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Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu

171–180 of 710 posts

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#171
post #48

This seems to introduce levels of artifacts that many artists would find unacceptable: https://twitter.com/sini4ka111/status/1748378223291912567 The rumblings I'm hearing are that this a) barely works with last-gen training processes b) does not work at all with more modern training processes (GPT-4V, LLaVA, even BLIP2 labelling [1]) and c) would not be especially challenging to mitigate against even should it become…

The artifacts are a non-issue. It's intended images with nightshade are intended to be silently scrapped and avoid human filtering.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#172
This is the DRM problem again.

However much we might wish that it was not true, ideas are not rivalrous. If you share an idea with another person, they now have that idea too.

If you share words on paper, then someone with eyes and a brain might memorize them (or much more likely, just grasp and retain the ideas conveyed in the words).

If you let someone hear your music, then the ideas (phrasing, style, melody, etc) in that music are transferred.

If you let people see a visual work, then the stylistic and content elements of that work are potentially absorbed by the audience.

We have copyright to protect specific embodiments, but mostly if you try to share ideas with others without letting them use the ideas you shared, then you are in for a life of frustration and escalating arms race.

I completely sympathize with anyone who had a great idea and spent a lot of effort to realize it. If I invented/created something awesome I would be hurt and angry if someone “copied” it. But the hard cold reality is that you cannot “own” an idea.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#173
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the crux of the issue: AI is not “someone”. We need to approach this without anthropomorphizing the AI.

You are right, AI is nothing but a tool akin to a pen or a brush. If you draw Mickey Mouse with a pencil and you publish (and sell) the drawing who is getting the blame? Is the pencil infringing the copyright? No, it's you. Same with AI. There is nothijg wrong with using copyrighted works to train an algorithm, but if you generate an image and it contains copyrighted materials you are getting sued.

But there is. You are arguably making unauthorized copies to train.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#174
post #147
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the crux of the issue: AI is not “someone”. We need to approach this without anthropomorphizing the AI.

Companies aren't someone, yet in the US we seem to give them rights of someone.

They are someone in the eyes of the law. They just have a different set of rights.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#175
Huge market for snake oil here. There is no way that such tools will ever win, given the requirements the art remain viewable to human perception, so even if you made something that worked (which this sounds like it doesn’t) from first principles it will be worked around immediately.

The only real way for artists or anyone really to try to hold back models from training on human outputs is through the law, ie, leveraging state backed violence to deter the things they don’t want. This too won’t be a perfect solution, if anything it will just put more incentives for people to develop decentralized training networks that “launder” the copyright violations that would allow for prosecutions.

All in all it’s a losing battle at a minimum and a stupid battle at worst. We know these models can be created easily and so they will, eventually, since you can’t prevent a computer from observing images you want humans to be able to observe freely.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#176

Setting aside the efficacy of this tool, I would be very interested in the legal implications of putting designs in your art that could corrupt ML models. For instance, if I set traps in my home which hurt an intruder we are both guilty of crimes (traps are illegal and are never considered self defense, B&E is illegal). Would I be responsible for corrupting the AI operator's data if I intentionally include adversaria…

That’s like asking if lying on a forum is illegal

No, it's much closer to (in fact, it is simply) asking if adversarial AI tools count as DRM or as malware. And a court is going to have to decide whether the model and or its output counts as separate software, which it is illegal for DRM to intentionally attack.

DRM can, for instance, disable its own parent tool (e.g. a video game) if it detects misuse, but it can't attack the host computer or other software on that computer.

So is the model or its output, having been trained on my art, a byproduct of my art, in which case I have a legal right to 'disable' it, or is it separate software that I don't have a right to corrupt?

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#178
post #172

This is the DRM problem again. However much we might wish that it was not true, ideas are not rivalrous. If you share an idea with another person, they now have that idea too. If you share words on paper, then someone with eyes and a brain might memorize them (or much more likely, just grasp and retain the ideas conveyed in the words). If you let someone hear your music, then the ideas (phrasing, style, melody, etc)…

This doesn’t stop anyone from viewing or scraping the work, though, so in no way is it DRM. It just causes certain methods of computer interpretation of an image to interpret it in an odd way vs. human viewers. They can still learn from them.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#179
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both cars and pedestrians can be videotaped in public, without asking for their explicit permission. This is not universally true. Legislation is different from place to place.

Hardly the point. The same can be said for road rules between vehicles and pedestrians, for example in major Indian cities, it's pretty much a free-for-all.

My point is that in a lot of places in the US you can point a video camera at the street and record. In Germany, you can't. The law in some locales makes a distinction between manual recording (writing or drawing your surroundings) and mechanized recording (photographing or filming). Scalability of an action is taken into consideration on whether something is ok to do or not.

Re: Nightshade: An offensive tool for artists against AI art generators

#180
post #172

This is the DRM problem again. However much we might wish that it was not true, ideas are not rivalrous. If you share an idea with another person, they now have that idea too. If you share words on paper, then someone with eyes and a brain might memorize them (or much more likely, just grasp and retain the ideas conveyed in the words). If you let someone hear your music, then the ideas (phrasing, style, melody, etc)…

Being able to fairly monetise your creative work and put food on the table is a bit rivalrous though, don’t you think?
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