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.

 

[Umbran]

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.

So, the ethics of corporate money in politics is a big question, but beyond the scope of these boards. So, I will leave that out of consideration at the moment.

Violating someone's reasonable expectations of being able to use a thing can, in some cases, be an ethical violation. Like, if I have a piece of medical equipment, and I promise you that you will be able to make use of it, and you plan someone's treatment on that availability, and then I renege on my promise because someone else is going to pay more for it? That's probably unethical of me.

However, Disney worked six and more years ahead of the end of their copyrights - ahead of when anyone "looking forward" to making use of that IP could be said to have a solid expectation that they would/could profit themselves. So, the change in copyright status for any particular bit of IP was only interrupting hypothetical projects. Hypothetical projects are a weak grounding for suggesting ethical violation.

Meanwhile, making profit over something I own/created/put effort into, without my permission and without offering me a cut? That's gonna generally be an issue.

 

[Umbran]

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.

Yes, but by that measure, the every existence of the USA is a "very recent development".

As in, the first copyright law, the British "Statute of Anne" is from 1710.

So, "very recent" is still centuries folks.

Beyond that, it is unclear why folks are harping on the concept's age. What is the purpose of trying to emphasize this point?

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t understand how using AI is the same as a paint brush. If you could give the paint brush prompts and it accesses an image database and starts painting for you that might be correct, but the paint brush is just an inanimate object - there’s no 3rd party, no artificial intelligence in it.

Fashion designers use sewing machines to automate stitching. Architects use computer programs to create blueprints. Sculptors use automatic tools to get to rough shapes in the stone they are working on. Street artists use spray cans to automate much of their painting. And so on.

A tool is a tool is a tool, and lots of artists automate portions of their creations.

And some people are saying they “know exactly” what they want in their mind’s eye and then get the AI to create it. Even a real artist doesn’t “know exactly” what the finished piece will be like down to the last detail before they start. They have an idea and a rough composition but it all starts coming together when they put pen to paper or stylus to tablet - drawing on their talent and skill in the medium from their own mind.

That doesn't change anything. The AI artist can also do that. They can make changes on the spot to bring the art together as they feel is right.

For the AI-user, even in a best case scenario where they have an idea and rough outline (most don’t), when they start sending prompt after prompt to the AI, they are relying on an external party - the artificial intelligence - to do all the heavy lifting.

This doesn't matter. The end result will be 100% the artists vision, since the artist will make the AI tool keep changing things until it matches the artists vision, whether that vision was there from the outset or grew organically as the artwork progressed.

 

[Maxperson]

I have been searching and there is an image created by AI that is protected by copyright, "A Single Piece of American Cheese" by Kent Keirsey, CEO of Invoke but because legally it was a "hybrid" work, a collaboration of AI and human artist.

An artistic work could be protected by copyright if a human can prove at least a part of the work has been product of human creativity.

I think all that would really take is for the AI companies to start background encrypted tracking of changes to pictures and attach those to the image. That would act as a certificate that shows what the artists did or did not do to the original image, and then if the image passed a certain threshold, it could be considered copyrightable art.