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This is so weird. They are mad that they didn't get paid for voluntarily participating in a program that never offered any pay? There are legitimate artist comp

This is so weird. They are mad that they didn't get paid for voluntarily participating in a program that never offered any pay? There are legitimate artist complaints around AI (I don't always agree with them, but they are reasonable complaints to have and are part of very important conversations about how society chooses to interact with AI), but this has got to be the silliest one I have heard so far.

throwaway290 2y ago
Maybe they agreed first and later realized that if they help ClosedAI murder their future careers and careers of other artists they might as well get paid for it.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Probably blown away by what was possible so they panicked.
- 0points 2y ago
  By judging from those videos, nothing can be further from the truth. Every single video is riddled by visual artifacts just like the still images. I saw a shaking rubiks cube, a shrinking cola bottle, and two dogs jumping into eachother and swapping places in a ridiculous way. No artist should be threatened by this nonsense. Can't wait for the hype to die.
shkkmo 2y ago
> This is so weird. They are mad that they didn't get paid for voluntarily participating in a program that never offered any pay? Companies have been getting ever bolder about abusing volunteer and crowd sourced labor. When the participants are bound by strict NDAs, I think some skepticism is in order. All we really can tell is that non-neglibigle percentage of the participants in a limited access program were creeped out enough to be willing to blow up their access to call attention to it. I don't think this story is really even about AI at all, but about labor practices.
- andersa 2y ago
  How is it possible to "abuse" volunteer labor? Can't they just... stop volunteering?
  - grahar64 2y ago
    The same way you can abuse paid labor, "can't they just quit?"
    - andersa 2y ago
      I think that's quite different, though. If someone is currently doing paid labor, they indeed can't just quit in most cases, because they depend on the income. But there's no such thing with volunteering to try a new service. That's just something people do because they feel like it, are bored, enjoy it in their spare time?
      - dsign 2y ago
        Unless those artists depended on (free) access to the model for monetization purposes. There have been some AI videos popping up in Youtube and other platforms. Creating a video using traditional CGI techniques is many orders of magnitudes more work than writing (even pages of) prompts. To that, I will add that there is a large market for content outside mainstream media[^1]. I'm sure there are creative folk out there which are not visual artists as their main thing[^2], but can use cheap visual art coming from AI to generate some sort of income... [^1]: See, for example, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-and-measurement/youtube-tv-statistics/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-an...
        ValentinA23 2y ago
        They aren't free to post videos they generated with sora. It must be reviewed before hand
      - shkkmo 2y ago
2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
Maybe they realised what they were really doing after the fact and changed their minds. They can’t really do anything about it so they are doing what they can. It a bit silly to think people won’t learn new information and change their minds.
hnlmorg 2y ago
I suspect their protests stem from those legitimate artist complaints. Basically that they aren’t being compensated for testing a tool that is ultimately intended to replace them. I can definitely forgive their complaints when it’s framed that way. But I do agree that the article doesn’t do a particularly good job representing their view point.
- soco 2y ago
  But... why were they using/testing it in the first time? It's not like not being paid was a secret. Or maybe they registered exactly to setup this sort of protest? Because they are totally entitled to protest against AI taking jobs, just the particular conditions are a bit weird to me.
  - KolyaKornelius 2y ago
    Because their work is being devalued by AI, wether they participate or not.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      So you're suggesting that they joined the program specifically to leak it later?
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    I don’t know. If I were to give them the benefit of doubt, I’d guess they joined because they initially saw this more like the AI vs chess type contribution where their contributions would be publicly demonstrated and praised rather than just used to beta test. They might not have been aware of how many other people were asked. They probably also underestimated the tool’s capabilities and then got worried for their careers after using it. It’s pretty common for people’s perception of an opportunity to change after agreeing to it. I’d bet you’ve taken on paid jobs that were less exciting than advertised. Or gone to a party that was completely mis-sold by your friends. I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the motives that lead up to this leak.
ENGNR 2y ago
I’m guessing they gave feedback and felt that it was ignored. So rather than let the trial end and let OpenAI say “we even ran it past a bunch of artists, there’s no problem here” - someone decided to flip the table, since they were unheard anyway and felt there were unresolved issues
ruthmarx 2y ago
The less reasonable artist complaints are the ones where they just straight up accuse AI of stealing their work, when that's not how it works at all.
- rat9988 2y ago
  The problem stems when they change their mind but there is no new information.
thyrox 2y ago
I've been eagerly awaiting access to the tool for quite a while. I would definitely be willing to pay to try it out and provide feedback in addition. I'm genuinely surprised by this news.
benreesman 2y ago
I think that everyone at this point just distrusts the board who isn’t paid to say otherwise. OpenAI is the new high watermark in moral, ethical, social, and intellectual corruption and anyone who works there who has any moral sense is deeply conflicted. It’s cancer that has cancer. To defeat it would be like discovering a vaccine.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  Who is everyone? Outside of very online tech enthusiasts like ourselves, nobody cares.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    There are degrees of infamy: clearly Larry Summers is the highest profile person who is universally loathed, but people are starting to know the other key players. It’s on TV.
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      Ask an average person who Larry Summers is. Again, different bubbles different priorities.
      - benreesman 2y ago
        I really dislike the meme that the typical person is stupid. The typical person is the result of a ruthless Darwinian selection process that has left the typical person savvy, agile, aware, alert, and capable. The typical person might be coded inarticulate because the education available to the typical person stresses different vocabulary than people not subject to ruthless selection pressure recently. I’m home schooled to put it mildly, more accurate is that I was presented books and an admiration for acumen, and I deliberately delineate by degree the dramatic dismissal of people on HN who condescend to typical people. The typical person on HN would survive about three minutes in a legitimately menacing environment. Summers was on Jon Stewart recently. People know who he is. They might not know his long-time advocacy for maximum toxic waste disposal in Africa, but in fairness Rubin helped quiet that down. They might have forgotten that he personally knew-capped Brooksley Born at the exact perfect time to demonstrate that LTCM was the prototype for ever godawful prop deak today. I’ll refrain from commenting on Fidji Simo out of personal experience because it would be unfair given that I’ve known her for 12 years and merely remark that the public record is a litany of OSHA violations handled more clumsily than the already low bar Amazon set. The typical person is a lot savvier than the typical HN hot take smartass who is dramatically out of their depth.
rightbyte 2y ago
I prefer Pepsi to Coca Cola. I sometimes pose as a Coca Cola drinker to suddenly instigate protests among Coca Cola drinkers. Some people think I am acting strange but I'd argue they don't see my point.
lemoncookiechip 2y ago
You can read their open letter yourself, whether or not you agree with their logic is up for you to decide. https://huggingface.co/spaces/PR-Puppets/PR-Puppet-Sora https://huggingface.co/spaces/PR-Puppets/PR-Puppet-Sora

throwaway290 2y ago

Maybe they agreed first and later realized that if they help ClosedAI murder their future careers and careers of other artists they might as well get paid for it.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Probably blown away by what was possible so they panicked.

0points 2y ago
By judging from those videos, nothing can be further from the truth. Every single video is riddled by visual artifacts just like the still images. I saw a shaking rubiks cube, a shrinking cola bottle, and two dogs jumping into eachother and swapping places in a ridiculous way. No artist should be threatened by this nonsense. Can't wait for the hype to die.

shkkmo 2y ago

> This is so weird. They are mad that they didn't get paid for voluntarily participating in a program that never offered any pay? Companies have been getting ever bolder about abusing volunteer and crowd sourced labor. When the participants are bound by strict NDAs, I think some skepticism is in order. All we really can tell is that non-neglibigle percentage of the participants in a limited access program were creeped out enough to be willing to blow up their access to call attention to it. I don't think this story is really even about AI at all, but about labor practices.

andersa 2y ago
How is it possible to "abuse" volunteer labor? Can't they just... stop volunteering?
- grahar64 2y ago
  The same way you can abuse paid labor, "can't they just quit?"
  - andersa 2y ago
    I think that's quite different, though. If someone is currently doing paid labor, they indeed can't just quit in most cases, because they depend on the income. But there's no such thing with volunteering to try a new service. That's just something people do because they feel like it, are bored, enjoy it in their spare time?
    - dsign 2y ago
      Unless those artists depended on (free) access to the model for monetization purposes. There have been some AI videos popping up in Youtube and other platforms. Creating a video using traditional CGI techniques is many orders of magnitudes more work than writing (even pages of) prompts. To that, I will add that there is a large market for content outside mainstream media[^1]. I'm sure there are creative folk out there which are not visual artists as their main thing[^2], but can use cheap visual art coming from AI to generate some sort of income... [^1]: See, for example, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-and-measurement/youtube-tv-statistics/ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/data-an...
      - ValentinA23 2y ago
        They aren't free to post videos they generated with sora. It must be reviewed before hand
    - shkkmo 2y ago

2muchcoffeeman 2y ago

Maybe they realised what they were really doing after the fact and changed their minds. They can’t really do anything about it so they are doing what they can. It a bit silly to think people won’t learn new information and change their minds.

hnlmorg 2y ago

I suspect their protests stem from those legitimate artist complaints. Basically that they aren’t being compensated for testing a tool that is ultimately intended to replace them. I can definitely forgive their complaints when it’s framed that way. But I do agree that the article doesn’t do a particularly good job representing their view point.

soco 2y ago
But... why were they using/testing it in the first time? It's not like not being paid was a secret. Or maybe they registered exactly to setup this sort of protest? Because they are totally entitled to protest against AI taking jobs, just the particular conditions are a bit weird to me.
- KolyaKornelius 2y ago
  Because their work is being devalued by AI, wether they participate or not.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    So you're suggesting that they joined the program specifically to leak it later?
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  I don’t know. If I were to give them the benefit of doubt, I’d guess they joined because they initially saw this more like the AI vs chess type contribution where their contributions would be publicly demonstrated and praised rather than just used to beta test. They might not have been aware of how many other people were asked. They probably also underestimated the tool’s capabilities and then got worried for their careers after using it. It’s pretty common for people’s perception of an opportunity to change after agreeing to it. I’d bet you’ve taken on paid jobs that were less exciting than advertised. Or gone to a party that was completely mis-sold by your friends. I don’t think we’ll ever truly know the motives that lead up to this leak.

ENGNR 2y ago

I’m guessing they gave feedback and felt that it was ignored. So rather than let the trial end and let OpenAI say “we even ran it past a bunch of artists, there’s no problem here” - someone decided to flip the table, since they were unheard anyway and felt there were unresolved issues

ruthmarx 2y ago

The less reasonable artist complaints are the ones where they just straight up accuse AI of stealing their work, when that's not how it works at all.

rat9988 2y ago
The problem stems when they change their mind but there is no new information.

thyrox 2y ago

I've been eagerly awaiting access to the tool for quite a while. I would definitely be willing to pay to try it out and provide feedback in addition. I'm genuinely surprised by this news.

benreesman 2y ago

I think that everyone at this point just distrusts the board who isn’t paid to say otherwise. OpenAI is the new high watermark in moral, ethical, social, and intellectual corruption and anyone who works there who has any moral sense is deeply conflicted. It’s cancer that has cancer. To defeat it would be like discovering a vaccine.

tokioyoyo 2y ago
Who is everyone? Outside of very online tech enthusiasts like ourselves, nobody cares.
- benreesman 2y ago
  There are degrees of infamy: clearly Larry Summers is the highest profile person who is universally loathed, but people are starting to know the other key players. It’s on TV.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Ask an average person who Larry Summers is. Again, different bubbles different priorities.
    - benreesman 2y ago
      I really dislike the meme that the typical person is stupid. The typical person is the result of a ruthless Darwinian selection process that has left the typical person savvy, agile, aware, alert, and capable. The typical person might be coded inarticulate because the education available to the typical person stresses different vocabulary than people not subject to ruthless selection pressure recently. I’m home schooled to put it mildly, more accurate is that I was presented books and an admiration for acumen, and I deliberately delineate by degree the dramatic dismissal of people on HN who condescend to typical people. The typical person on HN would survive about three minutes in a legitimately menacing environment. Summers was on Jon Stewart recently. People know who he is. They might not know his long-time advocacy for maximum toxic waste disposal in Africa, but in fairness Rubin helped quiet that down. They might have forgotten that he personally knew-capped Brooksley Born at the exact perfect time to demonstrate that LTCM was the prototype for ever godawful prop deak today. I’ll refrain from commenting on Fidji Simo out of personal experience because it would be unfair given that I’ve known her for 12 years and merely remark that the public record is a litany of OSHA violations handled more clumsily than the already low bar Amazon set. The typical person is a lot savvier than the typical HN hot take smartass who is dramatically out of their depth.

rightbyte 2y ago

I prefer Pepsi to Coca Cola. I sometimes pose as a Coca Cola drinker to suddenly instigate protests among Coca Cola drinkers. Some people think I am acting strange but I'd argue they don't see my point.

lemoncookiechip 2y ago

You can read their open letter yourself, whether or not you agree with their logic is up for you to decide. https://huggingface.co/spaces/PR-Puppets/PR-Puppet-Sora https://huggingface.co/spaces/PR-Puppets/PR-Puppet-Sora