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Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

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Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#161

Post by s1artibartfast »

dragonwriter wrote: post #111
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trajectory of ML appears to point towards massive transfer of wealth to capital owners and impoverishment of the working classes. We need to find a way to distribute the benefits of such developments.

> The trajectory of ML appears to point towards massive transfer of wealth to capital owners and impoverishment of the working classes. That’s the natural end of capitalism , as has been noted literally since the word “capitalism” waa coined for it (largely, for that reason.) It is end to which every tool and technology is put under that system, and has nothing to do with the particular technology and everything to d…

The capitalist system doesn't preclude workers from acquiring capital or capitalist from working. It also doesn't dictate the relative return on capital investment versus worker labor.

The rate of return on capital is what dictates the concentration of wealth, or conversely, the dispersal of wealth.

The conceptual systems introduced by Marx and others is that only workers can own capital and are based on a set of assumptions about Capital returns versus labor power.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#162

Post by pelagic_sky »

mym1990 wrote: post #116
torginus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, 'brand name' writers of airport novels have been forever accused of having ghost-written their novels, I think AI will allow writers of lesser budgets to also get help in writing their novels. Or who knows, even the 'King'-s of the world will use AI to fill out their chapters.

Lots of musicians have their songs written by someone else…is this in a similar vein?

yes. same thing applies. ghost writers can write the whole song/book or rewrite a concept given to them.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#163

Post by pdntspa »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #152
pdntspa wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's truly evil that aspiring artists go to museums, copying (^H^H learning from) the masters

These stacks of gpus are not people. Repeat with me. These stacks of gpus are not people.

And art cannot be controlled once it is released to the public. If you don't want people to see it, if you're too cowardly to accept the all the consequences that come with it, then don't release your art. It's really that simple.

It doesn't matter if it's my eyes and brain, the computer working for me, or the eye of Sauron for that matter. Once the cat is out of the bag, any control you think you have over it is an illusion, propped up by laws that are easy to evade.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#164

Post by dragonwriter »

ssijak wrote: post #153
dragonwriter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the uncopyrightable nature of AI generated artwork a potential issue here? For some uses of stock art, probably not (nonexclusive use is common and cheaper), for others yes, if AI art is not copyrightable (an opinion of the Registrar of Copyrights that it is not if the only input from the human claimant to the finished work is a text prompt is perhaps being grossly overread the way some people seem to think i…

by that definition it is enough to pass through an AI generated image in an upscaling program and it is now not just only the prompt. or open it in Photoshop and click once with a content-aware fill somewhere.

> by that definition it is enough to pass through an AI generated image in an upscaling program and it is now not just only the prompt. or open it in Photoshop and click once with a content-aware fill somewhere.

No, its not, becauase the statement at issue covers only what is (in the Registrar’s interpretation) definitely outside of copyright protection, it does not do much to clarify what it takes outside of that clear exclusion to qualify for protection. To assume any image where the human work is more thane exactly a text prompt is protected is as much reading too much into it as assuming all AI-generated images are completely excluded.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#165

Post by gwright »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #50
wnkrshm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that now only the owner of a machine profits where before lots of individuals profited. More power to the owners, I guess.

The trajectory of ML appears to point towards massive transfer of wealth to capital owners and impoverishment of the working classes. We need to find a way to distribute the benefits of such developments.

I don't know how to easily quantify these things but your analysis ignores the other part of the transaction. The consumer of the photos (or ML generated text) benefits through the lower cost, easier access, increased project velocity, etc.

Market disruption due to technology/innovation/progress is nothing new. There have always been winners and losers but the aggregate wealth/value continues to climb. Devising ways to mitigate the loses seems like a more feasible approach than pretending that we can prevent these sorts of changes through regulation or legislation.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#166

Post by kortilla »

harry8 wrote: post #12
stingraycharles wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the sad thing is that these models are most likely trained upon most of these stock photos to begin with. I can understand the frustration of the industry.

The photographers who took those stock photos also trained on stock photos.

This is incorrect. I was a photographer and trained very little looking at other pictures. There are a few guidelines about framing I got from both written rules and a few examples, but those examples were never of things I took pictures of.

I took pictures of a much wider variety of things than I looked at pictures of. Instagram and other sources of millions of pictures did not exist and I was perfectly capable of taking a picture without that “training”.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#167

Post by thih9 »

yellow_lead wrote: post #46
thih9 wrote: post #45

Isn't it too early to evaluate that? AI image generation is seeing improvements on a monthly basis; whatever trend we observe today will likely be out of date later this year.

Would you say the same thing later this year?

Maybe, maybe not; it depends on what kind of AI development trends and milestones we'd see in the meantime.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#168

Post by raincole »

emrah wrote: post #147
raincole wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the pieces in an AI- generated image comes from. A single image "comes from" millions or even billions of pieces. It truly works like that (albeit counterintuitive). It doesn't just combine 4 or 5 images and apply a filter.

That's great. Then what's the fuss about copyright if the pieces from the original training data are that tiny? I saw mentions of companies being reluctant to use AI generated images because of potential copyright issues. What issues are they talking about?

First of all, lawmakers and judges don't necessarily know how AI works.

But even an image is made of a lot of pieces*, it's still not 100% "legal-concern-clean". Consider this hypothetical scenario: you collect one million different photos of McDonald's logo, and one million other random photos. Then you train your diffusion model and tell it to generate a logo. Of course it'd be still very similar to McDonald's logo.

SD's training data is supposed to be much more diversed than that. But how could we be sure? That's where the fuss comes from.

* (pieces of information, not pixels)

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#169

Post by jachee »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #50
wnkrshm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that now only the owner of a machine profits where before lots of individuals profited. More power to the owners, I guess.

The trajectory of ML appears to point towards massive transfer of wealth to capital owners and impoverishment of the working classes. We need to find a way to distribute the benefits of such developments.

That’s been the trajectory of capitalism for centuries.

This is just an accentuation and further acceleration thereof.

Re: Is AI killing the stock photo industry? A data perspective

#170

Post by jonplackett »

hentrep wrote: post #102
jonplackett wrote: post #18

The increase in income during a recession is because people are choosing stock instead of going and doing a photo shoot themselves. Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. So I don’t think that means it’s future proof in any way. On the contrary it means that the same cost-saving decision will be made again and there’ll be a move to AI images when they are slightly more mature - ie wh…

>Stock is still the easiest, safest, cheapest option - VS your own shoot. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "safest" vs shooting your own?

I actually meant safest VS ai. But as other comments have pointed out it’s also a lot safer vs a shoot.

I’ve seen photo shoots costing hundreds of thousands of dollars not being used at all.

even multi million TV campaigns made and never run. Shooting is hard!

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