by someone else. Does a model sucking up all the artistic output of the last 400 years and using that to produce an image generator model destroy the incentive of producing and sharing said artistic output? Yes. At least, that is the goal of such a model -- to become so good it is competitive with human artists. Of course you have plenty of people positioned benefit from this incentive-destruction claiming it does no such thing. I personally tend to put more credence in the words of people who have historically actually been incentivized by said incentives (i.e. artists) who generally seem to perceive this as destructive to their desire to create and share their work.

bigyikes 2y ago
Thanks, this is a helpful comment. It isn’t clear to me that these models destroy incentive to create. I mean, ChatGPT can generate comments in my style all day, and yet I’m still incentivized to comment. I fancy myself a photographer. I still want to take photos even if DALL-E 4 will generate better ones. What even is the point of creating art? I think there are two purposes: personal expression and enjoyment for others. People will continue to express themselves even if a bot can produce better art. And if a bot can produce enjoyment for others en masse, then that seems like a huge win for everybody.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Right, it doesn’t destroy the incentive to write comments. Also right, it won’t destroy the hobbyist’s interest in having a hobby. But IP law was never intended to protect hobbyist interest.
- NBJack 2y ago
  It cheapens the incentive greatly. And you probably aren't selling your photos to make a living.
  - c1sc0 2y ago
    Selling art as a way of making a living actually is a pretty recent thing. Up until not too long ago patronage was pretty much the only way to survive for artists. Maybe we will go back to that model?
    - asadotzler 2y ago
      Artists have been selling art for as long as we've been selling anything. Sure, some successful artists, during a few periods in history, managed to secure patronage, but those have always been the minority. Most artists have sold or traded their wares directly and your attempts to derail this discussion with inaccurate histories is neither helpful nor appropriate.
- cush 2y ago
  > I think there are two purposes: personal expression and enjoyment for others. This is exactly what non-artists assume artists do art for. The reality is that most professional visual artists work in publishing, marketing, entertainment and the like. It’s a regular job. The incentive is money. Similarly for theatre, music, video, dance, etc etc. Artists can’t feed their families off exposure and expressing themselves. Their work has value and taking that work to create free derivative works without compensating them is theft.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    It is absolutely wild trying to make this point on HN. Art is for funsies while writing code for targeting ads is a Serious Job.
    - cush 2y ago
      Painfully out of touch
kmeisthax 2y ago
> Does a model sucking up all the artistic output of the last 400 years and using that to produce an image generator model destroy the incentive of producing and sharing said artistic output? Copyright, at least in the US, cares about the effect of the use on the market for that specific work. It's individual ownership, not collective. And while model regurgitation happens, it's less common than you think. The real harm of AI to artists is market replacement. That is, with everyone using image generators to pop out images like candy, human artists don't have a market to sell into. This isn't even just a matter of "oh boo hoo I can't compete with Mr. Diffusion". Generative AI is very good at creating spam, which has turned every art market and social media platform into a bunch of warring spambots whose output is statistically indistinguishable from human. The problem is, no IP law in the world is going to recognize this as a problem, because IP is a fundamentally capitalist concept. Asserting that the market for new artistic works and notoriety for those works should be the collective property of artists and artists alone is not a workable legal proposal, even if it's a valid moral principle. And conversely the history of copyright has seen it be completely subverted to the point where it only serves the interests of the publishers in the middle, not the creators of the work in question. Hell, the publishers are licking their chops as to how many artists they can fire and replace with AI, as if all their whinging about Napster and KaZaA 24 years ago was just a puff piece.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  > Copyright, at least in the US, cares about the effect of the use on the market for that specific work. Not quite. The historical implementation of copyright has mostly protected individual pieces of work. Not only does IP law broadly protect much more than individual pieces of work, but the philosophical basis of IP law in general is to protect incentives. Now that the technological landscape has shifted, the case law will almost certainly shift as well because it’s clearly undesirable to live in a world where no one is willing to dedicate themselves to becoming an excellent artist/writer/musician/etc. IP law is a natural extension of property rights, which in turn is predicated on a utilitarian need to protect certain incentives.

bigyikes 2y ago

Thanks, this is a helpful comment. It isn’t clear to me that these models destroy incentive to create. I mean, ChatGPT can generate comments in my style all day, and yet I’m still incentivized to comment. I fancy myself a photographer. I still want to take photos even if DALL-E 4 will generate better ones. What even is the point of creating art? I think there are two purposes: personal expression and enjoyment for others. People will continue to express themselves even if a bot can produce better art. And if a bot can produce enjoyment for others en masse, then that seems like a huge win for everybody.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Right, it doesn’t destroy the incentive to write comments. Also right, it won’t destroy the hobbyist’s interest in having a hobby. But IP law was never intended to protect hobbyist interest.
NBJack 2y ago
It cheapens the incentive greatly. And you probably aren't selling your photos to make a living.
- c1sc0 2y ago
  Selling art as a way of making a living actually is a pretty recent thing. Up until not too long ago patronage was pretty much the only way to survive for artists. Maybe we will go back to that model?
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Artists have been selling art for as long as we've been selling anything. Sure, some successful artists, during a few periods in history, managed to secure patronage, but those have always been the minority. Most artists have sold or traded their wares directly and your attempts to derail this discussion with inaccurate histories is neither helpful nor appropriate.
cush 2y ago
> I think there are two purposes: personal expression and enjoyment for others. This is exactly what non-artists assume artists do art for. The reality is that most professional visual artists work in publishing, marketing, entertainment and the like. It’s a regular job. The incentive is money. Similarly for theatre, music, video, dance, etc etc. Artists can’t feed their families off exposure and expressing themselves. Their work has value and taking that work to create free derivative works without compensating them is theft.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  It is absolutely wild trying to make this point on HN. Art is for funsies while writing code for targeting ads is a Serious Job.
  - cush 2y ago
    Painfully out of touch

kmeisthax 2y ago

> Does a model sucking up all the artistic output of the last 400 years and using that to produce an image generator model destroy the incentive of producing and sharing said artistic output? Copyright, at least in the US, cares about the effect of the use on the market for that specific work. It's individual ownership, not collective. And while model regurgitation happens, it's less common than you think. The real harm of AI to artists is market replacement. That is, with everyone using image generators to pop out images like candy, human artists don't have a market to sell into. This isn't even just a matter of "oh boo hoo I can't compete with Mr. Diffusion". Generative AI is very good at creating spam, which has turned every art market and social media platform into a bunch of warring spambots whose output is statistically indistinguishable from human. The problem is, no IP law in the world is going to recognize this as a problem, because IP is a fundamentally capitalist concept. Asserting that the market for new artistic works and notoriety for those works should be the collective property of artists and artists alone is not a workable legal proposal, even if it's a valid moral principle. And conversely the history of copyright has seen it be completely subverted to the point where it only serves the interests of the publishers in the middle, not the creators of the work in question. Hell, the publishers are licking their chops as to how many artists they can fire and replace with AI, as if all their whinging about Napster and KaZaA 24 years ago was just a puff piece.

llamaimperative 2y ago
> Copyright, at least in the US, cares about the effect of the use on the market for that specific work. Not quite. The historical implementation of copyright has mostly protected individual pieces of work. Not only does IP law broadly protect much more than individual pieces of work, but the philosophical basis of IP law in general is to protect incentives. Now that the technological landscape has shifted, the case law will almost certainly shift as well because it’s clearly undesirable to live in a world where no one is willing to dedicate themselves to becoming an excellent artist/writer/musician/etc. IP law is a natural extension of property rights, which in turn is predicated on a utilitarian need to protect certain incentives.