AI/LLMs AI art bans are going to ruin small 3rd party creators

[Bill Zebub]

I had a severe case of writer’s block when trying to do an upper-level philosophy course’s final paper. Sat in front of my computer for a while, and produced…absolutely nothing. Using the “just start writing” approach got me going. I typed “Millions of Years Ago”, then typed out an opening paragraph (paraphrasing myself because it was the late 1980s):

…and transitioned directly into a proper launch paragraph for this kind of paper. I knocked the whole thing out in just a few hours.

But I did something risky: I kept the jokey title & opening paragraph intact.

Dr. Luper-Foy didn’t understand what hit him, but I still aced the paper.

Ok, this is WAY off topic, but in the final exam for an undergrad course on Chinese history, one of the people/places/things I had to identify was Li Po. I rarely studied (in general I tried to take courses that had final papers instead of final exams...way easier to BS through) so I had no idea who Li Po was. Thus I wrote (also paraphrasing):

"Li Po was a game played by children during the early years of the Yuan dynasty, probably having been adopted and renamed from a Mongol precursor. The game, played while swimming, consisted of one child closing their eyes and repeatedly calling out 'Li!' at which the other children would reply 'Po!'. The first child would use the sound of the other children's voices to try to tag one of them, at which time that child would become "it" and the process would repeat. This game was observed by the European traveler Marco Polo toward the end of the 13th century, and he introduced it to Europe, where it was renamed in his honor."

I got ZERO points. Not even a smiley face. I will never forgive professor Schwarcz.

(And, yes, I now know who Li Po was.)

 

[Brendan Byrd]

I had a severe case of writer’s block when trying to do an upper-level philosophy course’s final paper. Sat in front of my computer for a while, and produced… < snip >

< tangent >
90’s, final exam for a course.
Immediately below all the course info. at the top of the page is a subtitle:
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things…”
< /tangent >

 

[Bohandas]

Good!
If people can't be bothered to create things themselves why should that cost me money?

They are creating things themselves. They're just not needlessly hiring an artist to illustrate it. As long as that savings get passed on to the consumer that's fine with me; the consumer is the only important part of the economy. (That said, if they don't pass that savings on to the consumer than let them rot. The consumer is the only important part of the economy.)

I really don't care about companies succeeding but I worry that AI art bans will diminish the options available to consumers and contribute to oligopolies that will drive prices up

 

[Umbran]

If you don't think the process* needs to be justified, then it's not an ends-justifies-the-means argument.

Determining that the process does not need to be justified is itself an act of justifying the process.

*Although please note that at the time that I wrote that I was thinking of "process" only in terms of the computer science of how an already-trained LLM generates content. I do think other aspects...environmental, training...need to be justified.

Please note?
You get snarky at me (QEFD? Really) and then try to justify your prior statement as, in effect, poorly considered?
Yeah, not really buying that... justification.

 

[bedir than]

They are creating things themselves.

By this logic the person who places an order at McDonald's is the head chef at head quarters.

Placing an order isn't creative.

 

[Bohandas]

By this logic the person who places an order at McDonald's is the head chef at head quarters.

Placing an order isn't creative.

They are WRITING things. They just aren't making pictures.

EDIT:
And for that matter they still wouldn't be making pictures if they hired a human artist. Either way they're not making the pictures themselves, so what's the difference?

 

[bedir than]

And for that matter they still wouldn't be making pictures if they hired a human artist. Either way they're not making the pictures themselves, so what's the difference?

There's no difference.

You are right.

 

[Umbran]

In related news, OpenAI is killing off Sora, its video-making generative AI - both the app and the video-making model for developers.

Why?

Because they were asking for a $20/month subscription fee, but each 60-second video reportedly cost the company $15 to $18 to make. Sora would not be economical without a couple-few of orders of magnitude reduction in costs.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Oh yes, I forgot! I'll be right back, I need to go bake a cake by purchasing it from a store. Don't worry, I called and told the baker what kind of cake I wanted so I obviously created it myself.

Methinks if this kind of sarcasm were directed at the AI-is-unethicsl side this might have been called out by a mod.

Definitely emotion is overriding impartiality here.

 

[aramis erak]

The "skin" is the copyrightable part. Board game mechanics are not covered by copyright, there's a decades old court precedent about that. People debate whether that applies to TTRPGs as well. I've read some articles by a copyright attorney that made strong cases that it does. Robert Bodine who runs Frylock's Gaming and Feekery made a series of articles talking about the precedent and what it means and how it applies to TTRPGs after Hasbro tried to threaten him in a C&D over his One Stop Statblocks project, and Hasbro backed down rather than fight him in court. (Because as a copyright attorney himself, he can fight them to completion, he doesn't have to pay for an attorney).

IN THE US, that's true. In France and Germany, it's not. Don't assume american peculiarities apply throughout the world.