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On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

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Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#741

Post by bawolff »

smt88 wrote: post #605
derangedHorse wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly use the blurb in search results at times to get an alternative to the original author (especially if the blurbed content is paywalled).

In the US, that blurb is covered by fair use. Google doesn't regurgitate the entire published work. These many AI lawsuits will likely settle whether training LLMs falls under fair use.

I mean, it seems like casds of AI regurtitating entire works verbatim is pretty rare. It happens but is unusual.

And also not really what this is about. If AI was just another libgenisis it would be a lot less controversial.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#742

Post by romwell »

ta8645 wrote: post #121
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

> Regardless of legalities, that's wrong to me. I see it differently. To me, if you post your work online as an artist, it's really there for everyone to view and be inspired by. As long as nobody copies it verbatim, don't think you've been hurt by any other usage. If another artist views it, and is inspired by it... so be it. If an AI views it, and is inspired by it, again, no harm done.

> If an AI views it, and is inspired by it, again, no harm done.

There's such thing as consent, I hope you've heard of it.

No artist whose work was used to train the AIs consented to such use.

Particularly if they released their work online before generative AI was a possibility.

>it's really there for everyone to view and be inspired by

Generative AI model is not "everyone". It's a model, a combination of data that goes into it.

It's a thing. A product. A derivative work, to be specific, made by the person who trained it.

>If an AI views it, and is inspired by it, again, no harm done.

Such a romantic notion!

But the same metric, a photocopy machine is an auteur that gets inspired by the work that it happens to stumble into to produce its own original art.

No.

The AI doesn't "view" the work, it has no agency. The human that trains the model does.

And that human is the one that is ripping the artist off.

The AI, as many people said, is just a tool. It doesn't suddenly turn into a person for copyright purposes.

It still remains a tool for people who train the models. A tool to rip off others' intellectual property, in the case we're discussing.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#743

Post by mlyle »

freejazz wrote: post #721
Aeolun wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that’s not really your sole source of inspiration. My son has been ‘inspired’ by the art of all other kids in his kindergarden. Certainly by the time he gets to the age where he does it professionally he’s been inspired by an uncountable number of people.

Being inspired isn't against the law. copying is. it'd be one thing if this conversation could be had with useful terminology that's actually on point. instead we have you, insisting that there is no creative process, there is only experiencing other art and inevitably copying (because apparently you think that's the only thing humans can do!). It's all so telling. Yet its tragic because so many here don't even reali…

I think a lot of the discussion is where the balance of the creativity lies when a human uses a model (trained on other artistic works) to create art.

Is the result a copy, or perhaps a derivative work of the art in the training set?

Does the person using the model have authorship of the result?

Was it even okay to use the art to train the model and then share the resulting weights?

Are the resultant weights protected by copyright themselves?

I suspect the actual answers we'll come to on these topics will be full of nuance.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#744

Post by mlyle »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #673
Aeolun wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but that’s not really your sole source of inspiration. My son has been ‘inspired’ by the art of all other kids in his kindergarden. Certainly by the time he gets to the age where he does it professionally he’s been inspired by an uncountable number of people.

What % is his independent inspiration? 30%? 90%? There are certainly people for whom it was 90%. For most we don’t know. We do know one thing for sure - that for AI it’s 0%

We don't know what percentage is independent inspiration for a person using the AI to create art.

Once upon a time it was a contentious idea that humans had significant authorship in photographs, which merely mechanically captured the world. What % is the camera's independent inspiration?

Here, we have humans guiding what's often a quite involved process of synthesis of past human (and machine) creation.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#745

Post by pxoe »

sandworm101 wrote: post #118
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

>> If you think OpenAI is less valuable because it can't use copyrighted content, then it should give some of that value back to the content. But we are allowed to use copyrighted content. We are not allowed to copy copyrighted content. We are allowed to view and consume it, to be influenced by it, and under many circumstances even outright copy it. If one doesn't want anyone to see/consume or be influenced by one's…

people and companies are copying copyrighted content when they're using datasets that contain copyrighted content (which also repackage and distribute copyrighted content - not just as links but as actual works/images too), download linked copyrighted content, and store that copyrighted content. plenty of copies created and stored, it seems to me.

and like, what, do you think they're trying their damnedest to keep datasets clean and to not store any images in the process? how do you think they retrain on datasets over and over? it's really simple - by storing terabytes of copyrighted content. for ease of use, of course - why download something over and over, if you can just download it and keep it. and if they really wanted to steer clear of copyright infringement, if there's truly "no good solution" (which is bullshit for compute, oh, they can compute everything but not that part) - why can't they just refrain from recklessly scraping everything, if something were to just 'slip in'? like, if you know it's kinda bad, just don't do the thing, right? well, maybe copyright infringement is just acceptable to them. if not the actual goal.

what they generate is kinda irrelevant - there's plenty of copyright infringement happening even before any training were to be done. assembling of datasets and bad datasets containing copyrighted content are the start and the core of the copyright problems.

there's a really banal thing at the core of this, and it's just a multi-TB storage filled with pirated works.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#746

Post by [deleted] »

andybak wrote: post #58
0xf00ff00f wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's over. Why would a kid want to spend thousands of hours practicing with pencil and paper, when they can get a much more impressive result by typing a couple of words on a web site?

The same reason there's been a huge resurgence in rediscovering "artisanal" methods in many fields. The same reason that photorealism as an artistic movement still exists despite photography existing. The same reason people still learn to play the piano.

[deleted]

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#747

Post by romwell »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #533
davemp wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If my interlocutor isn't prepared to make any distinctions between a human being and a machine designed to mimic one, I think that I can't meaningfully discuss this with them. I hate that this is the case; it must be seen as a personal failing. I can't do it, though. These models aren't people. They don't know anything. They don't want anything. They don't need anything. I won't privilege it over a person. And I c…

Seems lazy to differentiate between types of intelligence without providing any substance as to why you believe one type is more worthy of learning than another and criticizing others for the same laziness

>Seems lazy to differentiate between types of intelligence without providing any substance as to why you believe one type is more worthy of learning than another and criticizing others for the same laziness

Seems lazy to call a genAI model "intelligence" without providing any substance as to why one should believe that, but OK.

The model isn't an "intelligence" because it's not making a choice about which data you train on and be "inspired by", as people here say.

The humans that operate those models do. It's those humans that are exploiting the artists.

The AI, as many have said here, is just a tool.

Funny how it's "just a tool" when a human uses it to create art, but it's "intelligence" that gets "inspired" by art when a human uses it to create a software product.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#748

Post by ta8645 »

romwell wrote: post #742
ta8645 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless of legalities, that's wrong to me. I see it differently. To me, if you post your work online as an artist, it's really there for everyone to view and be inspired by. As long as nobody copies it verbatim, don't think you've been hurt by any other usage. If another artist views it, and is inspired by it... so be it. If an AI views it, and is inspired by it, again, no harm done.

> If an AI views it, and is inspired by it, again, no harm done. There's such thing as consent , I hope you've heard of it. No artist whose work was used to train the AIs consented to such use. Particularly if they released their work online before generative AI was a possibility. >it's really there for everyone to view and be inspired by Generative AI model is not "everyone". It's a model , a combination of data tha…

> There's such thing as consent.

When you release something into the world, you have to accept that things beyond your control will engage with it. When you walk outside, down the street, you consent to being in public, and being recorded by video cameras, whether you like it or not. Even if a new 3D camera you don't know about exists and is recording you in ways you don't understand.

And in the same way, when you release something on the internet, it is there essentially forever. If you imagine that you get a "do-over" when the world changes in ways you didn't anticipate -- you're wrong. Nobody should feel entitled to such a reset.

> And that human is the one that is ripping the artist off.

Nobody is being ripped off.

> The AI, as many people said, is just a tool

People said the same thing about slaves. They aren't real people, worthy of rights. They were compared to animals, the same way you compared AI to a photocopier. Someday, this human self-obsession and self-importance against silicon based lives, will be seen in the same light, and artificial intelligences will be granted personhood. We should start protecting their rights in law today. Please don't be a bigot.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#749

Post by romwell »

causal wrote: post #602
kibbi wrote: post #414

I'd find it hard to argue against this, or the Penny Arcade's statements, since I'm having trouble understanding their concrete arguments in between the rhetoric. I'd be hesitant to even discuss this in their comment sections or social media channels. One might ask: Under what circumstances would AI art be acceptable then? For example, does it really matter if these models are created by large corporations? I don't s…

That question - "Under what circumstances would AI art be acceptable then?" - is definitely not asked enough. And I think taking time to make it acceptable is a worthwhile goal, part of the path, not an obstacle.

> "Under what circumstances would AI art be acceptable then?"

Easy!

Under the circumstances where the artists whose art was used to train the model explicitly consented to that (without coercion), licensed their art for such use, and were fairly compensated for that.

Plenty of artists would gladly paint for AI to learn from — just like stock photographers, or clip art designers, or music sample makers.

Somehow, "paying for art" isn't an idea that has entered the minds of those who use the art.

Perhaps because it wasn't asked enough.

Re: On being listed as an artist whose work was used to train Midjourney

#750

Post by logifail »

sandworm101 wrote: post #118
madeofpalk wrote: post #36

> But I can't even get cartoons to most people for free now, without doing unpaid work for the profit-making companies who own the most use channels of communication This is the sticking point for me. OpenAI isn't a profit-making company, but it's certainly a valuable company. A valuable company that is built from the work of content others created without transferring any value back to them. Regardless of legalities…

>> If you think OpenAI is less valuable because it can't use copyrighted content, then it should give some of that value back to the content. But we are allowed to use copyrighted content. We are not allowed to copy copyrighted content. We are allowed to view and consume it, to be influenced by it, and under many circumstances even outright copy it. If one doesn't want anyone to see/consume or be influenced by one's…

> We are allowed to view and consume it, to be influenced by it, and under many circumstances even outright copy it.

In theory: sure

In practice: not really, especially when you're small and the other side is big and has lots of lawyers and/or lawmakers in their pockets.

Disney ("In 1989, for instance, the company even threatened to sue three Florida daycare centers unless they removed murals featuring some of its characters") and Deutsche Telekom[1][2] ("the company's actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources — in this case a primary color — that rightfully belong to everyone") are just two examples that spring to mind.

[0] https://hls.harvard.edu/today/harvard-law-i-p-expert-explain... [1] https://www.dw.com/en/court-confirms-deutsche-telekoms-right... [2] https://futurism.com/the-byte/tmobile-legal-rights-obnoxious...

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