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Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

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Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay rent by other means than art. Adapt or be homeless.

If any work is used for AI training, then the author should be paid. I hope that artists will be protected. Abide the law, or meet consequences?

If any work is used for human training, then the author should be paid.

See how ridiculous that sounds?

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of world he is advocating is just the real world as it is. You have to be extremely naive or privileged to think otherwise

I actually had a discussion regarding this topic with a peer of mine that at the time was doing art-studies . She was extremely angry and devastated that in her field weren't enough jobs available for every one that mayored in it. That was a real complaint, for her the state should step in and guarantee a well-paid job for everybody in the exact field that everyone chooses, Like "I want to be a painter" and the day a…

Exactly.

I mean, I would love to live in a world where UBI was a thing, and people were free to pursue their interests without fear of homelessness or starvation. Capitalism is a system that requires an underbelly of people exploited through the coercion inherent to the inequality of the world.

That is an utopia, however. The reality is that most people - including yours truly - sell their labor to make ends meet. It certainly was not my lifelong dream to do backend development for a financial institution.

Your friend (and many others in this thread) operate under a naive and entitled assumption that their creative output should be enshrined as something special, whereas throughout history technology always replaced human capacity, and we are better for it.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to me that we haven't reached AGI or anywhere near it, but when we talk about training Diffusion models, suddenly they're "just like a person" for legal reasons. Same thing that happened on the construction of the "corporation as a person", built on top of rulings made to protect African Americans.

That's like saying "it's funny to me that this baby can't drive a car, but we still call it a 'person'". We've achieved AGI, it's just yet a baby. Only a few years ago, if you wanted a model that could complete a task, you'd have to train a model specific to that task. GPT-4 can do a large variety of tasks without being specifically trained on them, i.e. it's suitable for a wide range of general tasks. Yeah, it sucks…

My point is this is still a machine. Running analogies on top of metaphors, you can justify everything.

This thing is a machine intelligence. My point is that a machine intelligence to be equivalent to humans in every law is curiously never mentioned, except when it is advantageous to the owners of said machine.

Or are we saying that we can't turn off GPT-4 at this point, because following your metaphor, we would be committing murder or abortion?

Again, you can't reason using metaphors and inferences and analogies. It's not helpful.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope people get to read your comment to understand indeed what kind of world you are advocating.

The kind of world he is advocating is just the real world as it is. You have to be extremely naive or privileged to think otherwise

> is just the real world as it is

What? Have you ever paid for a book? a subscription to a publishing medium of any sort, a movie or a piece of music? Have you noticed a copyright sign somewhere? Is that arrangement of recognizing and rewarding those who create something worthwhile part of the real world or not? Not even a hallucinating AI would be so incongruous.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#275
post #91
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual property never really existed. Copyright is something we made up to extend the logic of commodities to the full value chain for books, which made sense 200 years ago. But it makes no sense to apply the logic of commodities to digitally produced and distributed media. The production of culture has been slowly becoming more distorted as cultural assets that should be and historically were held in common ac…

> Copyright is something we made up to extend the logic of commodities to the full value chain for books, which made sense 200 years ago. But it makes no sense to apply the logic of commodities to digitally produced and distributed media. Great! So given your articles are in the public domain on your website I can make millions out of it without given you a cent or direct credit and sources without paying you and can…

I don't think you've really thought this through. How would someone make millions off of that? If someone tried, the original author is still offering it for free. Why would someone pay for it?

A lot of people are very myopic about generative AI, thinking that large Hollywood studios are going to steal people's work and put everyone out of a job. Hollywood studios won't exist soon enough because anyone will be able to put together a movie that rivals existing expensive productions. In fact, generative AI is democratizing, as long as it's not gatekept by a few large corporations, which is exactly what trying to misapply copyright here would do.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that is not what people are upset about. They are upset that their life's work is being used without even asking permission, for someone else to get insanely rich. That's what they're upset about. If there were no use for 2D artists, then Stability Ai wouldn't be making an AI to replace them. Key word here is: replace. 2D artists are not becoming obsolete - they're being replaced by a machine that was trained on t…

Your job will only be replaced if you're unwilling to adapt. It's like saying that C made assembly programmers obsolete. There's a lot fewer people programming in assembly, but the correct view is that there's a lot more programmers now than there were in the days that you had to know assembly. "Under the cover of darkness and without permission" implies quite a bit, but you're coming at it from the wrong angle, whic…

This is a completely misled interpretation of events, since automating my work to the scale of generative AI, there won't be any work left for humans.

This "but progress" argument is tiring. The Industrial Revolution was a complete failure if you measure quality of life in its first decades. It got turned around by people who you know, fought back, created unions, and demanded fair pay.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise the underlying belief here. That belief that the only reason people create art is based on desires for fame and monetary gain. Which is so demonstrably incorrect that it boggles my mind. This is where centuries of copyright law have gotten us, brainwashing people into thinking ideas are property ("intellectual property") and should be treated as rivalrous goods, and that the only reason to be an artist is t…

You are going on an irrelevant tangent (whether people enjoying being creative - which is obviously true at least for some) instead of answering a very clear and simple question: how, in your evolved and less broken universe, will talented people dedicate their life to produce something that society does not acknowledge or reward but simply appropriates.

Should I be able to dedicate my life to some obscure thing that nobody cares to buy as a commodity?

That argument is absurd, you don't HAVE to be an artist. You can be a talented person and dedicate your life to something else.

Or you can be like everyone else and do it as a hobby in your time off because people don't find what you do creatively to be valuable. I demand I get paid for my playing video games, I think it's valuable and I dedicate my time to it, I deserve to be paid.

Fucking ridiculous.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet these systems are incapable of genuine creativity. If they were, they would be taught rules & techniques and set off to their own devices to draw, like humans. But, they can't and they're not. LLMs and humans don't learn or create in the same way. Moreover, there's no reason we should grant LLMs the full rights and privileges of humans.

> And yet these systems are incapable of genuine creativity. Define "genuine creativity".

Given the terse reply, I'm guessing you disagree that it's even a concept. So, to round out the inevitable circular discussion I've gone ahead and asked ChatGPT for you:

Genuine creativity, often attributed to humans, is the ability to generate, imagine, or invent something new and original that has value or meaning. It involves thinking beyond existing boundaries, making connections between different pieces of information, and coming up with innovative solutions to problems.

Creativity can manifest in many forms, including:

Artistic creativity: This is often the first thing people think of when they hear the word "creativity". It includes creating visual art, music, literature, and more.

Inventive creativity: This involves coming up with new products, technologies, or methods that solve problems in novel ways.

Conceptual creativity: This involves developing new theories, models, or ways of understanding the world.

Problem-solving creativity: This involves finding unique solutions to challenges or problems.

Genuine creativity is often characterized by originality, expressiveness, and the ability to transform or redefine existing ideas or norms. It's a complex process that involves both conscious and unconscious thinking, and it's influenced by a person's knowledge, experiences, personality, and environment.

I went a step further and asked if it's capable of genuine creativity and received:

As an AI, I don't possess creativity in the human sense. I don't have feelings, thoughts, or experiences, and I don't generate ideas or concepts spontaneously. However, I can generate unique combinations of information based on the vast amount of data I've been trained on. This can sometimes appear as "creativity", but it's important to note that it's a result of complex algorithms and computations, not genuine creative thought.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of world he is advocating is just the real world as it is. You have to be extremely naive or privileged to think otherwise

> is just the real world as it is What? Have you ever paid for a book? a subscription to a publishing medium of any sort, a movie or a piece of music? Have you noticed a copyright sign somewhere? Is that arrangement of recognizing and rewarding those who create something worthwhile part of the real world or not? Not even a hallucinating AI would be so incongruous.

Have you ever paid for food? For clothing? For cars?

You might be shocked, but automation replaced humans in all those industries.

I'll still pay for books, music, or whatever. I won't really care at which capacity they were AI generated.

Re: Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

#280
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who programs for a living should be making whatever preparations are possible for being replaced by an AI. If AIs are good at art they'll be better at coding. I have sympathy for the artists, but frankly this is progress and it can't be stopped. The economics are so lop-sided in favour of silicon that the law won't be able to hold it back without crippling society at large. Artists aren't the only ones affecte…

> I have sympathy for the artists, but frankly this is progress and it can't be stopped. Kinda sad that artists having their income even more crippled is seen as progress.

That's only true if artists cling to the old ways and reject new tools. Their income can increase if they embrace the new empowering tools becoming available.
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