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

[Umbran]

And just to make it 100% clear: I'm NOT saying it's ok to steal, or that how LLMs were trained is ok. I'm just pointing out that this idea of "a creator owns their work" has become a moral concept only relatively recently.

I think you are incorrect.

Non-human primates, dogs, even rats, have been shown to behave as if they have some concept of fairness - the most basic foundation of ethics. It is reasonable to guess, then that we humans have also had such a sense, likely for the entire existence of our species.

Which means that the first people who had the work of their minds appropriated for someone else's benefit felt cheated.

And that is sign of an ethical or moral concept being violated.

 

[Umbran]

I don’t understand how using AI is the same as a paint brush.

So, we ought to be careful, because "using AI" doesn't necessarily mean "having a generative Ai hand you a fully-wrought image when you ask for it".

You can, for example, make a generative AI tools that handle specific sub-tasks within an overall artistic process. You can, for example, imagine Adobe including in Photoshop a tool that handles shading on an image, that you use very much like a paintbrush - wave a cursor virtual brush over an area of your digital image, and presto, shading!

 

[dead]

So, we ought to be careful, because "using AI" doesn't necessarily mean "having a generative Ai hand you a fully-wrought image when you ask for it".

You can, for example, make a generative AI tools that handle specific sub-tasks within an overall artistic process. You can, for example, imagine Adobe including in Photoshop a tool that handles shading on an image, that you use very much like a paintbrush - wave a cursor virtual brush over an area of your digital image, and presto, shading!

I've been a Photoshop user for the last 20+ years. I'm not sure what hidden AI features are running under the hood these days - I haven't looked into it. There's the obvious generative tools that seem pretty well sign posted - generative fill, generative expand, etc. You'd have to wilfully be using those. But I understand what you are saying - that there's now stuff cooking under the hood and where do you draw the line. I will investigate this.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think you are incorrect.

Non-human primates, dogs, even rats, have been shown to behave as if they have some concept of fairness - the most basic foundation of ethics. It is reasonable to guess, then that we humans have also had such a sense, likely for the entire existence of our species.

Which means that the first people who had the work of their minds appropriated for someone else's benefit felt cheated.

And that is sign of an ethical or moral concept being violated.

I presume that @Bill Zebub is referring to control of copying or control of the concept. Ownership of the original, physcial work was always treated the same as ownership of any discrete physical object, but limiting who may make copies or make use of an idea/process is a very recent development.

The initial purpose of copyright and patents is not to protect a moral right to control distribution of a work for it's own sake, but to encourage creators to create by giving them a temporary monopoly on profiting from that work and copies thereof. I think that is a laudable intention, but sincerely believe copyright is an artificial right, not an inherent, moral one. Information wants to be free, and copyright and patents are a block on the natural order of things. It's worth noting the both the copyright and patent processes were created on the basis that works entering the public domain is of benefit to society and I, for one, certainly hold the position that releasing works and inventions to the public domain is a much greater good and moral imperative than protecting IP. The period of protection is a necessary evil, intended to achieve a greater gain, not any sort of inherent moral good.

None of which is any attempt by me to weigh on in the AI discussion, just some thoughts on the moral value of IP law generally.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think you are incorrect.

Non-human primates, dogs, even rats, have been shown to behave as if they have some concept of fairness - the most basic foundation of ethics. It is reasonable to guess, then that we humans have also had such a sense, likely for the entire existence of our species.

Which means that the first people who had the work of their minds appropriated for someone else's benefit felt cheated.

And that is sign of an ethical or moral concept being violated.

Perhaps. I'm not sure if I agree that just because somebody "feels cheated" it means an ethical or moral concept has been violated, but it's an interesting proposition. Leibniz vs. Newton comes to mind.

I would guess that when works that were about to enter the public domain suddenly were not because lawyers and lobbyists got the duration of copyright extended, people looking forward to using those works probably also felt cheated.

 

[gban007]

I presume that @Bill Zebub is referring to control of copying or control of the concept. Ownership of the original, physcial work was always treated the same as ownership of any discrete physical object, but limiting who may make copies or make use of an idea/process is a very recent development.

The initial purpose of copyright and patents is not to protect a moral right to control distribution of a work for it's own sake, but to encourage creators to create by giving them a temporary monopoly on profiting from that work and copies thereof. I think that is a laudable intention, but sincerely believe copyright is an artificial right, not an inherent, moral one. Information wants to be free, and copyright and patents are a block on the natural order of things. It's worth noting the both the copyright and patent processes were created on the basis that works entering the public domain is of benefit to society and I, for one, certainly hold the position that releasing works and inventions to the public domain is a much greater good and moral imperative than protecting IP. The period of protection is a necessary evil, intended to achieve a greater gain, not any sort of inherent moral good.

None of which is any attempt by me to weigh on in the AI discussion, just some thoughts on the moral value of IP law generally.

I think there are two competing moral imperatives myself- the moral imperative for knowledge etc to be shared to the wider public, and the moral imperative for a creator to be compensated for their work.
With the nature of our economic set up, giving them a monopoly period to be able to control the sale of their goods seems to be main way to achieve this, but I don't think it needs to be only way. Much as some older creators as such may have had patrons making sure they were compensated, it feels there could be other ways to achieve outcome, that they are compensated for time/ effort / talent / practice required to output a work (over and above material costs).
If we are willing to accept (and you may not) paying actors and athletes millions of dollars for what they do, doesn't seem far fetched to think can pay some authors millions as well to produce works that are then public domain.

This all side steps whether owning the work they create is a natural right, but I have found it interesting looking at history of copyright, and this idea of a perpetual common law copyright that may have existed before copy right laws placed time limits on it.

Outside of all this is the issues around the likes of Disney doing their best to lengthen copyright periods, which feels less like trying to go for fair compensation, and more just to boost corporate profits.